Blogging

Bloggers giveaway

July 13, 2020

Bloggers Giveaway

I am so pleased to be involved with this Bloggers Giveaway in collaboration with some fabulous UK bloggers. What would you but with £100 to spend on Amazon.

Lots of wonderful UK bloggers have teamed up together to be able to give away a £100 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky winner! All organised by Sarah over at Whimsical Mumblings.

Find out who’s involved in this amazing giveaway below, and how you can enter to win this fantastic prize!

Travel Bugs // Life With Jupiter & Dann // Happy Homemade Home // Soph – Obsessed

Three Little Z’s // Home In The Pastures // Discover Kent // My Tunbridge Wells

The Sporting Blog // Family Fun Reviews

We Made This Life // Early Retirement Rocks // A Rose Tinted World // Two Plus Dogs

A Penny For Them // We Made This Vegan // Typical Mummy // So Nostalgic

Mummy And Me x2 // Life With Alden Jax

Lazy Mum // Thrifty Chap // The Parent Game // Joanna Victoria

For The Family // Wotawoman Diary // Live Rich Media // A Life Less Plastic

Tea In The Tub // Moneysaving Superhero

Mummy vs Work // Savvy Squirrel // My Love Of Home // Emma Drew.Info

Our House Our Home // #MyBlogMyBusiness // The Mini Millionaire // Boring Mother

Photographyish // Cats, Kids, Chaos

Lylia Rose // Simple Happy Home // Savvy In Love // Student Cash Flow

I Beat Debt // Hawkes At Home // Styling Life Today // According To Nikol

That Copper Life // Real Home And Living // The Somerset Foodie

I definitely recommend checking out all of these wonderful blogs!

The competition will run from 13th July 2020 – 27th July 2020. The prize is x1 £100 Amazon Voucher, which will be emailed directly to the winner.

You can enter the giveaway through the Rafflecopter widget below, there are over 100 entry options, which means 100 chances to win! UK entrants only, must have a valid email address.

Once the winner has been verified and contacted, and the prize has been delivered, their first name and surname initial will be displayed on the Rafflecopter widget. All other information from every entrant will be permanently deleted after the competition is over.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Luck!

Who are the best Vloggers? My 5 to watch in Spring 2020

April 29, 2020

Best Vloggers Spring 2020

Who are the best Vloggers? I love youtube and subscribe to many Vloggers – I change my favourites around here are my 4 to watch in Spring 2020

So Who are the best vloggers in my opinion at the moment

Clutterbug

This is owned by Cassandra Aarnssen a canadian mother. Her niche is organisation and decluttering. She can also show how to revamp areas all on a budget.

She describes people as having 4 different organisational styles, Ladybugs, Crickets, Butterflies and Bees. I tend to be a Ladybug – everywhere looks tidy but inside cupboards and drawers things are untidy and I hoard things. Her personality is so bubbly and motivating. Her posts are humorous with great easy to follow practical tips.

She also has a blog to read if this is your preference.

The Minimal Mom

Dawn is also Canadian and her blog whilst also about hints and tips to be more organised and how to declutter. Her whole reason to do this is to live with less. Living with less means there is less to worry about and take care of. This is something I subscribe to – after all I know myself and my friends love nothing more than a good declutter and trip to the tip. Although Local Authority Refuse waste depots are currently closed at the moment, I cannot wait fro them to reopen. I have been clearing cupboards etc during my time at home. Again Dawn has a lovely bubbly personality and the big plus for me personally is that she has a daughter called Adeline – which was my mother and grandmothers name! A name I never hear in the UK.

In fact I have been watching them both and then found that they have produced content in collaboration with each other!

Lucy Wyndham Read

Lucy is a fitness vlogger and as we are all trying to keep moving whilst in lockdown I like her site. If you read my post about Life in Lockdown and what I’d been up to you will have seen her videos mentioned. For many of us it’s a bit of an effort so to find this lovely young lady producing short sharp sessions that are around 7 minutes long providing a good all over body hit! She demonstrates 2 levels of each movement depending on fitness. I’m rather ashamed to say that over the past 12 months whilst caring for my late brother my previous fitness regime had got lost by the wayside so I’m definitely trying the easier option but don’t be fooled you still get a good workout.

Kerry Whelpdale

Whilst staying home I’ve been cooking more, using up leftovers, being creative with the contents of the cupboards and baking. I found Kerry whilst looking for inspiration. We love our slow cooker, or crockpot if you are overseas.

Kerry is a lovely English mum with 2 boys and a husband and she shows you how she meal plans or meal preps, often batch cooking. Again she has a sunny personality and produces some simple no nonsense nutritious meals.

Rosie Henshaw

Rosie is a delightful bubbly mother from the South of England. She has the most fabulous home and decorates and accessorises it on a budget. She has some fabulous crafty and no fuss DIY ideas to keep you home on trend and looking its’s best. As I say she’s really bubbly and often just records at her dining table, she admits that her editing skills are minimal so videos are just produced on the go. Rosie also shows fashion hauls and is proud to be described as curvy, she has no hangups and is body confident. I always finish her videos smiling as she is so friendly and chatty.

So there we have it my current 5 favourites, the best vloggers for my needs at the moment, although they are not the only ones, I have posted previously about favourites, I can go down the rabbit hole of youtube daily. I often watch whilst I’m cooking, finding new vloggers to watch by following recommendations from YouTube itself.

If you are not someone who watched youtube but prefer to watch TV – click through for recommendations.

Let me know who you are watching I always love finding new vloggers to watch. Comment below with suggestions of your best vloggers to watch or what you think of my recommendations

Stay safe, stay home and keep washing those hands

The downside to Blogging – when life gets in the way

April 21, 2020

This post outlines the downside to blogging – Blogging is a great way of expressing yourself but sometimes life gets in the way. This is my first post for almost a year.

Sadly my lovely brother who had always been fit and healthy, a non smoking, non drinking fitness freak was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. It was a devastating shock to us all. After initially being told it was curable things took a rapid downward turn 2 weeks after the end of his course of radiotherapy and he was told it was terminal.

His story is really shocking and too complicated to actually tell, the aim of this post is just to give a brief overview of how sudden bad news can cause your normal routine totally upside down.

Some bloggers will continue and use their blog as an outlet for their emotions. I have to say that I can truly take my hat off to those who continue to blog and create content during a life changing upheaval.

I was totally the opposite, my whole world was consumed by Cancer and emotion. I found it hard to focus on anything else. My usual hobbies like entering competitions and watching football became much less important than before. All I wanted to do was be around my brother, husband, brother and immediate family. It was all consuming.

The downside to blogging affected me individually, although I could not create any content of my own, I did continue to read other bloggers content and stories and found reading novels my only comfort. Everything else was too much effort! I know I could have continued to repost and update current content but I just couldn’t find it in me to do this.

Books and Tea – my stress relievers

Sadly my brother lost his battle with Cancer and passed away at the end of January. We are gradually getting back to some kind of normality, well as much as we can given the current global circumstances. I can now begin to think of topics and content to write about. I know I have had visitors to my blog throughout this time and I am so grateful to anyone who has taken the time to read. Thank you form the bottom of my heart.

To my loyal subscribers thank you for staying around. Bear with me and normal blogging service will be recommenced soon. This is a very short post but it’s the beginning of a new stage of my life and blogging career.

If anyone else has faced a blogging crisis due to unexpected life events I would love to know what you did to get by?

Stay safe

New Year New Perspective – Exciting Goals

January 9, 2019

New Year and New Goals is probably the same for most people. We all set goals, there’s something that happens when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st.

Myself and Mr Fitz did not go out and celebrate, it was a cosy PJ night for us with a curry cooked by him. I have been unwell for most of Christmas developing a nasty chest infection 1 week before. I spent the week before Christmas on the sofa, I missed final shopping days and my hair appointment! I’m sat typing with horrendous roots, hopefully to be fixed tomorrow! Even after Christmas I had so little energy that I still spent a lot of time relaxing. The only thing I really felt like doing was reading and watching TV – I didn’t even pick up my beloved laptop for nearly 2 weeks! Shock! Horror!

Anyway I’m rambling a little but the point is that this enforced rest helped me to format my goals for the New Year and evaluate where I am now to where I want to be.

As you may have read in my About Me page I retired from my nursing career in 2015 after 36 years. I fulfilled some part time shifts for a further 18 months but then I finally hung up my stethoscope.

Since then I have been a part time Ebay reseller this has helped me learn new things, I had no idea before how to run a small business or complete HMRC Accounts! Also I think the secret to happy retirement is keeping active both physically and mentally. After years of working to strict shift hours and guidelines and protocols I still like some structure to my days and weeks. However I do not want to go out to work for someone else at this stage in my life, with one exception which I will come to later.

I have fallen a little out of love with my reselling lately, I think one of the main things is the clutter and stock that builds up in the house. I try to keep it contained to my home office and the garage, which are both really untidy and it does spread occasionally. I want the home office that you see images of on Instagram – not my cluttered mess. Running down my reselling life has been driven by this and then after compiling my HMRC Tax return I think the figures are an eye opener. I only want to spend 10-15 hours a week on this and yes I have a reasonable side income to supplement my NHS Pension but there are so many expenses and outgoings involved too that I think I can make this amount up by other methods. This is where my new challenges arise from for the New Year. So here goes!

Reading

As a child I spent a lot of time on my own and filed my time reading, this continued but progresses to text books at various stages in my career. When I retired I promised I would read all the books I’d wanted to and watch all the films I had missed. I haven’t managed either. So after my enforced rest I managed 2 books on my kindle in 10 days and realised how much I’d missed reading. So my goal is to read at least 2 books per month – I have set my reading target to 30 books for the year.

Ebay Reselling

As mentioned earlier one of my new year intentions is to wind down my Ebay shop. This will not take immediate effect as I still have around 300-400 items yet to sell. I will continue until this is gone but will reevaluate my pricing to help in quick sales. Once my shop is closed I will return to just selling personal items. I have to add that being part of the reselling community has been a fabulous experience. There are so many fabulous characters out there who will help. Especially on YouTube – so many re-sellers producing quality videos to hep and always with humour. I will continue to follow them even when I close my shop later in the year.

Competitions

Entering competitions has been my main hobby after watching football for over 10 years. I have won some fabulous prizes including money can’t buy experiences, including getting to interview Ant and Dec behind the scenes of Britain’s Got Talent. Following my retirement my intention was to up my game on this front and devote more time to this hobby. Yes there is a lot of luck involved but it is a hobby where you make your own luck by your efforts and hard work. Also it is a numbers game – the more competitions you enter the more chances you have of being a winner. However, this never happened and due to other distractions, including, Ebay reselling, I found I was entering less than when I was in full time work. Most compers maintain their stats, prizes, values, methods of entry etc. Again I managed this when I was working but somehow haven’t managed this is in retirement. For the life of me I don’t know why! At the end of one year or beginning of next some compers share their stats, often via YouTube. There are a few who I follow every month and after seeing their stats and yearly total of prizes I have decided that this is the main focus of my attention this year. I intend to devote the time previously allocated to Ebay reselling back to this and some more!

Work as a Background Artist

A background artist is the current name for a TV Extra. I am registered with a local Casting agency and have gained some experience in this field. The work is sporadic and not well paid at all. Probably minimum wage for the hours worked. However, I find it interesting, the food and catering is excellent, which is free and there is a lot of time hanging around between scenes. Plus you meet some interesting people. There are people from many backgrounds who work in this role. I hope to increase the amount of work I get from my agent – ooh! That sounds grand doesn’t it. If necessary I will join a different agency and see if that makes a difference to the amount of work I receive. I know I’ve said the pay is very poor but there is a lot of time hanging around which will allow me to work on my Blog and competition entries, with pay!

Blogging

I am really enjoying my blogging career that I have tried to pick up in ernest. I am still learning all the time and want to grow and monetise my blog. Therefore this New Year working on networking and growing my blog will be a big goal.

Fitness

This is my final and ever perpetual goal. To maintain fitness and lose weight. I have been attending the gym and discovered Yoga but no weight loss follows. I have written about my health goals before. Starting the New Year I want to carry on at the same level but build on my exercise regime and increase my yoga classes. As I have a chronic back condition I find that this is fabulous for my well being.

Well that’s enough to be going on with! What about you? Have you got any exciting new goals this New Year. I realise we’re approaching the middle of the month before I publish this post, however I was laid up with a nasty chest infection and bug from before Christmas plus a family bereavement which has slowed my progress. But it’s now onwards and upwards! I already know that I have some regular work as a background artist from the end of the month.

Exciting times!

My pride at being nominated for a Blogger Recognition Award

November 5, 2018

I have been really thrilled to have been nominated this week for my First Blogger Recognition Award. As I have been working hard to build and promote my blog in recent months this makes me feel my efforts have been worth it.

The Blogger Recognition Award is given to bloggers by bloggers who appreciate the hard work, dedication and vast amount of hours we all put into each and every post. My nomination was from the lovely Hazel Jackson at Tea & Cake for the Soul. Hazel is the owner of a lifestyle blog and covers many subjects particularly Mental Health, Travel and Books plus lots of blogging goals info. The whole feel of the blog is as soothing as the name implies. Reading her posts is like snuggling up on a comfy sofa and being soothed by calmness and tranquility.

Rules for the Blogger Recognition Award

Write a post about your award
Thank whoever nominated you, including a link to their blog
Give a brief story of how your blog began
Share some advice for new bloggers
Nominate 10 other blogs you wish to give the award to – include this in your post and tag them on twitter
Leave a comment on this blog post

Why did I start blogging?

There are days when I keep asking myself this! Particularly during the recent #Blogtober18 promotion. Joking apart though I tentatively began my blog in 2015 after taking early retirement from my nursing career at age 55. Up to that point I had little knowledge of what blogs were. I had only come across them in my hobby of entering competitions. Finding myself with more leisure time and being a huge fan of Twitter I clicked through to blogs via their twitter links. I was fascinated and most mornings whilst enjoying my morning brew I would disappear down the rabbit hole of social media reading bloggers content. As I ma known for being a chatterbox and having lots to talk about I decided to start my own. My posts were sporadic because I hadn’t a clue what I was doing or how to promote etc. It was purely for my own pleasure. In recent months after some coaching from the lovely Emma Drew at Emma Drew info I have fallen in love with the whole process. My head is full of trivia and random information and I struggled to focus on what I was good at and what subjects I could focus on most. I feel its such a huge work in progress and my head is swimming with ideas for content, I’m still in the infancy of my blog but learning lots and loving my personal space on the internet.