fresh start

Hey, lovely friends.  How are y'all doing?

I realize that it has been weeks and weeks since I have last posted, and even longer since I was updating my blog on a regular basis.  Why?  Well, I've been busy with school starting, of course, but I also simply felt the need to continue my blogging hiatus, grow a bit, think about where I wanted this place to go...and what I needed to do to make it go there.  After praying and thinking about it all, I am ready to say that I will be back for good now.  And I'm sorry I kept leaving you.

I feel like I need to explain a few things upon coming back, because I know that at the time I stopped posting some things were in desperate need of change.  It took my time off to realize that, yes, I love blogging, but to make me love it even more, I need to do some things differently now.  I am excited about these changes, because it's going to turn me in a new (and better) direction.

-I'm going to be realistic.  During the past year, there was this common theme: I would continually start off my posts by saying that it had been too long since I posted last, apologizing, and saying that I needed to do better.  But I'm finally realizing that this simply does not work out.  I'm a busy high school student, a procrastinator, and a perfectionist.  No matter how much I tell myself and all of you that I'm going to write more often, it won't happen, and I will be frustrated that I'm not meeting my goal.

I will never be the blogger who whips out inspiring, artful posts (or even posts at all) every day, but that's okay.  I'll do my best to write something weekly, maybe biweekly, or maybe bimonthly.  We'll see, but the fact that I won't be feeling guilty every time I write something is freeing and wonderful to me.

-I'm going to focus more on community + less on numbers.  This has actually come naturally with my break from blogging.  I realize that my number of page views has gone down quite a lot and my following has decreased.  I also realize that I haven't been keeping up with my dear friends and everyone who reads my blog nearly as much as I did.  And you know what?  I miss my friends and readers and community so much more than that higher number of page views and the fifteen followers I lost.

My main focus needs to change.  I'm not going to think about numbers or statistics or whatever.  Instead I will simply be thrilled and thankful whenever I receive a new follower or a post gets an exciting number of comments and page views.  And, I'm going to try to visit, read, and comment on more blogs, adding to the lovely blogging community here.

-I'm going to be authentic.  I have a feeling this is going to be hard to write about, but I will try.  For some people, it looks like the whole "being yourself" thing comes naturally.  And for the longest time, I thought I was doing it "right", but I simply wasn't, at all.  A little less than a year ago I was to the point where I would read over my post, and if it sounded like Ree Drummond or Kelle Hampton or whoever, I smiled and thought "okay, good".  Except it wasn't good at all; it needed to have sounded like me, and it just didn't.  For some reason I was having a hard time writing like myself, so I chose to try to write like others.  And somehow, without meaning to, I was swallowed up into a hole of comparison and doubt, followed by disgust with myself.  When I was blogging, I lacked confidence.  I slaved over posts, worried that they didn't sound right, and just wasn't satisfied with myself when I hit "publish".

I think that's why this break has really been so refreshing.  In "real life", I wasn't comparing, I was just being.  And I came to the realization a week or two ago that, when I started blogging again, it would be more painful to continue creating myself through other people, than to go through the process of breaking old habits and finding myself.  And so I made the decision to be 100% authentic.

In a nutshell, the number one thing that I'm challenging myself to do is find myself on blogger and learn to write authentically.  I'm sorry if it takes some time, or if I continue to fail for awhile.  But I need to start moving in this new direction.

And before I go, a few other changes that are taking place:

-new blog title...basically because I always hated my old one and was just too tired of it.  I wanted to make it something that I could still be recognized by, though, so my first and middle name it is.  I like it.  And it goes nicely with my URL, as well.

-new design.  I love yellow and grey and b&w pictures, and it's wonderfully authentic.

-and a note about clicked and captured, my photography blog:  I haven't written on it in a very long time, and to be honest the whole managing-two-blogs thing never exactly worked out for me.  I think that, for the time being, I'm going to say that I will no longer be updating that blog.  I would like to be able to put my time and energy into this one, and also be able to create more photography-related posts right here.  Clicked and Captured will definitely still stay upon, I just will not be posting anymore on it.  Sorry!

So, I am back, friends.  With realistic goals about posting, a new focus, and a desire to be authentic now.  I am excited.

with love,
-hannah