It's been a while since I wrote a post, three months to be exact. And I have been wondering about the blog and going back and forth about it and made a bit of a difficult decision: I'm going to stop blogging.
I have been doing this blog for over ten years and it has been a wonderful experience mostly. I have gotten such sweet responses and connections through it and it has really broadened my horizon to share my art and photographs from my little corner of the world.
But times change and people change and over the past years I have had more than one time where I wondered if I had just grown out of it. I have moved most of my sharing to Instagram and Facebook and find them direct and quick and easy ways to share my artsy stuff, my photographs and even the books I read.
I don't really do this to gain followers or anything. If I did I would have spent a lot more effort on things like marketing and drawing attention. To me both the blog and the socials have been an instrument to help me be aware of the good things in my own life. When I feel like everything sucks a good look at my Instagram feed can perk me up, just because apparently there is always something beautiful to share. It helps keep me grateful. It's also my way to quickly pick out the photographs I want to print for my journal. So all in all it's a very self focused thing.
That doesn't mean I don't also enjoy the online interaction with others and the lovely things that can come from it. There is a reason after all that I have kept going with this blog even though I struggled with it too and that reason is you, my little group of sweet readers.
But keeping a blog is a lot of dedication that I just can't seem to get around to anymore.
In addition to the above: since the beginning of spring I have been asked to do the social media for our local tourist platform that tries to promote our island and get people to come on over in order to expand the tourist season. It means that I get to use the many photographs I make (and those of other people) for an actual practical purpose other than my own pleasure and show a bigger group of people how nice it is over here. It's a volunteer job and it doesn't take up a lot of my time, but it is an extra commitment next to my regular job, so it makes my free time a little extra precious.
So here we are at the end of an era I guess, or at least the end of a decade and definitely the end of a blog. ;-)
I will keep the blog up of course, I'm not going to remove it or anything. I may try to stop the possibility for commenting in a few months, because otherwise spammers will take over and I don't want that. I will also remove the widget that makes it possible to contact me and follow the blog through e-mail. You are of course more than welcome to e-mail me through regular means about anything. You can do this at c.m.j.winkelman[at]gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.
You are also welcome to follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/carin.winkelman/ or through Instagram @caatjes_artsy_stuff. But I completely understand if blogs are still your thing and you don't want to switch to socials.
If you are interested in my 'work' for the TPV (Toeristisch Platform Vlieland), you can see that at https://www.facebook.com/vlielandsite (you don't need to join facebook to see the page) or at instagram @vlieland_site. They are both in Dutch, but that doesn't take anything away from the beautiful photographs of my island. ;-)
Finally I would like to thank each and everyone of you for your support, your kindness and for staying with me through the years. I hope we will find each other in other online (or real life) venues and I wish you nothing but the best.
All my love,
Caatje
PS There is somebody else who would like to say goodbye too:
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| Goodbye Blogsy People! |
PS on August 18, 2021.
On 18 august 2021 I have hidden all comments. They are still there for me, but can no longer be seen by you, so you also cannot comment anymore on any post. This is to protect the blog from spammers. Just wanted to say thank you for the kind responses I got to ending this blog. Again: I appreciate everything we shared over the past ten years. Lots of love!