10th Blog Birthday and Life Update

Hi everyone. I am sitting here writing this post now, listening to the fireworks going off in the distance, feeling quite sad and disappointed.  Today is once again my Blog Birthday and it is actually the tenth year!  I always thought years ago, that if I ever managed to keep my blog going for this length of time, I would do such a great post and a big giveaway to celebrate having my blog for 10 years!  But sadly, I haven't really been able to keep my blog going, not like I used to, because the last few years I have barely been posting.  And I do wonder, does anyone even read blogs anymore?!

I used to love writing my posts so much, I put so much effort into each and every one.  I loved taking and editing the photos and would spend hours on it, and for many years I posted every single week.  But life changed, things got difficult and hard and even though I really wanted to keep it going, it just never did.  Like I wrote a while back, I will try not to ever actually close the site or delete my blog, so it will still be here for anyone to read, including myself and I will post some times, just because I do love to write and hope that someone out there might still take the time to read it.

I hope to be able to write some more positive posts but at the moment, my depression has taken a big nosedive and I'm not doing too good.  I'm not happy at all with my life and I feel like I'm drowning with the grief of losing my Dad a year ago.

On the plus side, and two of the only things that have really been a positive in my life is that one, I have been learning a language.  Which is something I didn't even think I was capable of as I was chronically terrible at learning French at school.  I even got a U in a French test!!  But thankfully, I do seem to be learning well with my new chosen language, which I've been learning for nearly a year now.  And what is the language you may ask!  I am learning Finnish :-)  It is quite complex but a beautiful language.  I've also been learning a lot about Finland and the Finnish culture.  Maybe I'll do a post about it one day, if anyone is interested.

The second interest that has kept me sane this past 7-8 months, is my new music account, called @music2heal.my.soul and it is on both Instagram and Tiktok.  After I re-found all my favourite music and favourite bands near the beginning of last year.  I have mentioned this in more detail in my last post, which you can read here, Making Changes.
I love my little place on the internet, whether it's posting on my blog or spending time making lyric videos and posting on my music accounts.  And I want to keep doing these things, because it gives me pleasure and gives me something nice to focus on, as well as great happiness when I know it makes others smile too.

If you are one of my original followers, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me, and if you're new here and managed to read this far (I am known for writing loooong posts), then again, thank you.

Until Next Time, whenever that may be.  Stay Cool and Be Yourself ♥

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Making Changes

Hi everyone, I have had my blog for 9 and a half years now and it saddens me that years ago, I would spend hours on my blog and post every single week (sometimes twice a week), without fail but now as you may have noticed, I have barely added more than a handful of posts for the past few of years.  Life has never been easy but the past few years have been quite awful and far too much to cope with, including nearly losing my Mum because she got so ill a couple of years ago.  I would have loved to sit and relax and just work on blog posts but sadly there was never a chance to do that.

When my Dad became ill near the beginning of last year, everything started to change; I had to take on a lot more responsibilities and had far less time to myself.  Then when he passed away last October, so many more things changed, my daily life changed, my priorities changed, I changed as a person.

I have also discovered over the past year, that I have ADHD - this has really opened my eyes and made me understand so much more about myself.  I'm so glad that I found out because for the first time in my life I finally feel like I'm not to blame for all the things I forget to do or can't concentrate on, for the way I think and feel about things and so much more.  But on the flip side, grieving for my Dad has been hard enough but having a condition like ADHD has made it even harder to cope with and has very much flared up all of my symptoms, both mentally and physically.

On the plus side to all this, I seem to have rediscovered myself; what I like, how I want to be seen, what type of person I am etc.  I realised that for many, many years, I've been wearing a mask and trying very hard to fit in by being someone I'm not.  I feel like I have a new sense of myself now, I am more focused on my goals, I've added new ones and changed others to fit in more with what I'm into now.  I've changed the way I am with people, the type of music I listen to and even what I wear.

One of these personal changes, has been getting back into music.  It was always a massive passion in my life, I used to sing all the time, I was studying Performing Arts at collage and I used to write a lot of songs.  But after I left college just over 20 years ago, other things in life took priority and the goal to be a singer fell into the background.  My musical tastes changed and became more mainstream, I stopped singing as much, then not at all and I gave up on writing too.

It wasn't until my Dad got ill in February last year, that I just desperately needed something to help me get through it, to cope with it all.  So I decided to start listening to a lot of my favourite bands and albums from when I was at my happiest, back when I was a Goth at collage.  So out came all my Linkin Park cds, Evanescence, Love Metal by HIM (an incredible album!) and finally one of my favourite albums of all Dead Letters by The Rasmus.  I then found out that this band was still going and had released 7 other albums which I purchased straight away and learnt every song within about 2 months!  I haven't stopped listening to my favourite bands since then, every day because I soon realised music was the only thing that really made me feel alive, happier and calmer, just like it used to, and like I can cope better.  On top of that, it made me want to start singing again, and now I practice every day.  I've even started to write again too!  I know at my age, it's too late for me to have the music career I always wanted 20 years ago but I still love to sing so much and I do it just to make me happier now.

When I first decided to write this post, it was going to basically be, me saying goodbye to my blog and letting you guys know why I wasn't going to be posting anymore.  But whilst writing it, I've basically remembered how much I love doing it!  So here's the plan. . . Oh and if you've actually made it this far (because this was going to be a short post but as always, it's turned into War and Peace), thank you and please do keep reading, I promise I will get to the point, eventually!

- So the future plan for my blog now is, I'm just going to write whatever the heck I feel like talking about, whenever I feel like posting anything.  No set days for posting, because let's face it I will not stick to it and I don't want to be compartmentalized or labelled as being a certain type of blogger or only writing about one or two topics.  I have so many interests and these days I have so many other things I want to be able to write about instead of the boring old-style posts of 'What's in my handbag' or 'Top 5 lipsticks', like I used to!  I want to write about my ADHD and all the crazy things I've found out about it and myself.  I want to write about my shop that I run, that not that many people (especially my blog followers) know about.  And about my favourite music and show you my very different style of outfits that I was too nervous to wear before.  I now embrace the fact that I'm different; a neurodivergent rock chick who is sick of trying to 'fit in' just to be seen as normal and be accepted.  I am Me again and I am so much happier and more confident for it.

Once again, I also want to say a massive thank you if you are an original follower of my blog, thank you SO much for staying with me all these years.  I really, really appreciate it and to any new comers, hi and welcome!

You can now also find me on IG and TikTok @music2heal.my.soul which is my new music accounts.  I absolutely love them.  I post quite regularly and post about my favourite bands, amazing songs that I feel everyone should hear, my own lyric video edits, music memes, basically anything to do with the type of music I love.  I hope to also upload videos of me singing at some point but I do need to pluck up a bit more courage first!

So until next time, whenever that may be, Stay Cool ♥

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9th Blog Birthday & Life Update

Hi everyone, well, it's been a while hasn't it, apologies for that!  Unfortunately, life as usual, has not gone to plan at all again this year and it's been a very difficult one in many ways.

In the middle of February this year my father was taken into hospital after feeling quite ill for several days.  Little did we know that over the course of the next 8 months, he would become even iller and be in and out of hospital, mostly in.
All while myself and my mum were trying to manage at home, coping with problems that he would usually have dealt with.  Coping with doing daily jobs that he would usually have done, as both my mum and I have ill health (as some of you may know from reading my older posts).  To say it's been a struggle and exhausting and stressful, is an extreme understatement.  I have also had another round of counselling during this time, but I will write about that separately.  If you want to read about my counselling experiences from my last round of sessions, you can do that here.

After everything my father had been through while in hospital, (I won't go into details), we fully expected him to be on the mend as much as possible and even come home or at least go into a care home, as his health was never going to be very good again.  But sadly, after suddenly going downhill over a couple of days, on the 11th of October he passed away..

As you can imagine, this has been a massive blow and extremely hard to deal with.  It's been just over 3 weeks as I post this but feels like only a few days.  It's a real shock to the system.  Some days I feel I'm coping, other days I feel like I'm drowning in tears.  Thankfully I have some amazing friends around that have really been a great support and my mum and I are doing our best to help each other through this terrible time.

Today is my blogs 9th birthday and I would usually always do a giveaway, but hopefully this year you will understand why I have decided not to.  I will try and do one for you all just before Christmas instead.
Once again, thank you so much for staying with me over the years and I hope to write and get back into more of a routine soon, as I do have several posts in mind.

Bye for now ♥

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Life Update & New Year Changes

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a good Christmas, or break from work/school etc, or had fun celebrating in whatever way you do.  I'm sad to say that I have very much neglected my little corner of the internet this past year and I do hope to write more in the future.  My excuse is that I have had an extremely busy year, working on my business, which I will tell you all about very soon.

I am glad to say, that I've had a very productive year and for the most part I've enjoyed the whole process.  On the down side; if you read my posts all about the counselling I had last year, you will know that I suffer with bad bouts of depression and despite the counselling helping a great deal in many ways and feeling a lot better afterwards - this year I took a massive step backwards and my depression has been very difficult, to the point of being too anxious to leave my house for the past 21 months, yes really!  I may write more about that at some point.  So this is definitely something I want to work on and try and improve this coming year.

However this post, as well as being a mini life-update, is about the whole expectations of a 'new year'.

People say, "new year, new start or "new year, new me"".  New year is the perfect time to start that diet, or start exercising more, start reading or flossing more.  Why not take up a new hobby or learn a new skill.  Be more productive or finally quite a bad habit.

My questions is - !!WHY WAIT!!

Why wait for that clock to strike midnight to change bad habits or be more positive.  Why not start now!  Start when you as an individual feel ready.  You could get up next Wednesday morning or even suddenly in an evening, and decide to start reading books, or cycling, etc!  Whatever you want to do, for YOU.

In 2020 right in the middle of June, I decided to chance two massive life choices, and I am SO glad I did as it paved the way for my fresh start!

Why make these type of changes on this one specific day just because it's traditional and expected!  Be You.  Change if and when YOU want to, whenever YOU want to.

Ok rant over :-)
Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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8th Blog Birthday Giveaway WINNER

Hi everyone, firstly THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who entered the giveaway to win a beautiful one-of-a-kind handmade bracelet from my favourite Etsy shop Crafty Renegade Designs.  

Sadly to to many technical issues many of the entries were lost and it took some time to try and sort out the errors.

But I am now able to announce the winner.  So without further ado, 'drum-roll please' . . .

The winner is -

Renee Mitchell Riley

!!!CONGRATULATIONS!!!  You are the winner of my 8th blog giveaway.  I will contact you via message to discuss your prizes.

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But of course as mentioned in my last post, there are also two runners up, who will receive a discount code to use in my favourite Etsy shop.  Where there are SO many gorgeous handmade items, all of which can be personalised and would all make amazing Christmas gifts too.

So, the two runners up are -

Dawn Giles
Ruth Dickerson

CONGRATULATIONS to you too :-D  I will message you both with your discount codes which you can use whenever you like.

Once again, many thanks for entering the giveaway.  I will be running another giveaway next February which I am Very excited about :-)  So you'll have another chance to win some cool items then too.

Until next time, stay happy ♥

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