A Little about Me + My Blogging Journey

Feb 19, 2019

Did you know that I have never sat down and written a blog post dedicated to introducing myself here on this little slice of the internet? Yeah, I didn’t realize it either. I’ve written a few blog posts over the years as the blog has grown and changed about the blog itself but never really about myself. Sure, I have an About Page but again, it’s a lot about the blog and to be honest, I’m not even sure how many people actually read those things anyways. (In fact, a quick glance at my analytics tells me that no one read the About page in the month of January).

Anyways, I wanted to take today and introduce myself, or reintroduce myself for those of you who have been following me for a while. Whether this is your first time dropping by Made in Mom Jeans or you’ve been around a few times, I want to take a second and let you know that you are welcome here and I am so glad that you are here!

So here are the nitty gritty facts about me, who I am, and how my crazy life lead to having a growing community on the internet:

I was born and raised in West Virginia.
I’m 4’11 and probably haven’t grown a vertical inch since middle school.
My husband Justin and I met on Tinder in 2014 while he was attending school at West Point.
I studied English and Integrated Marketing Communications at West Virginia University.
I am 26 years old.
My maiden name was Duckworth.
I am an only child.
I have two dogs (both mutts) named Gatsby and Hemingway and a cat named Scout. I’ve had Gatsby since I was a freshman in college.
I started my first “blog” when I was in college, it was called Bum Notes.
I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and depression.
I am the least athletic person you’ll probably ever meet but I really enjoy running.
I would love to have a daughter someday but feel as though I’m destined to be a boy mom (expecting our first April, 9th 2019!).
My favorite book of all time is The Great Gatsby and I own approximately 5 different copies.

Who I was growing up

Looking back, my mental health had a huge impact on who I was growing up. I wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was a junior in college so I often look back on my teenage years and wonder how different they might have been if only someone had told me that what I was feeling had a name. I had a close group of friends (who I’m still friends with to this day) but cultivating deep connections with people was hard for me. I’m naturally introverted and because of my anxiety, it made it hard to put myself out there when it came to friends. I also dealt with things like bullying, emotional abuse, and sexual assault growing up. During my darkest days in college, I even lost sight of my faith in God. The reason I’m putting all of this out there is because I want each and every one of you reading this to know that who you were is not who you are and that you are capable of overcoming even the darkest of days. There is not a lot of fond memories I have of my teenage years but I hope to be able to use those experiences (as well as all of my life experiences) to form the basis of this community here on Made in Mom Jeans.

To the girl who feels she doesn’t have her life figured out:

Trust me, none of us do. Even the picture perfect girls on social media don’t have their lives completely figured out. It’s okay to feel lost sometimes. Trust me when I say that I didn’t really feel as though I hit my stride until I was 24 and living 8 hours from home with a full time job and a serious relationship. Having life figured out is going to look different for everyone and there are going to be seasons of up and down that you’re going to have to go through. But it is my hope that Made in Mom Jeans will inspire you to believe that you are made for whatever season of life you are in and that you know you can come here to this community and find whatever it is you need, even if it’s just something as simple as reassurance like this.

About my blogging journey:

I started “blogging” back in the days of Xanga. If you’re not old enough to know what that is, I’ll spare you the details. But think about it like Tumblr except less pretty photos and WAY more angst. I have always aspired to be a writer but was always terrified of sharing my writing. I started a blog in college, I think maybe my sophomore year, called Bum Notes, which was just basically another diary of my daily life. When I graduated and moved to DC for my first internship after college, I suddenly found myself with A LOT of free time because I had a boss that didn’t give us any work to do and no friends in the area. So I started what I felt to be a more legitimate blog from there called The Anxiety Girl Online. I used blogging as a way to talk about the things I was interested in and to cope with things I was struggling with. I never started a blog because I wanted to be a social media influencer. Those were still a relatively new concept at the time. I just wanted to write and share what I was writing as an exercise for getting out of my comfort zone. I feel like in today’s world where people just wake up one day and say “I want to be a social media influencer” it’s important to put that out there. I also just hate that word. While I do have goals tied to monetizing this blog, my main goal will always be to create a community where people are free to be themselves and be unafraid to ask tough questions or have hard conversations with themselves and others. Since I started taking blogging more seriously in 2017, this blog has had a few different faces. I finally feel as though I have seriously dialed in to who I am as a writer, what I want this community to represent, and what I ultimately want my legacy to be.

The last two points of that sentence are what I want you to remember. This is a community where we can come together to laugh, cry, celebrate, and vent. I have good days and bad days just like everyone else. Sometimes I get mad at life and God and my husband and I want people to know that it’s okay to feel that way sometimes. Today we as women put so much pressure on each other to be perfect in all aspects and I’m just not about that life. So here you will always be welcome no matter how put together you are, no matter how broken you are, no matter how lost or found you may feel.

Anyways, here’s a few more favorites of mine!

Favorite Podcasts: Wine and Crime, Don’t Blame Me, The Confused Millennial, NextGen Milspouse
Favorite Comfort Food: Mac and Cheese or Mashed Potatoes
Favorite Snack: Green apple of a banana with peanut butter
Favorite Travel Destination: Alaska
Favorite Season: Fall!
Favorite Beauty Product: Tarte Shape Tape concealer and Physicians Formula Butter Bronzer
Favorite Hair Tool: Revlon One-Step Volumizer Hair Dryer
Favorite Leggings: Zella Live in Leggings (these are currently 40% off!)
Favorite Brands: Universal Thread at Target, Madewell
Favorite Places to Shop: Target, Nordstrom, thredUP (click for $10 off your order)
Favorite TV Show: Friends or Gossip Girl
Favorite Drink: Hazelnut coffee with cream and sugar (Dunkin’), green tea latte (Starbucks), Diet Coke

A Little about Me + My Blogging Journey

Who I was growing up

To the girl who feels she doesn’t have her life figured out:

About my blogging journey:

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