Life Stuff...Depression, Being A Mum & Guilt.

It's not something that I hide, and if you have been a regular reader, you will already know; but I have depression. I've had it for many years, but only really got diagnosed about four years ago.
It took a while to find a medication that worked for me, and I was on that for over a year. Luckily, I managed to find myself coping a lot better and decided to slowly wean myself off it. For the most part, things were great in the beginning. My mood was a lot higher, I had more happy periods and the 'bad days' were much fewer than before. I could cope, and I felt strong and empowered by the fact that I felt like that. That was almost two years ago.

Since then, I fell pregnant, had Scout and am now a mum to an almost one year old.
I'm struggling.
Throughout my pregnancy I had bad days, but for the most part I would put them down to pregnancy hormones; because we all know that you can become a totally different person whilst you are growing a person. Those hormones are intense.
My labour was traumatic, again something I've talked about enough, and I didn't really know how to cope. Not only did I have to get used to having this tiny little human, but I also had to deal with the very scary experience that I had had. There's no nice way of putting it, but I could have died had I lost any more blood. I'm so incredibly thankful for the doctors/nurses/midwives I had around me at that time.

A year on from that, I thought I would have it down by now; but the truth is, I feel like things are really getting on top of me. So much so, once the move is over with, I am registering with a new GP and talking to them about maybe going back onto my medication for a little while.

When I'm having my bad days, there's nothing I want more than to be someone else. It's always been something I think about. I seem to cling onto the fact that other people have better lives, and I end up feeling worse for it. I know this is one thought I need to stop having.
I also spend a lot of time sleeping, but now Scout is my main priority, this doesn't happen as much as it would have before. Because of this, I'm getting exhausted very quickly. Both emotionally and physically. I get angry and snap at Liam, but also feel like I don't want to be a parent. Next comes the guilt.

I feel guilty because I miss the free time I used to have, I feel guilty because sometimes I wish Scout would just nap for half an hour longer so I even have the chance to finish a blog post. I feel guilty because a lot of the time at the moment, I just can't wait for hand him over to Liam once he's home from work.  All these things come down to the fact that I am always thinking of something else. Baby, dinner, housework, animals. There's no time for me. I don't know who I am at the minute. I feel like I've lost all sense of myself, I live in my Pjs, I rarely even brush my hair. This is not me.

I'll probably be a little MIA for the rest of this month. I want to take some time to work on myself, find a sense of happiness again, enjoy Scout in his last few weeks of being a 0 year old (I had no idea how else to write that,) and see if maybe I can pull myself out of this dark hole without the help of medication. I believe I can, but I need to find some strength from somewhere to do it.

After the move, we hope to have our time managed a lot better. Scout will be able to go and spend time with Liam's family once in a while, meaning I will have some me time. I will also have friends nearby, which is something I haven't had in two years! I'm excited. I'm planning on giving WhenFlowersFall a big makeover and jumping straight back into doing what I love. I know many other mums blog and youtube all whilst having children, so if they can, why can't I. I just need to find the right balance.

I'm sitting here after typing out this post wondering if anyone will even read it. My views have been shocking in the past few months. But, I feel so much better for getting everything in my head into writing, so I may as well post it.

I'll be around on instagram and the such like, and of course we are still daily vlogging; so you can keep up with the move progress over on the DailyJones channel. (I really want to change the name of that...)

If you have gotten to the end of this post, thank you for taking the time to read it.
I really believe things will get better.


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A Little Update From Me blogger | life | moving | moving house | update

Well, hi.

 I feel like I've been trying to find time to sit and write out a blog post for months! I know it's not really been that long, but I miss it guys!! I miss being able to have time every day of the week to get inspired and write, film, do something creative.

It's been all go in our household recently. Most of you know that we are in the process of relocating back to our home town, but if you didn't, now you do.
The actual move date isn't for another month, but we've had stress upon stress trying to find a rented property that would be happy for us to have our pets. Last week though, we found one! Wooo! We applied and got the thumbs up at the beginning of this week. I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is, knowing that you actually have somewhere to move to .

So, now we are focusing all of our time on painting this property to make sure it's looking nice and fresh before we move out; we could really do with actually being given our deposit back. And, packing. Who loves packing? Because you are more than welcome to come and give us a hand. Haha!

I'm reaaaalllly hoping that I can stop my stressing and find some time to get back to my first baby. I miss putting my heart and soul into WFF and I feel like it's just wasting away without new content. Obviously, no new content means no new readers and my page views have dropped substantially. It's sad.  I haven't even had a whole tonne of time to tweet! Me, no tweeting! What?!

What I'm trying to say is, for anyone who does enjoy WFF, I'm sorry it's been really slack recently. I will find my mojo amongst this chaos if it kills me.
Keep you eyes peeled, because after the move (so around June/July time,) there will be a whole new look and hopefully some fun new content. I've grown so much in the past year, and I want WFF to reflect that and to grow with me.

For each and every one of you who are sat reading this right now, thank you. Thank you for sticking it out with me. I love all of you and you are awesome.

Never forget that.

I'll see you soon
xx

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Baby vs Blogging

Hi, my lovelies!

I bet you've all forgotten about me by now. I mean, let's face it, I've kind of fallen off the face of the planet when it comes to blogging regularly.
I've noticed my views plummeting and it's really made me upset that I haven't been able to put more effort into what I love. But since becoming a Mummy, it's sooooo much harder than I thought it would be.

Scout is brilliant. He's fourteen weeks old today and I hope to get our three month postpartum update done this week. (I've said that for the past two weeks.) Thankfully as he's getting bigger, I'm finding more time in the day to do little, and I mean little, bits around the house. I no longer have to hold or nurse him for what seems like every hour of the day; and the washing up is finally done when it should be.
That being said, I do not have time to write during the day. Unfortunately, he's not yet napping in his cot, and this means that I can't to my desk to do so. He also has some kind of super power in which he wakes up the second I can pick up my laptop.

I'm currently trying really hard to find a blog/baby balance, but I'm finding it extremely hard. Liam works during the week and we don't live near any family or friends who could watch Scout for a while. My free time is either ridiculously early in the morning, before Scout wakes up. I'm talking five am, a time I cannot seem to get myself out of bed at, or in the evening after he's gone down.
Now, here's my issue.
Because I have both the blog and my two youtube channels, I have to decided what I can get done and when. For the past few weeks youtube has kind of taken that time. I find filming a video and editing takes far less time than taking photos, cropping and sorting through them, and writing a blog post.

I'm thinking I may drop one of my three weekly videos down to two at some point in the near future, but I'm really hoping I can sort out some kind of schedule so I don't have to do that.
I really do hope that I can get back to the WFF blog on a more regular basis. I have so many ideas for posts, and I just want to share them with you.

If you're ready this and are yourself a blogging/youtubing parent who has very little time, please do let me know what your magic secret is. I miss it so much and if I'm honest, I'm getting a little jealous seeing so many peoples blogs grow, yet mine is just festering in it's old posts.

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This Week In Photos baby | family | instagram | life | lifestyle | scout | this week in photos | update | weekly | whenflowersfall

This past week has been one of the hardest since the very first two weeks of Scout's life.
Whether it was down to hormones or lack of sleep, I just felt incredibly low and found each day a complete struggle. Scout has been pretty awesome though. Since discovering how to smile at 4 weeks old, he hasn't really stopped. Unless that is, when he's screaming his little head off. We actually ended up taking him to the doctors on Friday to see about the possibility of him having reflux. All of the symptoms read familiar and the doctor agreed with us. Since then, we have been giving him infant gaviscon and it has seemed to help quite a bit. He now happily lies on his back without struggling too much and he's no longer trying to constantly swallow what is in his throat.We think he's been having a growth spurt this weekend. He's been really groggy and super needy, but we can see differences in him each day.
Liam and I had our 5 year anniversary yesterday, hence this post didn't get written then; and although we didn't do anything to celebrate, I can honestly say that I am so thankful to have him in my life. When he's not at work he helps with Scout, giving me a break so I can get things like this and my youtube videos done. It really makes me wonder how single parents do it. I have nothing but respect for anyone who does.
Today has been much easier. I think my body is slowly getting used to the broken sleep and baby screaming. Everyone kept telling me that things get easier after six weeks, and I really hope they're right.

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Bringing Back The Vlogs daily vlogs | dailyjones | family | life | lifestyle | vlogging | youtube

Three weeks ago we decided to take a little holiday from the dailies. We still have a rather small audience so we felt like we could sneak away without anyone missing us too much. Since Liam has now gone back to work I've felt like picking up the camera again, and we shall be bringing them back on Saturday! Well, Friday will be our first day recording again.

Liam has also decided he wants to be more involved, so in the next couple of months he'll be getting his own vlogging camera and we will finally have some more Liam footage. Little old me all the time can sure get boring.

The break was nice, but it will be great to get back to documenting our family growing. My mum used to film a lot when we were kids, and I still love being able to go back and watch old footage of our time growing up.

If you want to subscribe, you can find us at youtube.com/dailyjonesvlogs

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Wednesday Wishlist? life | whenflowersfall | work

Hi flowers, 

Today's post would usually be my Wednesday wishlist, but I've been a busy bee today doing actual work. Work that I'm not doing for myself. Work that has so far involved me taking 300 photos. I'm not going to go into it too much, but I'm hoping it's all going to work out well and I'll probably share with you once it's all done. 

Because of this, the one thing I want today, is sleep; lots of sleep. My brain hurts. 

If you'd like a little sneak peek into what I've been doing, feel free to go over and watch today's vlog when it's posted over on our daily vlog channel tomorrow. 

I hope you are all having a good week.

 I feel like I've not stopped and with Liam being away this week, I think I'm going a little stir crazy, with only a dog and two cats to talk to. 

Thank goodness for Skype. 

✌

An Update Of Sorts - Aunty time!

Hi, my little flowers!

How are you all coping in this heat?
Personally, I seem to be stuggling a little. I'm usually such a lover, but right now I am sitting in front of my new found friend, Holmes.

Yup, this dude has his butt firmly placed on my desk.

If you read WFF on a regular basis, you may have realised that I've been a little off with posting recently, and I just want to say a huge sorry for that. I've been incredibly lazy and life things have been taking priority atm.

A couple of weeks ago Liam began working half of his week in the 'other' offices. These offices being three hours away, which also means that he stays in a B&B and doesn't actually come home after his shift.  This means that I'm spending more time with my own company more than I'd like. But, that's what you have to do for a better life, hey. It's taking me longer than I thought it would to get used to, and I kind of just go into my own bubble.

In other news, it was our four year anniversary yesterday and we spent the afternoon down by the river having a picnic in the sun. After everything we've dealt with in the past four years, I'm happy that we've made it this far, and I really look forward to the next four. Hopefully at some point we can actually save up enough moneys to get married.

Today, I'm going to become an aunty for the third time. My little brothers other half is currently in full blown labour and I cannot say I'm envious in this heat. Although in reality I'm insanely jealous and can't wait for it to be my turn. It seems it's down to Liam and I to give my mum her first grandson. Girlies just seem to run in our family and Kaitlyn will be a welcomed addition.

I shall leave you here with a promise of more regular posts (again). But this time I am really going to make the effort to bring back the blogging mojo.

Happy Sunday, sweets!
✌

Juggling is fun... catchup | daily | dailyjones | ideas | life | moving | personal | videos | vlogging | work | writing

Hi my lovelies!

Since I last posted, I haven't really had much time to myself and I feel like I'm now juggling so many things. 

I've begun to pack up our stuff and maybe a little silly of me, but I have also started daily vlogging. 

I wanted to be able to keep you all updated through this whole move process, but it's just dawned on me that we may be without the internet for a bit when we actually head down south. Doh! So I guess the vlogs will have to hiatus until will get sorted. Fingers crossed we can somehow make sure it gets turned on as we get there. 

Anywhoooo, I just wanted to check in and share the first couple of vlogs. 

Hopefully this weekend, I can actually sit down and get some proper posts written up. I'm going to try and write and film like a mad person, so there won't be a huge gap in posting whilst we move. If there is anything you would like to see, either on here, or over on YT, please let me know in the comments below. Also, if you've seen any new tags floating about, let me know about those too. I think they'll be great fillers for whilst I'm not about.

Apart from that and more box packing, all I have to look forward to is cleaning like a crazy person, freshly painting walls and laying some replacement carpet before we go. Fun. 

I hope you are all well!

Sam

xoxo

The start of a new chapter...

Hi beauties, 

You many have been wondering why I haven't been around much this past week or so. 

The reason for that being that both Liam and I have been a little stressed and out of sorts due to things coming in the very near future. 

We have been in Leeds for two years now and although we have made friends and enjoyed our time here, neither of us have truly settled completely. 

For that reason, this will be our last month up north. 

Final details aren't in stone yet, but if all this work out well, we will be moving down south at the beginning of June.

As I grew up down south and Liam loves that part of the country, I feel this is going to be a great move for us. Fingers crossed we can get a nice house (mold and damp free,) I am going to start a fresh with how I am feeling and I'm going to try and get a job myself once we are there, and hopefully in the a lot nearer future, we will be planning to start our little family. 

We've had so many highs and lows here, and we're both ready to start a new chapter in our lives. 

I've made so many beautiful and amazing friends whilst living here, that I hope that we can stay in touch. Obviously, I'm always going to be on twitter. 

I'm thinking of planning some kind of get together to have one final goodbye, but I'll arrange that as soon as I know that everything is sorted. 

Plans are still being made and this may effect my blogging for the time being, but I'm going to try my best to keep popping up and filling you guys in. 

So that's it, our big news. 

I love you guys!

Sam

xoxo

Creating A Bucket List accidents | bucket list | life | personal | whenflowersfall

Hi my lovelies, 

I wasn't going to post today. You know when sometimes you just aren't feeling it? Well, I had that feeling until Liam and I popped out for a moment of fresh air. He's not been well so we just nipped down the road for a little drive. But, unfortunately for the poor people who were involved, there was some kind of accident on one of the main roads. The road is a 40mph and currently has some pretty heavy road works on them, the kind of road works that create havoc, causing people of drive like they own the road. 

I can only presume that it was some kind of car accident. We still don't know what actually happened. Thankfully we were diverted before we could see, but we did see the chopper in the field of the golf course nearby, and at least 6 or 7 emergency vehicles flashing away in the distance. 

I always feel ridiculously horrible after seeing something like that and it got me thinking. A few minutes earlier maybe, that could have been us. There's always that chance. It's one risk of driving, I guess. 

Because of this, I've decided to create a bucket list. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days, but today has just made me certain. I'd like to fulfil a few things throughout my life. Some may be really silly, some may be life changing. But all I know is, if I was told I had a week to live, I wouldn't be totally satisfied with my life. 

I may not post very often about this, but I like to think that one day I could tell you guys about something that I've crossed off my list. 

Have any of you got a bucket list? Even managed to do anything on it yet?

Let me know in the comments below what you'd include if you were to write one. I think I need some inspiration. 

I hope the people involved tonight are all ok and I also hope that you are all keeping safe. 

Love you guys.

Sam

xoxo

Monday Make-up - Snowed In! birthdays | fall | family | flowers | gets | in | life | monday make-up | monday makeup | red | simple | snow | the | way | when | whenflowersfall

Hey my beauties!

I finally have my house back to myself! My poor sister and niece had gotten stranded at ours for an extra day and didn't end up leaving until yesterday. She sent me a couple of photos of the roads she encountered on the way home, and all I can say is, thank goodness I wasn't driving.

It was so lovely to see both of them and you can see a few snippits of what we got up to, plus my birthday antics in my newest vlog below. 

I'm hoping to get back to my good blog & youtube routine within the next couple of weeks. It's Liams birthday tomorrow so I have another week of travelling to go see his family. Obviously when life happens, blogging comes second, and believe me when I say I miss it. 

So far today, I have edited two videos, written this post, made a surprise for tomorrow and I'm currently willing Youtube to upload quicker. Because of this, my make-up today is really simple. 

I hope you are all well! I shall be back properly very soon!! Promise! 

Sam

xoxo

My Week In Photos #011 catch up | instagram | life | my life | my week in photos | personal | photos | week 11 | when flowers fall | whenflowersfall

Excited for We The Kings / New laptop fun / Being money savvy / Chocolate craving

Cuddly Snake / New curtains stage 1 / Fried yummy goodness / Cute cat

Evil cat / A much need hug / Curtains stage 2 / More eczema? 

Missing my niece / Cute cat pt 2 / My home / Finished curtains.

Hi my lovelies!

First off I'd like to apologise for my lack of posting, even though I know have a new laptop now, I've noticed the effect of not having one has had on WFF traffic. I feel a little down about it as there was nothing I could have done about it at the time and now unfortunately I'm finding it difficult to get motivation. That's not saying I want to give up on WFF, far from it, it's my little baby. I just feel like all my hard work for the past long few months have been undone by the unfortunate events of the last one. 

I am going to try and get back into my good old blogging routine this week as I'm trying to make a few changes in my life. One is to be more organised. This means you can all expect Monday make-up to return, and also Friday fit day will make an appearance again because this is another of my life changes.

Anywhoooo, this week I've spent a lot of time getting to know our new friends, cuddling my cats and working on this weeks DIY project. I've randomly decided I wanted to change the colour theme in my bedroom and the first port of call was the curtains. I figured it would be tons cheaper to dye them rather than buying new ones, so that's what I did. I bleached the hell out of them for four hours and then spent another 4fourdying them the amazing violet colour you see in the photos above. I was a little dubious as to how they would turn out because Dylon dye claims it may not dye over bleach stains, but it worked and I don't think it could have come out any better. :) 

Like I said, next week should be back to more of my regular blogging schedule and I hope to see more of you returning to WFF in the future. 

Hope you all have a cracking bank holiday weekend. Keep your eyes peeled on my Youtube channel, I'm thinking of vlogging the We The Kings gig. :)

My Week In Photos #002 002 | htc | instagram (ish) | life | my week | my week in photos | personal | phone | photos | picplz | when flowers fall | whenflowersfall

February Glossybox / Best Hand Knitted slippers ever! / Pancake Day!!

I want to sleep like a cat / The girls in their new favourite place / Black coffee love.

My Juicy kitten / Handmade button heart / My two neices

Unfortunately this week has been a really boring one. It's been pretty stressful and I've had a couple of panic attacks. On a brighter note though, my mum and step dad are coming to visit on Wednesday and I'm really looking forward to it. Fingers crossed this week will see a little more happen. I'm planning on trying to get at least two new tutorials done. I'm thinking if I can get into the routine and I can make it an ongoing thing. 

Today (Sunday) I've spent the day cutting old photos and swapping around my frames, also collecting some inspiration for my redecorating!

I hope you have all had an awesome week? You done anything exciting?

Getting my business on..... advertising | beauty | blogging | business | business cards | cards | fashion | life | moo.com | vistaprint | when flowers fall | whenflowersfall

...well not really.

    But I thought it would be handy to have some business cards. I'm always telling people about my blog but it gets a bit tedious, repeating myself over and over, and with the help of these little babies it would be so much easier.
    I ordered them a couple of weeks ago via Vistaprint, for 250 cards I only payed £2.00 so I added a card holder to my order as well. With VAT and delivery my order totalled a little over £10 which I was quite impressed with.
    Another good company to order business cards from is Moo.com, I used them throughout college and the quality of their stuff is amazing.

Do you guys use business cards at all and who do you give them to?

Welcome to my humble abode! cat | family | home | house tour | kitchen | life | personal | tour | when flowers fall | whenflowersfall

Hi lovelies!
I got really bored yesterday, so I thought I'd do a little house tour for y'all. As I say in the video, it is where I spend most of my time. This place is the mine and Liams first home, before this, we lived with his parents and as much as I love them to death, it's so nice having my own place. What do you guys think?