I am a naughty blogger

ok… OK… I confess! I have been a very very naughty blogger! I haven’t blogged since MAY!!!

I have no excuses and no one to blame but myself.
In all honesty I have had different priorities, namely getting in shape! It’s going to be a long process… but it partly for the sake of the blog… outfit shots!! I think that my blog will have to stay on the back burner for a while – perhaps even just for the rest of this year and then by January I am hoping to be a whole new year. I will start the new year with a blog overhaul for its 1 year anniversary!

Incase any of you are interested and don’t follow me on Instragram (if not, WHY not!? @jennic1arke) here are a few pics of what I have been up to…

These are my new Neon Sunnies from H&M – I love them, only be warned… don’t wear them in the country with a playsuit… they looked at me like I was an alien!

Another spot of holiday shopping… this little beauty was a right bargain… £3 from Primark!

My new Deathly Hallows necklace… Oh yes! Potter Potter Potter!! Being a HUGE Harry Potter fan this was a must! Got it from Ebay

As you all know – I love the great outdoors… so here are some duckies for you to go awwwwwww at

My sweet tooth is starting to get a little out of control… particularly for someone attempting to lose weight!!

Yummy amazing cocktails! This particular beauty is from the Blackhouse Grill – Grill on the alley in Manchester

Believe it or not we have had a day or two of sunshine so it was only fair to get my Chanel on

I have ventured into lipstick… it’s new for me! I am no beauty blogger but this one is from H&M

See I told you we have had some sunshine… I would like to introduce you all to Daisy my brum brum. She celebrated the sunshine by taking her top off – hussy!

A few more cocktails… mmmmmmm

Oh yeah… just one more thing. How GORGEOUS is my boyfriend!? Coming up to our 4 year anniversary, happy happy happy

And that’s about it for now! I promise I will be back and I will be better… I am making lots of positive steps at the moment so I am pretty happy… just busy!

So… I’ve been thinking…

Dangerous I know, thinking. Tends to lead to over thinking, particularly in my case.

I have a couple of main things I have been thinking about, firstly…

Blogging, I have been blogging for about 6 months and so far it’s been fun! I think I have been taking it too seriously though, trying to understand how it works, and how to make it successful has been driving me nuts and I want to get back to just enjoying it. I have a couple of things I would like to know though, for example, how many people read blogs who aren’t bloggers? Especially fashion blogs, I mean there are so many of them out there! I have my favorites, and I tend to keep up with them on twitter more than anything. But I have an interest in blogging as well as fashion so I like to see a variety to see what people are doing differently than me, and differently to each other. Are there people who just find a few blogs and follow them but don’t blog themselves? If so… how do you chose one, and how which one of the many many routes to follow a blogger do they use? I simply don’t have enough time for all the different avenues, and don’t know enough about them to stick with just one… so I chose twitter!? Is this the best way? I have no idea, it’s the best for me as it’s non intrusive – I don’t like getting an inbox full of updates!

There is nothing wrong with bloggers reading other bloggers… but then I can’t help but think what impact this actually makes, some people have like 20,000 followers, they tend to post A LOT! Do those followers really look at every post? I doubt it.

Another thing I don’t understand and would love someone to explain to me is how people make blogging their job. Can it really earn you enough money to support yourself? Because I have a mortgage to pay… and don’t think blogging will ever do that for me! So how does that work? If someone can explain it to me I would appreciate it!

The next thing I have been thinking about come under blogging too but it’s also about confidence and weight and age, so if you don’t like over share, perhaps skip this step!

A lot of the blogs I love are “outfit of the day” blogs, where beautiful bloggers take pictures of what they are wearing each day. I would LOVE to do this, but don’t feel comfortable. I just don’t feel like I have the figure to showcase clothes, I know it’s silly, I know that’s not even really the point, it’s about showing my style rather than my body but I just don’t like most pictures of myself! And not only that, I don’t have the time!

I feel old, which I am not I am 29. However… the average fashion bloggers age… I would estimate is around 23, this is a BIG gap. I know it doesn’t sound it, but I have a TOTALLY different lifestyle to most of these fabulous young women, a lot still live at home and study, or are in their first job. I feel old and boring in comparison! I simply don’t have the money to shop all of the time, and then I see that for some of the more successful girls a lot of the clothes they are showing are ‘c/o’ so then… you guessed it… i am a girl so jealousy kicks in! Gorgeous, young and free clothes!

I am envious that these fantastic opportunities simply weren’t available whilst I was younger, these young women get to take some control over their careers before they have even completed their CV’s, they get to make themselves important and noticed in the industry by simply creating something by themselves… this just wasn’t possible 10 years ago, 8 years ago… hell 5 years ago!  I feel envious because I feel like I missed the boat, and I know have too many responsibilities to give it my all. And even if some how I did manage to turn this into a career or someone even thoughts about offering me a fashion related job, I would be SO much more expensive than someone living at home just out uni, so that’s never going to happen really.

Anyway… when I have gotten over all the selfish thinking… I can stop and just be amazed by how wonderfully talented some of these girls are, they deserve the success that I know a lot of them are going to achieve! Here’s looking at you Lydia Millen and Sara

 

So… perhaps… I need to stop trying to make blog something for 23 year olds and make it something for 30 year olds, and stop beating myself up for acting my age! From now on be prepared to see lots of baking, craft making, painting, home wares… and yes… still catwalk shots! You might also see some dieting and exercise… might!

These are normal things to like for a girl, and I think I have a good life… so be prepared to see life Jen-Style

That’s not to say if Missguided offered me a job tomorrow I wouldn’t bite their hand off for it! As I am older it means I have a lot of experience to offer you know! ;-)

 

That’s it for now, thanks all

I need more hours in the day

Hello all,

This will be my first wordy post, and quite bravely I have chosen to type on my phone, on a train! So please bear with me and my idiotic predictive text!

Generally just a little check in to say’ hi’ and sorry i have been so busy and have been neglecting the few lovely wonderful brilliant people who follow my blog, but basically I am trying to do too much at once! Still trying to get the shop up and running but just as I think I am nearly there something else crops up that I haven’t thought of and I then have something else to do before I can upload the artwork!! I have a couple of days off proper work this week so I am going to try to use them productively… However I also have to help lay foundations for our garage, paint our garage, clean our neglected beautiful house, find some time to exercise do approximately 100 loads of washing oh and go on a bike ride… So as you can see… Taking on too much at once! Still… I am very determined to get this up and running so please please do continue to watch this space… It is coming!!!!

Thanks again for all of the lovely support, I will be in touch more soon I promise!!