two years of poverty luxe.

i didnt realize that today was such a significant day. 

i mean, i knew we were going to be trying our hand at selling (rather than just visiting) the silverlake flea market. which, for obvious reasons, i was nervous and apprehensive about. i dont like taking risks, especially financially, and well, this one... im not sure how i feel about this one and how it went. 

i also knew it was pi day, because of all the puns on the internet. 

but then i looked at my time hop app (which, when youve been as active on as many social networks for as many years as i have can be quite entertaining), i noticed that march 14th is actually a day for some really big anniversaries: one year ago today i got my jamberry consultant kit in the mail and took my first steps at becoming legitimately self employed. but more importantly two years ago today i posted the very first blog post here on poverty luxe. 

two years is kind of a long time. especially for someone like me thats not so great at sticking with things. generally speaking, a lot can happen in two years. a lot can change in two years. for me and these particular two years, so much has happened and changed that i almost dont even recognize the person who wrote that first (terrible, terrible) blog post. i mean, i know that i wrote it, i remember writing it, but that person, thats just not who i am anymore. today that hit me like a ton of bricks, and i am so, so thankful. 

two years ago i finally braved the first post on the blogger page that i had set up probably a good year and a half beforehand. i wrote that first post because i was miserable. yeah, you read that right. miserable. 

after barely surviving the first year and a half of our marriage in a terrible town with terrible job situations and being taken advantage of by a very, very terrible church, then crawling back to my hometown with a new baby to start our entire life over from scratch, we faced trial after trial and hardship after hardship and there was not even the tiniest glimmer of hope to be found: i was trying to figure out marriage and motherhood WAY too late because we had started with no legitimate support and the literal worst premarital counseling that has ever happened. james had miraculously gotten a new job that was supposed to solve all our problems, but that was going to take about four years to actually happen. i had a job that i absolutely hated, but because of jamess irregular schedule and the fact that we really needed the money, i was stuck there. we had struggled financially since the day wed gotten married, and still, we were barely keeping the bills paid in our tiny, gross apartment (which i also hated). as a result i had really lost touch with anything even remotely resembling the interests and hobbies and things that i had enjoyed in the past, and everything that i had hoped for the future (going back to school, relaunching my craft business, having more babies), was on hold indefinitely. the one thing i did have going for me though, was that i had gotten really, really good at being poor. that was the closest thing i had to being my "thing". so i wrote that blog post. i couldnt actually make my life the way i wanted it to be but i could find the one thing that didnt suck and focus on being happy about that. and it felt good, so i kept doing it. 

blogging didnt immediately make everything magically perfect. actually, a lot of things got a lot worse before anything started getting better (and frankly blogging didnt have a whole lot to do with that either). but blogging gave me the first positive outlet i had had in a very long time. it gave me a space to be creative when i didnt have the time or the space to make things like i used to. it introduced me to this whole other kind of community where i could make new friends based on mutual interests rather than just being at the same mommy and me class. it helped me see that even though i didnt always feel like things were working, i was, in fact, making it work. it inspired me to do more with what i had and showed me that i could make something out of nothing. 

its been two years exactly and today james and i spent the day vending at one of the biggest craft fairs ive ever done, james and i are able to work on things together, i dont work at joanns anymore, james is more than halfway through those four hard years, were comfortably paying all our bills (even though we do still live in the same apartment), im halfway done with my third semester of fashion school, and our new baby will be born in just a few more months. i am not miserable anymore. things are actually looking up. 

is our life perfect now? no. 

did blogging do all of this? heck no. 

would we have been able to get this far this quickly if it werent for everything ive learned and gained from blogging? probably not. 

i havent built an empire and forged a new career and made all the money from this blog (because i have seen it happen in far less time then ive had here), but still, i am no less thankful for it. heres to the next two years of poverty luxe.