Sincerely, Loree

Just some thoughts on why I think that beginning again is a good idea.

I want to drown myself in writing; wash myself with words. And instead I've been worrying whether anyone will read them. Tell me, does it matter? Are words less powerful when they fall inside a void? Or vanish into the abyss?

So, yes, I've decided that I will follow Jeanne's* lead and begin again. Just baby steps for now and, as we head towards autumn and cooler, kinder days, I hope that the inspiration and the words will flow. Like the endless ebb and flow of the sea. I've made too many mistakes in the past. Looked for ides from everywhere except from within myself; listened to everything except my heart. 

But now I think  I'm ready to begin again. To be kinder and gentler with myself and let the words come as they may. Yes, I think it's a wonderful idea.

So, please join me on this adventure. I have a feeling that this journey together will take us to some unexpected places. We will share beautiful moments from our lives and talk about the most extraordinary books that are waiting to be read. I'm quite excited to begin again; and what  better time than now, on the cusp of a new season?

*If you're reading this and you don't already follow Jeanne, make sure you visit her wonderful blog Tahilla Farm.

Summer makes most people happy but I think that by now you know that I can only tolerate temperatures of 30C happily. Anything above that and I turn into the worst grump imaginable. We've already had two major heatwaves, both of them lasting well over ten days. But the temperature is tolerable right now so I'll leave it at that.

I've been away from my blog for a while again which makes me wonder where I want to go from here.

The future of this blog

To be honest, I no longer know whether this blog has a future. Readership keeps dwindling and I seem to have neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about it - which is sad, after all these years but, like I've said in the past, people are more inclined to read blogs that offer some advice or information rather than those that exist solely for the joy of making connections. Maybe I'm wrong but it sure feels like that right now.

So many people whose blogs I loved to read no longer update them any more and it has left me feeling strangely stranded. Other people's motivation and creativity helped fuel my own. I feel as parched as   Maltese field at the beginning of August after 4 or more months of drought - not a good thing.

Writing

Believe it or not I am finding it harder to write. My thoughts seem very fragmented and writing at length about a single subject is becoming harder. I've taken up micro-journaling because a couple of sentences every so often is all I can manage at the moment. I am finding it strangely liberating and it is teaching me to be concise.

Reading

My reading is progressing at a steady rate. I have read 27 out of the 35 books that I pledged to read during 2022. I'm running our of books now so I see a book-shopping spree on my horizon. Once again, I have read many books inspired by WW2 but it is time for me to pick up other genres. Reading only helps one grow when we pick up books outside our comfort zone. Otherwise. like all things, it becomes a mundane activity rather than one which expands the horizon of our imagination and knowledge.

All the reading I do leaves little time for blogging, unfortunately. I haven't even done the first two quarterly posts about the books I have read. Shame on me. One more thing I need to put on my 'to do' list.

Photography

Photography, like writing, requires the right frame of mind and heaps of motivation, both of which I'm sorely lacking right now. I've already talked about Malta's over-development and it just keeps getting worse. Village cores have been changed beyond recognition, more of the countryside keeps being eaten up by ugly blocks of 'apartments' that look like modern slums and it seems I am constantly taking photos of the same things, the ones which haven't changed for centuries (and which I've randomly scattered throughout today's post). They're all taken with my phone so please forgive and blurred edges.

What next?

So, what next, dear readers? Perhaps I'll use these slow and sultry summer months to recharge my batteries and come back with bigger and better ideas. Or perhaps I'll just give up. I really don't know at this point. All I know is that all the algorithms in place on Google and Instagram and everywhere else on the internet have killed creativity and since they ensure that only the 'big fish' are found by search engines. Everyone else is forgotten. It's a sorry state of affairs indeed.

Here we are in the first week of January. The memories of another Christmas have been packed away and the dust has settled on another year. And what a year it's been!  It has changed us, challenged us, frustrated us and really made us question the status quo. In some ways, it has forced us to seek new friendships, find different ways of doing things and connect with our inner selves. 

In my first post of the year I would usually share the highlights of the previous year with you but there's nothing worth mentioning about 2020. It was a year of cancelled trips, thwarted plans, isolation and introspection. But it was not all bad. So many people had it so much worse. We kept our jobs and our sanity, our son was able to follow lessons from school and the quiet time meant that I was able to break my personal reading record.

2020: the positives

• we went from working from the office to working from home literally overnight
• our employers realised that work still got done even if we were not physically present in the office
• using MS Teams became a daily occurrence and we were able to see some our overseas colleagues 'face to face' for the first time
• a large number of local business finally bit the bullet and went online
• we focussed on the things that mattered

And personally:

• with nowhere to go, I spent most of my vacation days at the beach and managed to get a nice tan for the first time in years
• I kept the promise I made to myself at the start of the year to decrease my time on Facebook. It was hard, at first, as I was quite addicted to it, but, by March I decreased the time I spent on it to 5 minutes twice daily. I am glad to say that I have stuck to that regimen.

My most read blogposts of 2020

Goals for 2021

 Dear friends, I am very excited to announce that, with the help of the very helpful and patient Berenica of Simply The Studio, Sincerely Loree is getting a long-overdue makeover. I have been mulling over this for at least a year now and have always been hesitant to take the final step because I was afraid I would make a mess of it. But, with Berenica's help, I think that you will soon see a more polished and modern-looking blog.

I cannot recommend Simply The Studio highly enough.  For a very affordable fee I will have a new template and Berenica has answered all my questions and will be helping me with the final installation. This may take some time. So please bear with me if links don't work or things don't show up in their proper place for now. I am really hoping that this new template will challenge me to improve my writing and photography so that you will all have more enjoyable experience when visiting the blog.

I will try to be back with one last post before Christmas if everything is up and running as it should be. I am really very busy right now preparing for the most wonderful time of the year and tying up loose ends at work. But I will prevail and am sure that, by 2021, an updated version of Sincerely Loree will be live. Fingers crossed ...

 I feel overwhelmed sometimes, wondering what people come here to read, what they expect me to say and whether anything I do say makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. There was a time when words sounded so beautiful that I used to hear them, like sweet notes in my head. There was a time when everything felt true and lovely and fresh. But the world has turned bleak and I have lost by way in this world of words. There's too much noise everywhere and it seems that the places we can run to for some refuge, some respite from the constant jabbering, are disappearing.