Planning the future, Animal Hats, and the #BiBs2018

Last updated on November 19th, 2023 at 01:01 pm

What a day! What a week!

Today, we saw the 2018 Brilliance in Blogging awards trending on twitter. It may have taken over an hour to get to my category where I nervously bite off all my nails and I never bite my nails! Then to have them about to announce that I unfortunately lost and twitter crashed right as it was refreshing. Talk about up and down torture. I am so happy for Dave at DadAventurer he won and well deserved. Do catch his blog if you can. But it’s always a bit sad to lose too. While I am so grateful for being a finalist, I will be honest this blog eats up 50% if not more of every day, it’s my baby, it’s my main income, and it’s my pride and joy. It’s always nice to be recognized for all that hard work.

So I am picking myself up and I am making plans for the future. I have a long check list of how to regroup, tactics and time management that I am going to set in place to work even harder. I love when something really motives me or inspires me and today that was all the amazing bloggers in the blogosphere coming together and supporting each other. It was so good to see. I think it has somewhat died down in recent years that bond between bloggers and it would be nice to get some of it back if I can. I know we are all trying to stay a float in this busy fight to grow our channels but I miss the good old days of reading blogs and commenting on all my friend’s blogs to support them too.

THIS WEEK I AM LOVING…

I am almost at the very end of a seven book series the Shadowhunters and I have this beautiful stack of books that I can’t wait to dive into. I needed a break from sci-fantasy and thrillers and drama. I thought so style, self motivation, and some interior hygge was just what I needed to kick start my winter reading. Have you read any of these? Which one should I read first?

Did you see the #BIBS2018 trending on twitter today? Well, I may have lost in my category (thanks for getting me to the finals by the way and the amazing support) but my beautiful friend Sarah Christie won a huge award the BritMums Choice Award. I am so proud of her and it’s so well deserved. I think she is amazing at what she does with her blogs you can catch her on her main blog Extraordinary Chaos here or her collaborative blog at Cruising With Kids here. Do check her out, she is awesome.

Why not catch up on my vlogs over on youtube if you haven’t had the chance? Here is one of my favorites celebrating The Fourth of July in the UK. And I only noticed today that our American flags are still hanging out back and had just flipped up in our gutter. Here I thought the hubster was being helpful and took them down for me. hahaha Wishful thinking! Please do pop over, leave a comment and thumbs up I would be forever grateful. Don’t forget to subscribe!

https://youtu.be/bsynlIBKcJw

I have fallen in love with this black and white striped sweater from Matalan with frilly sleeves and of course my new hair. I mentioned last week it’s taken some getting used to but now I think I just might have fallen in love with it even if I have to do it everyday. Something I never had to do before I cut it all off. The price for style. Along with my black ripped skinny jeans and this gorgeous mustard yellow Matalan top “Dream Long” top, I do love this outfit. It’s out of the comfort zone of wardrobe colors as I normally stick to pastels, greys, pinks and whites. I had vowed a few weeks ago that I am going to try to embrace color this season. What do you think?

The kids got these amazing animal snoods/scarf/hats this week. While baby boy was a little too small for his, we will save it for next winter for him. I thought they were so cute. MM’s came too big and B’s came too small but we had fun at the park staying warm. I actually can wear MM’s it’s that big and was so surprised how cozy they were that I think I have a new hat for winter. Adults can be kids too, right? It’s so fun watching baby boy get bigger and be able to play among the leaves with them and start interacting with them more and more everyday.

This recipe coming up this week…. some delicious Strawberry Pasta Salad. While it looks very summery and fresh it’s so comforting and filling for Autumn/Winter time too. Full of pasta, cheese, strawberries and balsamic it’s the tastiest combination. I think I may have ate a whole bowl of it to myself, I just couldn’t stop. Keep watch….

Instagram is a funny old thing, one of my favorite (ok, it’s my absolute favorite) social media platform but it’s also my most frustrating part of my job. I love to spend hours pouring over new accounts and liking, commenting, and finding new people to follow. It’s what I do first thing in the morning and last thing at night before bed. But it’s also crazy in how it keeps changing and evolving. I long for the old pattern of everything being in chronological order. I knew that if I started the day with my feed by the end of the day scrolling through I would get to see all my friend’s feeds. Now I am lucky to recognize even half or see any friends in my feed. They really should be an option that you can change it back if you want to the old version. I also notice it’s hard to get followers, and get people engaging with your photos on a daily basis where it wasn’t as hard before facebook bought it out and changed all the algorithums. Now everyone is scared that they aren’t doing it right or some are ignoring the new ASA guidelines and rules which upsets others. Personally, can we all just get back to sharing our photos, supporting each other and doing what we are passionate about instead of all the “office politics of it”. It’s like we all have to sell our souls just to get ahead in the game. This makes me utterly sad. Who cares what everyone else is doing why don’t we concentrate on ourselves and share what we love and support each other? This is my big question of the week because I just don’t get why others get so obsessed with it mostly because I don’t have time to be obsessed with it, how do they?

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