Hi Everyone,

I joined the Steem Community on the last day of the financial year - 30th of June 2017. Before that day, I was a stay at home mum at that time on my 3rd year on maternity leave. My world was around the two kids, I didn’t care about my own well being, my life or anything else. I was pretty much just there 24/7 on standby. My other half has been urging me to do my own things, start a business, do something for myself. He was into crypto during that time and even gone above and beyond sending me articles to read about it, trying to get me to learn something new that is not just looking after babies. I wasn’t interested to be honest. So he then told me to check out coinmarketcap and read up on other alt coins to see which one I was interested in and learn about it. 

![steem impact.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTaxjihUZ1zsZTpuV61fSrweDbnKWDcFkZyqief2zu4Lv/steem%20impact.jpg)


Off I went and started checking the top 50. I read up on a few and Steem caught my attention because of the logo and I thought there was a spelling error! After reading up a bit on it (skimmed to be exact), I found out it was a blogging site. Then checking the site I saw people earning money for writing something. This got me interested - how can anyways make money and why would anyone read your stuff. The best I’ve done really was post a heap of pictures on Facebook and write a small summary about it. I thought I had nothing to loose so why not give it a go. 

### The First Week

It was a bit sad to say it in simple terms. Getting a few cents here and there wasn’t really motivating. Remember this was the first week and I was probably writing some crappy posts. Then I wrote a post about making Hainan chicken rice with a rice cooker. That post got over $8! I was over the moon. Then I realise you can’t just come on this place to make a quick buck easily, you need to put in some effort, some passion and people actually know about it when they read your article. At that point, I decided to give myself a few more weeks to see how I go in gaining followers and votes. 

If you're interested to see the rice cooker post - you can find it [here](https://steemit.com/food/@travelgirl/how-to-make-hainan-chicken-in-a-rice-cooker-or)

https://steemitimages.com/DQmY2yMuazvbSDar397Bc8cDTdUU533pHjrUZneoYfiA5eD/IMG_0326.JPG

### Made Friends Around The World

I would not believe in a million years I can make friends from a writing platform. Even though my posts initially were only a few cents slowly moving to the dollar mark, I had people leaving comments and making engagements through the posts. I was then introduced to discord, telegram and WeChat (all these were installed after starting Steemit) and through these channels, I was able to chat with fellow Steemians. As a mum just talking to little people at home, I was happy to make new friends and this was something valuable Steemit has given me over these 2 years. Not to mention after meeting many Steemians in the last two Steemfest (at Krakow & Bangkok), I am confident to say I will be in touch with many of them for many years. 

### Finding Skills

I never thought I could be blogging. Then I moved onto vlogging and editing which I wouldn’t do in a million years if I didn’t find Steemit. I was always camera shy so let alone videoing myself in public AND talking around strangers was a huge hurdle. I was conscious in the beginning and wouldn’t vlog if friends or family were around but I got over it and learn to concentrate and do what I need to do. 99% of my videos are 1 take so this shows the real side of me which is what I would like to share with everyone. I also had to learn how to cut, do voice-overs, add music, etc to my videos. These are all skills I need to learn to make each video. It is now at the point some of my friends want to join in and do cameos in my video. If you look carefully at some of my travel videos, some of my friends would try to sneak in and do something silly behind me. Even my other half tries to ‘video bomb’ especially the last 6 months. 


![Screen Shot 2020-01-16 at 8.51.18 pm.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSwQncE5zEdr7Zra3avpczECTs6wivpp8uFC6ysp27tGV/Screen%20Shot%202020-01-16%20at%208.51.18%20pm.png)


The other thing I had to learn was *markdowns*. I'm so used to just using the edit tools on other platforms so why do I need them here. Unfortunately, in the beginning, there were many things weren't available unlike now with so many front ends, features so learning markdown was the nom (I think it was if you want to make your post look formated)

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I never regretted finding Steem and joining the Steemit platform. There are so many communities at the moment I am grateful for the support I have received from everyone throughout my journey these 2 years. It has turned the impossible to possible, it has given new skills, boost my confidence and most importantly, found new friendships that I will value for a long time which money can’t buy. 

<center>Thank you @theycallmedan for creating this topic giving us an opportunity to think why we are still here during these downtimes and do what we are doing right now on this platform or invest in Steem. </center>

<center>![happywalk02.gif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTA83J2vJLoed895woPKqy2P1Vmyk5r6q5iyE15nyb8H2/happywalk02.gif) </center>

<center><h6>animation by @catwomanteresa </center></h6>

<center>![Travelgirl pic.jpeg](https://steemitimages.com/DQme8FfZKYEumcDM5EzLW5jiiiFBqrvE2W1G81kSzzCQkH3/Travelgirl%20pic.jpeg)</center>

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV63eqqyggh6LJKKxn33jKWfFkz7gCufpbc13iLs6MwUq/Footer_travelgirl.png



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Thanks for reading. If you like my post, please follow, comment and upvote me. There will be more exciting posts & destinations to come.

謝謝你們收看。 請你們繼續跟隨，留言和投我一票 . 我會分享更多遊記和其他有趣的 blog.

All photos & videos are taken by me & co in all my blogs/stories unless quoted. 每張相片和視頻都是我們自己拍的