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I can't believe I've had this YouTube channel for one year! Celebrate my YouTube channel's one year anniversary with me, hear more about my story and what's to come this next year.
✨GIVEAWAY CLOSED✨
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• This video is not made for kids.
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0:00
We are celebrating today. My YouTube channel is one year old today and I
0:07
thought this would be fun to share this milestone with you. In honor of this
0:16
anniversary I wanted to chat with you and just share a little bit of my story
0:21
and the background of this journey for me. And I have a couple of fun little
0:26
prizes I want to give to one of you who have supported me this year. You won't
0:31
want to miss this. I honestly can't even believe it's been a year. I can't believe
0:40
I've had a YouTube channel for a year. It wasn't long before that that I even
0:47
realized that homeschool mom YouTube channels were a thing. I honestly didn't
0:52
even know homeschool moms watched YouTube because I didn't really watch YouTube that much. I was a blogger. Well I am a blogger and I kind of hung out in
1:03
that space in the writing end of things creating printable products, online unit
1:08
studies, and things like that. So I never even thought about having a YouTube
1:13
channel as a possibility. But then last February I was invited to a conference
1:18
for a company I am an affiliate for, a homeschool company. And while I was there
1:22
I met some homeschool moms who were YouTubers. And since all I really knew
1:27
was blogging I didn't even really understand what they did or what being a
1:32
homeschool YouTuber meant. And I will say that I had the thought I could never do
1:38
that because I was not a fan of cameras or being in video. I had zero interest in
1:45
any of that really because for one I'm pretty introverted and two I didn't
1:51
understand how all the back-end pieces of it worked and it felt really
1:54
overwhelming to think about. I mean I have run ecommerce shops for years and
2:00
I never branched into video marketing for this reason. I didn't know how to go
2:04
live on social media, create video reels, anything like that. It all scared me. That
2:09
being said I was a little bit intrigued when I met these ladies at the conference. That conference was very inspiring. There were things about that
2:17
trip in general that pushed me out of my comfort zone and I absolutely loved
2:22
getting to meet some new people within this industry that I work in. So anyway I
2:27
absolutely hooked up their channels, these women that I met, and I was really
2:33
impressed. Not simply with them, although they are amazing at what they do, but I
2:37
was surprised at how much I was opening up to the creative side of being a
2:44
YouTuber. I loved realizing that YouTube was a great place to not only build a
2:50
community but to help reach more people that wanted to learn things about
2:54
homeschooling because I love sharing about homeschooling and I think everyone should be doing it. I started to learn a little bit more about video editing and
3:02
all the back-end stuff which the creative part of me really loved. My
3:06
husband thankfully has always been my biggest fan. Hi Josh! And he helped show
3:12
me how to actually do really simple things like how to take a video on my
3:16
phone and then get it from my phone to my computer. Yeah I have learned a lot of
3:21
pretty amazing skills this past year. So anyway soon after one of my blogging
3:30
jobs requested a video component for part of the advertising package and I
3:35
said sure why not? To be honest I was scared out of my mind but sometimes you
3:40
just have to do things scared because if you don't take that first step and give
3:45
it a try you're not gonna grow. If you had told me last year that I would have
3:49
a YouTube channel at this point I would have told you no way but it's funny how
3:54
you never know where the Lord will lead you and you would think by now that I
3:59
would know that because that's been life for the past eight or nine years. You
4:03
had asked me ten years ago what I thought I would be doing ten years later. I would have told you that I would still be teaching high school math in a public
4:11
school. That's what I thought I would be doing for the rest of my life honestly
4:14
But God he is so faithful. Before I even committed my life to him he had a plan
4:21
for me. A plan that I never could have dreamed or imagined. This plan involved
4:26
me starting my own business an online jewelry business of all things and then
4:31
becoming successful enough to quit my teaching job. But he was just getting
4:35
started. While I worked my business from home and sent my kids to daycare because
4:40
I loved my kids but never could see myself as being a stay-at-home mom, God
4:45
was drawing me near to him through my best friend and a local Bible study. My
4:49
best friend who I might add homeschooled her kids and who I thought was insane
4:53
but God used her to reveal himself to me. He used the next couple of years to
4:58
transform my heart and begin to work on my husband who was an atheist at the
5:03
time. Those were a couple of really hard years but he is faithful. And that one
5:09
thing that I really thought I would never do become a stay-at-home mom. God
5:12
said that's exactly what you're gonna do and I've got something even better. You are going to homeschool your kids and you're gonna love it. You're gonna love
5:20
this time with your family more than anything. Even though it's going to be hard, I will be with you and I will help you. And he certainly has been. And
5:28
somehow here I am. Far from teaching high school math in a public school, running
5:33
homeschool blogs, and a YouTube channel. It's crazy. But you know what I love so
5:39
much about this? It's the way I have seen God work in my life through all of this
5:43
How he has directed my path in a way I could not have envisioned on my own. When
5:48
I was growing up, I followed the path. You know, I was a good student. I got good
5:54
grades because I knew I needed to go to college and get a job even though I had
5:58
no clue what I wanted to do. But that's what you did. Picked a career, went to
6:02
school for it, and you did that for the rest of your life. Now I understand so
6:06
much more the value of learning, of a love of learning, and have lived out the
6:11
reality of taking that leap of faith and leaning into what God is calling you to
6:15
do, even if it scares you, even if you have no idea how you're gonna do it on
6:19
your own. I've learned that I'm not alone. And I love, love, love that I can now
6:25
teach this to my kids. I can teach them that you don't have to be scared about
6:28
picking the wrong career when you're 18. The career you might end up with might
6:33
not even exist right now. You don't have to worry that you don't have it all figured out when you're in high school because God has it all figured out. And
6:40
if you love learning, dig into what you're passionate about, and keep growing in your relationship with the Lord, trusting in his provision and his
6:46
sovereignty, you're gonna be okay. I have had an absolute blast with YouTube this
6:51
past year. Honestly, I have loved learning all the skills that come with putting
6:55
videos together. And I love the new community I found online, both with other
7:00
YouTube moms and of course you guys, my subscribers. My first few videos were
7:04
terrible. Honestly, if you haven't watched them, don't. And if you have been here
7:09
from the beginning, I'm so thankful you've stuck around. I was really, really
7:13
nervous to publish that first video. It's super scary to put yourself out
7:17
there. It's one thing to blog and write articles online, but a video felt like a
7:22
whole new ballgame. The fact that it's been a year, all the glory goes to God
7:26
He's a creator and we are made in his image. So to be able to grow in this
7:30
skill and be able to create lovely things that, you know, encourage content
7:34
that encourages and helps or inspires other people is just so much fun for me
7:39
right now. I hope that can be an encouragement for you. Let this year be
7:44
the year that you try that thing that scares you, whatever it is. What is the
7:47
one thing that you have felt nagging on your heart that you really wish you
7:51
could do, that you want to do, but fear is holding you back. Take that first step
7:55
this year. You have to start somewhere, whether it's starting your own YouTube channel or whatever the hobby is. Start today. Trust me, in no time at all, an
8:03
entire year is gonna go by and you'll either be celebrating an anniversary or
8:07
not. Okay, let's wrap this party up. The last thing I want to talk about are my
8:14
plans for this channel in this next year. I'm not really sure I have a plan. I
8:19
suppose some of the things I want to do on this channel are certainly more video
8:23
sharing our homeschool, obviously, what curriculum are we using, what we're loving, how we go about implementing certain things. My kids are going to be
8:31
in seventh grade, sixth grade, and kindergarten in the fall. So those grades
8:36
are what we'll kind of be focusing on. I'd love to do a few more vlogging style
8:40
videos. Those are really fun to make, even though they don't seem to get quite as
8:45
many views, but I love to make them, so why not? For my own personal growth
8:49
though, I'd love to learn more editing techniques and learn more about that
8:54
style of filming and video making, so we'll see. They will still be mostly
8:58
homeschool related vlog style videos. I want to make videos that I enjoy. I want
9:03
you to enjoy them too, obviously, but for me, homeschooling, fitness, and faith are
9:09
big parts of my life, so I will typically be focused on that type of content
9:14
around here. I've got a few more collaborations lined up. I love
9:18
collaborating with other moms here on YouTube. Those are always fun, and I have
9:22
a few more giveaways in mind as well. In fact, since we are celebrating today, I
9:26
wanted to do a small giveaway for you. This channel wouldn't exist without you
9:32
guys after all, so this is just something very small to show my appreciation. I
9:38
have just a couple of things here that I love, and I'm going to be mailing them to
9:44
whoever wins this giveaway, so here is what you can win. Again, these are just
9:50
really small things that I love that I thought would be fun to give away. The
9:54
first thing I have is this. What is this? This is a magnet. I have one of these on
10:01
my fridge at home, and it is a weekly meal planning board and a shopping list
10:07
I use this to help me organize what we're going to be eating for our meals
10:12
during the week. I mainly just use it for dinner, but it really helps me to kind of
10:18
plan out and just stay organized, so there's a space for each day of the week
10:24
I will write in what we are going to have for dinner that day, what I plan for
10:28
dinner, and then there's a shopping list on this side where either I can jot
10:32
notes down. Sometimes I will just write out different ideas for meals or things
10:36
that we have stocked in our pantry, whatever, and this is actually perforated
10:41
so you can tear off the little shopping list side. I don't know who uses paper
10:46
shopping lists in this store anymore. I know I typically use my phone, but I do
10:50
like to write things down, and it's nice for other family members to be able to
10:54
write things down too. So this is really fun. This is one of the items that you
10:58
will get as part of the giveaway. Okay, next up, you have heard me talk about
11:02
this book before. This book, I'm not exaggerating when I say it changed my
11:09
life. It really did. Okay, so here it is. This is Education, Does God Have an
11:15
Opinion by Israel Wayne. When I went to my very first homeschooling convention
11:21
right when we, I knew I had been called to homeschool, and I was trying to wrap
11:26
my brain around it, figure it all out. I went to this convention. It was teach
11:31
them diligently, and that year it was in Nashville, and it just blew me away. I
11:36
had, I learned so much about homeschooling there, heard so many amazing speakers, and as at that time I was growing in my relationship with the
11:45
Lord, and hearing some of the godly men and women speak life into this calling
11:53
to homeschool. Israel Wayne in particular had a couple of amazing sessions where
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he looked at scripture, and he looked to the Bible to see what does the Bible
12:03
have to say about education? What does God have to say about it? Does he have
12:07
anything to say about it? And I left there with like three of his books, and
12:11
this was one of them. I pretty much read the whole thing almost on the way home
12:15
There's just so much good stuff in here. I don't care whether you've been
12:19
homeschooling for years, or if you are a brand-new homeschool mom, or you're a mom
12:26
that is thinking about homeschooling, I think you should read this book. A lot of
12:31
times as Christians we don't give a second thought as to what God has to say
12:35
about education. We just do what we grew up knowing what people did, and it was
12:42
really eye-opening, and I'm just really excited to gift this to someone. Even if
12:47
you win it, and you have read it before, I'm sure there is somebody that you can
12:52
gift it to. So this is going in the giveaway too. Okay there's two more
12:56
things. Pens. All right I love my online stuff, my online planners, but I love my
13:03
paper planners too. I use these all the time. These are friction erasable and
13:09
refillable pens. They're in a couple of different pretty colors, and I found
13:14
they're polka dotted. I thought they were really cute. So these are going in the
13:20
giveaway as well. I don't know why I'm holding them so close to the camera. You guys can clearly see what these are. Sorry about that, but there you go. And
13:28
finally, if you know me, you know one of my favorite things is chocolate. So I've
13:36
got a nice big bag of chocolate, irresistibly smooth milk chocolate truffles here that are going in the prize package. So there you go. Chocolate
13:47
pens, a book, and the meal planning thing for your fridge. That is what is in the
13:54
giveaway. All right if you want to enter, here's what you have to do. First, make
13:59
sure you are subscribed to my channel, like this video, and then leave a
14:02
comment below. You can leave a comment about anything, maybe just saying hi
14:06
maybe sharing which video of mine you've liked the most, what you want to see in
14:10
the future, what resonated most with you today, whatever. Just leave a comment
14:15
Subscribe, like, leave a comment. I will close comments in a week and draw a
14:20
winner then. I really can't wait to send these goodies to someone, so make sure
14:25
you enter. And I do have a couple of milestones slash goals that I would love
14:31
to reach. I will do another giveaway when my channel hits 3,000 subscribers. I am
14:35
already looking forward to that and I would love it if you would consider sharing this video or my channel with a friend you think might enjoy it. Thank
14:43
you so much for watching this today. If you've watched any of my videos this
14:46
past year, thank you. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me and I'm
14:52
excited for year two here on YouTube. Don't forget to like, comment, and
14:56
subscribe to get in on the giveaway. I will see you next time
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