Late in the evening on July 31st, 1999, the first version of this website was born.  It resided at http://expage.com/lifethoughmyeyes (expage.com doesn’t exist anymore).  First of all, I thought http:// was the biggest pain in the ass to type every time I wanted to go to the website, now it’s nothing.  Second, I misspelled ‘through’ as ‘though’ and so my URL always had this spelling error.  I stayed up while everyone else went to sleep working on the site.  With Expage all you had to do was click a few bullet points next to the graphics you wanted to use, enter in some text, save it, and voilà! You had a website!  My design included a blue sky with clouds background image, and the title ‘Life Through My Eyes’ in dark blue, and Comic Sans — the entire website was in Comic Sans.  On either side of the title were two sun graphics (to go with the sky background), they were animated and wore sunglasses. Such style, such taste, oh my.

I can’t remember for the life of me what I wrote about on the website (besides myself, and what about myself? I do not remember). It wasn’t a blog, it was just a static page I changed constantly.  I went against all plans to include cross-country running tips and a section for Austin Powers, it was really just about ME. I’d spend HOURS everyday working on the website and looking at other people’s cool sites. I changed the graphics constantly, and even started creating my own images in MS Paint. Most of those were ripoffs of sparkly graphics I saw online, which I think was good practice for me, but I probably should not have posted them on my website.  One day I got a mean email from some bitch who yelled at me for creating my own shitty versions of her mermaids. GOD, I’M JUST A 14 YEAR OLD IDIOT, LET ME COPY. Anyway, that’s how I began to teach myself graphic design. Eventually I even developed a style of my own which has continuously changed over the past 10 years.

At one point Expage came out with a “Poll” feature you could place on your website. I remember my poll posed the question: “Which would you rather” and a bunch of multiple choice answers including:
-Catch your parents having sex
-Witness a man’s death
-etc.
I took the poll about 100 times a day so it looked like I had visitors. WOW not a waste of time at all!

Eventually I grew out of Expage and moved to Geocities at the address geocities.com/mmmdelish. The website went by the name ‘mmmdelish’ for a while and I went through a rainbow phase, EVERYTHING WAS COLORFUL. My Aunt Elaine gave me Paint Shop Pro for Christmas and that pretty much opened the door for me with graphic design, it was SO much better than MS Paint and I could do so much more with it. I changed the layout probably every month or so. I somehow managed to spend hours online all while attending high school, running cross-country/track, practicing for the drama club plays (which I always had a big part in uh huh huh huh), and having a rather busy social life.

While still at Geocities, I discovered some websites where the creators also kept up an online journal. I frequented the websites of: Leah (still read her blog), this girl who went by “Volcano Girl” (I can’t find it online), a chick named Melissa at Overtype.org (holy crap, she still exists),   Nathalie at artgrrl.net, and Melissa at Gleeb.com (doesn’t exist anymore).  Melissa happened to live in the town next to mine, and a few years later her (ex)boyfriend befriended me in real life. Old skool StopKatie fans know him as JoeyHomoHead, which is the name Melissa called him on her website, and I loved calling him that in real life (he did not love it.) Eventually I outgrew Geocities and Nathalie took me in, where I resided at artgrrl.net/mmm.

That’s is when I really got into blogging.  I stayed at that web address throughout the start of college. I’m not sure why I decided to finally get my own domain name, but in February of 2004, StopKatie.com was born.  There was no contest when choosing StopKatie.com. I think the name was inspired by ye’ ol’ pal Jess Lane, who went/goes by ‘notjesslane‘ online. I don’t know if Jess knows that, but if she were any kind of cool and still read StopKatie.com, she’d have this knowledge now. By the time StopKatie.com came around, I was updating my blog multiples times a day, and somehow doing reasonably well in my college courses. I created some pretty awesome layouts (at the time) if I do say so myself. Unfortunately I’m a dummy who never archived my designs, so I can only locate bits and pieces.  INCLUDING: The frames layout!  Featuring, the Scarves page! the Photo page! And the Photo Booth page! Oh look, Here’s another classic.  That’s all I could find.  I had this one with a bright pink background and layers of black & white photos of friends.  So sad that one is gone.  While I loved this current layout when I first designed it, I am OVER IT, and also, it gives me a headache.  Someday I’ll have time for a new one.

Updating StopKatie has had its ups and downs, but back in it’s heyday, blogging/designing my website was my #1 favorite hobby.  Over the past year and a half I have really started slacking and I’ve just felt terrible about it.  So that’s why I’m updating daily now.  It’s really not that hard, and honestly, after two weeks (wow, can you believe it, two weeks?!) I’m feeling like one of the heaviest weights has been lifted off my shoulders (finishing the Chalk Farm website is another 30lb weight on my shoulders, ugggh).  For months after our road trip I dreaded coming back into the blogging world, but here I am, it hasn’t killed me.  And I can curse now too (damn you sponsorships).  FUCK SHIT DICK! Ahhh, feels so good.  PENIS!