Then

Just a short 34 days ago, I wrote about reaching my first milestone of reaching 100 USD account value and 100,000 Vests, and 6 days later I reached another milestone of 100 followers. Being at 266 followers now, I had to wait a little bit since I got busy with real life for a few days. These were the next milestones I wanted to reach:

Next milestone to reach!
100 followers should be very soon!
$250 value by end of January!
250,000 vests by end of January

Due to the recent spikes in STEEM I've decided to ignore the account value for now as a primary milestone, but it has passed $500 and during the crash I was able to sustain it at about 500 + as I powered up my earnings. There have been a few power ups that would have benefited me more if I had just held on to the SBD's, but that's okay.

I meant to also add 250 followers by the end of january, and here we are. Thank you to everyone that has followed and engaged with me. I really appreciate the love that the community has given me so far!

Now

I've also lost the 28 delegated SP I had from when I created my account. I was a little bummed about this because it made my upvotes go from 0.06 to 0.04 but that's okay! I feel less like a minnow these days as I gain some traction and start morphing into something bigger as I have reached over 100 STEEM POWER!

I powered up as I wrote this post to figure out how much STEEM I need in order to hit 250,000 VESTS by the end of January, and I might just hit that mark! With the current market, I have just under 9 STEEM worth of SBD, so just a few more potatoes, a few more posts/articles and I've got it!

While I feel that for 250 + followers I've gotten less engagement then I expected, that's okay too, I still enjoy posting! There is also a lot of amazing content in Steemit, and new posts being made everywhere, so it's very easy to get buried. Back when I was streaming on twitch, even if no one was watching I still talked into the microphone. This is no different, however; I feel a bit easier since there's less dead air!

Memories

So far what I've enjoyed sharing the most is my belief in Jesus and I enjoy trying to give mini-sermons and hope they've been motivational. There haven't been many and that's because it's been rather difficult for me to write ab out it so I guess it's the challenge that I've enjoyed the most. Then there's the pictures of my rocks for sure, my dreams and my pictures. It's been difficult taking pictures lately because of real life obstacles not allowing me to get out there and get good pictures. Between the weather, my hardware and work, life has its obstacles.

I think the most memorable parts of steemit for me, besides those mentioned in my first milestone post has been the engagement in its entirety. There is a lot of passion floating around the platform even when it comes to drama. I've certainly laughed and I've certainly been a little upset (regarding rewards pool abuse) but STEEMIT is yet to make me cry so that's good.

Obstacles

My biggest downfall so far to my posts is my lack of skill in photoshop. There are things I can think of in my head but creating them in Photoshop or GIMP is pretty difficult for me I scrap a lot of designs sometimes before I even start them! This is one skill that I would like to get better at in the next few months so that I can have better illustrations to go with my posts. For example, for this post, I'd like to have a festive "250 followers" banner with fireworks and maybe a cityscape but I have no idea how to even begin that image. If I tried to learn how to make it right now I might not get this post out til next week. So obviously I have some homework to do...

When it comes to sharing pictures of my rocks, nature and my city, not having the proper equipment really bums me out since I don't have the cash to buy what I need/want. I know I have the crypto buy what I want, but so far I've paid at least $600 or more for No Man's Sky. I don't want to end up paying $100,000 for a DSLR kit with a sexy macro lens. (I think 1 Ethereum will be 100 grand eventually.) I recently financed a computer just so that I can work better but I can't finance the Canon Rebel T6 camera they have til I pay this. Will they still have it by then? Who knows. Unless I can find a good used DSLR for under $200 it'll be a while.

The picture that is illustrating this section is my second biggest downfall or handicap so to speak. I used it on purpose because it's one of my obstacles. Taken with a 5 MP $20 smartphone from Walmart, the picture quality is terrible. I can imagine trying to use that on #photofeed. So my phone doesn't even have a flash on it. This means getting a good picture with the phone is not particularly easy. Some would think it's Impossible but you'd have to understand the camera that you're using to know exactly what kind of lighting it needs to get the perfect picture, along with the perfect setting and distance (it doesn't even have auto focus). So with a crappy smart phone and no macro lens, how do I take macro shots of my rocks? My friends Samsung S8 Active and I usually only have access to it once a week.

In the picture:

• Sanyo VPC-T1060 10 MP
• Sony Handycam DCR-SR45

It isn't very easy getting great pictures with the Sanyo. I wouldn't want to try to take more rock pictures with it, this one took forever and it isn't very good. I couldn't get the lighting I wanted because it was night time. I need a camera that will work at night too because I am up more at night. When I'm up early I'm typically busy with my daily routines and mixing blogging into the schedule.

Pretty decent nature shots, but zooming in or getting any real, crisp quality is very difficult.

As for the Sony handycam, well that's not mine it's also a friends. (the same friend that has the S8 Active) Picture quality is no good (as expected) and the video seems to skip so I almost want to say it's broken, unless it's the internal HDD that's no good. Then I just need to buy a card for it.

It sucks wanting to take good pictures, knowing that I can but not having the equipment, but I work with what I got & make it happen!

Shout outs

My friends that I've gotten to join: @logicluke @honeybadger-1 @timechange23 @starrfeli (there are two more but they are yet to share their names with me or make a post, much less sign in) Seems my friends are also a bit shy, but they'll come around I hope!

Mostly everyone that I've followed because at one point each of these people made a post that affected me in some way. Whether it's amazing investigative journalism, great pictures, a great incentive or an amazing story / life story, a joke or maybe you just upvoted my post and made me feel really good, you've all made a crazy impact on my life in the last 55 days so I want to personally thank you all as a group of awesome people. I know I've followed a few to investigate, which still falls under the same category, while others are just minnows I hope turn out to be great bloggers.

And of course, I try to follow those who engage, so if you've engaged and I missed you, please say something and I'll toss you a follow.

All the people contributing to the platform, trying to stop the plagiarism and abuse. Seems like some key players have abandoned us.

Lastly, a big shout out to all the abusers and plagiarists. There's quite a few of us with our eyes on you!

Tomorrow

Being as realistic as possible, here is a list of the milestones I look forward to accomplishing next:

• 500 Followers - Possibly by the end of February
• 500 STEEM POWER - End of April
• 500,000 VESTS - End of April
• $1000 account value - End of march

Will you help me get there? I hope so!

@bitfiend