Okay guys, I just realized something completely crazy. I’ve blogged for five whole Octobers!! Okay, this October isn’t quite done yet, but you get the picture.. I mean, FIVE! I still feel so new to this blog world, and it feels like I’ve been blogging for like two years. But I’ve actually been blogging almost one fifth of my life. WOW! It’s so crazy to think about it like that. Where has all the time flown? That question intregued me, so I took a look back in my archive and checked what I did all the other Octobers. Since Thursday is the official throwback day, I thought I’d share it with you guys as well, starting at the beginning.

October 2010

This October was spent in my beloved New York. I had lived there a month already, and started to feel so at home in the city that never sleeps. It was one of the best months of my life, and I learned so much both about myself and about the world. It sounds cheesy, but I feel like October 2010 really shaped me as a person. I spent my days exploring the city by day, and having fun with new friends at night. I also enjoyed lots of nights to myself, where I just walked for hours and hours around in the city with music in my ears, especially along the Hudson River. I would seriously go out at 8am in the morning and get home around midnight every day, and just enjoyed every single minute of my time in New York. This was my second month of blogging, and it grew so fast. That month one of the highlights was being featured in a Norwegian fashion magazine recommending my blog, even though I had just been blogging for one month! I was also nominated for having the most inspiring blog of the year at Vixen Blog Awards, after only a month. I was so proud of myself, and also completely confused about my sudden role as a ‘blogger’. It just felt too weird, but I loved every second of it. 

October 2011

I had to giggle when I looked through this month, because I had so many weird posts that I would never post today, and the quality of most of the photos was so bad. Still, I think there’s something really authentic and real about it when looking back, and I can really see myself in the texts I wrote. That makes me happy, because it shows that I’ve really stayed true to myself all through my blog journey, and my personality is still the same. Other than that, my boyfriend and I had just moved into our house, and I was really into shabby chic back then, hah. I took most of my outfit pictures in front of bushes in my garden, thank God that has changed. 

October 2012

October of 2012 was a great month. I had just gotten back from a trip to South Africa, and I came home with so many memories, both fun memories of all the stuff my bestie Tonje and I did down there, but also deeper memories like seeing a world so incredibly different from what I was used to back home. I took the memories with me into October, which made the whole month great. I tried the ombre look which you can see in the first picture, and in that picture I think it looks great. I’m almost tempted to do it again! But in reality, the shade was much colder and almost looked grey, the flash somehow changed the tone a bit. So I remember feeling super ugly, hah. And of course, the biggest event of October 2012: I pursued my dream of making my own clothes, and headed back to New York City to attend a bootcamp sewing class. It was such an incredible experience! In five days I had made two bags and one skirt, and it felt so good to learn something new that I’d been wanting to learn for so long. The day I was supposed to go home, hurricane ‘Sandy’ hit NY with full speed, so I was stuck in my hotel room for two days with no electricity and I was not allowed to go out. Well, now I’ve experienced that too! 

October 2013

Something funny that I didn’t realize before now, is that exactly one year after making my very first makeup bag, my very own designed CathInTheCity for MOO makeup bag was launched in stores nation wide! And it seriously looks a lot like the one I had made one year ago! Talk about dreams coming true.. This wouldn’t have happened unless I took the chance and went to NY to attend the sewing class, because it was those posts that made MOO contact me for a collaboration. It goes to show that following your dreams pays off!! Always remember that. Other than that, the entire month of October 2013 was spent working my ass off to make the best vintage fashion show ever for the United Nations association. I was the boss for the whole shebang, and I really learned a lot about leadership, how to deal with people you work with, how to organize and set up a huge event, and so much more. It was seriously hard work, in addition to setting everything up I styled all of the models with clothes from every vintage store in Bergen. I ended up getting the most incredible letter of recommendation from the UN, I’ve never seen so many superlatives on one piece of paper ever. So that is definitely something I’ll take with me into the future when I’ll apply for my first job after getting my marketing degree. 

October 2014

We’re only mid-October, but I thought it would be fun to include some sentences from this month as well, to see the difference from the other years. One thing I can say is that I’m more serious, professional and aware of the future now than I’ve been the previous years. Doing blogging as a job gives you so much freedom to do whatever you want, travel where ever you want, buy whatever you want (within reason, of course).. The previous years I’ve just enjoyed all the perks of being a blogger, and I’ve done projects and worked with a lot of different people which can give me an advantage in the future, so I don’t regret it.. But now, as you all know, I’m a student, which must be the biggest difference. But I also work in a very different way than before. Earlier I would say yes to so much, even though I was uncomfortable. I was a people pleaser, and I thought it was such an honor to be asked to do stuff, even though I secretly didn’t want to. Now I’m more aware of the fact that it’s all just marketing, and different companies don’t invite me to collaborate with them to be nice to me, but to make money. Thinking about it that way makes it so much easier to only say yes to the things I really want to say yes to, and I don’t even think twice when declining collaboration proposals. I’m more secure in myself, and I feel that I’ve grown so much. That’s not so weird considering this is my fifth year of blogging! 

Puh, this ended up being a long post, but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. One of the biggest perks of having a blog is that you can go through the archives and read a diary of what you’ve been up to years ago. Fun! Now I’m off to the hair dresser, and who knows, maybe I’ll go for the ombre look from 2012 again♥