I’m proud to mark my blog’s second anniversary. It feels like a milestone — quieter than a party but meaningful nonetheless. To celebrate, I’m sharing a candid, six-part reflection on the journey from my first tentative post to this second birthday, and what I’ve learned about blogging, creativity, and building a new career from a personal project.
It’s My Party…
For this anniversary I’ve written a personal series tracing the highs and lows of the last two years. These posts cover the early uncertainty, the slow progress, the mistakes, and the moments that made it worthwhile. Above all, they document how a small creative habit turned into something that reshaped my work and life.
Happy Birthday, Dear Oeufs.
The blog turned two on Sunday. I began on 31 July 2014 with a nervous “Errr, hello world?” post that received only about a dozen views — probably mostly bots. That humble start feels distant now, not because time flew, but because so much has changed. Two years brought major developments, both in my life and in who I am. Reflecting on that growth, I feel remarkably different from the person who pressed publish back in 2014.
Fact 1. Number of houses I’ve lived in since starting my blog: 3 today, rising to 4 in 10 days time.
(All in London; NW1, N19, KT5 & E7, in case you’re interested).
The Frustration of Blogging.
My first blogiversary passed almost unnoticed. I could say I forgot, but more honestly I felt a creeping frustration. Blogging can be hard and occasionally disappointing, especially at the start. I launched the blog as a hobby — a place to vent creative frustrations and explore food. I aimed to post weekly but life often got in the way. Running a small business meant long days and irregular hours, and balancing a relationship and other commitments left little consistent time for writing, photography, recipe testing, and editing.
Producing high-quality recipes, photographing them, and writing engaging posts takes far more time than it appears. The early lack of traction and slow audience growth can be demoralising when you’re investing real effort into every post.
Fact 2. I’ve published 140 blog posts in two years, more than 75% are recipes.
The Joy of Blog.
Despite the frustrations, I discovered how enjoyable blogging can be. I loved the process: exploring new recipes, photographing food with flour and oil on my hands, and then shaping words and images until they felt right. That kind of quiet satisfaction made the early disappointments harder to make sense of.
Two factors explained much of my initial unease. One was comparison — measuring my progress against others. The other was monetisation: the persistent pressure to turn a hobby into income. I’m not opposed to commercial endeavours; in fact I support entrepreneurial creativity. But the typical monetisation messaging can shift focus away from craft and towards revenue, which often feels like the wrong starting point for a new blogger.
Fact 3. Likes don’t equal happiness. They’re just the tequila slammers of the blogging world.
Monetise! Monetise! Monetise!
As a newcomer, the internet seemed saturated with advice on how to monetise a blog — courses, affiliate schemes, ad networks, eBooks, and step-by-step business blueprints. That volume created pressure: if others were earning, why wasn’t I? Low views and sparse social engagement left me disheartened. Yet these early months helped me form clearer opinions about what I wanted my blog to be.
I decided early on against plastering the site with adverts. I wanted my blog to showcase the content I create, not interrupt it with external promotions. That choice came from an instinctive belief that my blog should remain a personal space first, even if that meant a slower path to income.
Over time I also realised that the standard monetisation routes didn’t fit my goals. Blogging meant something different to me, and I wanted to explore alternative ways to make the project sustainable without compromising its character. The challenge was discovering what that alternative path would look like.