Yesterday marked six whole weeks since I started this blog. In all honesty, it feels like longer than that (in a good way!) I have to say, I really love it and I wish I had started earlier. Looking back now, it’s hard to understand why I didn’t.

Before this blog, I had a Tinker and Totsy twitter account, which both me and Mr Totsy update in the voice of the girls. Originally it was just for us and family, something for the girls to look back on in the future but it started to grow and became something we really enjoyed. I have always loved writing and I started to think about a blog as an extension of twitter (after all the 140 characters limit make it hard to say much). I went as far as getting a WordPress account but then just left it. For a loooong time. I’d tell myself that I just needed to settle on a theme, then I’d start. That I wasn’t totally sure if the name was right, after all I have six kids not just the youngest two. That I just needed to finalise my About Us page which I could never seem to get quite right (still can’t). What if I started it and abandoned it after a few posts? Deep down I think I lacked confidence. I thought people would think it was daft. I thought no one would read it, whilst equally panicking that people would read it. After all, I’m a private kind of person, did I want all my innermost thoughts out there? 

In the end, it was a friend posting on Facebook to say she had started a blog (yet another friend who was leapfrogging ahead of me on the blog front) that gave me a kick up the backside to just do it, just post something. Even if it was shit. Which it probably was. But I started. Finally. 

I quickly realised that I should have started earlier. I find it easy to write and I really enjoy it. I am getting a few readers everyday even though I don’t really promote it anywhere yet. And I soon realised that I don’t have to share anything other than what I’m comfortable with. I thought my blogging voice would be something along the lines of the slightly sarcastic, unsentimental, positive person that I think I am. I thought it would be a light hearted, tongue in cheek take on life in a big family. Turns out, my blogging voice seems to naturally veer more towards to the slightly gushy, sentimental serious side, despite my best efforts. Who knew? 

In the last couple of weeks, I have started to branch out on social media. I now use my own (previously completely abandoned) twitter account (@NikkiLouPayne) alongside the @TinkerandTotsy account, as I sometimes find it restrictive to write in the girls’ voices. I also have an Instagram account (@tinkerandtotsy) which I love (everyone is so nice on Instagram!), am thinking about getting a Facebook page for the blog (though do I really have time for more social media?) and am really starting to think about photography which is definitely an unexpected side effect of blogging as I’m no photographer!

Six weeks ago, I had no idea that blogging would take up so much time! Naively I thought I would write the odd blog post once or twice a week, job done. Er, nope! It is a time consuming, though very enjoyable, hobby. Updating social media, reading other blogs, getting a decent photo, it all takes time. And at the moment I am barely dipping my little toe into the blogging world. 

Today’s task is to switch to my own domain. Once that is done, I am going to try to get braver about promoting my blog. I want to get involved with linkys, and interact with other bloggers more. To other bloggers, please brace yourself for me to be flailing around on social media and linkys sometime soon, and please don’t hesitate to point out when I’ve committed a faux pas (sorry in advance, I really haven’t got a clue what I’m doing!) 

If you are reading this and thinking about starting a blog, then definitely just do it, what’s the worst that can happen? (Well, I suppose you could find it takes over your life in a totally unexpected way and so you never get any housework done ever again, but hey, no one loves a clean freak anyway).