Life Update & Bloggers Block

Back in January, I wrote about 2012 and how it wasn’t such a great year for me, I also wrote about all the things I wanted to achieve in 2013 and life changes I wanted to make. So far this year, I’ve done so many amazing things and reached some personal goals too. Let’s consider this my 6 month review as I fill you all in and reflect on the first half of the year.

The biggest of my achievements so far this year has got to be hitting 1 million subscribers on my YouTube Channel. On December 24th 2012, I remember hitting 400,000 subscribers and trying desperately to screenshot it as it hit that exact number and failing miserably but feeling so excited and happy that SO many of you had chosen to subscribe to my YouTube channel. On the 20th April, I hit 1 million subscribers. I’m not sure what happened in those 4 months for my channel to grow so quickly, but I think it was by far one of the best days of the year so far. I felt so emotional with everyone congratulating me and saying how proud they were. In all honesty, it never really sunk in how many of you that was, and with 1,600,000 of you now, it still hasn’t. I can’t quite comprehend HOW there are that many people watching me rambling on, but it’s so incredibly amazing and i’m so humbled by all your support. 

The other thing I wanted to do this year was travel more, and I think i’ve succeeded very well with that. I did my first flight after 7 years going to Florida for playlist live, which was so incredible. Getting to meet lot’s of you and also meeting other YouTubers was so much fun. You can view each day I visited Florida in video diary form on my second channel here. Once i’d conquered that plane I felt like nothing was holding me back anymore. The plane journey was my nemesis, and after confronting it through an 8 hour flight, I felt like quite possibly...maybe I’d be able to travel a bit more. I then went to Paris, Mykonos & have LA next week for Vidcon, which i’m really looking forward to, and hopefully my optimistic attitude towards travel and flying will continue, because i’m really enjoying making up for all the years I shied away from visiting other countries due to anxiety. 

This also brings me onto not “sweating the small stuff”. I agreed that this year I wouldn’t stress over the small things because life was too short. I’ve had a few stressful encounters so far this year, but I chose not to let them effect me as negatively as they may have done previously, and seen things in a much more positive light, however hard that may be sometimes. I’ve also tried to encourage a lot of my friends to stop sweating the small stuff too, because if we spend too long stressing over the smaller things, they then become bigger things, and it gets a lot more messy and hard to let go. If there is something currently bugging you, let it go, smile, every day is precious. 

I’ve enjoyed hanging out with friends new and old, and watching Darcy grow into a little lady. I have such amazing people around me, most of whom you may also watch on YouTube. I know you only get to see the videos they film, edit and upload of themselves in 3-10 minutes on the internet, but behind that, they really are AMAZING people with such huge influences on my life and happiness. 

I have also enjoyed spending quality time with my family and friends at home. Although this year is quite a whirlwind, and I have managed to travel a lot. It’s also important to spend days at home chilling, relaxing...shooting some b ball..ha! No, in all seriousness, with this beautiful weather I have been out in my garden at one with nature. I have even made friends with a hedgehog family.

There are also a few things i’ve not done very well so far and i’m going to tackle these things now, so that i have 6 months to rectify this. Drinking more water? yeh...i’ve not done that very well. I told myself I would drink from a two litre bottle every single day, but I definitely have not stuck to that (I can’t lie to you guys). I think setting myself the goal of drinking two litres every day was pushing it a bit, I may have been a little too optimistic when I decided that, but i’m definitely going to make more of a conscious effort to hydrate myself more. I’m one of these odd people that never feel thirsty and can go a whole day forgetting to drink something. NOT GOOD.

I also decided I would be a bit more organised. Organisation, requires time management and time itself to get organised, and time isn’t something I’ve had a lot of recently. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being busy, and I love having so many things to keep track on and keep up with, but it does stress me out to think that a lot of things don’t have their place and I can’t do all the things i’d like to be doing when I want to do them. I have managed to organise my calendar from now until December though, which is an improvement from not keeping a diary at all, and i’ve only turned up 30 minutes late to ONE doctors appointment! haha

This also then brings me on to my blog. I told myself I would blog more (good going Zoe, 1 or 2 posts a month isn’t that great). I’m not quite sure why I can’t sit down and write about all the products I love, or the makeup i’m wearing, or new collections, or my day out with Louise & Darcy. I think I have become a bit overwhelmed with the amount of you that read these ramblings, even when i’m not posting anything new! And it’s got to the point where I honestly don’t know how or where to start. I have all these blog post ideas swimming around in my head and in about 5 different note books. I have hundreds of blog pictures of products that I want to share with you. I will always see my blog as my little place to escape, to keep you up to date, to ramble on about everything and nothing and to share things with you, that’s how this all started, and that’s what it will continue to be. The second half of this year, i’m going to try REALLY hard to get my blogging back on track. I know I say this all the time, but it’s honestly something I think about a lot of the time. It doesn’t help that life has got a lot more busy, and i’ve decided to really push myself to do more and try new things, which takes up more time than I initially realised haha. Thank you so much to those of you who have stuck by me through my desert phases (This is what I shall call them as they are dry spells with...nothingness), also, hello to any new readers who might be here too. I appreciate that not all of you want to see me gassing on in a video about products, and secretly read about them during work hours, (or just don’t really like my voice haha), so i’m really going to try and make a conscious effort to get more content on here. I’m not saying after this i’ll bosh a post out every single day, it might take me a while to get back into the swing of it, but i’m going to put on my blogging cap and get blogging. 

This is also where i’d like your input. I already have a huge list of ideas and blog posts that I’d like to do at some point (I even have 3 giveaways that i’ve had planned for months and months that I went out and purchased and have just left lying around) but i’d like to hear any ideas you might have. I’d also like to know, if you have a blog yourself, do you ever get “bloggers block?”

So that’s it for now folks! My little life update and 6 month review of the things I wanted to achieve this year. So far it’s about 50/50 so I still have time to sort that out. What things are you going to try and achieve by the time the year is up? Let me know!

♥

YouTube | Twitter | Facebook | Bloglovin' | Pinterest | Tumblr | Instagram

Did You Know....?

Aloha Zoe-arinos,

As you may have guessed by my oh-so-cheesy greeting, this isn't Zoe. Hello, it's Louise here!

Zoe is having quite a challenging time at the moment, being poorly and just having a lot on her plate. Whilst on the phone earlier, she said that she was worrying about keeping her blog updated and talking to you lovely ladies (and men if you are reading).



I said, 'Zoe you ninconpoop! You just put fresh PJ's on, grab a hot chocolate and focus on feeling better, I will take care of Zoella". So here I am, hijacking her little slice of the web for a while- I do hope you don't mind.

I thought that since reviews are written from a personal perspective, and you have come here for Zoe's highly regarded opinions, that perhaps it might be better for me to do more of a fun post. I have decided to go wild, and share with you some fun memories that I have with my chummy and hope also that when Zoe reads them, she will chuckle to herself.



Did You Know.....?

That about 6 months ago, on the way back from an event, Zoe and I got the giggles on a late train so badly that we were given some killer evils from other (rather unfriendly) passengers? You know when you just want to explode with laughter but you cant, so instead you just go puce in colour, shake and make weird squeaks? Well imagine that, times ten, on a busy train of tired commuters. Eep!

That once whilst taking a big batch of OOTD pictures in the countryside together, Zoe decided I needed a belt to compliment my orange dress? I didn't have one so she offered me a lovely black number with gold horse embellishments. Well I don't know if you have noticed (if you have eyeballs then you will have), there is quite a size difference between Zoe and I. Somehow, managed to squeeze myself in to it, felt proud (and breathless), started climbing over a fence to reach a tractor (as you do) and PING! the belt literally burst off! There I was, in the middle of a field, straddling a fence, whilst Zoe scrabbled around the foliage trying to find her belt. It. Was. Hilarious!!

That on nights out with Zoe I loose all conversational skills? For my birthday this year we popped into town with Fleur for a few celebratory drinks. Naturally, as the birthday girl, I had let my hair down and was 'merry, so to speak. As we were leaving the bar, my friend Mark (from my Alton Towers vlog) walked in with some friends. He introduced them and said one of them was South African. I don't know what possessed me to do this, but VERY loudly I said, "Oh wow! You're South African?! Zoe's satnav has the same accent!" and smiled like an absolute loon. He was less than impressed, Zoe looked uncomfortable and I felt pprreeeeeeetttttyyyy stupid! Needless to say, we quickly skiddaddled home!


(This was after the belt up fence saga! Haha)

As you can see, we have an absolute hoot and these are just a couple of our funny little tales.

I really do hope that Zoe sees some sunnier days in the near future and that we can split our sides laughing again very, very soon.

If you have any well wishes or uplifting words for ZoeChummy, please do leave them in the comments, I am sure she'd be glad to read them. I know from personal experience what a wonderful and supportive community this can be and know you will all understand Zoe's absence today.

To Zoe :: You are very much loved and tomorrow will be better then yesterday. ♥ Also, don't be mad at me if I didn't format this the way you normally do! Hahaha ;)

Toodlepip!

xx