Mandy's Note: BHS Wrap-Up and Chit Chat

Hi! As I usually do at the end of my month-long promotions, I wanted to hop on and chat with you for a minute (by minute I mean an hour). Yesterday we ended our second annual Black History Spotlight series, and even though a great majority of the posts were late, I'm still proud of the series overall. Now as for why those posts were late--February was a hectic ass month for me. I wasn't initially expecting it to be so busy, which is why it caught me off guard, but once that snowball started rolling I couldn't stop it. Here we go. My birthday was two days before BHS started, so that halted some of my prep work. I had a meeting with my mentor the afternoon of the 1st, which took me away for the afternoon, so I only had the 31st to prep anything. That first weekend of the month I was still trying to fill in a few missing spots because my initial entrants didn't work out so that caused a bit of a snag, as did Super Bowl, which was on the 5th. But the following week is when the snowball started to roll. The 7th was my niece's birthday, I had to go to court on the 8th, I was busy a lot of the following day, which was also my uncle's birthday. I was busy Saturday the 11th making my niece's tutu for her birthday party, which was the following day. 

I was busy all day Sunday with the party and trying to avoid falling out with a sinus infection I'd been fighting off. I clearly failed, so Monday through Thursday I was barely even coherent. Thursday through Saturday I was having some personal issues at home, and Sunday my mom went into the hospital for a surgery that was supposed to take place on Thursday. I took over the house and Monday was hectic having to get everyone off to school, check on my mom, get some sleep, clean and fix dinner. Monday I also ended up getting a 2nd degree burn on my arm so I was tied up with that for a bit, which threw off the rest of my schedule. I went up to the hospital Tuesday morning because my mom's doctor recommended a smaller procedure so I wanted to be there when she came out of the OR and I ended up staying all day because her doctor decided to release her. Wednesday and some of Thursday I was mainly focused on catching up on the sleep I'd missed while my mom was in the hospital, and personal (then health) issues caught up with me again from last Friday to Sunday. Monday and Tuesday (when I'm writing this) were more or less fine, but by the time you read this on Wednesday I'll be at jury duty, hoping I get disqualified because I'm busy during March too and don't have time to sit on a jury for days. lol (Update: Sat in the jury assembly room for two hours this morning then got released. They never even used us. LOL) But between the times I've mentioned, I was working on posts pretty much non-stop, for both here and RRNT. I can promise you that the delays in posts weren't from me just being a lazy asshole. Believe it or not, that was actually the abbreviated version of my month. So I wasn't able to put my full effort or dedicate a ton of time to my BHS posts, which is why the schedule may have looked so clusterf*ck on your end if you were following my social media. That wasn't the intention, but then again, it never is when I get behind on month-long promotions. 

Regardless of the busted ass schedule though, I really do hope you enjoyed this year's series. I had a ton of fun learning about this year's entrants and even though I wasn't able to roll out everything for BHS that I would have liked to, I'm still pleased with the end result. I have to admit, finding entrants for the Art and Fashion Spotlight, despite it being one of my favorite categories to learn about, was the hardest for me. Because the slope was so slippery for Black designers back in the day, tons of them never got their due. As a result, there aren't a ton of designers from the time periods I start looking in. I think I'd like to eventually integrate more modern-day designers into my BHS series, but keeping to the theme of ATV, I wanted to focus on the pioneers of yesteryear first and foremost. 

But what did you think about this year's series, busted ass schedule aside? Did you learn about anyone new this month? I added a new section to this year's BHS by adding a "Quote of the Day," which I wanted to add last year but because I came up with it at the last minute I didn't give myself enough time to properly execute it. It may sound silly, but I love quotes. I love reading the thoughts and little nuggets of wisdom that people can condense into a couple of sentences. The goal was for each day's post to also feel a bit more personalized to the entrant, so I thought closing out the post with their personal thoughts rather than my usual awkward outro would be better. And it was. There were also a couple of "Excerpts of the Day," because I was in love with that part of the person's speech so much I couldn't separate a portion of it. I chose the quotes intentionally, some of which were about being Black or overcoming racism while going on to greatness, which was my nod of sorts to current events. I don't like speaking on my views publicly, mainly because I don't know that I can express them as eloquently as I'd like, so if I can insert my thoughts or feelings authentically into the content I create then I'd rather do that. I'm pleased with the layout and separation of the categories as they are now, but I'm also open to hearing what you think. Is there a category or subject that you feel I haven't covered enough, one that I've covered too much? Should I disperse a couple of Black History Spotlight entries throughout the year or just keep it at February? I can go on and on with the questions, but I'm sure you get my point. Let me know what you think!

Finally, let's talk about where this blog--and I--are going. I remember mentioning during this year's BHS Preview post that I wasn't sure what was going to come of ATV after February was over. My feelings haven't changed much, to tell the truth. There are still a few things that really excite me about creating posts for ATV, namely my Instagram series, the "From the ...Files" series, and my TNT posts. Minus the IG series which is a bit newer, these two series are the foundation of the blog, so to speak. This probably doesn't make ATV look so good when you consider that the Files are essentially just lists of vintage items, and TNT is just the site's movie of the week. When I don't add anything else in there to balance those posts out, it can come off rather monotonous and I didn't want that. I wanted the blog to have something meaty, something different in addition to the Files, IG shops and weekly movies. But over the years, I felt my interest starting to dip. At first I didn't think anything of it; I go through periods of not being as interested in something as usual and they don't often last long. It often accompanies the burnt out feeling, which I usually feel after a month-long series and towards the end of the year. But when a couple of months had gone by and I hadn't gained that interest back, I started to see that my tastes were just shifting. I fought it like hell but I finally had to just accept it and get over it. I'm still struggling with it a bit, honestly. Being interested in vintage and blogging about it was a large hobby of mine for years and it's weird to not be as into it as I used to be. 

Now there are still tons of posts I'd like to create; the inspiration well is far from dry. It's not about a lack of sources I can blog about; quite the opposite actually. I find material for future posts all the time. I still think about creating new posts and new series. What's missing is the desire to actually do it. I'm not sure how to get that back yet. But back to my point. Where is the blog going? Right now, I don't know. I do intend to bring TNT back, but I'm considering changing the day from Thursday to Tuesday because when I go through TCM's schedule, there are a lot of Previous TNT selections in our regular timeslot. So I'm looking into that. The IG series is coming back for sure; that's not a question. I've steadily been building up the next few editions of the series for months now so there was never any doubt about bringing that back. The Files series.....I'm not sure yet. I haven't even looked at eBay or Etsy for vintage things in....probably over a year now, so I think there could be something worth bringing back about it. I've struggled with this blog from pretty much the minute I revamped it and I've learned something important, which is largely why I'll never make running this blog a full-time thing. While I already know that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, I've also learned that insanity is also continually doing different things but getting the same result or none at all. As far as ATV is concerned, I feel like I've hit certifiable status. On an unrelated note, does it feel as though the landscape of blogs in general, much less niche blogs like vintage, has changed or is that just me? It feels so different. 
But anyway, I've taken up too much of your time as it is so I'm gonna get going. I just wanted to explain why BHS didn't come out as planned and what I intended to do now that it's over.