Hey friends! It has been a long time since the last time I wrote on here. It feels like saying life has been crazy is a cop out, but in true honesty I feel like I’ve been trying to find something creative to fulfill my life. It’s been two years since the last time I was on here! I couldn’t believe it, but one of the last series I did on this blog was talking about the Eras Tour. What a time that was! Please bear wtih me on this blog post, because it will probably turn into one big brain dump trying to get all my thoughts out.
Just like my unofficial theme song “Right Where You Left Me” states, I’m still at the restaurant working, but hopefully I can figure out a new career path that will allow me the opportunity and time outside of work to really explore my creative side. But let’s rewind through the past two years as quickly as possible and then I’ll explain why I came back and what the future holds.
When I first started blogging back in 2018, I was living in NYC and wanted to share my life as a southern belle living in the big city. There was more of an emphasis on style and outfits because that was all I was seeing on social media – the fashion influencers! I wanted to be just like them, but also have the unique aspect of sharing my thoughts on Broadway shows I’ve seen. Then COVID hit and life led me back home to Louisiana finding a new normal. Everything seemed to be going great – I got promoted to Assistant Manager at work, I met Zach, and I bought a house.
I started traveling a little bit – the normal once or twice a year trip and I realized how much I loved getting to explore the country. I also rediscovered my love for the Disney parks, which unlocked a new passion for me. In the past two years, I’ve gotten to do a dream Fall foliage trip in the Northeast, a bucket list dream trip to Paris, and numerous trips to Disney World and Disneyland. The fall foliage is a trip I’m dying to go on again for the chance to explore more areas and go back to places we didn’t get a chance to explore the first time. If you’re interested in what we did on that trip, I’m more than happy to write a blog post on our itinerary even if lots of time has passed.
Last summer, the cards (and miles and points) lined up perfectly for me to take one of my dream bucket list trips to Paris! As a fun fact, my birthday is July 14, which is Bastille Day (or French Independence Day), and I had this ultimate dream of spending one of my birthdays in Paris. Well, this dream finally came to life and not only did we spend the morning of my birthday in Paris, we finished the night at Disneyland Paris and got to see the iconic Bastille Day Celebration Fireworks. I will definitely be writing multiple posts around our Paris trip, as this is a trip I still think about and love to share almost a year later.
Traveling brought me so much joy and a way to escape the routine life of work.The Disney parks created the same feeling for me and it was a reason to travel. If you had told me two years ago while writing my last blog post that I would be a repeat Annual Passholder for Disney World who’s been taking trips multiple times a year, I would have thought you were crazy, but here we are. I discovered a love for running, albeit I’ve been on a long hiatus from it recently, through RunDisney and went a little impulsive signing up for multiple race weekends the past year. But I’ve gotten to explore the parks a lot this past year and I always try to experience something new on each trip.
My small shop is still alive and well. It has brought me such creative joy during 2024 and into 2025, even with the chaos of having to leave Etsy and branch on my own. Unfortunately for me, the social media side of it did take a back seat to everything and I haven’t been able to nurture and grow my shop like I would love to. I have also been in a creative funk for the past few months, but have been brainstorming lots of ideas, both on new products and designs, and can’t wait to bring them to life and into the shop in the next few months. My desk calendars are still my pride and joy and I loved the two new designs I created last year and have already started brainstorming new ones for the 2027 collection.
In the midst of all of this joy, there was also a darkness. I would love to call it work depression, but I felt like I would come home from work mentally and physically drained every day and would do nothing but lounge on the couch and binge watch shows. For the past year, it became this pattern of going to work, coming home, and doing nothing, while also counting down to my next trip for a break. It killed my creativity and motivation to do anything outside of work. If you asked me what all I achieved the past two years, outside of my travels, I really couldn’t tell you anything. And I’m not saying that coming back to this page and being more consistent on social media is a way to hold me accountable, but if it does and we start to really live life again, I’ll take that victory.
So now the present time and the new name – The Melissa Chronicles. While I loved being known as Melissa Leigh Blog because it was just me, I still felt like I was floundering on really nailing down a niche. I found my niche in Disney and travel, but still wasn’t in love with the brand name being my name, especially since my social handles were all different because variations of my name were already taken. So I spent months brainstorming when a few months ago, I finally had my realization. Social Media and becoming a content creator is basically one large online diary and that’s what I want my page to feel like. This is a place where I can have a permanent place for my thoughts and memories of travels, but also share my favorite books I’ve read and what each month has been like for me. The catch though, someone already took The Melissa Diaries! So I did what anyone would do in this age and I asked ChatGPT for ideas similar to The Melissa Diaries and fell in love with the name The Melissa Chronicles. My online diary feels like a way to chronicle my life and it has been fun to go back and read old posts to remember what I was like and how much I have grown.
What you’ll see on The Melissa Chronicles? Well to start off with, lot’s of posts about my trip to Paris and the Disney parks. I’ve been staying at lots of resorts and hotels that I want to share with y’all and all the experiences from these past trips. I’m also expanding the brand by creating a weekly Substack series, which you can subscribe to here, and starting a Youtube Channel, which you can also find here. But don’t worry, I’ll still write my monthly book reviews and reviews for any shows I see in the future. The Monthly Favorites series is also coming back! I plan to start a weekly series on Instagram and TikTok that I can also bring over here to share with y’all that I’m so excited about. Aside from that, I’m still brainstorming and taking ideas as they come and I hope you join me on the journey of sharing my digital diary with the world.
I’ll end this post here before I really talk myself into a hole, but I’m so happy to be back and can’t wait to see where this new chapter takes me!
The Melissa Chronicles 