900 Followers on Steemit!

Last night I hit 900 followers here on Steemit, so here we celebrate with this post and a photo of a firework from a display John shot this evening.  A lot has changed since we started here a year ago on Steemit.  To give you a bit of perspective, I'll just explain where we were when we started and where we are now.  

We were free in Mexico, to an extent with very little money and very few ways of making money at the time.  Everything was honestly limping along at best, barely surviving as were we ourselves.  We decided to join Steemit last August and now things today are drastically different. We were originally using a 3G cell phone data plan and a tablet to post. We went from rationing food costs and being unable to afford basic needs like rent and water costs to the situation we are in now, which is very drastically different.  We started with old cell phone photos and crappy new ones.

Eventually we got a better phone with a better camera that stepped things up.  By that point we were using Steemit to support ourselves here, allowing us to breathe a bit financially and tell our story at the same time. 

In the whirlwind of the conference and the months after things have gradually improved to the point where we can start to consider life upgrades such as:

motorcycle

DLSR camera

Laptop computer

Cell phones

Better food

Help on the farm, labor

Rent and Utilities Paid without Worry

Much needed mechanical work on our beloved truck

And honestly a lot more but it's hard to remember it all.  This was supposed to be a short and sweet post.  But you get the point.  While many really don't like to focus on the money making aspect I want to remind everyone that that part IS important especially for people like me who could not justify telling my story and all the great things that have come from it without some sort of immediate payout.  It's awesome if everyone respects me but at the end of the day we need to worry about supporting ourselves first and like it or not we've done that with Steemit and then some for a good while now.

I've had a lot of people approach me lately about getting on Steemit, clearly looking to get in on these payouts.  They see my payouts and wish that for themselves.  It's attainable but it takes a lot of work especially for a new user.  I just want to be clear about that.  I spend a lot of time each day to posting consistently for the payouts I do receive. If you're prepared to grind it out and be persistent, you'll do well in time so long as you have ANYTHING interesting to say.  Steemit is a diverse place, find your niche(s).

Thank you ALL for following and supporting us.  

For those who have followed us since the beginning, stay tuned as it seems happy endings may be on the horizon. 

For anyone just following us, check out a few of these old posts to learn a bit more about who we are and what got us here. 

The Border Crossing

On the Run For Producing Essential Oils

Sleeping on Salt Flats

Feel free to peruse any other old posts, there's a LOT of good stuff from this past year.  Stay tuned for a surprise in the morning and much more good to come in the future!