I killed Sarah Kay...

Image from Pinterest. Original source unknown.

Hello. Remember me? I used to blog. I actually started to get really into it; even paid to have a proper layout made. And then, well various things happened and blogging just fell by the wayside. I still wanted to blog, I really missed it and the interaction with other bloggers; I even started chatting to the same people fairly regularly. We even set up our own bloggers chat (anyone remember #30s bloggers?! I co-founded that!) that we held every Sunday. I actually felt bad about not blogging. I’d occasionally read other blogs and felt a pang of almost jealousy that I’d neglected mine.  And then I wanted to blog again but my laptop, my poor laptop, just wouldn’t let me. Constantly turning off or restarting, and the odd occasion that it did work it was slow, so slow that it took any joy out of blogging. It was more of a chore trying to get posts written, photos edited, tweaking the layout that I’d paid for to be just the way I want it. It just wasn’t worth the effort.

Fast forward a few months and I’m newly single, just out of a 12-year relationship (more about that another time...) and just stuck in a bit of a rut basically. I don’t particularly enjoy my job, the vast majority of my friends are married or in long term relationships, with families of their own and, at the risk of sounding like a billy-no-mates, I felt lonely. My ex is in the Army, so my weeks were often spent counting down the days until he was home again. Then when he was home we were quite happy just spending time catching up on Netflix with a takeaway, or going out as a couple. That kind of structure I’d had for so long had all of a sudden just gone. And while I’m doing okay post-break up (shopping helps, just FYI!) I found myself wanting to do something more constructive with my spare time (of which now, I have a lot of!) than just sitting watching TV and not really interacting with anyone.  Something that when I am feeling down, or lonely, or just bored I can do something that shifts my focus and make me feel I’m doing something worthwhile. Woah, didn’t mean to go all emo on you there… sorry!

I logged back onto my blog’s Twitter… and then reinstalled Bloglovin’ onto my tablet… and spent the next hour or so reading blog posts, and felt those pangs again, that I once had something like that, and really enjoyed it, and my follower count had started to grow. Not massively, but most days I’d have an email saying I had a new follower. Even when I wasn’t blogging, I’d get these emails.  I just thought “sod it” and decided there and then I want to give it all one last go. I then sat and come up with a list of 20+ blog post ideas. A good mix of beauty and lifestyle.  I have a new laptop now, one that stays on for more than 10 minutes to there’s no excuses!

So here I am. I was tempted to start from scratch, but decided against that. I may delete some old posts I don’t particularly like though. But as you’ve probably realised now, I’ve had a change of name. I never really liked the name Sarah Kay, which I’d chosen because my name is Sarah (obvs) and my surname begins with a K… (how many of you thought my middle name was Kay??!). But as SarahKay was taken, I had to stick ‘blogs’ on the end, which I just thought was a bit cringey. So, say hello to Sarlavie! Sar is obviously short for Sarah (even though I hate it when people call me that!) and La Vie simply means ‘life’. I like how this stops me being too tied to beauty, and I can post about anything I want really. Plus, it also sounds like C’est La Vie, which is clearly one of the best songs of the 90s!!

So whether you read my blog before, or have just stumbled across it since this post, thank you! I genuinely do appreciate that you took your time to read this and hope to get to know as many of you as possible in the future!

Sarah x