I’m going to start this first proper post of the year not with a New Year’s Resolution but with a confession; last year I was totally pants at blogging. And, as I’m being totally honest here, I was rubbish the year before too. This year, however, with be different. Why? Bizarrely it’s because I’ve decided to stop trying to think like a ‘blogger’ and get back to simply being me.

Let me explain. Last year, at the ripe age of 48, I really began to embrace digital and social media, with Instagram my favourite platform. I really enjoy the community feel of Instagram and post on a near daily basis and love that my Insta family actually don’t mind if my captions are long, short, funny or serious because my feed is my real, true, authentic life (sometimes with the volume or the lighting turned up but a true depiction nonetheless).

So far so Instagram, so how does all that affect my pretty poor blogging rate? It’s because I felt my blog posts had to look perfect, had to feature lots of images, always had to have a strong point (that’s my magazine editor past raising it’s head) and always had to be topical (magazine editor vibes again).

But lately I’ve realised that people connect with me on Instagram mostly because I don’t do OTT gloss (I do all my images, all my own writing and don’t use those naughty response bots) and seem to accept when you’re being authentic, life isn’t always perfect so I started to question why the need to be perfect here, on the blog? It’s called Sincerely Yours Susie for a reason, after all!

Plus, I’ve started to switch off from bloggers whose ‘reality’ bears little resemblance to mine (bearing in mind I do get to experience some wonderful things but like to think it’s still relatable and has value. Keep me right if I start going the other way, please).

So, I’m taking the heat off myself and giving myself permission to go a bit random* here on the blog for 2019, posting on anything that takes my fancy - style, beauty, food, life, with some long posts, some super short post - and most probably always perfectly imperfect. Let’s see where it takes us, shall we?

Sincerely Yours,

*I say random but being a journalist never really leaves you so I will try to make the posts at least in some way relevant.