Hello again...

Hello again... don't the months roll by? We were having this beautiful soft autumn and now there are only the last few leaves remaining, and it's cold, cold, cold. Winter is here. It felt quick didn't it? I've put grit on my drive-way and come eight in the evening I'm wondering whether it's bedtime.

I just wish I could remember what it was I wanted to say....I was so caught up in the photos.

Oh yes. I read a piece of good advice lately, from Tammy of Rowdy Kittens, Tammy wrote a 40 things to do before 40, and number 40 was 'stay in my lane'. To me that means, don't get too caught up in what everyone else is doing, trust in your own path. Sometimes, though, I'm not sure what is happening in my own lane.

I know I love to take photos and I've got a few things to say. I continue to look around me and wonder which part of my life needs my attention next. I like to be creative. I still harbour handmade dreams. I feel like I am beginning to come out of the fog of motherhood. Sometimes I think years may have gone by and nothing changed. I find myself trying to think backwards to try and remind myself of how I got to now. What were the things, that took up those chunks of time? Could I have done more? I tell myself to just be happy I landed here, now, somehow. It doesn't matter how I got here, only that I am here in one piece. Albeit, still a work in progress.

I stepped away from instagram a few days ago. I don't know how long for. I found myself trying to explain myself in increasing long posts, some changes I was trying to make with my shop and eventually I realised that I just needed to blog.

My teenager had been away several weekends ago and I had time to gather my thoughts enough to decide, that a name change or two, was imminent, a new shop name was happening, new/old ideas were about to fall perfectly into place. It all seemed so good.

I felt driven by the whole thing, then I felt uncertain. My self-care practices slipped away. I lost the alignment I had felt that weekend. Some kind of fierce momentum took over. Only instagram felt important. How does this happen? I think I may be someone who can't use social media, I'm not active on facebook either. Everything else falls away. What my own personal aims are. Whatever else I'm doing. The time to just look around me and see where I'm at. All gone.

So for now I closed the boxes. I will only use my phone for contact. A few days on and my mind is starting to feel expansive again, but I can feel it's pull. My awareness of what's happening around me is beginning to open up. I have some more time to think. I'm more available.

Perhaps it's just me, but I kept noticing how exhausted and driven some seemed as they felt compelled to post everyday. Some days ecstatic, and others vulnerable as they held on. A story of mulitiple accounts and scrolling at night while their family slept. It reminds me of one of those films where the hamster spins faster and faster on the wheel and you wonder if they're loving it or they just can't get off.....It's an addiction for sure. It's also a distraction.

I just need to remember that most creativity happens off-line, and if you are never off-line, it might not happen!

So we'll see what I will do about it. I yearn for simpler, for my own thoughts again. Also many people do have a website or blog, or newsletter so I can follow them in other ways.

So friends, be kindly, kindly, kind to yourself. Put down your phone. Take a deep breath. Do something else :-)

Heather

    ♥      

hello....!

Hello everyone. How has this week been?.....good I hope. I have been in a bit of a photograph frenzy, which is all good. It's been a little exhausting, it feels like everything else is also happening at the same time. So in some ways it's been a tough week, tough but good. You know when that happens.

I'm feeling so drawn to making these hearts right now. Whenever I can. Maybe it's the fabric and the colours, I don't know but I just have to make them. I have popped some single ones with a little message in my shop if anyone wants one to dangle one somewhere! Each heart will come come attached to a little postcard and with a little envelope to match. Truthfully I have had an explosion of ideas around these little hearts! And I can't wait to set to. And do my photography course :-) 

Of course there are lots of little photo moments through out the day. The camera that I brought is making a huge difference. Although I still don't really know how to take it off auto. Other news, I have finally got myself on instagram.

I realize this is not big news for most of you in fact who are already there. But the teens 'old' phone appears to be up to the job. We have already narrowly missed having world war three over it and have drawn a line under the fact that I'm not allowed to ask him anything else about how it works and have to work it out myself. Which actually in the end is the best way anyway. So four photos in and I think it's going to be awright!

Which brings me to the next thing. I've noticed that for some people who were blogging, and are now on instagram, it really lights them up. It works really well for them. I've also noticed that sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps what they are already doing is working as it is.  I don't know where I'm going to land in all this yet. I can see it's quicker, easier and you can message and reply more easily. But it's still not blogging.

I think bloggers are having to work quite hard right now, since instagram's success. Many are quietly leaving their blogs and are off in the insta-world. Things are quieter here. Less people around, less comments. I'm not someone who believes we have to reply or visit everyone who reads our blog, but I do think we need to put ourselves out into the blogging community and acknowledge what we are reading and enjoying, whoever that may be. It shouldn't become a chore.

Which brings me to my blog reader. I have a lot of blogs on my reader, and I had a lot of blogs in my sidebar. I suddenly really noticed there were quite a few with no updates for several months, and I also felt suddenly sensitive to some of the photos. I can't keep those on. I'm sorry if that affects you. If you have disappeared on to instagram I think it would be best to leave an honest note with a nice picture. Which is what the lovely Hesta did! Or give us a wave and smile and an update like Millefuilles did. Then it may be okay to sit there :-) So I'll just keep it to about a month. I can always add people back on. I can still see your blogs in my reader, mainly. And if not I'm sorry, but I can't follow everyone and times change and people move on to new things.

It's about enjoying ourselves and not feeling over-whelmed. And whole-heartedly enjoying the connections we have made, the amazing inspiration and life changing ideas and people out there. That's what it is for me.

So look, instagram. Up till now it's just been me peeking in on a group of people who inspire me in some way, whether it's how they live, what they do, how they put their message out in the world. Or their creativity and perhaps how they represent something I want to be part of my life. It's an inspiration board. So far.

Blogging is my community. Flickr inspires my photography. Facebook I just see as a kind of necessary business platform, but it doesn't call me.
I will be on instagram, but I have to say that if I am already following and commenting on your blog then I probably won't be following on instagram as well. Unless I've known you for ever and ever!
I'm using INK 361 as my reader which I like. When I open up my reader I need to not just be flooded by too much. That's the thing.

Of course I may totally end up eating my words and wouldn't that be funny.

♥

P.S. please excuse the random nature of my photos, they are all recent I can't seem to think of words and photos in unison today!