Hello World - It's Monday.
Good morning cherubs!
It's Monday, it's a new week, it's sunny, I've got glittery nails and my birthday is rapidly approaching round the corner. If you're a regular reader you might have noticed that it's been a quiet one for me over the weekend. I normally blog every day or every two days but ya gal has had a 3 day break and that's why I'm here with a lil brain dump/catchup for you.
I feel like I want to blog and I want to get typing but I've got like a half hour window to write this and I feel like everything I have planned in my schedule is too big a deal for that. So I'm taking my own advice and just getting typing so grab a morning brew and a slice of toast with jam on and settle in.
I don't often take a whole weekend off work, being self employed means I never really switch off and creating regular hours for myself is pretty impossible. You'll often find me sat on the sofa on a Saturday night in front of the TV tapping away at my laptop so to take 3 days away was a bit of a novelty.
Friday was still a work day for me, I just didn't blog. Day to day I spend my time on my illustration business so as well as working on projects for other people I also spent an exciting afternoon doing my self assessment tax spreadsheets. I know I know, a wild Friday I'm sure you'll agree. What I did do though was update my blog a bit - you know the admin stuff you sometimes do that starts out as a 5 minute job and turns into an hour and a half? Yeah that.
It's only been 2 months since I rebranded my blog and completely overhauled the design and as part of that came updates on my promo images. I created templates for my new blog format for the title image and also created Twitter templates and I liked it when I started. I wanted to have a brand that went seamlessly from blog to Twitter and it worked for 2 months....until I found it incredibly boring. I just totally lost interest in making the graphics, I don't feel like they're working so maybe I'll create something else? But for now I've moved back toward traditional photography for my promo images and we'll see how that goes.
What I did do though was update my home page which is more a lifestyle website homepage than a blog which I'm still loving. I had 6 buttons on my homepage ranging from where to start if you're new to how to advertise and where to get in touch if you want to work together. This part of my blog is something I want to update quite regularly to keep it fresh, you know like widgets where people update their most popular posts or what's seasonal? I updated my buttons to include my 50% Etsy sale, my Autumn photo challenge, my October advertisers, how to download my free printables and a link to my Instagram. I'm loving the new additions and it made me sure I want to update it frequently to keep it fresh and snazzy. Yes I said snazzy.
The weekend was pretty busy and it's something I feel so conflicted about. My life is busy, my weeks are busy, my calendar is always full, I am generally busy all the time so sometimes I just crave a non busy weekend. It feels like a bit of a waste of a day to spend it in your pjs on the sofa sometimes but ya know when that's just all you need? I am in need of one of those weekends there's no doubt but that is hopefully to come next week. This week I've had planned for a while and it was busy, I'm knackered but it was bloody lovely.
I don't want to go into it too much because it'll heavily feature on my Friday Favourites at the end of the week but we had a right lovely day. Saturday morning was spent at a farmers market (for those of you who've missed it long story short my boyfriend's family own a cider company which we run from our farm so we sell most weekends) and it pissed it down. It was absolutely hanging, we couldn't run the stall we normally do because it was flooding, we got absolutely freezing and we barely sold anything because nobody braved the weather. However, Joss did buy me a cuppa and a sausage roll from Greggs so silver linings and all that?
In the afternoon it brightened up and we went to my brother's house to see him and his fiancée and then we went out shopping for Halloween. I've never done Halloween in a big way, we lived in a tiny hamlet of houses full of elderly people who wouldn't have taken kindly to trick or treaters so we never really did anything to celebrate it. Joss' family on the other hand lived in America briefly when he was little and I attribute their love of Halloween to that - they decorate, they do pumpkin carving, they have all the sweets...
So with that in mind Joss asked that we decorate the house for Halloween so off we dutifully went for an afternoon of hunting down alllll the pumpkin related tea light holders and got our hands on a 6ft glittery spiders web that's currently in my living room window. We also scouted a lot of Christmas presents for family members we happened to stumble upon and topped the day off with the biggest meal ever in Harvester - because if you didn't eat your weight in free salad and bread before you start your meal did you even go to Harvester?
Sunday was the standard family routine of everyone round Mum and Dad's for a beef roast and a cuppa and time with the baby and a quiz thrown in for good measure and the evening was spent tidying, doing laundry and watching Dragons Den with a cheesy jacket potato.
And ya know what? Having such a busy weekend was delightful. It was filled with nice food, good seasonal shopping and time with all my favourite people. I feel refreshed, I feel motivated for the week ahead, I feel keen to get on with blogging and I'm excited for all the plans I have coming up.
So with the start of a new week and my love of blogging on a high yet again, let's end with some of my fav blog posts of late for you to read with your breakfast - and let's do Monday.
Even Faster Fashion - Chloe Plumstead
Which notebook is best for bullet journaling? - Hannah Emily Lane
Why it's ok if you don't know what you're doing next - From Roses
Why reflection is important - No Space For Milk
Gothic Wedding Decor - Sparkleberry
The future of Hannah Gale in the online world - Hannah Gale
