My 1000th blog post

Well, frankly, this seems a bit ridiculous. My 1000th blog post?! How did we end up here? I started this blog when I was 18, at uni and incredibly miserable. I wrote really short reviews of skincare products and barely ever added photos, and I didn't know the first thing about SEO or self-promotion.

But here we are: blog post #1000. I'd like to go out and celebrate that, maybe have a drink with some of the friends I've made through blogging, but we're still in semi-lockdown. These are strange and unique times we're living in, and blogging has been a bit of a crutch for me. My blog has allowed me to get my thoughts down somewhere, allowed me to create content to hopefully entertain and inspire other people. And reading my friends' blogs has helped me feel connected to them, and kept me entertained too.

While I've not had any paid blogging work in a while or many brand collaborations coming in, it's been nice to just take a step back and write without any pressure. I've done plenty of book posts, and loads of list posts, and I've found it nice to just write. Everything seems to have slowed down a bit, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

When all of this is over, I'm going to do so many things - and I hope to continue documenting it all on this blog. I'm going to make memories: go out for dinner, go on more holidays, go for spontaneous spa days and walks on the beach and trips to art galleries. I'm going to write about everything, and share it all. I'm going to publish more of my poetry, and take the time to review every piece of skincare and make up I try; after all, this started as a beauty blog.

I am so grateful to have this little corner of the internet. Even though it causes yearly breakdowns when it comes to renewing my domain or trying to update some back end code that makes no sense, and even though it takes up a lot of my time, and even though there will always be someone out there that's a better blogger than me - I'm so grateful. I have a space that's mine, somewhere to write about my likes and dislikes, about how I feel, about what I've been up to. And people actually read it? My stats aren't amazing, but almost 500,000 people have made their way onto this blog since I started it (almost) 7 years ago. I'm no mathematician, but even I know that's quite a big number.

This blog has brought me so much joy - it has got me onto guest lists for gigs, it has allowed me to earn money doing what I love, it has introduced me to some of the kindest and cleverest people I know. It has given me space to vent, space to tell my story, space to educate people. It has been, still is and will continue to be one of my proudest achievements - it's my baby.

Thank you for reading this blog post, and for reading any of my other blog posts. I hope I've been able to help you with something, teach you something, make you laugh or make you smile. It's been nearly 6 years, and I'm not going anywhere - so here's to next six years, and the next 1000 posts!