Giving Thanks To You On My Five Year Anniversary (Please Read)

Dearest Readers: This is a long one, but it's important for me to publish this so I hope that you'll take a moment to read it (there's something very special at the end that I hope will make it worth your while).

Last weekend marked the five year anniversary of Nouveau Cheap. In many ways, I can't believe how quickly five years have flown by when it comes to this blog, but in other ways it feels like a lifetime since my life "pre-blog." Over the past five years, I have "met" men and women from around the globe here, and I'm proud to say that you all are now my friends. I never anticipated how writing this blog could change my life, but it truly has. What started as a little hobby has blossomed over the years into an undying passion. I continue to wake up every day excited to write my blog posts and interact with you, learn from you, bond with you, and praise you for your kindness and generosity. YOU and YOU ALONE are the reason this blog has lasted five years, and I never forget that.

There are so many wonderful beauty blogs out there and this is just my little corner of the blogosphere, but I like to think that the community that has formed so organically here is unlike any other. I believe that it's primarily composed of people who don't have a lot of money to spend on beauty products (myself included--that's why I started the blog in the first place!) and in that common bond, I have found that, many times, it's the people who have the least to give who give the most. In other words, I know that so many of us are struggling to make ends meet, so it means that much more to me that you would be so generous here, in so many ways. The gestures I see here on a daily basis often bring me to tears, in a good way. In the best way.

I would like to take this opportunity to personally apologize to anyone who has ever had an email, comment or social media message left unanswered by me in the course of these five years. Interacting with you is my priority and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me if you have ever taken time out of your busy day to contact me, and  you did not receive a response. I am so incredibly sorry, and I hope you can understand that I try my best, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day to respond in the way that I would WANT to respond (with care and detail--I hate writing short responses). Again, I am so very sorry.

Over the years, I have heard from readers who have confided in me that they use my blog as a form of escape when things in real life become unbearable. I'm humbled and honored that I can provide you that form of escape when you need it the most, and I want you to know that you give that back to me, when I need it the most. This has never been a one-way relationship for me, and I understand and honor the fact that I am only as good as you enable me to be here. If no one were reading this blog, if no one were commenting and sharing information here, I would have nothing, and I know this. This is exactly why, when I thought about my five year anniversary, I wanted to give back to YOU.

I know that a lot of bloggers host celebratory giveaways in honor of their blogging milestones, and that is AWESOME. But when thinking of how to give back to you, given the unique community we have here, I wanted to do something a bit more meaningful to me personally, and something a bit more lasting.

HERE'S THE SPECIAL PART:

Do you remember on January 29th when I posted this special edition of the Wednesday Question? You might recall that I begged you to answer that question, and some of you may have asked, "Why is she wanting to know this so badly?" Well there was a method to my madness!

A few years ago, I used to do a regular series of interviews here on the blog with longtime readers called "Reader Spotlight". I want to bring that series back in the future, but until then, in honor of my five year anniversary, I am doing a SPECIAL READER INTERVIEW SERIES that will be published right here on the blog.

I have randomly selected fifteen comments from this post and I'm going to interview each of the readers who left those comments here on the blog. I was going to select five readers (one for each year this blog has been in existence) but that seemed too small a number, so that's why I'm doing fifteen.

BELOW IS THE LIST OF READERS WHO WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED (and by "random" I mean I printed out each comment, put them all in a hat and had the boyfriend draw fifteen strips of paper from the hat).

I have included the date/time stamp info so that you can be 100% sure of who I'm referencing (if you share a name with any of the readers below, check the time stamp on this post to confirm if this is you!):

Agata (commented on January 30th at 8:54PM)
Tamera Oldfield (commented on January 29th at 5:07PM)
Goliath1367 (commented on January 29th at 2:46PM)
Kathryn (commented on January 30th at 6:07PM)
Lindy Casteel (commented on January 29th, 8:27PM)
Yanny (commented on January 29th at 10:00PM)
Andrew Alexander (commented on January 30th at 8:43AM)
Diane Krny (commented on January 29th at 1:49PM)
Phoebe Moon (commented January 29th at 9:29PM)
Mrs. B (commented on January 29th at 8:00PM)
Jammies (commented on January 29th at 1:36PM)
Julia Popp (commented on January 30th at 5:39AM)
Molly (commented on January 29th at 1:46PM)
Lynn (commented on January 30th at 4:47PM)
Kemc914 (commented on January 30th at 9:55AM)

If you are listed above, please email me at nouveaucheap(at)gmail(dot)com ASAP. I'll go over the details of the interview with you, and give you the special interview questions. Please note that you do not have to submit a photo of yourself or provide any information that will identify you, if that is a concern. You can share a photo of your makeup stash, your pet, or anything else you'd like to share in place of a personal photo. And you do not have to use your real name in the interview--your screen name is perfectly acceptable!

PLEASE READ: I will post the interviews in the order that your responses are received. If I don't hear back from any of the readers above within a week's time of this post (by midnight Pacific on March 11th), I'll randomly select alternate readers to interview and I will post a list of those alternate readers here on the blog at that time. These special interviews will run here over the course of the next few weeks, so please be on the lookout for them!

UPDATE: Per the terms listed above, the following readers did not respond by the deadline of Midnight Pacific on March 11th):

Tamera Oldfield (commented on January 29th at 5:07PM)
Goliath1367 (commented on January 29th at 2:46PM)
Lindy Casteel (commented on January 29th, 8:27PM)
Andrew Alexander (commented on January 30th at 8:43AM)
Diane Krny (commented on January 29th at 1:49PM)

Julia Popp (commented on January 30th at 5:39AM)

I have just selected six new readers at random to participate in this interview series and those readers are:

Saturday Stevens (commented on January 30th at 5:16PM)
LiAnn (commented on January 29th at 1:34PM)
Amy Yelton (commented on January 30th at 9:27AM)
sacgirl (commented on January 30th at 11:27PM)
Miranda Turner (commented on January 29th at 8:29PM)
palette_obsession_701 (commented on January 30th at 6:20AM)

As per the last time:  If I don't hear back from any of the readers above within a week's time of this post (by midnight Pacific on March 21st), I'll randomly select alternate readers to interview and I will post a list of those alternate readers here on the blog at that time.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for your love and support over the past five years. I can't do this without you, and I am forever in your debt.

All of my love,
G. xo