Friend Friday: Gratitude

This week's Friend Friday questions are so timely, because reflecting on gratitude is a practice I want to implement more into my daily life!  So here are my responses!

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1. When it comes to me personally – I owe a lot of who I am to: My mother.  My Mom is my biggest cheerleader (and first blog reader)! She inspires me to keep plugging away at my goals and thoughtfully answers my incessant random questions about everything under the sun.  Love ya Mom!
2. When it comes to me professionally – I owe a lot of who I am to: As the African proverb says, "It's takes a village to raise a child," It truly takes a village to inspire a Shen Dove : ) I owe past and present professional inspiration to my family, friends, godparents, teachers/professors and a few informal mentors I've picked up along the way.  I've also learned quite a bit from this awesome lady as well!
3. When it comes to the art of blogging, I’m grateful to these people for helping me through some rough spots: I don't think I've yet to face any major rough spots in blogging, but I am inspired on a regular basis by bloggers that exhibit creativity, grace, positivity and authenticity.  Some of these bloggers include Grit and Glamour, Gala Darling, Stylish Thought, Modly Chic, Mane and Chic, The Coveted, Fly, Streets and Stripes among many others.  I'm constantly learning new information and gaining inspiration from these bloggers.
4. One blogging challenge I’m grateful happened because it made me stronger was… As I've said, I don't think I've faced many challenges so far with blogging, but it took me a while to get up the nerve to start this blog in the first place.  Initially, when I started blogging in 2008, I maintained a blog that mostly talked about personal finance.  I didn't discover fashion/style blogs until a little later.  After a while, though I still love the subject, I didn't really feel like I had much to say about money that wasn't already being said.  So I decided to take a different direction and started this blog.  Who knows if I'll revisit blogging about finances and living on a budget on this blog or elsewhere, but Shen Dove Style become such a fun outlet to talk about a subject most people in my real life have little enthusiasm for...fashion!
5. To my readers, I’d like to say: Thank you to each and every one of you for reading and commenting!  I've enjoyed getting to know some of you through your comments and your awesome blogs. I'm so grateful for my readers and hope that I get to meet some of you in real life in the future.  I can't tell you how much useful information I've learned from my readers over the past year about fashion/beauty, social media, life, creativity, positive thinking and many other subjects.

I'm happy and grateful that I stumbled upon blogging a few years ago and now have a hard time imagining life without it!

Fashion Beauty Friend Friday is a Google group for bloggers to discuss/answer questions on a given topic each week. Visit Katy of Modly Chic if you are interested in participating.