February 15, 2021 was Fashion Schlub’s 5-year anniversary. Woohoo. I think I’m a little surprised I’m still here doing this five years later.

The very first post explained what the heck a Fashion Schlub was…and why I was writing this blog at all.

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The most popular post of that first year was “Gwynnie Bee: It’s Not Just a Clothing Rental Service, It’s An Adventure.” If you’ve been around awhile you certainly have heard me talk about Gwynnie Bee. It was a huge part of my style evolution in the 2010’s.

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And I was going along gangbusters and then 2017 hit. And cancer. And while I never gave blogging up entirely (thank goodness for Week in Review!) creating content certainly took a back seat to other things.

The most popular (?) post of that year was “Well, THIS Happened” about my experience with losing my hair due to chemo and having my head shaved. Oofah.

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That was a rough time and I have always appreciated and will never forget the support and love I got from y’all.

You’d think “well, ANYTHING would have to be better than THAT year,” and yet….

2018 was no picnic. I was secretly broken up with and my dog died 🙁  I was left with two giant holes in my life and heart. Fortunately, I had the blog to occupy my mind and time.

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In 2019 my life was thrown into upheaval again when I had to move (seven moves in ten years). Again, the blog gave me a sense of steadiness, reliability. There were times I felt like IT really kept ME going. It…and all of you.

The most popular post of that year was Farewell, My Love, the one where I broke up with sugar (though we do still have illicit rendezvous from time to time). Another highly-viewed post that year was Angry At Asos, the one where ASOS broke up with me (the nerve).

Boy, y’all really like the ones where Things Leave My Life: men, dogs, hair, sweet sweet sugar, online clothing retailers. I need to think about that one 🙂

Then 2020. Well, we all know how THAT year went. EVERYONE’S lives were thrown into upheaval. And folks hunkered down at home baking banana and sourdough bread, whipping up dalgona coffee, and learning TikTok dances. Fittingly, the most popular post of the year was The Best & Easiest Coffee Milkshake. We all wanted to eat and drink (and dance) our anxiety away.

Always interesting to me that the most highly-viewed posts are ones that have NOTHING to do with style, fashion, plus-size, etc. Am I totally missing my calling?? I will start working on “The One Where I Give Up All My Worldly Possessions and Live in a Cardboard Box” toot suite.

Towards the end of 2020 and into 2021 I spent some time working with a website consultant and she is responsible for the blog re-design. There may be some minor tweaking ahead, but overall, what do you think? Good and bad? I’m still working on behind-the-scenes stuff.  And all that sorta shook me loose from the blog a bit. I’m still working on melding her insights and advice into my own voice on here. It’s a Process.

But I will wish to myself, one of my favorite sayings of the past year: You’re doing great. Keep going.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Thanks for taking the ride with me.