Hey everyone!

I try to create the kind of blog I’d want to spend time checking out. I visit a ton of blogs (and sign up for their newsletters so I don’t miss anything… which reminds me, I need to start a newsletter…) and actively try to think of ways to make mine better. But one thing I’ve learned from writing books is that I need to come first. It sounds counter-intuitive, but they always say to write a book you want to read. So here is the kind of post I’d LOVE to see on somebody’s blog.

Flashback Five. Five pics from my collection of thousands and thousands of photos I’ve taken in the last fifteen years. I know I love looking at before and afters, and ‘glo ups‘ and watching how people’s style, eyebrows, and lives have evolved over the years. It’s fascinating to me!

So here’s mine! Five random pics from 2004 to now.

(1) 2005. Me at 15, adding to the graffiti at our skate park in New York. I loved those embroidered jeans. And I embarrassingly just remember tagging my own name… Cool, dude. Original. Braces and hair I’d just started dyeing!

(2) 2009. This is basically one of my favorite pictures of my old baby dog Bewee I’ve ever taken. I thought she was cold so I put her in a hoodie. She looks so natural!! I miss her. English Bull Terriers have the biggest personalities.

(3) 2013. The first year of Pumpkin Mania at my house. We finally had a Trader Joe’s, and the indifferent universe finally realized my prayers of pumpkin everything should be answered. Scott and I were working so hard to get ALL of our goods in one shot…

(4) 2007. Middle Fingers = Height of coolness in high school. This was at Kalaheo HS, my first semester as the new girl. I definitely would have posted this to MySpace and gotten in trouble for all the fingers. Where was our teacher, btw…?

(5) 2011. So long ago! This was back when I was a brunette and had bangs. What a time to be alive. Scott and me in my old room in Austin. Why don’t we take more photobooth photos anymore? Kelly Kapoor was right. Everyone looks better in photobooth.

I hope this lil collection of TBTs catches on for other bloggers!!

I’d love to see the candids and old school days when everyone was less photoshopped, careful, and posed to perfection online (that Kylie Jenner world we’re all living in). Now we all tend to post ONE photo from an event- I’m guilty of this, too. I could take forty great pictures, and one from the day will make it to my Instagram. I’ve even noticed when people get their engagement photos back, they have dozens of incredible, posed, PAID FOR photos, and only share one or two on social media.

It’s the perfection and restraint veneer of 2017.

When I was in high school, I took hundreds of photos of my friends doing nothing and posted them like they were important, for all to see forever (not just on Snapchat). Times sure have changed. Now get off my lawn!

💗 Show me your best flashback five! 💗

-Taylor