From Momsie's Circle to Cup of Tyh - My Blog Makeover
I know that it’s been a while since I published a new article, maybe most people who have been following Momsie’s Circle Blog a.k.a. momsiecle.com are already wondering what happened to my blog. For the past months, I was stuck with my obsession with my blog refresh that I have been wanting to do since the beginning of 2019. I had a hard time finding the right person to do it with me/for me. And when I thought I found the right person, it didn’t turn out to how I expect it to be. (Lesson learned – don’t do business with people who just keep saying “yes and okay” without the proper contract.)
Seven months have passed since we entered 2020. Time goes by really fast – you know how we all make goals every start of the year? I made a few goals for myself and one of which was I am going to write more on my blog. Well, obviously, I kind of failed – not a single entry in the past 4 months eh! But the year is not yet over, actually while I am obsessed to give this blog a new look and waiting for the right person to help me with my makeover (thank you to KC Designs for saving my blog!) I keep writing down the musings in my head that I want to share with all of you. I can still try to work on my goal to keep writing, right?
Thank you to Miko Fernandez for creating this logo that served as Momsiecle’s face for the past 4 years)
Sooo… let me welcome you to my new and improved website ? “Welcome to Cup of Tyh!” Those who knew me as Momsie or Momsiecle maybe wondering what’s with the name change? As I have written in my About Page, my blog played a big role to where I am now. In the past 8 years, my blog has opened different doors for me. I made new friends from different parts of the globe. I met people from different communities within and outside Winnipeg. Through momsiecle.com, I was able share the failures and triumphs that I went through in transitioning to a new life outside my comfort zone and it enabled me to reach out to people outside my circle. To be honest, up to now it still brings me joy and I still feel kilig (giddy) whenever I meet someone in a gathering or in a public place who would approach me and say “I know you, you’re Momsiecle?” or “I have been reading your blog even before I came to Canada.” Never would I have imagined that there will be people outside my circle who would be interested in what I put up in my blog.
And as I make this space to be my “superwoman wannabe” diary where I will share not just my immigrant journey and my not so Mom-Sense stories but also my love for fashion and style, my fun stories and life lessons as I face midlife, my financial pilgrim and all the other things in between, I want to make a brand new start. Therefore, I wanted a new name for my blog to reflect the changes and the new things and new stories that I want to share in this little corner of mine in the internet world.
When I started writing and made my first blog in 2006, things were entirely different. The internet was a different place, 14 years ago. Nowadays, “influencer marketing” is the real and in thing, social media gave influencers more influence literally to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in just one tweet or post. More and more people are getting into this bandwagon, some with the intention to make money while some just wanted to be famous. It sometimes feel that it is getting a bit saturated now, especially since this pandemic happened and the lockdown started, more people created their own channel in You Tube and many users are hosting watch parties in Facebook or go live in Instagram. It is pretty obvious that a lot of brands are looking more into Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (and I guess TikTok too) when working with “influencers. There is no denying that in this fast-paced world, people prefer to take information in bite-size, so the short content from Instagram captions, tweet from Twitter, Facebook status and videos from You Tube get more followers, hits and clicks.
I will not lie, I sometimes feel bad whenever I look at other influencers’ social media accounts, and yes, I will also admit that I sometimes tend to compare myself to other influencers. I occasionally have that feeling where I question how can this person have thousands of followers when he/she just started and I have been doing this since 2012 and I didn’t have as much followers as they have. But then again, I always come back to the realization that there are just people who has “it,” they are really on this influencer thing and they can just easily get thousands of followers instantly. There’s no explanation for it, they just got it and it can happen to some people in an instant.
My family and close friends knew how passionate I am when it comes to writing. I find joy and unexplainable satisfaction in writing. In real life situations, I can express myself better in writing, am able to say what I am thinking or how I feel (best) through a letter or a poem. To be honest, I have no illusion that I am interesting enough to become a well-known blogger or “influencer.” The reason why I am into writing even when I am still in high school is because I get really nervous knowing people are listening or watching me, I am not confident enough about the way I speak and in putting my thoughts together whenever I talk, that’s why I cannot fully put myself out there. My motivation in putting up my blog when I was starting was not to make a name but to just make a content about the things that I love and passionate about, to share my experiences and to document good memories and important milestones. It was only a few years after I started my blog that I began to make money enough to pay for the expenses of maintaining my website. I still feel overwhelmed with the idea that I have to put myself out there, hence, I turned down few collaborations and brand partnership in the past. But I’m blessed to have great people in my squad, I always have my bestfriend and sisters’ support. In the past 2 years, I have been with people who motivate and inspire me to be braver and bolder and I reconnected with few childhood friends who are also great cheerleaders.
As a mother of three and a full-time employee, keeping a blog is not easy. The truth is I used to avoid talking about how much importance I give to this blog and how much work I put just to keep my blog. For the past eight years, I spent so much hours in putting up my contents, not only that, I also have to make time to reply to emails and chats, to learn to maintain my website to think of the best design for it, to plan my calendar and content schedule and so many other things that I do. But I find joy in it… and now I am putting it up here, I am no longer uncomfortable to say that I work so hard on building momsiecle.com (now cupoftyh.com).
That is why even more influencers think that Instagram Twitter, Facebook and You Tube’s grass is greener, I still prefer to keep my blog. I am not against any of these social media platforms, in fact I also have accounts in almost all of it. For me, having my blog is like having my own house, while the accounts I have with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and You Tube (and I also have Pinterest and Tumbler by the way) are all spaces that I am just “renting.” The control I have over my own house is incomparable to the control I have over my social media accounts, they can always change their looks, their setup, how contents are shared and they can always add or take out applications or functions that you use with it. While, I get to decide how I should do things in my blog and how my readers will see them. And one thing about blogs is we can have a long conversation, just like this post. Unlike in social media platforms where it feels like whenever you go to your wall or to your feed you will see everyone in your friends or followers list randomly, with blogs, it feels like you are visiting one person at a time. You literally have to type the blog’s URL and see what’s new or what are they up to. I feel that with the information flows so quickly nowadays, blog readership has fallen drastically, call me old school, but I still believe that there are people (like me) who still appreciates long form of content, long conversation. That’s why I intend to keep writing mine and I will continue reading them.
And that’s that – my take on blogging, my new blog name, a new start and I am just so excited!
Thank you for being with me on this and I look forward to more longer conversations with all of you!
