THIRTEEN Years

Some things never change
Photo circa 2005

THIRTEEN!!!

I have been blogging officially for 13 years.  It feels like both the longest and shortest amount of time.  That photo above, I was 16ish and sitting in the same spot I am sitting now, on my desktop computer, working on my science fair project. So much has changed with that girl in that photo - goodbye CDS, floppy disks, big computer tower and glasses BUT the core of that girl is still the same. She is still kind, filled with sunshine, loving life and she's happy by purpose.  I LOVE that this photo exists (actually its been living on the fridge for years and I never really looked at it until recently) and I don't ever think 16 year old Gabby would ever had thought her life would go this way, BUT I am pretty sure she wouldn't have changed anything. 

I am so glad I made the choice 13 years ago to join blogger and start doing this new thing. I like to think I am blogging my own path and doing this my way, the OG blogger way and I couldn't be happier that I am staying true to myself- goofiness and all.

Thank you for coming along with me on this wild ride of life. I love my corner of the internet and I don't think I've been so excited to blog like I am right now in a loooonnnngg time.  

Just in case you're new here, here is a little about me....

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Because after all this is all about my blogging anniversary after all, you can take a step back in time you can check out my very first post in 2011; and my year 10,11 and 12 anniversary posts.

IF you really want to go back in time---- to 2004 to 2006 to be exact.... I was blogging back then on my Xanga page. In the past few years I was able to transfer Xanga blog posts to a WordPress site. It's not a pretty site; it's not complete, BUT it holds random posts from 20 years ago! If you want to indulge what 16 year old Gabby was like find her here. WARNING: she is exactly what you would think a teenager in the early 2000's would be. 

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Stay tuned for more shanagians, excitement, joy, silliness and adventures ahead in the next 13 years!

[[Adventure is out there.]]

 

Twelve year blogger

I started sharing my thoughts on this day back in 2011. 
I never thought I would be celebrating 12 years as a blogger. 

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I started to read blogs back in 2011-2012 (maybe even earlier- because technically Tumblr was a microblog) when EVERYONE had blogs. I found some really neat creators that shared their lives and especially fashion. A lot of the OG bloggers that I followed back in the day, I still follow today; some of those OG bloggers have transitioned to Instagram only content but there are a handful that are still blogging.  I do love the old school vibes that some bloggers are bringing back- #ootd posts, life updates and product reviews that they are being paid to share their opinions.

What I always loved about blogs and the bloggers who write them, is how I get to see how others live- what they do with their lives, what peaks and valleys they go through and how they live. Its like an old friend inviting you inside for coffee. These will always be a favorite of mine- real, authentic, mess and kind women sharing their lives for the world to read. 

I have always tried to be my true self- goofy, kind and curious. I started blogging because I wanted to share the cool things I see in my neighborhood and things I overhear. I know I am not a fashion blogger sharing tips on what the latest trend is BUT I will be sharing the funny meme's I found and the pretty sunset I saw. 

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Blogging Binder

I found this binder from 2013 and it has amassed all blog related stuff over the years. I think in 2013, I wanted to get serious about blogging. I remember taking books out from the library about blogging, Search Engine Optimization, and social media. I had the right idea but I never follow through.  I had drawings of what the page should look like and lists of post ideas. Then it had my 2020 2021 and now 2022 stuff in it too.  It's so interesting to see where my mind was back in 2013 and now in 2023. 10 years is a BIG difference and I love that I have this time capsule. 

2013 was the tail end of the true blogging era (I think blogging hit its stride between 2011 and 2013) and it was until 2015 when I truly put my nose to the grindstone and became consistent. In 2016, I lost steam and decided to stop blogging so regularly. It wasn't until 3 years later in the latter part of 2019, I made a conscious decision to blog more often and have an actual plan. Here we are 4 consecutive years later and I have no plans on stopping any time soon. 

While WGJ has gone through many name changes and looks, one thing that remains the same- my authenticity. 

Thank you again for following along with my adventures and life. Like I said at the beginning of this post, 23 year old Gabrielle had no idea where this blog would take her and 35 year old Gabrielle is so thankful she took a leap of faith and just went with it. 

For a step back in time you can check out my very first post in 2011; my 2021 post about my blogger anniversary and my 2022 anniversary post.|

My question for you, why do you read along? What brings you to this blog and what makes you stay? Let me know in the comments or you can email me at wondergracejoy@gmail.com. I look forward to reading your comments! 

[[Be the girl who decided to go for it]]

Wild and THREE

wonder grace joy was created three years ago today! 

When wonder grace joy was created, I had already been blogging for 9 years on and off. Having a blog was nothing new to me and while it was sporadic in the beginning, three years ago, I really set out to be more consistent to see where this could take me. 

I had NO idea back in January 2020 setting an intention to be more consistent with blogging, it would provide me something that was definitely missing- something to look forward to that I could do from the comfort of my house during a very uncertain time. I am forever thankful for that distraction and what WGJ has turned into. 

Since 2020, I have written a total of 470 posts! FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY!!! That is a lot of words, photos and time dedicated to this blog. How cool is that? A lot of the series that I write now (Love Letters, WGJ Playlists, Diary posts) I started back in 2020. I love that I can go look back on what I was taking photos of in 2020 and I would probably take those same photos today. I have found a niche for myself- everyday jersey girl.  Just an everyday girl who happens to live in Jersey; her life is full of wonder grace and joy. 

I remember sitting down in mid 2019 deciding what the name of my blog would be and I somehow came up with the words Wonder Grace and Joy.  I am not sure why I choose these specific words but I am really happy I did. Here is something I wrote to help my vision. I was way ahead of my time when I sat down and wrote this. Within the brackets under each word is the dictionary definitions of those words. 

I am so glad my original vision of WGJ has lasted through these years. Being able to look back and see how far you have come AND to see where you are going next is a treat. 

To look at the first official post of WGJ you can find it in  The Beginning. You can find year One  and year Two to round out the trip down memory lane. 

I want to THANK YOU the reader for your support and your comments. It means more than you ever know that you take time out of your busy day to stop by and read what I write. I am excited to write more this year and to develop WGJ into something more- lots of ideas are swirling around in my mind! 

If you have another moment, could you take my READER SURVEY? I love getting feedback on WGJ and I would LOVE your input. Please and thank you! 

[[Sometimes you know it's time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings]]

WGJ 2022 Review

This year I decided to look back on my blog year and look at what worked, what didn't work and what I am doing differently in 2023. I worked really hard this year on WGJ and I am proud of what I accomplished. This year, something definitely clicked with me and my blog has taken on a whole new meaning and place in my life. 

What Worked

Three Things:

One of the things that really helped me to stay organized was having a dedicated blog planner. This allowed me to plan out my months in advance and it gave me a structure of what's coming next. I wasn't racking my brain for post ideas the night before I wanted to post them. I would spend some time each month, planning the posts out. If I had time, I could start writing posts for the future. 

Another thing that really helped me was staying on top of my posts.  In the past would be writing a post either very late into the night or very early in the morning to get it posted for that specific day. Since I knew what I was writing ahead of time, I would continually work on different posts. This allowed me to write down notes or thoughts for that specific post and then go back and finish it later. 

Since this blog is not my full time job, I continually worked on posts and ideas and thinking about what's next. This was something that both worked and didn't work. It worked because most of the time, about 80% of the time, I was able to keep up with the posts I wanted to write. In the next section, I will talk about why it didn't work. 

What didn't work

Three Things:

Staying focused and getting on a schedule to continually work on the posts. This was hard about 20% of the time. Between other commitments, my mental health/sleep habits, not feeling well, etc....I waived with my attentiveness. Thank goodness for being able to choose a date in the past. At one point, I had over 30 drafts that were supposed to be written and weren't. I had to pick and choose what I wanted to do. I truly enjoy doing this but sometimes, I need a break. 

I really struggled with engagement outside of linking my blog posts up with other larger bloggers. I would love to have better engagement but I am not sure how to go about doing that. I have a feeling social media has a big role to play in that. AND that is not one of my strong suits. 

Waiting to write a post-looking at you Friday Favorites- the night before I am to link it with Andrea and Erika. Those posts are never my true favorites, when I wait to the last minute and I feel like I need to continually link up on Fridays to keep what engagement I have. 

What I am doing differently for 2023

Four things:

I planned out my year out already. While I was in Florida last month, I took a few hours to plan out my year. I printed out blank calendars and started to plug in the posts I know I want to write, the monthly posts I do and then go from there. I have about 4 and a half months fully completed. As I move into the year, I will continually work on thinking of new posts to fill in the gaps of the other months. 

learn more about SEO. I know very little about this and I am very curious to find out more about it and how it can help my blog. This in turn will help with my engagement. Fingers crossed.  If anyone has any good resources for SEO, please let me know! :) 

This might seem like a small change but the other day I realized that my instagram and my email address is Wondergracejoy but my blog is Wonder Grace and Joy. To streamline everything, I changed my blog's title and the banner at the top of the page to Wonder Grace Joy. 

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At the time of this post, I have written 201 posts this year. This is the most posts I have ever written in one year. By the year's end, I will (hopefully) have written and published 219 posts. Compared to 2021 and 2020, I posted a total of 75 and  172 posts respectively. 

I had 3,358 unique visitors who had 7,080 sessions and viewed 13,441 pages in 2022. Comparing that to 2021 which I had only 1,493 visitors, with 2,788 sessions and viewed 4,919 pages (In 2021, I only posted from January until March and slightly picked it up again in November.) In 2020, I had 2,080 visitors who had 4,079 sessions and 6,486 page views (I started using the analytics in August of 2020; this data is from August to December).

I love looking at data and seeing how it compares year to year. I can't wait to compare this years data to next year, especially since I am hoping to keep the same momentum that I had this year. I would be very curious to see the numbers next December. 

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THANK YOU to everyone who reads, comments and shares my posts. This is a passion project of mine and I really appreciate the time you take to read my blog.  I am looking forward to an awesome 2023 and I can't wait to take you all along on the ride with me.

[[If you got a dream, chase it, cause a dream won't chase you back... Cody Johnson]]

Happy Blogiversary!

Woah! Its been 11 crazy years since I started this blogging adventure. 

Last year I wrote a fun post about how I felt about blogging for 10 years. You can read it here. Looking back on my posts from 2011, I remember how young I was (hello 23!) and how exciting this new world of blogging was. Some of the bloggers I used to follow, I still follow today. It absolutely blows my mind, how some bloggers have made a career out of this- writing about their lives. That's a far off dream of mine,  to write for a living. Maybe one day. 

Blogging reached its peak, I believe in between 2013 and 2015. Its where the fashion bloggers hit their strides and it seemed like everyone had their own blogs. It also seemed blogging was more organic and fun. There were no sponsorship's or deadlines. Bloggers blogged about what they wanted, when they wanted and there wasn't an aesthetic to follow- it was truly about their life and I miss that. 

I have learned a lot over these 11 years and while sometimes I wished I had documented some big moments in my life, I am also happy I have kept some of those big moments private. I look forward to blogging more thing year and trying to blog more authentically and this been a stress free hobby of mine. All of my old posts are linked to this blog, if you go to the right side of my page, you will see all the years I have posts in, from 2011 to present. 

Thanks for reading my posts and I appreciate your time! 

[[Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.- Ferris Bueller]]

 

I try so darn hard.......

I try so hard, each and every day to write a blog post, because I know even though, I dont have a lot of traffic on my blog, there might just be that ONE person interested right now on whats going on in my life. But alas, something prevents me from sitting down and writing my day to day antics out. I am partially upset with myself and partially upset with the fact, I have been so darn tired every day after work. '

I started the blog, originally because I read/skim through a bunch of blogs daily, and I admire what they are doing. They make everything look so effortless and easy. I want to imitate what they are doing (everyone knows that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery) but I want to put my own twists and spins on things. I want to show off my cute outfits to more people other than my Instagram followers and my co-workers (which I really don't think they enjoy that much!) and I always felt that a blogging community would be the best place but at the end of day, I'm tired and cranky (somedays) and blogging is the last thing on my mind.

Its a new month, October, and I will try my hardest, to blog more and not be so worried about who and if anyone is actually reading this.

Off to find a quote to be describe the bride aka my biff aka my best friend. EEK!

XX, the everyday jersey girl.

blog hopping?

trying something new today. Happy Wednesday everyone