Behind the Scenes, As It Were in June

On a quiet rainy afternoon in June, with Nina Simone in the background, I snapped these photos around the mypiggywiggy shop and studio. I hugged the Taters. I walked around barefoot. I saw a couple gals try to come into the shop wearing floral print masks (my kind of gals!) and let them know we are probably reopening sometime in August. It's been a quiet week spent much in reflection.

I'm taking it one day at a time. There really is no other option these days. I will continue to share things of beauty, continue to hopefully inspire you to live the life you have always imagined as I ardently try to do the same.

It has been about a week (or more? I don't know what day it is ever these days) since I decided to stop checking and posting on social media and the feelings of disconnectedness I felt from Instagram for over a year now are now even more evident. 

The quiet and stillness have been really lovely actually. Without all the noise and distractions I have actually had a lot more time to think, to learn, to write, to dream... 

The quiet and stillness has allowed me more space to think and dream up of new articles and content I want to write and create for mypiggywiggy without the pressure of what photo should I post so it gets a lot of likes. Without the pressure of algorithms. I guess what I'm trying to say is I miss blogging, I miss documenting my life through the lens of mypiggywiggy in all it's small and big moments. I miss taking lots of photos and sharing lots of photos instead of just one photo in a specific format limited by 2,200 characters (that's the Instagram caption limit by the way, I googled it). 

I've found myself less and less inclined to check my phone throughout the day. I was spending so much time on it and I have to wonder how much more productive of a human being could I have been without it. 

From a work perspective, I usually create content solely for social media that never really felt fleshed out because of the limitations of the Instagram platform. There has always been a pressure to perform on Instagram, a small mental checklist I have so I know a post will be seen and liked. If you're wondering why the mypiggywiggy instagram feed looks so concise and put together it's because I'm kind of OCD about it and would spend way too much time in my day agonizing over something that really is so trivial. 

I have so many different ideas that I wanted to start for mypiggywiggy, but I've been going about it wrong. I'm just showing up on the surface level. But not shallow. OK, I think and explain better in metaphors, so I'm going to explain what I mean.

Let's say content is an iceberg. The part poking out of the water, that's what I share on Instagram. But then I get so caught up in life and general running my business, that I never actually create any other substantial content below the surface. Does that make sense? So it's like all these pseudo icebergs floating around on Instagram.

I want to create inspiring, beautiful, informative, enriching, and intentional content and I will do so in this space (I'm really very excited about this you guys!) and will be using social media more as a "middle man" I suppose. A way to post the tip of the iceberg and you'll know there's more to be read and seen when you come visit the AV journal.

Though it should be said, because I am corny, that my aim is never to sink thine ship with AV icebergs.

I hope you are doing well friends. In choosing to disconnect from social media, I am finding I am connecting back with myself, back with my purpose, and falling back in love with all the different parts of owning and running mypiggywiggy, this home online that I have built over the past decade.