These days, every blog has a sidebar with a “Sponsors” option. It has a list of various sized images of different bloggers who paid money for a little tiny spot on the side of their blog. In the non-blog world, this is referred to as ADVERTISING, but for some reason within the blog world we’re all about “community” and the word “advertise” sounds a bit more cold than “sponsor.”
Here on my blog, I’m never going to do sponsors.
Instead, I’m just going to keep my little “friendlies” section.
They are people I KNOW. and people I LOVE. and whenever I tweet about them or write about them on my blog or share what they’re doing… it’s not because they paid me. It’s because I believe in them.
and because I believe in them, I want to take a minute and introduce you to the people I want you to know.
If you have paid any attention to my blog over the past 10 weeks, you’ll notice the name Mary-Keith has been popping up more and more often. I met Mary-Keith on Instagram two months ago, and we have become quick friends. Not just the comment on each other’s blogs kind of friends, but the non-stop texting maybe if I got married she’d be a bridesmaid kind of friend. She is sincere and honest and driven and I am honored to be her friend. Mary-Keith just gets me. She makes me feel #blessed.
Susannah and I were paired up for a blog swap awhile ago and when we realized that we live basically in the same city, we decided to meet up in real person. We have had coffee a few times since then, and I absolutely adore her. She is brilliant… one of those people who knows a lot but doesn’t throw it around like it is where her value lies. And now she is mom to one of the cutest little baby boys I have ever seen in my entire life. He is tiny and wonderful and he is lucky to have her as a mom. And Nate as a dad, though I’ve still yet to actually meet Nate so I am not sure if he is real or if Susannah has mad photoshopping skills. 🙂
Robyn is one of the first bloggers I immediately decided that I loved when I started branching out into the world of blogging. I am drawn to her sincerity. Not once have I felt like Robyn is trying to get people to believe she is something that she is not, and I appreciate that. She is a true gem in a world where so much seems styled and staged and I hope to one day be able to meet her.
When I was little I went to music camp. My arch nemesis was this guy named Aaron who was always better than me and won awards before I did and ugh. He’s grown up to be a perfectly decent human and then he married Meagan, who I have only encountered a few brief moments in real life, but I only hear great things about through the Sarahs – Aaron’s aunt and cousin, who are two of my closest and dearest friends. I wish I lived closer so we could walk around Camp together with coffees in our hands more often, but in my heart we’ve already done that a zillion times.
Endless Pursuit is a faith based multiple sclerosis non-profit run by my good friend Ryan. It’s weird how one day you don’t care about something at all and the next day you realize how strongly someone you care about is affected by it and suddenly you give all the craps in the world. That is me – MS – Ryan – my craps. You know how there are those “You have as many hours in the day as Beyonce” mugs? I want one of those but substitute the name Beyonce for Ryan Thompson, because he also is a co-owner of Pines, my favorite coffee place (and that is how I met Ryan). All that and he still makes time to engage in deep emoji conversations with me. The one thing he hasn’t made time to do is watch Catfish, even after I made him a list of the 5 best episodes. Can you all do me a solid and help me convince him that watching Catfish is time well spent? Thanks.
