It's my Steemit Birthday week, I am officially one year old :D Expressing my gratitude for the community!

Apparently I'm not the only one who joined last June, I don't know what happened but I have seen tons of birthday posts this last month and here I am to add another to the pile!

As an artist and musician, when Hive account@vachemorte called me to tell me he had found Steemit I was over the top excited. Getting any kind of compensation as an artist is pretty tough and most people consider it to be a pipe dream, I was already a crypto fan and a huge proponent of decentralization.

I signed up immediately.

I think my first few posts made less than a dollar, but that was still something, compared to all other social media sites where the bigwigs are making money off of our content I saw this as a step in the right direction.

What I didn't expect was all the friendships I would make here.

I pretty quickly found the minnowsupport project and despite my lack of experience in chat rooms, I slowly jumped in and realized that there were some really cool people! I was on Steemit every second of the day possible but if I wasn't there I was on the PAL server. After hanging around for sometime and being helpful I was asked to be a moderator. I was a bit reluctant, at the time the server only had maybe 3 or 4 thousand people but that's still a ton! I thought about it for a bit and accepted and I'm glad I did.

Working with Hive account@aggroed, Hive account@crimsonclad, Hive account@discordiant, Hive account@clayboyn, Hive account@gmuxx, Hive account@kubbyelizabeth, Hive account@ma1neevent, Hive account@r0nd0n, Hive account@swelker101 and Hive account@isaria has not only been a load of fun but has also taught me a wealth of skills I didn't even know I had in me. I have learned to be more kind, compassionate and patient, I have learned to be thankful and giving and how to de-escalate situations. I have also learned how to have more of a backbone. Sometimes one must push aside the instinct of kindness to protect a group from harm.

I will be forever grateful for these skills.

I have also joined the Hive account@slothicorn team as an admin on the server that was created by the mad genius Hive account@stellabelle! Slothicorn aims to teach artists how to use blockchain technology to free themselves through art. This too has opened up opportunities to meet tons of other artists and given me access to new projects. I even got some of my work shown at the SXSW decentralized art show:

I can't forget to add Hive account@dsound where I also moderate, a big thanks to Hive account@prc for building a platform for musicians. I have met many wonderful musicians in the dsound community and I'm excited to see where this tech will go in the future.

Last but certainly not least, I want to give the biggest shoutout to all those I have collaborated with, musically and artistically, those who have joined my contest and all the wonderful people who have been kind enough to support me! I have even met some Steemians in real life and they are cool as heck!

Steemit has had a lot of ups and downs, lots of bickering and issues to work out. We are a young community after all and we have some growing pains to get through. The community of amazing people I have met here is what keeps me coming back,

Much Love,
Julia