I'm back

Dear Blog,

I'm back. Although my break turned up to be longer than I had initially planned, it seems it's exactly what I needed. When I decided to take a break, I could no longer decide if I was blogging because I enjoyed it or because I felt I had to. I didn't know if I was doing it for myself, or for others. It stopped being fun, and it was only stressful. If you remember, my word of the year was meaningful and when blogging stopped being meaningful, I knew I had to stop.

But now I'm ready to come back, to write again, to keep on exploring myself and my journey through this public diary. To keep on collecting inspiration, experiences and wise words from others. To keep on learning. 

So what did I do while I wasn't blogging?

I participated in a beautiful project on the Wishstudio.  The necklace I'm wearing in this photo is a clue...

I went to see She and Him live! Their music is so much better live and Zooey is cuter and Mr Ward more charming than you can imagine. It was a really fun night and the fact that it was on a Monday made us feel all young again!

We sent our wedding invitations. Only three and half months to go now... They deserve a post of their own but here's a sneak peek: 

I thought a lot about marriage, marrying the family, marriage for life, creating your own rules for marriage. As it so often happens when you are thinking about something, everywhere I turned, marriage wasa hot topic, even SATC 2 (great fun!) turned out to be about marriage more than anything else!

We went on long walks and I took my camera out again...

I even played with the Diana + ( a Christmas present!). But...

I enjoyed the good weather (Yes, we had good weather in Oxford for two whole days!!)

But I also worked too much and started staying late in the office almost every day. 

I read, and read and read.... Once I let go of the pressure to read all the posts in my feeder and to follow every link on Twitter, I found I had more time than I thought to read. For the first time in ages, I actually had time to read all my library books before it was time to take them back and still....

I missed my blogging friends, and I missed commenting on Flickr photos and interesting posts. And so...

I thought about balance, about routine, about taking care of myself, about how to find time to do everything, about priorities.

And now, here I am. Trying again. Looking forward to reconnecting with my blog and yours. To rediscover the magic of blogging, the power of the written word, the beauty of supporting comments, to being inspired. To everything that blogging brings.