Thank you for stopping by the blog today friend. I know I say it a lot, but I am so thankful that you come to the blog to see what we are doing because blogging is a true passion of mine & so your visits keep me going, keep me sharing, & keep me blogging. I am sure you haven’t just stumbled across my blog today, you have been here a little while and I am so very thankful. In fact I met someone the other day around town, and I absolutely love how people classify the different “era’s” of the blog and all the things Jose and I have tackled along our cozy little journey. This wonderful women, said she’s been checking in on the blog since we lived in our rental in North Carolina, and that just warmed my heart, because I have to remind myself of those years back in the lovely state of North Carolina. Thinking through all of our lovely surprise run-ins out on the town, and significant markers along the way of this lovely little blog, I would classify the different era’s of all things Liz Marie Blog into four different era’s (so far).
- “Back In North Carolina” – The rental I think is what people really remember, but we did build our first home in North Carolina, and that is where the very first blog post here on Liz Marie Blog happened, in 2009!
- “When we First Moved Back to Michigan” – We moved back on Thanksgiving Day in 2014, completely terrified to the world that waited ahead outside of Jose being in the military. Fun fact: I think there are two or three people I’ve met that has moved from a nearby city in NC to Grand Rapids, MI (where we live now), around the same-time, and one of those is our local news weather lady!
- “When You Opened Up your Store” – The Found Cottage is its own little world, and I am so thankful to my business partners, vendors, employees, and the wonderful customers that come hang out with me randomly during the week and weekends. The doors opened to The Found Cottage, in January 2016, and we just celebrated our 6th birthday last month!
- “When you moved to the Farm” – It is so hard to think we have only been at White Cottage Farm since June of 2016… does time go by Fast.
I bring this up because last week on Instagram and TikTok, I shared a very fun and endearing feature I was so happy to be apart of, its titled, “Go Picking Like A Pro,” and its in the March 2022 Issues of CountryLiving Magazine (this is your reminder to go get the new issue today). My blog has taken on so many fun little adventures along the way, and I wanted to take a moment to encourage while I reflect a little bit. When I started the blog, there was no long-term plan, it was simply creating an outlet to give me something to do, while I was a thousand miles away from friends and family, in North Carolina. The social media platforms where not what there are today, in fact Pinterest and Instagram just started… and nobody knew how to use them. It was all a passion of mine to DIY, look for affordable dupes, pick at local antique shops, and just fully immerse myself into something that I absolutely loved. In the first years of the blog, I worked a full time job, went to design school full time, and somehow stretched each day to work in a DIY, take photos, and blog about it. Those were some long nights, because I refused to post anything with partial effort or not up to my standards.
My encouragement to you is that today’s world, there are a lot of distractions that can steer you off your passions, and I want to say put those passions in the forefront and chase after it. I love blogging, and I love trying to help anyone is interested in joining me in this wonderful world of creativity and vulnerability… but sharing digital content like blogging or anything on the social channels really should come from a passion. A passion of DIY’ing, to Fitness, to Storytelling… I try to re-direct those that the passion shouldn’t be doing “something” to get featured in a magazine, or to go viral on social media… Through your humble sharing of your passion, those successes will come, I promise. This is not to say that I don’t get distracted, in fact I feel in a season now of distraction & laying low so this article feature was really inspiring to me.
We have had the honor to have little features in Magazine before, and I have not really taken a step back to acknowledge my gratitude to my passion of interior design, blogging, home decor, and everything in-between. As I opened this cute little feature, seeing cartoon Liz Marie in the top corner, it just hit me on the very cool and unique places this passion of mine as taken me and my family… and I could not emphasize it more, that I am not any different or any more talented in my passion that you are in yours, so again please get out of your own and and see where you end up! Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today and every other day, it truly means the world to us here on the farm!
