Hello friends!

First of all, thank you for being here. I know you could be doing probably a million other things right now, but you're here, reading this post on my website. And I'm super grateful for that.

If you don't know me in real life, my name is Mercedes - but I actually go by Cede usually (pronounced like 'Sadie' but spelled like it's from Mercedes. I know, it's complicated. You can take it up with my parents). At this point, I assume you've come to understand that this is a website where I share and (fingers crossed) sell my handmade jewelry. If you haven't figured that out yet - stop what you're doing and look around the site! There's lots of jewelry, I'm sure at least one piece will catch your eye :)

Okay great, you're back! I hope you found something you like! Anyway, this section of the website is a blog. You know when you make a website, you use a template, and there are always premade sections? There's the home page, the about me page, and there's ALWAYS a blog page. I actually deleted it immediately, thinking to myself "I will never ever use this section. I'm selling jewelry, not blogging!" But then, after a while, I decided to bring it back. Something inside of me actually got a little excited to blog again.

About 10 years ago, I started a blog. It was called Mercedes in the Making (I can't even begin to tell you how clever I felt after making up that title) and it last for about five years. I was going through A LOT of things in my life at the time and I thought that sharing my thoughts in an organized fashion with strangers on the internet would be helpful. Actually, it was really helpful. I blogged about my work, my relationships, my family, my sexual orientation (what a roller coaster ride that was for all of us!), my eating disorder recovery, and a variety of other things that popped into my 22 year old brain at the time. But then my life just got busy and the blog was deprioritized. Eventually my domain expired, I didn't renew my site, and the blog was no more. But I'm back! And I can't wait to write again :)

To be totally honest with you all, I'm not entirely sure what I will use this blog section for. We probably won't be talking about sexuality and workout plans anymore, but I'm not willing to write anything off completely yet. I haven't decided if this will be strictly jewelry related, life related, or a little mix of both. I'm leaning toward the mix. Regardless, I can't wait to share little snippets of life with you. I'm in a new decade (hello 30s!), my life has changed drastically in the last 10 years, and I'm really loving how things are going.

Thanks again for stopping by, and we'll chat again soon.