It’s time for one of those chatty little posts where I really ramble. A bit of “word vomit” if you may. So grab a cuppa like me and get settled. It’s been a while since I sat down & thought “Wow, my life is pretty sweet.” It’s a sorry state of affairs when you start to forget to appreciate the good things in life and quite simply it can really wear you down. I’m notoriously terrible in January and February. I think there is a little bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder in us all. When the dark night’s start appearing you still have Halloween, Bonfire Night & Christmas to look forward to. Once January hits it’s a little bit gloomy for me. But now, now I’ve had my holiday to Madeira and the nights are getting lighter I feel a million times better.
I got a pay rise and quite a substantial one at that! I mentioned on Twitter that I did and the messages of encouragement were so lovely. I’m a terribly modest person and sadly don’t sing from the rooftops when I have done something good. I should start to beat my own drum a little louder and be more confident in my abilities. I’ve been working really hard recently and my blog did kind of take a backseat – I’d been beating myself up about it for a while but after my review and finding out that I had earned that extra pay increase made it seem worthwhile. It now means I can (fingers crossed!) hopefully book another little break away some time this year. You know what they say, work hard – play harder!
We had an amazing holiday to Madeira. I mean amazing. It was a place that just completely blew us away in a way that we didn’t expect. As I mentioned in my first post “5 Reasons You Need to go to Madeira” it is the home of the blue rinse, but look beyond that and you have a gem of an Island just waiting to be explored. I’m hoping I can share a photo diary with you shortly as this weekend coming is the first I will have had where neither of us have any plans. Nadda. It’s so weird because we have just been non-stop all the time. It’s been a crazy whirlwind of late and I have to start looking after myself a little more and give myself the “me time” I definitely do deserve.
I went to my first blog event of 2016, #Jet2Sunchester which you can read about here. It was a good 3 months in to the year and with that I realised just how much I missed my blogging friends and being around them. I feel it really encourages me to aspire to get better at blogging when you are surrounded by creative, fun and like-minded people. It’s given me a real kick up the bum to get this blog back on it’s feet after it’s turbulent, up & down start to the year.
Some amazing collaborations with brands are coming up and it’s nice to see that I am still of some use to the blogging world. I have never known where I want this blog to go, I know hand on heart I wouldn’t be able to do this full time – I rely on an income too much, plus we are wanting to move soon and buy a bigger house which requires a bigger mortgage. Keeping it as a hobby (and sometimes I see it as a little part-time job!) is really where I think it will stay. Some amazing opportunities come my way & I am hoping that I can say “YES” to right ones and “NO” to the wrong ones this year. I found myself getting bogged down with campaigns that I wasn’t that passionate about. My true calling is definitely travel, coming from the Travel Industry and my inside knowledge talking about holidays & travel is just natural to me. I also want to keep pursuing fashion & lifestyle posts too. To be honest, not a huge amount is changing except I will feel a little bit happier about the things I am writing about.
I’ve been really enjoying Instagram. I give a lot of love to this platform. There’s something I love so much when looking at something aesthetically pleasing, call me vain. I’ve been working on growing my account organically. None of this follow/unfollow bullshit that goes around, bu actually genuinely being interested in the accounts I do follow and sharing my love for their photos too. I’ve also noticed that my blue/grey theme (oh god, did I just admit that I have a theme?) is making me happy too. I’m slowly growing my Facebook page, however, it is not a social media channel that I am truly interested in when it comes down to my blog. In fact, I aren’t that much of a fan of it from a personal point of view either.
There are plenty of exciting things to look forward to this year, plenty of travel plans, my best friend is getting married and I’m a bridesmaid (HOORAY FOR ANOTHER RAUCOUS HEN DO!) and I am hoping that come the end of summer I will have passed my driving test – giving me much more freedom to come and go to wherever my heart desires. I’m pretty excited about 2016, despite being over a quarter of the way in to the year. I mean, how the heck did that happen? You could say, life feelin’ pretty sweet!
Bee xxx
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