Today marks TEN years of blogging for me, and wow, what a decade it has been here on my little corner of the internet! I started my blog on March 7, 2013 as a place to chronicle a “smattering of things that inspire me & bring me joy, all while seeking to live a more joy-filled life… focus on what matters the most… things that really fire me up & truly inspire me!” And while some of the content has shifted and evolved over the last decade, at its core, much of what I’ve shared here has been about that very thing.

Life has evolved in a plethora of ways since 2013, and I’ve grown and learned so much since then, for sure. As I suspect is true for all of us, so much has changed since I launched this blog. I lived in Washington DC, I worked full-time at a mentoring and literacy non-profit for inner city elementary school students, I was single, I was first stepping my toe into the world of weddings, I had no idea what I was really doing but had the heart, drive, and skills to take a risk and see how it panned out – and, of course, I was using some really vibrant and now-hilarious filters on every photos – ha! I loved weddings, I believed in what marriage stands for (and fervently hoped it was a part of my future), I knew God was calling me to use the skills and talents He gave me… but in a way that was so different from what I ever envisioned, what I went to college for, what I moved to Washington DC for.

I loved that I have an online record of much of the life that I’ve lived from age 26-36 (and counting!). It’s pretty special, very humbling, and also very rewarding to look back upon my first posts and the 713 (!!!) posts in between now and then.

From sharing a decade of my seasonal to-do lists to all my favorite activities & recommendations in DC and in Raleigh to launching my wedding planning business in January 2014 & sharing those posts to celebrating 9 years in business to my first styled shoots to moving to Raleigh to book reviews & lists to apartment and home tours to sharing more & more weddings I’ve planned to meeting Rob & sharing our wedding planning & our own wedding to 2+ years of daily walks to favorite recipes to thoughts on thankfulness/gratitude and on joy — and literally hundreds of posts in between — what a wild & wonderful & really sweet decade it has been!

Endless thanks for following along and celebrating with me; it is appreciated more than you know! I am so thankful, and cheers to the next decade of learning, growing, intentional living, writing, and sharing.