Back.

Hello hello!

So it’s been an age and a half since I last posted, hasn’t it? 

A lot, a lot has changed since my last consistently posted (two babies I know have been born!) so let’s try and break this thing down.

I stopped blogging because my heart really wasn’t in it anymore and I feel like towards the time I took my break, I was blogging out of what felt like necessity rather than a real want to do it. It was a ‘I’ve had my blog for 5 years up to this point, so I can’t stop now’, kinda thing. But if you look at the content, you can see that it stagnated. Where I would take the time before to properly review things and take pride in my pictures with my DSLR camera, it was reduced to only pics when I remembered with my shoddy iPhone 5 and barely reviewing anything at all. Writing up a blog post used to be a fun hobby, but it started to feel like unpaid work.

That’s because at the same time as writing for my blog I was writing a ton for my work at the magazine and editing it and writing online for both the mag’s website and other websites. There’s only so much writing a person can do before some things start to fall by the wayside, and as this was the only thing I really didn’t *have to do*, it fell. 

I read recently that people that think more creatively and work in creative fields are more likely to suffer from depression and other mental illnesses as your craft is tied to your emotions. While I don’t suffer from a mental illness and I’m not depressed, my creativity and my emotions are so intrinsically linked that if I’m having a bad day, I can’t write well and if I can’t write well I’m going to have a bad day. It’s frustrating, it’s numbing, it’s annoying. I get stuck in a rut. I hate my face, my body, my clothes. There’s no time, then there’s time but no ideas. It was a never ever ending cycle. It’s something I’m sure all creative bods go through. 

My blog was my thing, my little project, and when I first started and got invited to “blogger events” it was this little secret community that I was a part of. But I think as I got my career going and it kind of took off, I was kidding myself that my blog could continue in the same way it was when I was putting up posts at uni, when I was writing full-time. So before it got any worse I decided to step back from it. I knew it wouldn’t be forever, just until I felt I could rejig my content and get back to it properly with some fresh ideas - and boy have I got some ideas. 

With the dominant force that is blogging and the raise of the superbloggers, blogging as I knew it, has changed. I hate change in most capacities. I'm a creature of habit and pushing myself to branch out of my comfort-zone is something I have to do daily to get the best out of myself, but it's something that I neglected with this blog. I wasn't being innovative or challenging myself with things. 

While beauty is at the core of what I love writing about, as I've matured, my interests have too. I love looking at interiors, reading opinion pieces on cultural events and delving into the human condition, as well as talking beauty, watching a video on the perfect twist out and finding memes about More Life. These are all things that make me, me, and it's this kind of mix of content that I think will make keeksreid.com a truer, better, more interesting reflection of me. 

As well as starting back the blog I have also picked up making videos again so please subscribe *here* and whilst on blogging hiatus I have been newslettering so you can sign up for that here and read my archive here!  

Ok, I'm going to stop talking now.