What I've Learnt In Two Years Of Blogging

Happy Tuesday! I hope you've all had a lovely weekend, whatever you did! I spent mine taking photographs for my blog and binge watching Hemlock Grove (all because I'm a little obsessed with Bill Skarsgard after watching the new IT movie at the cinema. Sorry Alexander!). I was supposed to have today's post up much sooner but so many things have gotten in the way; so here it finally is! It was my 2nd bloggiversary on the 10th of this month and if you didn't catch my post on the day, you can see it here. It's been a wonderful journey of new friendships and self-discovery, and I've certainly learnt a few things along the way about blogging and the blogger community. I wanted to share them with you guys. I hope you enjoy reading!

1. Blog about whatever you want! You don't need to stick to a particular theme; people will come back if your personality shrines through in your words! Sure, there are lots of niche blogs that are dedicated to specific interests or hobbies, like beauty blogs or film review blogs, but it's up to you what you share on your own little corner of the internet :)

2. Getting involved in twitter chats is really important for making new friends and networing your blog. There are so many chats all run by different groups and each chat usually as a different topic. There's twitter chats going on every day of the week, and I definitely recommend getting involved, whether you're a blogger or just enjoy reading blogs. (Are you following me over on twitter yet?)

3. A good photo editing website will become your new best friend!

4. Even if you are anxious about posting something personal on your blog (Believe me, I understand. I get anxious before posting anything and everything!), they are a great way for you to connect with your readers and can be really helpful for others who might feel the same/have had similar experiences to you. The same goes for sharing posts about more controversial  or taboo topics, you can use your platform to help get people talking or at least thinking about those topics and that's a great thing!

5. If you can't blog, don't. Don't force yourself. You do you! Take a break when you need to and don't feel pressured to get content created if you are feeling ill or tired or if your mood is low, whatever the reason is, put your well-being first and take all the time you need. People will be there when you come back; they'll understand. 

6. Comparing yourself and your blog to others will be your nemesis! It's important though to remember that we are all unique in our own way and your blog is a little piece of you, so it's okay to be different because there will always be kindred spirits who relate to you and love the same things you do, and therefore will enjoy readng your content. I know it's tough, but don't let numbers and stats make you feel bad. You are awesome and so is your blog!

7.  On your blogging journey, you will master the art of getting into awkward positions to do the photography for your posts, haha! Tip: don't make the same mistakes that I do, standing on the edge of chairs or beds, falling off and injuring yourself! 

8. The blogger community has its negatives sometimes, but it also includes some of the most supportive and amazing people you'll ever meet! I have met so many fabulous people through blogging and there is always someone there when you need to vent, someone to cheer you up, someone you can relate to. This is especially the case for me when it comes to the spoonie blogger community. I don't feel alone in my struggles anymore and my fellow spoonies offer such a big support network. Thankyou guys ♥

9. Through blogging, I have personally learnt to have more faith in my writing abilities. I've always enjoyed writing. English was one of my favourite subjects at school and I have been a hobbyist writer of short stories since my teens, but my anxiety forever gets me feeling insecure about my work. I constantly manage to convince myself that what I've written sounds rubbish and that no one is going to enjoy it. However, sharing my posts has made me more confident in myself and this is a big thing for me! 

10. The most obvious thing that you learn is that blogging is very hard work! I had an idea that it would be difficult with all the various elements that go into each post, but you don't get just how much work is involved before you start your own blog. Each blog post requires hours of planning and preparation, proof-reading and spell-checking is a pain and taking photographs can be too! I wouldn't really change a thing though! I love blogging; the pros outweigh the 'cons' and I love looking back on my blog posts, reading through memories and sharing my interests with others :)

I definitely have a lot more to experience when it comes to blogging and I'm really looking forward to what the next few years will bring. I hope this post has been fun to read for my fellow bloggers who can relate to the things I've mentioned, and that it's been helpful for those of my readers who are considering starting their own blog. Here's to my 2nd year of blogging and many more years to come!

Thankyou for reading!

♥

 What's one lesson that you've learnt from blogging?

Or what have you learnt about blogging from blog reading?

New Template!

Hey everyone! Yayyy! I've finally been able to give my blog a well needed makeover, and what better time than surrounding Raiin Monkey's 2nd blogiversary! I've been wanting to create a new template with the professional blog & website design company, Pipdig, for a while and now that I'm in a better financial situation, I thought it was about time that I got to work on revamping my blog's look. I wanted to share with you all a quick post about my experiences using Pipdig and what my first impressions are of my newly purchased template :) I'd love to know what you all think too!

I am in love with the way my blog looks, so organised and with a lovely professional vibe. I literally can't stop looking at it, scrolling through it and admiring all the shiny new features! 

There were several reasons why I chose this template, and I think it was a great price! Pipdig offer a really easy set-up process, providing you with an instrution manual that talks you through how to install your new template onto blogger or wordpress, and how to make all of the changes you'd like to the fonts, sizes and colours of the various elements of the template to make it perfectly suit your blog. The instrutions include links to direct you to further information and tips, and I am definitely impressed with how much easier it was to sort everything out than I imagined it would be! 

The new features that I've been able to add on my blog have made me super happy! These include the Big This Week and Recent Posts 'widgets' (I'm not sure if that's what you'd call them, haha) which are one of the first features that you see when you browse my blog. As well as these, I have now been able to sort my posts into categories in a drop-down navigation bar and I love how easy this will make it to organise my posts, and for readers to find the posts they are more interested in! I really like the social media icons (I think they are really cute!) and the Related Posts that will appear at the end of my each of my blog posts. It saves me adding these manually, and they look much better now that they are showing photography rather than just a link. 

Pipdig have been very helpful, especially considering Hotmail/Outlook was down today (which has been incredibly annoying!) and they were able to re-direct my emails for me so I could still access my template. They answered my tweets quickly too! I am almost finished with everything I need to finalise my new template, however I still need to figure out how to add an Instagram feed along the footer of my blog. The generator that is supposed to help me create this through Pipdig doesn't seem to be working and keeps showing me an error page instead. I'm hoping I can get this sorted tomorrow! Despite this, I am happy with the overall service provided by Pipdig and I would totally recommend them if you're looking to re-style your blog :) 

So, what are your opinions on my little blog makeover? I'd love to hear what you like about it! 

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥

Which websites do you all use for your blog templates? 

Have you ever used Pipdig? What did you think?

Raiin Monkey Turns 2!

Hello lovelies! Today is my blog birthday, my blogiversary, Raiin Monkey is officially 2! This has come around so quickly, like wow! I am honestly a little surprised that I've gotten this far! I'm proud of me :) Blogging has been tough at times, especially when I'm having bad depression days, but it's also been amazing! It's been fantastic to get to know so many wonderful people, to make new friends with others who shared the same passions as me, who are always there to make me feel supported. It's been really carthartic too to be able to share whatever I want on my blog, even personal posts that make me extra anxious before I hit that publish button, and know that people will appreciate what I write and leave me the loveliest comments. You've all literally been my little rays of sunshine! I can't thank you enough guys for making my blogging journey so far such a wonderful experience ♥

For today's post, I wanted to share with you all the meaning behind my blog name. I'm sure some of you have wondered about the reason why I called my blog such a random-sounding name. I wanted something quirky, something that reflected my personality which my loved ones will tell you is bubbly but I'd say it's rather weird, haha! I've always found myself pondering how people come up with the names for their blogs, and sometimes it's more obvious the more you read their posts and get to know them better, other times it's not. I've never mentioned why I chose Raiin Monkey, so I've decided it's about time :)

Throughout my life, I've had a lot of nicknames given to me by my friends, all relating to some aspect of my personality or something funny that I've done. My friends at college called me Google, because I'm a geek and my brain stores such random facts about all sorts of topics! At high school, where I met my best friends and really came out of my shell around them. I felt like people appreciated my quirkiness and I met people for the first time who had the same interests as me. This is where I got the vast majority of my nicknames, and one of them was the inspiration for my blog name! I had developed a slight obsession with cute monkey-themed merchandrise when I was around 12. I just loved it! Good old claires accessories had brought out so many monkey things, and does anyone remember all that clothing with the cheeky monkey logo on? The brand Bubblegum also created an awesome cheeky monkey character. Writing about this is super nostaglic! 

Within my little friendship group, I was always the one making everyone laugh with my hyperness and all of the spontaneous things I'd do or come out with, so I guess my personality also seemed to mirror a cheeky monkey and when me and my best friend gave each other cute nicknames, mine always included monkey and hers bunny :) 13 year old us was adorable! Before I explain more, I need to talk about why rain is involved. Rain is my favourite weather, I have always loved listening to the sound of heavy rain when I'm indoors, I love the smell of the air after it's rain, I love the look of flowers and leaves covered in raindrops and I've loved splashing in puddles for as long as I can remember. Since I was young, I have really enjoyed being caught in the rain, being drenched and dancing around in the downpour. It just feels so refreshing! It always made my friends and family laugh because they would run for shelter and I would just stand there in the rain! Yes, I know I'm weird. 

So, where exactly did the nickname Rain Monkey come from? ... On day at school when I was around 15 years old, maybe 14, it was lunch time and my friends & I were hanging around in a usual corner of the school yard. We were busy chatting away, probably gossiping, fangirling over hot alternative guys or nerding out about something. Suddenly it started chucking it down and everyone retreated into the doorway of our science block building. We were watching the heavy rain through the glass panels in the old wooden doors, and someone made a comment about how they were surprised that I wasn't standing out in the rain. They knew me well! So, I dropped my backpack inside and went outside! I stood out looking at the ghostly almost empty yard and then back at my friends laughing at me. Seeing their faces and being the dork that I was, I decided to dance around and act like an idiot hahaha! I was eventually getting too drenched and I knew I still had two more lessons to go to, so I went back indoors to join my buddies. I stood there, my blazer soaked, my shirt wet through and water dripping from my hair down my face. I was giggled and I felt great, and that's when Jessica (my best friend) made a comment about me being a Rain Monkey, and so a new nickname was born!

I picked this name for my blog after writing a spider diagram annotating everything I could think of about myself and when I finally jotted down my memories and favourite things from my youth, I looked at Rain Monkey and it  just seem perfect! I seached online for websites with the same name and unfortunately there was a Chinese website using it and I knew that this would affect me when I one day came to set up a domain for my blog. I noted down several different ways I could spell it and the two I's in rain fit best in my opinion :) I love my blog name and I'm so happy with my decision! I hope you all enjoyed reading about it's origin :)

This post has ended up a lot longer than I thought it would be. Sorry if I've nagged guys! So, here's to another year of blogging and hopefully many more years to come! I'm hoping that my third year of being a blogger is filled with interesting opportunities and positive experiences. I'm hoping that I work through my anxiety enough to finally get some youtube content created too. We'll see; I'm looking forward to finding out how the year plays out, both with regards to my blog and in my personal life too. In celebration of my second blogiversary, I'll be re-vamping the look of my blog so keep your eyes peeled for that over the next few days! I will also be hosting a giveaway soon too! Thankyou to everyone for reading my posts, for following and chatting to me on social media and for leaving all your awesome comments. It means so much to me :) 

 Thankyou for reading!

 ♥

 I'd love to few about what you like about my blog? 

Do you have a favourite post of mine? 

You can check out my 1st bloggiversary post here if you like!