How I used my blog free time

3 months? Has it really been that long, 15 weeks without writing. 105 days! After 3 months, I am looking back at how I used my blog free time. The big question on my mind… Did I miss it?

How I used my blog free time

It certainly feels like there is an awful lot to catch up on. Both what I have been up to and what you lovely folk have been doing. I have kept my eye on you all though. Reading blog posts is still one of my favourite things to do, so when I have had a spare few minutes I’ve been reading if nothing else.

As I sit here to reflect on this time away, I wonder how I ever had time for all that blogging entails. It’s not simply writing and sending it out in to the world, far from it. It’s the social media scheduling, promoting, completing comment threads, being present. The whole time you’re thinking about your next post and every other blogging task you have to do. It is completely consuming.

So let me fill you in on how I used my blog free time.

Reading

Like me reading comes as a huge shocker hey? I have regularly shared my love of books here on my blog and I knew less blogging meant more reading time.

I have just finished my 12th book as I type. Some real corkers in there as well I’m pleased to report. I won’t review them all this time. Instead keep an eye on my instagram account where you will see the occasional book review post moving forward.

I have even managed to resist buying anything new for a few weeks. But Bookstgram is the worst for a self confessed book buying addict.

I did get some brilliant reads for my birthday recently and also managed to sort my TBR pile in to a stunning work of art! I’ve seen it doing the rounds for a while now, but rainbows always remind me of my Mum. Now I can think of her every time I choose a new book.

Fitness

I’ve invested my extra time in myself. The gyms re-opened so I no longer had an excuse not to go. I had some serious gym anxiety though. I had no clue what I was doing, how the equipment worked and I knew for sure that I would feel completely out of my comfort zone. And honestly, I really thought I would look ridiculous and I’d be the butt of all the gym jokes.

Turns out no one cares! Like literally don’t care about anyone else in the gym. Everyone has there own thing going on, they are too busy pushing themselves to worry about how you look or what you’re doing.

It took one session in the gym for that feeling to completely disappear. And quickly it became a highlight of each day. The results are slower than I like but I feel healthier and happier which is so much more important than anything else. Plus the anxiety has been holding me back for so long now that it is a great feeling to have kicked it.

I decided I needed a challenge to keep me motivated so in May, I decided to try and do 100 miles in May while raising money for Myton Hospice. I’m pleased to say that I smashed the miles and raised close to £500 for the charity.

Wanting to continue I went for 150 miles in June, I fell short by 10 miles but I am so pleased that I was able to walk and cycle 240 miles in 8 weeks. Seeing the difference really spurs me on as well.

Adult time

We’ve been so lucky to find some much needed adult time over the last few months. Our first weekend away was to Windsor. Somewhere I have been desperate to get to for a long time. The sun shone for us and even the Queen stuck around for our visit.

As parents, finding time to slow down is so important. It offers some much needed balance to our life. A chance to reconnect and be FREE! I don’t even care if that makes me sound like one of those ‘bad parents’ but I am so over feeling guilty about being a parent who needs a child-free weekend once in a while!

Our next trip away was a weekend in Bath, somewhere else I have never visited before and the perfect way to celebrate my belated birthday. What can I say? Bath won my heart, we managed to cram so much in to 3 days, 3 National trust properties, the Circus, the Crescent and everything in between.

Not only that, the trip ended with us stuck on the side of the M40 with not just a flat tyre, but one that exploded at 70mph! I can’t say it wasn’t pretty terrifying but you know I am all about new experiences. Standing on the side of a busy motorway, snuggled up to the love of my life is one hell of an experience! One that was sorted in a few hours and we can now laugh about!

More renovations

If you’ve been around a while, you’ll know that our home was in need of some serious TLC. We completed our attic renovations this time last year and to celebrate we had our kitchen ripped out. Yep, you heard me, the kitchen… Gone!

Now, again, if you’ve been around a while you’ll know that I do not deal well with life being completely upside down. So with the kitchen out, the dining room became a make-shift kitchen and I lost my make-shift mind for a few weeks! Everyone told me the pain would be worth it, I didn’t want to believe them but of course I knew they were right.

But boy were they right! I thought it would take a lot to top our attic, honestly this kitchen is something else! I mean, I’ll be honest, it was terrible before hand but WOW!

Please don’t judge how bad this was. It was at the very beginning when we thought we could make-do. Spring clean it, get rid of things we don’t need and then give it a paint and it would be enough. As this is the house that Jack built though, one job leads to finding another 20 and nothing is ever as simple as throwing some fresh paint up and laying some new flooring.

We quickly realised that a full kitchen, plus floor levelling, re-plaster and a new ceiling was needed…. Of course! Check out the absolute beaut of a kitchen though.

For all the hassle, the tears and many a tantrum from me, it was all completely worth it. I am now in love. I love to cook in it, I love to clean it (and believe me, those work surfaces take some serious cleaning to stay so shiny!) I just love dancing around to Alexa in it. I could spend hours in there and in fact I do, Often!

Wedding planning

137 days until we say ‘I Do’ and boy is the pressure starting to build. There have been some huge changes over the last 3 months and it now finally feels like we are getting the wedding we’ve waited so long for.

After postponing our wedding last year, everything just felt a little tainted. It took the edge off the planning stages somewhat. We needed to get back in the zone and things needed to change to bring back the excitement.

Our venue were being unhelpful at this time, unwilling to discuss any plans and certainly would not even consider talking about Covid and having a back-up plan. As a couple whose wedding had been effected the first time around, it was really important that we could discuss our options.

Fast forward a few weeks and we secured a full refund and rebooked a new venue. I instantly clicked with the wedding planner, in fact I’d marry her tomorrow! Having someone who just got our vision, understood how important this day was and was not just in it to make money instantly put me at ease.

Now we have a wedding that we know will be exactly what we want. But with a new wedding comes a new dress…

Big step

Making the decision to buy a new dress was not one I took lightly. The dress I have was bought in 2018, with my Mum just before she passed away. It felt like a really important thing for her to be part of and of course a comfort that although she would not be with us on our big day, she had played a huge part in the choosing of my dress.

But with all the time between buying it and when we will eventually get married, the rose-tinted glasses began to slip. What once bought comfort to me, suddenly began to weigh me down. I had held the day that I chose my dress with Mum with such importance.

As time passed, I felt the memory of the day had blurred. All I could see now when I thought about that it, was how poorly she was. In reality she had very little energy, she couldn’t be excited like I wanted her to be because she just didn’t have the fight in her. I will treasure that day forever of course but my dress just did not feel the way I had expected it to. In reality it just made me feel sad.

So off I went to buy a new dress. It is beyond perfection and I have absolutely no doubt that my Mum would love it. She will still be with me on the day and that is more important than anything else.

Now if anyone is after a wedding dress… I do have one for sale!

I am using all this free time to work through a huge list of wedding jobs. 5 pages of jobs in fact. Who knew there was so much involved in wedding planning?

What else kept me busy?

Work has kept me very busy. For anyone that works in a school right now, the dreaded Covid has made life tricky. It’s been full on, pretty scary and a little overwhelming. But we made it to the 6 weeks holiday. Survived the late ping threat and arrived in time for some much needed R&R.

Being a Mum has meant the holidays have always been pretty full on and very expensive. Being a Mum to a teenager though has been a whole new experience. Suddenly I am just not of any interest to the boy. He will tolerate me in small doses but can mainly be found in his bedroom. Either playing on the playstation with friends, kicking a football around or laughing at TikTok.

It does mean that when I can bribe him out of the house, its really special. I feel like the relationship of Mum and Son has now become one of friendship and that is something I am loving.

Moving on.

So what now? I thought I’d be in full on blog writing mode when the holiday’s hit but in reality, for as much as I miss it, I do love having time to slow down and enjoy all those simple pleasures in life.

Time that I am using to reconnect with my loved ones, build on years of friendship that are so treasured to me, watch my children grow up and of course plan for the day where I become Mrs P and celebrate our love for each other.

I am not ready to say goodbye just yet, my brain still buzzes with ideas that I need to follow through on and the community is still one that I love. So for now, you’re stuck with my sporadic ramblings I am afraid.

Have you ever taken a blogging break? How did you find it and were you itching to get back to it?