HomeAboutChu-Chu-Chu-Cheetahs!SnackFaceFoodCultureFashionBeautySnackStyleContactThe Byproduct of Turning a Hobby into a Professionby snackface on July 15, 2014 · 15 commentsTweetHello, sweets!I figured after the last post and some fan prodding, it’s time for a real post. I’m finding it difficult to sum up two years and then blog as if you all know me now. I’ve cherished the privacy that an Instagram post and a catchy caption provided me. But after working in social media for years, I have a craving for depth. I also have a premonition that there will be a return to long-form writing. (If not for everyone, then just for me.)I moved out to LA in July of 2012 without a job, an apartment or the slightest clue of what my new life was actually going to be like. After a period of honest-to-god insanity, I found myself circling back to healthy habits and routines that have comforted me for years to save me. That is to say, after going out to clubs almost every night of the week while also trying to work a 9 to 5 job, I had to stop before I became a bloated, washed up mess.It’s weird. I look back on my first few months in Los Angeles as both a blast and something of which I’m ashamed. You know how people go nuts when they get to college their freshman year? I never did that then, back in 2006. I was too wrapped up in perfect grades and a dangerous eating disorder. Instead, I did it just two years ago.I received some backlash over my more recent posts. People accused me of presenting a “perfect” or “glamorous” life and for not being the same humble girl from Ohio. The thing is…I moved out of Ohio to have insane, even glamorous experiences. I don’t see anything wrong in that. I dreamed of seeing the ocean regularly, dining at incredible restaurants, meeting interesting people. And it’s all happened. But don’t think for a second that there hasn’t also been some really bad shit. Bad nights, bad boyfriends, bad roommates, bad friends, bad choices. There has been bad, but it doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. It all happened so I could be on the positive path I’m on now.Living in Los Angeles is a privilege in and of itself. Living in Los Angeles in an apartment I can’t believe is (half) mine, with a boyfriend I love, a growing circle of friends and a job I couldn’t have even dreamed of a few years ago? Thankful doesn’t begin to cover it.I love to look back on SnackFace of 2008, 2009 and 2010. I wish I could have told myself then what I had to look forward to. When I graduated college and faced the difficulty of finding a job in a terrible economy and spent months crying and frustrated, I wish I could be able to tell that girl: Stick with what you love.In college, I started SnackFace because I wanted to write about food. Simply writing about it in a blog format turned into promoting my blog on Twitter in Facebook. The connections I made via social media turned into my passion. I never knew how I’d do that as a job, though.Turns out, being o