Naptime Natter

Time to take a blogging break

Time to take a blogging break

Every couple of months or so I like to take a little break from my blog. I find disconnecting for a while and removing myself from the blogosphere does me the world of good. By taking a step back from blogging I am able to give more of my time and attention to my family and also indulge in my other hobbies, as well as enjoying some much needed ‘me time’.

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Merry Christmas!

It’s Christmas tomorrow!! I don’t know who is more excited, me or my two year old. I think the answer is probably me.

This is just a very quick post to say..

Thank you so much to all of you lovely people who have taken the time to read, comment and share my blog this year. I have loved getting to know you all and look forward to hearing about what you have all got up to over Christmas and getting to know you all a bit more in 2016.

I hope you all have a wonderful, magical day tomorrow celebrating with your families and I shall be back writing posts once the festive period is over.

Now I must be off, I have a cake to bake, presents to wrap and a toddler who needs entertaining.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone.

Xx

6 things to do on your blogging break

Blogging, we all love it right? Our own little space on the internet to share our thoughts, embrace our passion for writing and to meet new people. Starting this blog earlier this year was definitely one of my smarter ideas, it has helped me improve my writing, inspired my creative side as well as making me a more confident person in general. Blogging is not always easy though, it can be very time consuming and the endless social networking that goes with it can be very demanding. No matter how much we love our blogs, sometimes it is good to step back and take a break.

In September I was very busy moving house and decided to completely abandon my blog for a month. I needed the time to focus on packing and I also felt like my blog was suffering due to distractions from my personal life. Instead of spending a month churning out half hearted, uninspiring, potentially badly written posts, I chose to sign out of Blogger, ignore the whole blogging world and enjoy a month away from it all.

Along side completely relocating with my family, I managed to do lots of things on my blog break and I found it really beneficial.

If you decide to take some time away from your blog, here are 6 things you should do on your blog break…

1. Read that book – you know the one I mean? The one that has been sat on your bedside table, untouched for the last few months. Reading blogs is great but there is only so much reading you can fit into one day. Use this new spare time to pay that book some attention, you bought it because it looked interesting after all.

2. Tweet – Once you become a blogger your Twitter account suddenly becomes home to endless blog promotion, retweets from other bloggers and everything else blog related. Instead of tweeting a link to your latest post, use this time to share a bit more about yourself with your followers, things they might not have known before. Lets be honest, everyone prefers a witty or heart warming tweet to yet another blog promo anyway.

3. Embrace parenthood – Now, I am not saying we don’t all do this every single day anyway. However, when you are on your phone reading comments, sending tweets or updating your blog that is time taken away from having fun with your child. Although I try to only blog when Leo is asleep, with the amount of work that coincides with blogging it is inevitable that sometimes various tasks leak into our time together. It’s time to get those hands off the keyboard and use them to give your toddler a good old tickle and have some fun.

4. Enjoy other hobbies – Whether you blog for a living or it is just for fun, sometimes the things you enjoyed before blogging can get a bit neglected. If your writing time has taken over the hours where you used to watch films, sew, swim, paint, read or whatever then use this break to get back into your favourite past times. Between packing boxes and cleaning, I managed to finish a whole book and get some serious knitting done, it’s amazing what you can do when you’re not glued to a screen.

5. Reflect on your blog – Now I know you are on a blogging break but now is a good time to address any issues you may have with your blog. You can use this time to give your blog a make over, tart up your side bar or update your about me page. Without the stress of deadlines or all the post promotion, you will be shocked at how inspired and creative you will start to feel. Even though you are having time away from your blog, post ideas will keep popping up in that clever brain of yours so make sure you write them down. I came back from my blog break with a pretty new layout and a much more focussed mind.

and most importantly..

6. Relax – Yes, you’re stats are going to suffer. How could they not? It is not the end of the world though, when you are ready to come back your readers will be back too.  Just enjoy some time with your family without your blog getting in the way. Be it a week, a month, a year just make sure you enjoy your blogging break and you get everything you want from it.

Have you ever taken a break from your blog? Did you find it beneficial? I would love to know what you got up to.

Time for a blog break

As you all probably know by now, me and my family are moving to Southampton at the end of this month and there is SO MUCH TO DO!

I find it quite amazing how much stuff Oli and I have managed to accumulate over our 6 year relationship. We have already made 3 trips to the charity shop, packed up a whole room and taken apart some furniture and it honestly looks like all we have done is make a massive mess.
Along with all the physical packing there is a list of boring, paper work type jobs that need doing. Find a new doctor/dentist/vet and register with them (only the cat for the latter, obviously), cancel internet and find perfect TV and broadband deal for new house, change address on important documents – the list just goes on.
So it is fair to say that getting everything organised for this big move is taking up a lot of my time. To be honest my heart hasn’t been in my blog for a few weeks now anyway.  Although I am excited about the move I am feeling quite anxious and I am finding it difficult to concentrate. I sit at my laptop with good intentions of banging out an interesting post and instead thoughts of meeting new people and moving Leo away from everything he knows creep in and disturb my train of thought. I feel as though my posts lately are nowhere near the standard of writing I know I am capable of. As well as using this time to sort out moving, I am going to use this blogging break to try and reconnect with my inner blogger and decide what it is I truly want from this blog. 
There are lots of things I still need to sort out on this here blog. I have been live since the end of March and have still not managed to sort out any share buttons (this is driving me nuts) and I can not decide on a layout, changing it every couple weeks or so. In any free time I manage to salvage between packing boxes and scrubbing the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush, I am going to sort out the layout of my blog and finally fix all the little bits that I have been neglecting. Hey, if I am really productive I might even write a couple posts, with no pressure of a deadline they might even be pretty good.
Most of all I want to take this break so I don’t waste a single second of the time we have left in Swansea. Instead of wasting time staring at my Twitter feed or reading other blogs (which I love doing by the way), I want to be running around on the beach and taking in the beautiful views of the Gower one last time. When I would normally spend Leo’s naptime writing this blog, I want to spend that time getting jobs done so the afternoon is completely free for us to go for walks and meet up for goodbye play dates with friends. We do these things anyway but sometimes I get caught up in my blog and the time is gone before we know it.
I am sure I am going to miss my blog but I don’t plan to be gone for long. I will be back at the end of this month, when all that is left to do is say goodbye to our little house, post the keys through the letter box and set off to start our new life in Southampton.
See you all on the other side. 
Have you ever had a break from your blog? Did you find your blogging break beneficial or did you just spend the whole time wishing you were blogging? As always, I would love to know!

Where to next?