instagram deleted my account. and im totally ok with it.

a couple weeks ago, something HORRIBLE happened. ok, maybe im being a little dramatic here, it wasnt actually horrible in the millions-of-people-dying sense, but horrible in the i-worked-really-hard-on-something-for-several-months-and-then-it-was-gone sense. 

you see, like most people my age, i had an instagram account where i occasionally posted pictures of things like what i made for dinner (in this case ratatouille made from squash that my mom grew herself):

my ever-popular weekly to do lists:

pictures of alice being cute (like when she was playing with ALL of her ponies at once):

and pictures of alice being hilarious (like the time she was playing with her sewing machine while watching star wars):

i was by NO MEANS a big deal on instagram, i had maybe 70 followers, most of which i knew personally. and since i dont have a smartphone and was doing everything on my ipad, they whole process of posting on instagram felt really bulky and clumsy. 

but i had been doing a lot of research about growing my blog/brand and it really seemed like instagram was going to be a valuable tool. 

so i started to post more blog/business related things, like blog post previews:

links to my tutorials:

and shop updates: 

and after a while, i was really starting to get the hang of it. i was posting regularly, engaging with LOTS of strangers (one photo of coupons opened my eyes to the apparently HUGE and terrifying #couponersofinstagram culture), and even generating a little bit of blog traffic. 

but then one day, suddenly, in the middle of scrolling through my feed, my instagram account logged out. and when i tried to log back in, it told me my account had been disabled, for "violating the terms of use", and there was nothing i could do about it. 

i cried. 

and then i realized that was dumb and stopped crying. 

and then i did some detective work, and actually read instagrams entire terms of use. and its in there: they CAN delete any account they feel like for any reason with  absolutely no recourse (except, of course, just making a new instagram and starting all over). i also learned that apparently this is kind of a big problem and accounts get shut down for things like changing their profile link (which i had done earlier in the day my account got disabled) all the time. also instagram has literally NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. OF ANY KIND. 

obviously i was upset. and i feel it was rightfully so, because what i thought was a totally benign photo-sharing app actually totally abused their ridiculous terms of service. ill never understand why my teeny little account got shut down when there are tons of HUGE accounts re-posting images they dont own (which is actually against the terms of use), but it turns out this story has a happy ending. 

because i stopped using instagram. and its been GREAT. 

i never realized how much time i was spending looking at low-quality pictures of people i barely knew, and inevitably getting jealous of all the vacations, friendships, kids, homes, and marriages i saw that were somehow better than mine. instagram was turning me into a (more) bitter, hateful, judgemental person and i didnt even notice. it totally wasnt healthy. and im SO glad its gone. 

and it gets EVEN BETTER. i switched the social media effort i was putting into instagram, over to pinterest, and it was probably one of the best marketing decisions ive ever made. instagram generated maybe a handful of blog hits a week, while pinterest is generating a handful of blog AND shop hits, EVERY DAY. its awesome. 

so good riddance instagram, it turns out im better off without you. 

labor day snapshots.

happy labor day everyone! hope you all had a nice and relaxing (or exciting, if thats your thing) holiday, i know we sure did. we started the day with a church picnic, where alice had a blast doing things like try and start a game of slip and slide tball (or whatever she thought she was doing): 

and do some coloring with her friends:

after alice was nice and worn out, we went home for a rest before heading over to my moms for a barbeque, where we ate all kinds of grilled goodies:

and alice was all kinds of cute: 

the end. 

what did you do today? 

happy friday!

i dont think that theres ever been a time in my life where i have been as happy about a day being friday as i am today. i am in a completely out of character TGIF mode right now. im sure youre all wondering to yourselves right now, "why on earth is victoria so happy?". well let me tell you why...

first of all, SCHOOL WEEK IS OVER!!!! (you can read a more detailed description of school week here). and it wasnt even that bad. james was able to carpool with some coworkers that live near downtown la (maybe twenty minutes each way), so while i did have to drop him off and pick him up, i didnt have to go all the way to whittier and back ten times this week.

but the big news here is that this weeks schooling came with a big, fat RAISE. and not an obligatory 20 cent "cost of living" raise like i just got from joanns, but a signifigant, life-altering, maybe-alice-wont-have-to-live-in-the-living-room-anymore kind of raise. so far this year has been our toughest financially (though its not like weve really ever done that great in the past), and we (but especially i) are so, so thankful that this raise is finally here. 

now all this is pretty freaking fantastic, but it gets even better!!!

this morning actually got off to a really weird start. alice didnt really stay asleep while i dropped james off, so instead of getting to spend an hour or so in the car playing animal crossing and listening to kevin and bean while waiting for her to wake up at a fairly decent hour, alice was up and politely asking for breakfast by 6:30. so i fed her a really sleepy breakfast, got her dressed and we sleepily watched cartoons until she took a really weird nap at around 10. 

at which point i noticed that the lighting in my bedroom was really good for portraits and i was able to finally take an attractive headshot for blog-related things (ive seriously been working on this for, i dont know, three months?):

THEN james had a half day today, so after i picked him up we went to in-n-out for a celebratory lunch. because we needed it. we ALL needed it. 

but were not even to the best part yet: 

yesterday james told me he had an early anniversary surprise (our 3rd anniversary is next wednesday). 

he asked what i was doing today at 2, because HE HAD BOOKED ME A HAIR APPOINTMENT WITH MY FAVORITE STYLIST. not gave me gift certificate, or money for it, or permission to spend the extra money on myself (because honestly i wont let myself do it under normal circumstances), he CALLED MY FAVORITE STYLIST AND BOOKED AN ACTUAL APPOINTMENT. when he knew i didnt have plans and he would be home. 

and so i got a haircut this afternoon. and its fantastic. for the first time in MONTHS my hair looks normal and healthy and, you know, like i have an actual haircut and havent spent the past year ignoring it:

this is by far the sweetest, most thoughtful gift james has gotten me, probably ever. i cant even get over how nice today has been. and to top it all off, alice put herself to bed. at bed time. 

this has been a tough week, but after today, it doesnt even matter anymore. heck, i dont even care that its literally 400 degrees in our apartment right now. im ready for this holiday weekend. and for september. actually im really excited for september. 

stay tuned for tomorrow when i talk about why im so dang excited for september. 

family traditions. the annual meyers family polaroid.

confession: here in the meyers household, we dont really do any of the things generally associated with the words "family tradition". its not that were trying to be cool or edgy or anything, its just that neither of us grew up in a household with a strong sense of tradition. my parents are very young and just not very sentimental, and jamess family moved a lot and had a constantly changing lifestyle. so the idea of doing things just because thats what our familys always done so thats what were going to do forever is just kind of foreign. 

that being said, there is one arbitrary family tradition that we accidentally stumbled upon. our annual family polaroid, taken by our good friend neal, in front of our front door, every year on july 7th. i say "accidentally" because the first one was taken spontaneously when neal and my sister emily came to visit us in prescott and helped us move into a completely ridiculous giant house that we could not afford (thankfully we only lived there for a few months). here it is:

this picture is actually pretty important because its one of about four pictures of me taken while i was pregnant with alice. i think i was around 25 weeks here? maybe a little more, i dont remember. i do, however remember avoiding being photographed because i didnt want to be reminded about all the time i spent as a puffy, miserable, giant, shiny, emotional whale (although in retrospect, i guess i didnt look nearly as bad as i felt at the time). 

just six months after that picture was taken, we had to pack up and move back to la, and when i was unpacking things to settle into our then-new apartment, i found the previous picture and noticed that july 7th was just a few days away, and that our polaroid camera had one more shot left in it. so we called neal over and took this one:

we had accidentally set the camera on the wrong exposure setting, and when the picture came out all blurry, i was REALLY sad that we didnt have another frame, but now i like it, because, frankly, that year was a total blur (we had a small baby, we moved twice, it took us what felt like FOREVER to get settled into stable jobs), and it really fits. 

that day we decided that neal would come over every year on july 7th to take our picture. since last year we used my last frame of expired polaroid film (that im pretty sure i bought when i was 19), the other day we went to urban outfitters for  a pack of impossible project film (even though its REALLY expensive, it was really important to me that the portraits continued to be polaroids). and heres the result:

 

this year was a lot more stable than last year, so the changes are more subtle. alice is bigger, my hairs longer, james has a better haircut, but were still at the same apartment, with the same jobs, and more or less the same life as last time. well have to see where next year takes us. 

do you have any odd family traditions? id love to hear about them.