We’ve Had A Makeover!

Well hello there – welcome to our new look! What do you think? Do you like it? I certainly do. I’ve been wanting to redesign this blog for quite some time, but I kept putting it off and putting it off, and then suddenly this week I just decided to go for it. And oh how glad I am.

It feels great to have a crisp, clean look to the blog, and it is really inspiring me to get back on here and write, write, write. There wasn’t really anything wrong with the old look, it just didn’t inspire me anymore. It felt outdated, like it reflected who I was two years ago when I first migrated my blog over from Typepad to WordPress, and I’m just not the same person I was back then.

I felt trapped by the old design, and constrained by the themes that I had written about so heavily since having Little Man. It’s been a tough few years and whilst I have appreciated having a place to share all of that and raise awareness of certain things, I felt the need to step away from my past and focus on where I am right now – moving forward with hope and positivity. Life is still hard, believe me, but my mindset has changed completely over the past few months and I want to share more of that with you.

I thought long and hard about how to structure the new design, what categories to include, and even whether I should rename the blog itself! But in the end I realised that this blog will always be a place to talk about life, and that includes life as a family. I still felt it needed a better theme though, something that expressed what I hope to gain from continuing to blog here, and so I came up with the “like coffee with a good friend” tagline.

I’ve benefitted so much lately from chats with friends (either in person or over the internet) and love the support and encouragement that comes from being able to talk about everything from the big, life changing stuff right down to the most mundane of moments. And that’s what I want from this space, a chance to connect with you all and talk openly and honestly about everything, both big and small.

I also want this space to retain its friendly and encouraging style, sharing with you all the things that are helping me and my family get through some of the toughest times in our life with grace and gratitude. So you’ll see that I’ve added a new page to the site – Resources We Love – where I will be sharing some of my favourite people, places, and organisations that have had a positive impact on my life. I have more links to add, however I am awaiting permission to use logos for some of them, so please bear with me on this one!

I think that’s everything I need to share with you right now – I’m looking forward to connecting with you more over the coming days, weeks, and months. Let’s try and really embrace the “like coffee with a good friend” feel to The Family Patch and get to know each other some more. I’d love it if you could pop a comment below and let me know who you are (or if you’re a long time reader, let me know what you think to the new look!) and what you’d like to see here at The Patch so that I can be sure what I write really does encourage and support you.

And if you want to chat some more, you can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram if you’d like to connect off the blog – I’m just getting to grips with Facebook Live videos and absolutely love the community over on Instagram. Perhaps I’ll see you there?