A 2nd Blogiversary Post & A Huge Wallflour Girl Thank You

Raise your hand if you completely missed your two-year blogiversary and didn’t even notice. Anybody? Nobody?

Oh. Oh.

Whoops.

Not that I had anything crazy awesome-killer-fantastimazing up my sleeve with which to wow y’all anyway (do I ever?), but it would’ve been nice to celebrate my blogiversary properly on July 7th. As things go these busy days, however, I resent that it’s mid-July without my knowing how it came to be that way already. If America was really the democratically-premised republic it claims to be, we’d all vote for it to be early June again and that’d be that. None of this summer-is-half-gone hodge-podge I hear from the mindless masses whom I call my friends these days.

Anyway….happy belated 2nd blogiversary to me?

I did a Google search for what bloggers do to celebrate blogiversaries. I actually typed that in the search bar: “what do bloggers do to celebrate blogiversaries?” Well, remember how everyone loved you if you brought birthday cupcakes to class when you were little, and how starting around age 13 (about the same time Halloween became off-limits) it was suddenly uncool to bring cupcakes to celebrate a day that’s all about you, you, you?\

And then remember how as bright-eyed new participants in the food bloggy community, we all suddenly realized how stupid our 13 to pre-blogging-day-selves were for thinking cupcakes weren’t an acceptable celebratory treat, and rose up in a tidal mass to spread the Cupcake Gospel once more?

Well, I’ve decided I don’t want cupcakes.

I don’t even like cupcakes all that much, really. GaspIknowwhatdidshejustsay.

Sweet treats are awesome, but I didn’t feel like making any for you today. Ohnoshedidn’tjustsaythat!

Chyeah. I did. And it’s my blogiversary-ish-sort-of, so I’ll say what I like, thank ya very much.

Instead, my treat to all you lovely readers today (did I say thank you, by the way? Thank you!) is not an edible goodie but a collection of my favorite recipes (displayed in the photos throughout this post–they’re all clickable) and thoughts about why I do what I do. Because let’s face it…

Blogging is kind of an amazing thing.

My blog is a space where I get to do what I would normally do to people IRL, which is talk, share my half-baked ideas, and talk some more until somebody either implodes or sets loose an army of adorable orange kittens to march by right under my nose and distract me from my ceaseless chatter.

I enjoy blogging because it reminds me that I’m worth talking about

even if that is one of the hardest realizations I have had to face as a budding wallflour writer these past two years and eleven days. I love writing–I consider myself a writer first, baker/photographer/designer second–but I don’t like the thought of opening up more than needed, and certainly not to a bunch of sketchy web strangers–or so I thought.

Wallflour Girl has gone through some extraordinary changes in the past 2 years. Starting with my very first post published for a New Media class on July 7, 2012, Wallflour Girl has since attracted the eyes of tens, bordering on hundreds of thousands of readers, bloggers, and avid foodies from around the world. And it has opened its own exciting album of new, unforgettable memories that I’ll try to condense here into a few short lines:

Favorite Post: Mom’s Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie

This past Mother’s Day, I wrote a piece dedicated to all the things I haven’t said but wanted to put into words for my mom. She read every word, and what’s more: she liked loved it.

Most Popular Recipe: Favorite Puffy Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

By far the most pinned, shared, viewed, and popular post on my blog to this day.

Most Requested Recipe (by Friends): Saltine Toffee ‘Crack’-ers

The most addicting combo of salty, crunchy, & sweet–still the most requested recipe at all my family/friend gatherings.

Most Memorable Blogging Moment: This Meeting with One of My Readers, K (and the Coffee Cheesecake-Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes with Kahlua Biscoff Frosting I made for her)

An amazing testimony to what a little bit of generosity, sharing, and luck can bring to our lives.

 

Proudest Blogging/Baking Achievement: The Edible Book Festival 

Where my Calvin & Hobbes interactive cake entries won two awards: “Best Tasting” and “Best Student Entry.” Also, getting to meet the famed LA Times critic Jonathan Gold in person and receive his congratulations.

 Other Memorable Posts:

• WALL OF SMILES: Every night before I go to bed, I write down one thing that made me smile–just one tiny thing with an enormous meaning. (A guest post for my dear blogging friend Nancy at Gotta Get Baked)
• THE WORLD’S GREATEST DAD: No other dad I know would take pride in waiting hour after hour, content, for his daughter–on the sidelines, my biggest fan.
• DEFINING MY SELF-WORTH: One of my most honest posts to date–four years in the making, about my struggle to define self-worth during a period of my life haunted by doubt.
• THE UN-RELATIONSHIP: On what it means to erase meaningless relationships and focus on yourself–just you.
• SOME THOUGHTS ON LIFE: On fear, what it means to be afraid, being okay with insecurity, imposter syndrome, and every other conceivable thing that needs to be written about on a blog.
• THE IMPORTANCE OF MEETING STRANGERS: It’s difficult to open up, but with cautious care, the worlds I have encountered through people I’ve never met before are boundless.

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I can hardly admit it even now, but I’ve grown so much in the past two years–as a writer and baker, but also as a friend and individual. I’ve noticed that my writing has evolved along with my thoughts, so that I’m spending more time thinking through longer, more serious, but also more humorously and whimsically delightful (I hope) posts that showcase my love for written expression.

I’ve taken one of the biggest exams of my life, started my own care package order delivery service, experienced approximately 1,729 existential crisis attacks, spilled my guts about things that I thought would follow me to the dirt-and-mortar of my grave, and most of all I’ve learned that while my motives for starting blogging may have been purely selfish, blogging itself isn’t inherently selfish.

In fact, blogging is one of the most generous things anyone can do for the world, ever.

It’s like trusting tiny fragments of your soul with people you’ve never imagined from places you’ve never envisioned, and having faith that they’ll keep it safe in that tiny corner that you call your virtual home.

To put it less poetically: it’s like hacking your soul into a bunch of Horcruxes and praying to the dear gods that Voldemort won’t be the next one to mosey along the road.

And it’s something I’m privileged, glad, and completely honored to be able to share with you all today.

So let’s not talk about the 2 years that have led us to where we are–let’s raise a glass to the unforeseeable future and plenty more shared memories to come! Thank you all, dear readers, for your generosity and spirit!

Love,

“Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes a few minutes to burn, but it takes years to write.”

“Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles–it takes away today’s peace.”