Friday Favorites - All about Eves.

I love Eves.
As in "the day befores".
Christmas Eve, Birthday Eves, Vacation Eves, Last Day of School Eves.....the list could go on and on.
One thing my girls will always remember me saying, (other than "We're out of Chardonnay") is that Eves are always much, much better than the actual occasion, because it's the only day you can say, "Tomorrow is Christmas!" or "Tomorrow is my birthday!" or "Tomorrow the Haskell's nickel wine sale starts!" (you get the point).

And today, you guys, is an Eve.
Tomorrow - tomorrow - is this little blog's one year anniversary!

Nice of Jennifer to be so excited about it.
Thanks, girlfriend.

So today - today - is its Eve.

And as luck would have it, it's also Friday.

So in honor of YMFT's One Year Blogiversary - tomorrow - I'm dedicating the Friday Favorites - today - to some of my favorite moments and memories that the blog and I have shared over the past year.  As you can imagine, we've become pretty tight.

Favorite Blogging Moments - Vol. I (2012-13)

1.  Learning what the eff HTML codes were and how make a blog button - 
I cannot tell you how many hours I spent last March reading and researching not only what the hell a blog button was, but how to make my own. I can tell you it is in direct correlation with how many times the guy who picks up our recycling bins left AA brochures on my front door. Kidding. But despite all the frustrations and all the new, special words I inadvertently taught my younger daughter, not kidding, the sense of accomplishment I felt when I finally made a button (that worked) was enormous.

2.  Hitting 100 GFC followers -
The day I hit 100 followers was monumental. And then a few months later I realized that probably 85 of those 100 only followed me to get me to follow them back (which I did) and didn't actually read all my blog posts. Over the past few months I've stopped caring if I have 500 or 194 followers (which was 196 last week - but I'm certainly not keeping count or obsessing over why people are dropping me...that would be silly) because like with all friendships, it's the quality - not the quantity - that counts.
But man, hitting 100? That was a super good day.

3.  Getting a new blog design -
If you started reading this little blog after August, you won't remember the original template/design. Here's what YMFT started out looking like:

Two things I'm noting from this screenshot.
1. This was taken the day I  hit 100 GFC followers, and
2. What the hell was I doing awake at 7:04 a.m. on August 15th?

Shortly after this was taken, I had my blog re-designed to the current look....of which it will remain indefinitely because although I am capable of making a blog button and adding a gadget here and there, there's no way in hell I want to have to figure out how to re-format the whole damn thing.

(Although I do need to add a tab up top. Any takers?)

4.  Being retweeted by Baio -
You may be thinking, "Umm, Michelle? How does that have anything to do with this blog?" and wondering if I'm using it here as just another lame excuse to pimp out one of my all time favorite posts (and lifetime memories), I Can Die Now.  But it's totally obvious. Having this blog is the only reason I would ever, ever be on Twitter.  And Twitter is what brought Baio and I together.
Blog > Twitter > Baio > Destiny. Bam.

5.  Making awesome new blogging friends -
Like sistahs, I tell ya. More on this one tomorrow....

6.   Laughing with myself...instead of the usual at myself - 
I've published 183 posts over the past year.  Some stinkers, for sure, but even I'll admit that there were some in there that made me laugh (and I'm a pretty tough critic). If you notice waaay up top there are some tabs. One of them says "favorites". Ever clicked on it? It's where I keep a list of my favorite posts. The ones I'm proud of. They may not be the most well-written or the funniest, but they're the ones that mean something or the ones that for some inexplicable reason made me laugh. Out loud.


I'm sure there's a lot that I'm forgetting, but here's the nutshell.
I've had countless favorite moments over the past year at the helm of this little blog - more than are coming to me at 10:30 p.m. when I'm working on less than four hours of sleep and working my way through my second glass of Chardonnay (yeah, you got me. It's actually Blogiversary Eve Eve as I write this).  But no matter how many favorite memories I have of all the things I've done and learned, one thing remains the constant.

YOU are my favorite today.

*Check back tomorrow for the Blogapalooza Anniversary post!*