BrocanteHome in 2016 and beyond…

BrocanteHome

Welcome Lovely People, to a fresh, rather rainy New Year on BrocanteHome. It is nine thirty in the morning and after shuffling one uniform clad child out of the door I am now nibbling on a coffee flavored hot cross bun and writing this, my first proper post of 2016.
Christmas has been the kind of gentle, quiet holiday I needed to restore my soul and I have high hopes for this year. I have high hopes that trauma and calamity will decide to give me a miss this year and allow me to blossom in the midst of a happy relationship and eventually a new place to live. I have high hopes that such stability will wrap a soothing blanket around my shoulders and allow me to just be, without terrified anticipation of yet another blow. I have high hopes, Dearhearts, that my work will not be so fractured, that I will be able to write again from a place of truth and that exhaustion and fear will no longer compromise my promises to you.

More of the same with a lot more continuity.

So what can you expect from me in the next twelve months? More of the same with a lot more continuity. I know you see that you enjoy what I do here on BrocanteHome, that you like the same things as I do and that you simply want more of it in a more predictable fashion. I know this. And this is the year I am committed to providing it, with the help of my very own little dream team (yes, I have finally organised help!), a spanking new laptop and camara and a few rather grandiose ideas for world domination…
I kid of course. World domination could not be further from my mind. While my head is full of new ideas I hope you are going to love, I simply cannot get on board with all the magical shenanigans and bloggery trickery apparently required to get each post pinned a billion times or to climb to stratospheric heights with generic list posts, and the kind of “fifty ways to boil a potato” posts now so ubiquitous in the blogosphere.  I just can’t do it. And so I have made the decision not to waste any more time on creating the “perfect pin” or planning out three years worth of social media posts in advance and instead to simply do what I used to do: write as part of my daily routine, write as a ritual I can share with you, write because I feel like it, and write as and when the mood takes me.
We all have skill and talents in different areas and mine do not lie in social networking. I am too shy. Though I will still be tweeting, facebooking, instagramming and pinning when the mood takes me, I am simply going back to a time when I did all those things because I had something to say, and not because I felt obliged to say something or indeed anything at all…

So What Will I Be Doing?

Instead I will be concentrating on creating new downloads for my lovely Vintage Housekeepers Circle, getting some of my existing downloads on to Kindle, and writing about essential oils in my wonderful new community. I will be collating all 100 days of the Christmas Countdown in to a new download for all those who subscribed, issuing The Spring Home in the middle of January (and the Summer and Autumn Home later in the year to complete the set) and writing The Vintage Housekeepers Book of Days throughout 2016.
Here on the site I will be offering more snippets – tiny site only posts, to include books to read, pretty things to buy, puttery treats to enjoy and tiny little recipes to bake. I will be starting a new, personal column, called The Pillow Book, another on Blogging as a Lifestyle, and I will be continuing with old favorites like The Housekeeper’s Carousel and The Life Audit. I will also be bringing back Housewives In Art and for my own pleasure, collating more examples of domestic wisdom from the vintage books that I hoard. Finally, I will be writing spontaneous pieces about my life here at Chez Brocante, and no doubt documenting my house move should I ever manage to sell this shabby little cottage!
Phew. What was I saying about not exhausting myself??

A Thank You.

Before I get to the end of this post and haul my bottom off the sofa and in to the kitchen to tackle the thankless task that is cleaning out the fridge, I want to say express my gratitude to all those of you who have signed up to the circle or taken part in my Pay What You Can offer. Your support keeps a roof over my head and I am well aware how very blessed I am to be able to exchange my words for your hard earned pennies, and remain humbled by the commitment to BrocanteHome, of all those who buy everything I write.
The offers included in my Christmas Gift to You will end on January 10th so time is running out to Pay What You Want, join the Better Me Program from the beginning, or indeed grab Vintage Housekeeping Membership for HALF PRICE  – so if you want to be involved do be quick won’t you?
And now without further ado, let’s raise a cup of Earl Grey to a brand new BrocanteHome New Year and get on with creating lives less ordinary and homes that nurture our souls… 
Ooh and while I have still got your attention can I just issue a quick plea to make sure that if you order a download or join the Better ME program that you must let me know if you want it delivered to an email address other than that associated with your Paypal account. So many of you are getting in a muddle!
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