Lovely Girlie Bits is 4!

Well would you look at that, we've only gone and made it to the four year mark and in the blogging world that's a long time!  It really feels like it was only last year that I set up camp in this corner of the internet thinking it'd be a hobby that I'd mess around with for a few months.  Four years later and it's developed into a second job that I'd love to have as my first job, so I'm going to keep working my bum off to try and make that happen!  The hard work is starting to pay off now so I'm going to try and keep the momentum going over the next year and continue to show you the best in beauty!

Because of you lovely bridies, this past bloggy year has been truly incredible.  I just want you to know that I don't take anything for granted when it comes to blogging and have had some real pinch me moments, and still do almost every week.  I still can't believe that I get to go to cool launches and events and as long as I'm asked, I'll do my best to vlog and bring you along with me.  While the blog has won a couple of awards this year (and I still can't believe that), it hasn't changed how I go about blogging.  While it's nice to have some recognition for all the hard work that goes into the whole process, I don't see myself as better than anyone and was more shocked than anyone at winning the awards this year (hence the crying at the Aussie awards and the lack of nice outfit at the Image awards!)

This past year has been a challenge in terms of trying to stay on top of things both in real life and in bloggy life.  I've had a lot going on behind the scenes and just like when I started the blog 4 years ago, it has provided me with the best distraction.  When I'm taking photos and writing about all things beauty, I get to forget about any crap that's going on.  So I'd heartily recommend blogging if you need to focus on something else and sure makeup is always a brilliant distraction!

What have I learned over the past bloggy year?

One of the biggest issues for me is to go easy on myself, especially over the last few months.  I've been constantly exhausted from work and have found it a real struggle to keep things up to date on the blog.  I'm usually a week ahead of myself but have been playing catch up since the middle of July and while I have so much to blog about (I've currently 76 drafts posts waiting to be finished), I've felt really overwhelmed.  Not enough to make me throw in the towel or anything,  I've just had to try and get as much work done on the weekends because I just don't have the time or energy during the week.  So sometimes I don't get a blog post up on a Friday and you know what?  It's ok.  I'd rather have 4 great quality posts during the week than stick up a fifth one just because.  

There are a few things I want to work on improving over the next bloggy year.  I want to be more organised when it comes to emailing people back.  I don't have much time during the work day to be online and I'm such a gobshite for mentally replying to texts, tweets and emails and forget to actually reply!

This has turned into a big mad waffly post and I've cut it down even to this!

What I wanted to basically say is thank you.  Thank you for sticking with the blog for as long as you have and if you're new here, thank you for taking the time to have a look around.  Thank you for each and every comment, tweet, DM and email you send because feedback and chats are very important to us!

So to thank you for everything, we've got some giveaways coming up over the next couple of weeks thanks to some very generous brands altogether!  Stay tuned and keep an eye on the hashtag #LovelyGirlieBlogoversary so you don't miss anything!