Hey there y’all! My name is Ricci and I am super pumped to be your Miss February because February is also my birthday month! Happy early birthday to me!! I am turning 34 this year and it’s not freaking me out as much as I thought it would…yet. I’m sure the freakout will come but I will try and contain myself. HA!

I am a single lady with one fur child, my dog Sophie. She’s part drama queen and part bossy pants but don’t you dare tell her she’s not human because that would break her poor little doggy heart. I swear I’m not a crazy dog lady.

I am a Respiratory Therapist at two of Little Rock’s best hospitals and I love my job very much. I love taking care of people and being there at some of life’s most crucial moments for people. But as much as I love my job it is also extremely stressful which is part of the reason I decided to start my blog…I needed a creative outlet and my blog has provided that in the best possible ways!

When I started my blog a little over six years ago it was strictly as a creative outlet and diary/journal. I love going back and looking back at old posts and seeing what I was doing on a particular day or seeing what I loved at the moment. I even chronicled the building of my house on my blog!! It’s fun to look back at those old posts even if my photography skills were extremely lacking. Please don’t go look, it’s shameful!! LOL!!

Since those early days I have upped my blogging game little by little over the years by going to blogging conferences, attending online workshops, taking photography classes, etc. My little side hobby/creative outlet has now turned into a fairly successful money making side hustle (as Stephanie would say). Who even knew that would ever happen?? It’s taken a lot of hard work and very late nights but I’m pretty proud of it.

Blogging even inspired me to go back to school and obtain my second bachelor’s degree in E-Commerce. I have always loved learning and felt like it was something I needed to do in order to really become successful and I can say that earning that degree really helped me! I took several computer science classes, web design classes, marketing classes, etc that have all helped me a lot with my blog.

Over the years I have also made some of my very best friends through blogging. When I started my blog I was at a point in my life where most of my “real life” friends were all getting married and having kids and I felt like no one I knew really “got” me and I prayed a lot about finding the friends that I needed at that point in my life and I felt like God really pushed me into branching out and talking to people through my blog and from that I have made some of my very best friends. The women that I “met” then are still the women that are in the same stage of life as I am and we still text and talk to each other on a daily basis. I am so thankful that if nothing else, blogging has brought me the friends I needed when I needed friends the most.

Also- how crazy is it to meet people in real like that you met initially online? I remember meeting my best friend Rebekah in person for the first time and then the next time I saw her in person we were going on a road trip to North Carolina to meet more of our blog friends. This was about four years ago and I vividly remember us all up late talking in our hotel room about how glad we were that no one in the group turned out to be a murderer. We were so trusting back then. Would I do that again today? I’m not sure…HA!

Thank you for letting me introduce myself to you and share my blogging story with you. I am looking forward to sharing more with you as the month progresses! Until then you can find me on my blog, Ricci Alexis, talking about beauty products, traveling, blogging, recipes, and life in general or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and BlogLovin!

I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t this supposed to be The Arkansas Women Bloggers, Blogger of the Month? Does this guy have the right… um, qualifications for this?” Well, I’m a fourth generation Arkansan and I’ve been video blogging (vlogging) for nearly seven years. Oh, you mean THAT. I can explain.

About eight years ago, my wife, Jamie, and I were ready for a change. I was an elementary teacher, she was a stay at home mom. Our plan had always been for me to be the stay at home parent and for her to fulfill her dream of working in the health care industry. So she took a job as a nursing assistant and enrolled in nursing school while I adjusted to days at home with a toddler and a preschooler. This was also my opportunity to get my hands dirty on our little farm. Dairy goats, chickens, a large garden and a crash course in canning were on the agenda. But you know what they say about “the best laid plans of mice and men”.

A few months later, we had a goat that should’ve been named Houdini, eggs coming out of our ears and tilled rows that made more of a hay plot than a kitchen garden. Then, as Jamie was about to face the most challenging semester that nursing school had thrown at her yet, we were pregnant… it was twins!

I was home with four kids, ages four and under, we were on a shoestring budget, we only saw Jamie at supper a few times a week and leaving the house to be social was more trouble than it was worth. I needed an outlet; something that allowed me to be creative and social while still being a shut-in. That’s when I discovered YouTube!

I wanted to share our family, our farm and our philosophy of crafting the life you want. Because of the comment section and the natural progression that took place: expanding one’s channel into their ‘brand’ across social media, I gained acquaintances, friends, followers and other creators to collaborate with.

Before long, I built a new channel with four other YouTube friends that were stay at home parents, TheStayatHomes. We took turns posting a video each day of the week around a theme. It meant a lot to the community that formed but it’s season came and went. I’d made lots of “YouTube friends”, many who have gone on to be quite successful; but the more local the subject matter of my videos, the bigger response they often got. That’s when I started to notice more online acquaintances from within The Natural State.

I didn’t have a clue, but most of my online Arkansas folks were Arkansas Woman Bloggers (AWB). I had seen the name TheParkWife (the founder and biggest cheerleader at AWB as it turns out) all over the place, so I decided to give her a follow on Twitter. The rest is history.

The Arkansas Women Bloggers were already my people before I knew it. To be really transparent, standing out in a crowd as THE YouTube guy… or, okay, standing out as THE guy, is an advantage. This group of ladies are so welcoming, innovative and smart; I’d be crazy to try and continue to go it alone! I’ve found my tribe and I couldn’t be more honored to be Arkansas Women Bloggers’ Blogger of the Month. They make my eyes sting in a good way; though I’ve been known to cry at toilet paper commercials since becoming a father.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/Busvlogger/

https://www.youtube.com/busvlogger

https://twitter.com/busvlogger

https://www.pinterest.com/busvloggerpins/