Tag Archives: support

Halloween Blog Party – Meet and Greet!

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imageI haven’t hosted a blog party since February and with Halloween just around the corner I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to create a space for the blogging community to share a few links from their blog and potentially meet new people. I always have a great time, with hundreds of links being shared, and it means that I get the chance to find new blogs to follow and catch up on some posts that I may have missed.

Welcome to my Halloween Blog Party!

For those of you who have never participated in a blog party before, here are the rules:

1. Choose your favourite post from your own blog. The subject of the post can be anything you like – blogging, food, parenting, life, travel, thoughts, photography… Note: This should be only one post at a time or it will get sent straight to the ‘spam’ folder but please don’t share more than three overall – spend the time visiting other bloggers instead. Continue reading →

What I’ve Learned About Blogging

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I’ve been spending some time revisiting, editing and deleting old blog posts and I discovered a number of articles that have been lost in the hundreds (about 750 at this present moment) that I have generated over the last three-and-a-half years.

I created this one about blogging regrets based on what I have learned and suggested ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’ to consider after the first year and much of what I wrote then still remains the same. I’ve decided that it is worth sharing again, so I’ve updated it and added further information and links to useful posts.

What I would do differently

1. I would decide on a name that I was happy with at the very beginning. In my excitement about the prospect of starting the blog, I hastily chose the name ‘Suzie81’ – my name and the year that I was born. After a while I became really dissatisfied with my choice – it had no real reference to any of the content in the blog – but by this point my readers knew me by this name. When I later purchased my domain name, there were very few options that I could use and I ended up changing it to ‘Suzie Speaks’ to avoid as little confusion as possible. Continue reading →

Suzie and Steve’s Day of Fun!

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Ok, it wasn’t an entire day of fun, more like a few hours in the afternoon when he had finished work, but The Bloke and I finally met my bloggy friend Steve (from Steve Says) in Aberdeen today.

We locked eyes across the seating area outside the cinema and embraced like old friends. There was music in the air  (the local Chiquito’s must have sensed how momentous the occasion was as it was blasting out some 1960’s Motown), the seagulls were squawking the songs of their people, and the wind had dropped from the force ten gales we had experienced the day before to a nice breeze. It was beautiful, it was emotional.

Actually, I had been quietly bricking myself all morning. I’ve known Steve for several years – there isn’t usually a week that goes by that I don’t speak to him on Twitter or via the blog comments, and I listen to his radio show every Saturday (that is, when he’s not abandoning his listeners to go and watch the Eurovision final – how selfish of him). He’s unwittingly supported me through some tough times, we have a scary amount of stuff in common and I value his friendship. The thing is, I’ve met online friends in person before, and even though it has always been a hugely positive experience, I always arrive with a paranoia that they are going to be left with the disappointment that I don’t meet their expectations.

Swinging… ahem… with Steve

Continue reading →

How Blogging Has Changed My Life

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By 2014, I don’t feel arrogant by stating that I had achieved every goal that I had set myself. I had a well-paid job, a home, a relationship, good friends and three cats that had been with me for years. From an outsider’s perspective, things seemed set.

However, I was struggling both physically and mentally. I couldn’t cope with my workload, my family relationships were strained (and in some cases, non-existent), The Bloke had lost both his father and best friend to cancer within five months of each other, my beloved cat died, we had moved house twice in six months because we were duped by a charlatan landlady and I had been hospitalised for nearly a week after ignoring a kidney infection. I was comfort eating to try and make myself feel better, and I was bloated, lethargic and had gained even more weight than I had over the previous few years. I didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. I existed from day to day, praying for the weekends and the holidays.

I had started the blog the year before. Things had been tough, and as I had taken to writing angry words in notebook after notebook, only to then store them in a cupboard afterwards, The Bloke suggested that I start writing online. Admittedly, I knew nothing about blogging, but within the week of creating my very first account I was hooked, churning out post after post of nonsensical rubbish that had been floating around my mind for a long time (most of which I have now deleted). I gained new followers, and started to build a community. I was extremely paranoid about people within my real life discovering what I was writing, so I kept information about myself to a minimum, but I started to feel safe in the anonymity that the computer screen provided, and enjoyed the feedback and interaction that I received from people taking the time to leave comments on my posts. Continue reading →

Blog of the Day: Meet The Chicago Files!

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imageMeet Cher, an Canadian ex-pat who lives with her husband and blogs about her adventures in Chicago.

Her blog is a wide and varied mixture of her daily experiences and encounters with others, her favourite places and photographs of interesting points and hidden gems within the city. As someone who has never visited Chicago, but has always wanted to, Cher has given me a whole list of ideas of places that I would wish to visit should the opportunity ever arise. From The Lego Building, to the ‘Castle’ on Clybourn Avenue, Cher gives her readers an insight into a truly fascinating city!

It’s an easy and enjoyable read, already being recognised across a number of ex-pat blogs and networking sites, and rightly so. Continue reading →

A Blast from the Past and a Lesson Learned

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imageA single post on Facebook shared by a friend yesterday has meant that I’ve had a very unusual day.

I discovered the filtered messages on Facebook Messenger (for those of you who are unsure about this, I’ll do a post later).

Intrigued, I followed the instructions, and discovered a whole plethora of messages, mainly group conversations about organising events that I hadn’t attended. Oops.

And then, there was a message from a name that made my heart sink, that had been sent two years ago.

‘Saw your beautiful blog – hope you will accept my fb friend request X’

I had seen her friend request several years ago, and immediately declined it at the time. This was a girl from university that I wasn’t particularly keen on. We spent a lot of time together, but we were more friends by association – we were very different people individually, but we had a couple of mutual friends that we cared about, and I think we put up with each other’s company because neither of us wanted to miss out. Continue reading →

Cry Baby

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imageIt’s a beautiful evening. The sun is setting, but the sky is stil blue, and I have spent the day having a little cry on and off for no particular reason.

I love being a woman, but PMT has hit me like a bitch over the last two days. I knew it was coming when I woke up in a bit of a funk yesterday morning at 3.00am, and again this morning at the same time, and even though I’ve done my best to distract myself as much as possible I just can’t seem to shake it. I’ve been for a run, I’ve done loads of laundry, I’ve made Rocky Road, I’ve even been to the bloody circus (seriously, I genuinely have), but it hasn’t eased up. I’ve cried because The Bloke asked me was I ok, I cried because of a song I was reminded of on another blog, I even had a little cry to myself when I burnt the pizza I was cooking for dinner. And then, Daisy, my dream – killing cat, came and sat next to me and put her little head on my arm when I was having a cry, which made me worse because that’s exactly what my beloved cat, Wobbly, used to do whenever I was upset and it reminded me that the anniversary of her death is approaching. Continue reading →

How to Avoid the Blogging Bubble

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Blogging bubble‘I never see you on my blog any more…‘

I received a message from one of my oldest bloggy friends the other day.

The message hadn’t been sent in a nasty or malicious way at all – he was one of the first online friends I made I first started Suzie Speaks almost three years ago and we’ve kept in touch ever since – I value his opinion and it made me take a step back and think.

He was absolutely right.

And then, as if the blogging universe was trying to give me a sign, I read this post by the ever lovely Hugh from Hugh’s Views and News.

Indeed, over the last few months I have fallen prey to what I like to refer to as ‘the blogging bubble‘ – the point where bloggers focus solely on their own little space of the Internet and forget about the potentially millions of similar spaces out there, just waiting to be explored.

Three years ago, I was in a very different place. The blog was a way of coping with a very difficult time, and I churned out post after post of whatever was in my mind at a particular moment, mainly in an effort to mentally establish some sort of order in what seemed like a big mish-mash of nonsense that seemed to be permanently floating around in my brain. My writing was inconsistent and, at times, erratic, but it was solely for me and me alone. Continue reading →

I Quit My Job Today: A Year On…

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It’s been a year to the day that I decided to take one of the biggest risks of my life and hand in my resignation. Those of you have followed the blog for a long time will know of the mental state I found myself in a year ago, and as I sat in the classroom this morning with a group of students that I was covering on supply, I took a moment to reflect on just how much everything has changed in the last twelve months.

The unfortunate thing is, I love teaching. I love being in the classroom with the students. I love it when a child suddenly understands something that they have been struggling with. I love the banter that is possible with some of the older students. However, it was the changes made by the government and the pressures that accompanied it that made the job unbearable, and my initial idea was to leave teaching and education behind completely. Thankfully, things have worked out in a way where I still get to be in a classroom environment, but without any of the issues that caused the stress – no marking, planning, paperwork, reports, data… On some days I arrive in a morning and am told what classes I am going to be working with, I am given the work that the students need to do, I teach, then I leave. On others, I do singing workshops, rehearse with an orchestra or assist in coursework catch-up. No two days are the same – I’ve covered almost every subject and every year group – and while there are still occasionally days where I feel stressed or anxious, the good days now massively outweigh the bad, and sometimes I actually look forward to getting up and going to work when I know I’ll be spending time with a fantastic group of students

Admittedly, a large amount of my experiences have been down to the luck of being in the right place at the right time, the lack of responsibility in that I’m not married and don’t have children (which means that financially I have fewer worries than some), and the support of the people around me, including employment opportunities that were offered by my headteacher at my former school and another headteacher and teaching assistant at a primary school that I had previously worked with.

However, some of it has been a leap of faith with very little planning, and I’m genuinely grateful that it seems to be working out. I’m in the position where I can choose the hours and days that I work, along with the responsibility of being able to budget for the months ahead just in case the work dries up for a while. Consequently, I now work to live, rather than it being the other way around, and more importantly, I’m actually living it. My relationship with The Bloke is even better, I see my family and friends more and I’ve got so many things to look forward to over the coming months – parties, blog meets, events and a holiday in Scotland.

Life is good.

While I don’t feel confident enough to categorically state that it has been a successful decision as yet, I do feel comfortable to say this:

It is never too late…

Thank you for all your support – it means the world xx

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog, and don’t forget to check out my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks, my Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks and my Instagram page http://www.instagram.com/suzie81speaks.

Want to Increase Your Traffic? Join #SundayBlogShare!

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imageIn November 2014 I started a hashtag – #SundayBlogShare – that allowed bloggers to share their links and meet new people. It was not a new idea, I had been participating in similar link ups hosted by other bloggers throughout the year, but I found it to be really useful when networking and getting my posts out to a wider audience.

Over the last year it has become the biggest Twitter party of the weekend (to my knowledge anyway), with hundreds of bloggers around the world sharing thousands of links each Sunday, and it now trends on a weekly basis. Last Sunday, it was the top trending topic in the UK, and trended for over nine hours… Today, as I write, it is only 10.30am and it’s already No. 6…

I’m still in awe of how much it has grown, and I’ve been lucky to have found wonderful new blogs that I follow on a regular basis.

Want to join #SundayBlogShare? The instructions and guidelines are simple: Continue reading →