I'm Back.

photo from @RicGleeks' Twitter feed

Surpriiiiise!

I thought I'd belatedly celebrate my blogsary (December 14) by resurrecting from my unplanned hiatus... On uncertain terms.

I've definitely fallen out of the ultra-productive blogger days where I could easily post every other day and keep abreast with my favorite beauty bloggers' latest posts. Towards my last handful of entries, it was just weeks and weeks of constipated pushing and I admit I sort of fell out of my own brand beauty blogging. Here's what I started to hate about myself before admitting defeat, i.e., hitting the pause button on the blog schedule:

• I was no longer writing enjoyable, witty content - I'd fallen into the "Haul Trap" where beauty bloggers take the easy way out and just list their latest purchases or make catalog reviews. I have a few issues with posting hauls, and they were certainly magnified by my lack of passion. There's nothing more embarrassing to me than textbook writing and I felt like I was one detailed review away from starting to drone on.

• I started scheduling my posts weeks in advance and it made my writing OH SO BORING. I also obsessed about my pictures and given the volume of pictures I post, coupled with my utter noobiness in photography made every single entry thesis-levels burdensome

• I began this blog wanting to share my beauty-infused candor but the pressure to compete and up the numbers wound up taking me out of my own game. I miss my DIY posts and the general level of engagement in my earlier posts. It seemed, counterintuitively, that I couldn't afford to give my truly loyal readers what we all enjoyed in the BBT community once I started hacking it up for growth. The pace just pushed me to my limit and I think for a short while, my vocabularic creativity went from ten jillion to about five hundred words.

• I was going through some personal issues *cliche* ICK. NAST. Cue the eye roll, wry smile and dry heaving.

So, Why Now?

My boyfriend is on vacation and I have lots of free time. I was blogging fine while we were regularly going out but I went through some shit (the less I have to bring this up, the happier I will be) and couldn't keep up.

I missed blogging; it truly gave me a sense of accomplishment and I felt great practicing certain talents while learning new ones. Though it became punishment prior to my hiatus, it wasn't always that way. It was really just hard to write when I'm dealing with so much drama on and off my blog. I normally write lightning-fast but emotions drag that down to about the speed of molasses trickling across sandpaper. I. Can't. Deal!

On a side note, I find it funny that I was able to learn more about makeup when I stopped writing. The pressure to stick to "before and after" skincare posts and makeup reviews made the martyr in me stick to unremarkable products which further killed my passion. When I stopped thinking about the posts, I was able to shop my stash and actually make killer makeup discoveries!

What Can We Expect?

I don't know. I still love boxes and unboxings, though, that's for sure! But I have a mountain of neglected, unposted boxes and I don't want to plan it all out lest I come back to that horrid cycle of textbook-writing under pressure.

Does Instagram have an 'Organize" filter?

I'm also not gonna pretend that I don't have a lot of pending PR posts. I'm not paid for those so technically I can tell my PR partners to fuck off. But I'm not a self-centered person and I was actually raised with delicadeza. I already don't guarantee a positive review, so I won't deny the fact that it's incredibly rude to receive samples and not repay through the value of mileage.

So I will get those out of the way with a challenge in mind: keeping it real. I've never had a problem spicing up my featured posts and the break luckily helped revitalize my creative joozes. I would love to post every other day, but I'm not sure I can dive back in so quickly. Regardless, I'm actually pretty stoked to slowly creep on back up to blogging :)

A big shout-out to my friend, Me-Ann Guina, who donated this new site layout. It's still heavily under construction pending input from me, but I love the logo she created. Hit her up with love or projects at ana.guina@gmail.com!