On to Bigger and Better Things

I am really really excited about the new things going on over here with Tragic, but Beautiful Thing Called Life.

I have been working so hard to create a great product for those that read and that keep up with my blog.

I personally invite you all to check out my new blog site, that I now own over at Tragicbutbeautifullife.com.

I hope you follow me onto my next adventures, but I will not be redirecting from this site to my next because I have a very low amount of traffic on this particular site.

Please follow me and continue reading about my adventures as a Young, crazy, but mature college kid.

The Blog and Its Adventures

I have to say that this blog has given me some great moments, but it has also been a royal pain.  Last night I spent almost 4 hours trying to create a professional blog, where I owned my own domain and could set it up the way I wanted it. I spent 20 on the phone with customer service and in the end I ended up canceling anyway.

After this adventure I started looking at my stats for this blog.

One word. Depressing.

I have been writing for about two years now, a little more I think. I have poured hours into trying to update things and edit things to make them great. I would LOVE to earn a little extra money on my blog.

I have read blog after blog after blog about how to earn money and how to create a great blog that other people will want to read. I have read every blog post I can find to create a great blog, but yet my average post is still only getting 15-20 views. I can easily list at least 4 of those people. (Hi Mom, Dad, Aunt Lisa, and Grandma Ida) You 4 have been my support and I am pretty sure that you all have read almost every single blog post. You have commented and participated in random things that I have tried.

Obviously, I am not going to quit my day job to become a blogger and pour 7-8 hours a day into my blog, but my goal was to earn $20 bucks off my blog, just to show that I could, but in the current format, I can’t earn anything because of the way it is set up.

I switched from Blogger to WordPress because it was supposed to be better, but I wish I wouldn’t have because I went from earning 2 cents a post to earning nothing.

Now, my love of writing isn’t based on money. I love to write and get feedback, but I have hit a point where I am frustrated because I feel like no one is reading my posts, no matter how hard I am working towards them.

This post is really just a rant and perhaps a request, if anyone has comments or ideas for me to do something with it. I would love to hear them.

Thank you for those who have continuously supported me.

The one little promise that changed my entire attitude

I recently shared this picture on Facebook and it has really summed up my experience in the last 6-7 months.Through my years in high school, I have struggled with happiness in relationships. I have looked to relationships for my source of happiness. I often look for problems and search until I find them.

During 2015, I made it a goal to be happy. I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Wilson, and attempted to do something similar. It worked really well and I enjoyed it, for the first month before I got super side tracked with college, family, relationships and just life in general.

I have struggled with my own happiness on a few occasions because I often put everyone else’s opinions before my own. I think that I can’t do something that would make me happy, because it would disappoint someone or hurt their feelings.

This April, I bought myself a ring.

I wear it every single day. It is a promise ring, but not in the context that many people think of them as.

I promise that I will put myself first. I will work to achieve MY goals for myself before the goals that other people have presented me with. I will do what it takes to make me happy. 

This has been one of the hardest things I have ever done because I am a people pleaser. I want everyone to be happy with me and I hate confrontation.

I will remain friends with someone even if I have nothing in common and it almost makes me miserable, just so I don’t have to deal with hurting their feelings.

I will do things that make other people happy, even if I have no desire to do them.

Some of these things are part of being an adult, but others are just me being a people pleaser and not wanting to hurt people.

I have tried to make this promise before, but from buying myself a ring (then having my mom buy me a different one after the first one turned my finger green), I have a greater accountability for my happiness. I look at my ring every day and remind myself that overall, if people don’t like a decision that I have made, then that is their choice, but I am pretty content with where I am.

I am very proud to say that I have my own apartment and my own hobbies, without having the pressure of a committed relationship right now. The thing that I have truly learned about happiness this year is that when you put your happiness first, other people’s happiness either falls in line with what you want for yourself, or you learn who really cares about you.

I have found that I have a lot more time to do the things that I enjoy and I am over all a lot happier than I was before. I have stopped worrying what people will think as much, and worry about whether something will help me.

I challenge all of you to figure out what would really make you happy in your life and make an effort to consciously choose things that make you happy over things that don’t. This can mean taking things out of your life, but it will be worth it in the long run.

What are some of the promises you make to yourself, that you just need that accountability for?

5 Things I have Learned from NOT Relying on Credit

Many of you probably read my goals for getting out of debt in the next 5 years, but if you didn’t I suggest that you read it first right here. I plan to not have any debt, pay for my first house in cash, and be ready to for any emergency in the next 5-10 years, but most of it is happening in the next 1-2.

While paying off all of my debt, I have learned a lot of things including budgeting, savings, a little investing, as well as how to not rely on credit.

I was a little different growing up though. When I got a paper route, my money went into savings and I got to keep part of it. When I started working at McDonald’s almost 1/2 of every paycheck when to savings and I could use the rest for whatever I wanted. Through college, I used more savings than I put in there some months, but I was never worried because I had enough put away that I didn’t really need to work, plus I had my drill paychecks and GI Bill that helped out tremendously in the first year of college.

Throughout all of my jobs, my parents never encouraged me to get a credit card. I know GASSPP! I have no credit what-so-ever. This tends to be such a terrible thing for people today, but I guess my outlook is that you don’t really need credit if you don’t need a loan. Since I plan to buy my first house in cash, I don’t suspect that credit will really be a problem for me.

Here are the 5 main things that I have learned from not relying on credit:

My Financial Story

I have put a lot of thought into this blog, wanting to share some, but not everything. My debt story is unlike any others.

Most people who have a “debt story” talk about how they needed money, so they borrowed it. They racked up credit card bills without worrying about tomorrow. They needed that new 2015 car, so they bought it on a loan from the dealer. I am not saying that any of these are better or worse than what I did, but at 20 years old, I am 26k in debt.

One word.

College.

16 Great Things in 2015

I feel like I do this at least once a year.

I do sooo good at writing on my blog for a while. I write at least once a week. I talk about how great things are and how I am doing but then I get busy and it gets pushed off for all of the other things that I need to do first. Since my blog is currently only a hobby, it is hard for me to justify doing this before homework.

So now that the year is already halfway over, for those that use my blog to keep up with me. Here is my update on how my life is and the things that I have done in the last 7 months.

A Realistic Look of 2014 New Year’s Resolutions

The great thing about blogging is being able to stay accountable. I have been making a ton of changes to my blog and I have been reading old posts that I have written over the years. Sometimes, I look back and laugh at them because I have changed so much. I haven’t really done most of the things that I have set as goals, especially since I have 2 or 3 blog posts talking about my goals to lose weight and setting out a plan, but I am still the same weight that I was when I wrote all of those posts. Oh well, I am at a healthy weight, but I could be healthier.

Last year in January I wrote a post that talked about my goals for this year. Looking back at the goals, I have done a good job with some of them, and not so good with the others.

Holiday Season Challenge

Woah. Another crazy year almost coming to an end. The holidays bring up so many things that I am thankful for. So many things that I don’t know how some people live without.

First off, there is my family. To put this into perspective for my readers who don’t know me very well, my family is huge. I have 25 cousins (All between the ages of  3 and 26), 6 aunts and 5 uncles (not counting their spouses and all of them are married except one uncle), I have 5 sets of wonderful grandparents. I have been told that I am spoiled with family, and  maybe I am. While I don’t normally spend the holidays with one side of my family, I get to spend it with the other 2 sides of my family. I had a ton of fun today and two of my grandmothers did a wonderful job hosting an amazing Thanksgiving lunch/dinner today. I am so thankful for the craziness that is my family. We have strong opinions that we try to keep to ourselves, but for the most part today with them was a ton of fun.

10 Reasons Why You Should Give 50 Shades Of Grey Another Chance

DISCLAIMER: While my blog posts usually do not have this type of content, this is something I feel that it is important to put out there! If you do not want to read about it, then don’t read the post. That being said, I tried to keep it rated at about PG-13. No pictures are included and these are all 100% my own thoughts and feelings.
DISCLAIMER 2: Also, if you haven’t read the books, and I have spoiled part of a book for you, I am deeply sorry because I know how much book spoiling ruins a good book. I tried to keep a lot of the important details from the 2nd and 3rd book out of this post and tried to show it with most of the first book. 
Reading for me is disappearing into an alternate universe. (Hint: Sometimes I really believe that it is books that helped me make it through my years in middle school and high school) It is an escape from reality, where you don’t have to talk to people. I should really focus my blog on writing more book reviews, but then reading becomes a chore instead of my me time. Sometimes, I enjoy reading other people’s book reviews because it gives me another insight as to how someone else perceived the book. I’ve read many books. I enjoy reading and I probably finish one, if not two books a week during the summer.

Crazy Life.

This week has been crazy. We were gone all weekend at the Wisner Tractor Pull, I spent most of the last three days getting things organized for classes and a new job. The house is starting to get semi clean again and I have been working my butt off to get in shape for my PT test in October. I promise that I will get back on my writing schedule after school starts back up, but right now, LIFE IS CRAZY.

I hope all my readers are having a good couple of weeks and I will be sure to be on top of my blog next week!

Here is a great picture of Matt and I on an Air Boat ride at the Wisner Tractor Pull! (: Isn’t he cute (: