Happy 1st Blogoversary to Me!

Hello Bloggy Followers!!!

Today is The Cozy Reading Corner's 1st Blogoversary! I am so excited to have made it a year! I remember when I first started off I had a grand total of 10 followers, my blog looked awful, and I didn't know what a meme was! Now, I have a whopping 482 followers (and I am grateful for each and every one of you!), my blog looks pretty good (If I do say so myself!) and I am constantly participating in memes and reading challenges! :))

But none of that could have been possible without YOU! Yes, I'm talking about you! If you're reading this right now- I am totally sending over a virtual hug! Because you're the reason I continue to blog! Every time I open my inbox and I have an email telling me about a comment left on one of my posts or about a new follower, it makes me want to do a happy dance (which would be really embarrassing)! I know I'm kind of rambling right now, but I just wanted to say Thank You! And that I hope there will be many more Blogoversaries to come! <3

Now, what is the best way to really show my love? It's pretty simple! A giveaway!!! :)) Normally, I'd have this giveaway planned by now. But, I'm going to need a little more time. So, stay tuned for my HUGE 1st Blogoversary Giveaway that will be coming up very soon! :))

In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy reading about my journey during my first year which will be told in GIFs.  :))

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Okay peoples. I remember I wrote my first post for this blog back on January 13, 2011. It was only a year ago, but my how things have changed. What I didn't know at the time, was how much more involved blogging truly was. Ya see, little ignorant me, thought that it pretty much consisted of writing down my thoughts and clicking enter. Boy, was I wrong. And when I found out how wrong I was and how much more involved it all was, I looked a lot like this:

Then I started to check out the blogs of more experienced bloggers and realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me. I began to search for prettier backgrounds and I discovered what memes were. It was a lot of work! (Not that I'm complaining.....) And I also realized that my blog's name was totally lame. And I needed to fix that. So, I began to brainstorm. And when I finally found the perfect name: The Cozy Reading Corner. I pretty much looked a lot like this:

So, after I put my name at the top of my blog I realized that something was missing. Something important...... that's right. A freakin' picture. So, then I was all like this:

I had no idea how to do it. So after spending many hours searching Google. I figured it out. Sort of. So, I put my picture in and felt pretty darn accomplished. But then, I said to myself, "Self, how come all those other fancy schmancy blogs have buttons with their blog picture on it and we don't." So I told myself I didn't know why, but that I would fix it. Because.......

So, after I was filled up with all of this self-confidence. I looked up how to make those bloggy buttons and was introduced to HTML codes. I was pretty overwhelmed and so I began to freak out and I told myself, "Self, we will never have of those cool bloggy buttons because I don't know how to do it." And my self replied with:

And that was when I realized something: I was right. I was being bloody rude. Because I was finally within walking distance of my dream and was about to just give up. So I swept away all of that doubt underneath a rug and I made a freakin' blog button.

After my latest accomplishment, I was feeling pretty awesome. Until I looked over at my GFC follower box and saw the number 10. Yup, I only had ten followers and I loved each of them very much. But gosh darn it, the selfish part of me wanted MORE followers and was already scheming ways to get it.

I was still very happy with all that I had accomplished and wanted to thank my followers. So, I had my very first giveaway!!! And I gained 5 more followers in the process. This satisfied the generous me and the selfish me. But I have to tell ya, that it took me a while to figure out the Google doc spreadsheets and I already hated it. So, I decided to unleash my killer dog on it.

But luckily, the killer vampire dog wasn't needed because I discovered Rafflecopter. The. Best. Thing. Ever. It made my life so much easier. And I want to give a shout out to Rafflecopter for saving my life.

Since then, I have discovered Giveaway Hops and have gained even more followers. And most importantly I am completely happy with my blog and couldn't be more proud. The first year was kind of tough, but it was worth it. I love reading and blogging and I want to tell all of my followers that you're the best. And that this next GIF is just for you.  <3

Let me know in the comments section whether or not you like these little GIF stories and if you'd like some more of them.  :)) Cuz if ya do, I'll just use a little magic to make your dreams come true.

-Kristen ♥