Hi guys, welcome back to the show. You're listening to style your mind. I'm your host Cara Allwell and I'm excited to be chatting with you today.

So I'm getting ready to go to London next week and I was just getting some stuff together and putting together a flyer for a little meetup that I'm going to be doing.

By the way, if you are in London and you want to come and meet me on Sunday June 26th, I'm going to be doing a local meetup in Chelsea.

Just a little casual pub style, you know, Champagne Toe, say hi to everybody. You can email me at Cara at thechampagne.com and I will send you all the details for that.

But I was, you know, sitting here getting ready and I had my graphic designer Sam, shout out to Sam if you're listening, put together this little flyer.

And I looked at it and it looked so cute. She totally gets my vibe and my style. It's like the little invite for the meetup and I'm looking at it and I was like, wow, I had a moment.

Where I sort of saw like a like every second movie when it kind of like everything flashes by like somebody's life just flashes by.

I had one of those moments and I was remembering how nine years ago I went to London by myself. It was in 2013.

And I was still in my full time job. I had been blogging for a few years. I had just self published my first book, Sparkle.

And I decided to go to London fly there by myself. I packed up 20 copies of Sparkle in my suitcase.

And I was going to meet two of my blog readers. And these were like the only readers that I knew personally in London.

And they had been reading my blog for a while. And I flew over there and I met up with them and we had some Champagne and we took some pictures.

I wish I could find them because they were just these cute little selfies we took and we just connected.

And then I took the train by myself to Paris. And I met up with one of my blogger friends, Lisa.

So shout out Lisa if you're listening. And Lisa and I did like a blogger party.

And we basically she got together with all of her friends in Paris like all these expats. And we did this little event just this kind of like little meetup.

And I brought my copies of Sparkle and laid them out in this apartment on top of this like piano. I'll never forget it.

And I signed books for the bloggers that were there and we just blasted music and danced around. And it was such a transformative trip.

And it was a moment where I was living a life like the beginning of a life that I knew I wanted to live.

Like again, I was still working my full-time job. I didn't really know which direction I was going to go.

And I remember when I first got to London before I met up with my blog friends and before I met up with my readers.

I sat there in my hotel room with a little notebook. And I wrote in the notebook all I want to do is like my goal.

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