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Back in 2015 when I first started blogging, I had one blog where I talked about just anything I wanted to from video games to beauty. Then in 2016, I removed video game type posts from maepolzine.com and moved it to its own blog that I was sharing with my then-roommate. Over the course of the year and a half that blog existed, a lot changed from the name to how focused I was on it. It got to a point on each blog where I was constantly wondering “what next.” I was splitting my attention so much it was becoming hard to keep up with both. Or I didn’t want to write on one for days while the other one I had loads of ideas. To a point where I wasn’t putting out good quality of either since I was just posting things to post things though they weren’t the quality I wanted them to be.
So at the start of the year, I started debating on the idea of combining the two blogs once again as on every other platform the two are mingled. And both halves are very much me. Some posts I decided not to do solely because I could never figure out which blog it would end up on. So that debate is over, I’m putting them back together again. This means there will be more of a variety on this blog and I know not everything will be for everyone, but it’s what I want to do. And I made this blog for me originally, so I’m going back to my roots. I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to have both domains flow to the same site as I still love each name a lot and don’t want to drop either. So you can use either maepolzine.com or maepolzine.com to get here.
Blogging Schedule
As far as blogging schedule, I’m not going to have one defined one anymore but there will probably still be posts going live every day. That’s probably the main difference between before and now. I just want to be able to post whenever I feel like it rather than feeling forced to have something up at a particular time.
Cruelty Free Guide Update
The cruelty free guide is also undergoing some serious overhaul in the background still. I have the full list still active but the remaining are gone for the time being. I loved the idea from Cruelty Free Kitty to have an interactive cruelty free guide. Where you are apply filters and it adjusts the list from if you just want drugstore to specific type of product. Or if you only want vegan options to appear. The other thing I’m trying to work on is if you click on the name of the brand it expands to show their animal testing policy and how it matches up to the criteria. Much like my “Is (BLANK) Cruelty Free” series I was doing prior to the relaunch. I have taken away these posts just since they will be redundant once I finalize the new guide. I didn’t plan out how long that was going to take me properly. I totally forgot that not only did I change my blog platform from SquareSpace to WordPress, but I also had to manually update every single post to have a thumbnail/SEO again. Which took me forever, but totally worth it.
Why Leave SquareSpace? You might be wondering.
I mainly left SquareSpace as I wanted more customization options that frankly SquareSpace didn’t offer. I did love the platform when I started out blogging as it was easy to install/configure templates and every post looked exactly what I saw as I made it. But you were locked down as far as customizations. What you saw was what you got. And I wanted something that they didn’t have. Is this template the be all end all of the blog? Probably not as I change my mind frequently with how I like things to look. But this is the happiest I’ve been with my blog in years as far as appearance. Though I will say WordPress though they say “free” is not as “free” as you would like. And might even be a little more expensive than SquareSpace, but it offers more customization so it’s a trade.
Frustrations of Switching
Another frustration I had to begin with was trying to find all the damn fonts. There were like no options to begin with compared to SquareSpace. I had hundreds before and then I had a handful. It took me a while to figure out how to get more. And I wanted to learn the platform the best I could prior to returning. As there were a lot of things I wanted to figure out as far as layouts for posts as on SquareSpace is was easy to make a complex layout with images sitting next to each other. But that wasn’t the same on WordPress, which made me rethink how I wanted posts. And make me debate on how I wanted to look overall. But I like the result of the next one since images aren’t insanely enlarged on WordPress as they were on SquareSpace.
I also don’t like how you have a media folder where finding a specific image you used on every god damn blog post took forever. I mean I get its charm as that’s so much easier if you reused the same images over and over again. But for me with every post being different, it’s a bit too much at the moment. Also clearing that one image that uploaded a copy for every post I moved over was a long and annoying process. So I decided to say goodbye to the signature image at the bottom of every post, as ain’t no body has time for that on WordPress. So I’m going to create some type of sign off from now on. I’m just going to be playing around with them for the meantime, as I still haven’t found one I loved.
Guest Posts
I am no longer accepting guest posts with the re-branding. I want to be the only voice on my blog and get so many submissions that it almost seemed like I didn’t have any room for my own posts. I do appreciate anyone who ever submitted one in the past but it’s not something going forward that I’m going to be accepting. As I don’t want to become a broken record, in every email response I’m going to say it once here and any additional requests are just going to be ignored. I’m sorry but this is just something I need to do for myself. It’s something I’ve been debating on for ages and I think now with the re-branding is the right time. I hope any contributors understand. Any that were already submitted and approved will still do live but afterwards there will be no more.
Love ya,
Mae Polzine
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