It’s about time I re-introduce myself…

Hello, salaam and welcome dearest reader,

Thank-you for clicking onto this post, the first proper one I’ve written in almost half a decade…which is actually insane to type, because once upon a time, blogging was my forte, my comfort zone and my favourite thing ever. It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, that I’d forgotten that aside from a bunch of reviews and swatch blog posts, (as theblushinggiraffe was always primarily a beauty blog), I’d sprinkled in some life updates here and there and the other day I came across one written on my 20th birthday – all the things I wanted to do in my twenties. It’s mind blowing that all of a sudden, just like that I’m in the final year of this decade and that was one of the sparks that pushed me to restart the corner where it ‘all began’. Honestly and truly, that’s the thing that I never expected when I decided to set up a blogger account over a decade ago – that I’d build a small, but ever so wholesome community, completely by accident. I genuinely just wanted to add my two cents to the beauty space online, because there weren’t enough girls who looked like me, sharing their experiences and telling us what was good and what to avoid. This was waaaaay before influencing was an actual career path and if people were making money from YouTube, it was small little bonuses, not life changing amounts. (Reflecting back on how much the online beauty community has changed is actually quite mind-boggling in itself – but that is definitely a post for another day).

Let us fast-forward to 2024, I am now TWENTY NINE. 29. Wow. I don’t think that number has sunken in, since sadly a lot happened in the days following this birthday….but the biggest change of all, is that I’m a mother now Alhamdulillah. The biggest honour and joy, yet also the most exhausting and life altering one 😅

Reflection is a thing that I had to give up pretty quickly as soon as my daughter arrived earthside, but it was something that prior to her birth, I did daily in my journal, almost without fail. You see, although I had long stopped updated my blog and moved over to YouTube and Instagram, my thoughts were always flowing, whether that was on paper, in a caption or sometimes a stream of words recorded into a vlog. As much as I enjoy creating youtube videos, especially vlogs (because I love looking back at the different phases of my twenties), my reality 5 months postpartum is that I am struggling to pick up the camera again. Mostly for lack of time and being presentable enough to record a clip, but also because in the few times I’ve tried, I’ve struggled to be coherent, which I hope changes for the better in the new future. I did manage to film a lot of my pregnancy, but I’ve only just about edited to the end of my second trimester, you can catch up with my pregnancy diaries by clicking here.

Since my daughter turned 3 months, I’ve had this urge to restart this space again and go back to my roots. Whilst I cannot seem to vlog the way I did before, (at least for now), I would like to both capture some of the raw feelings of my experience with being a first time mum, as well as create hopefully really useful posts with information, sharing what has and hasn’t worked for me so far. Much like my youtube channel, I don’t plan to niche my blog – more on that below. So, if you’re into blog reading or remember my posts from back in the day, I hope you’re looking forwards to weekly posts from here on out i’a.

I have a feeling that updating this space will be a whole lot easier to do avec baby, than sitting down, looking presentable, filming, editing and uploading videos on a regular basis. And now I’ve written the above paragraphs, I can’t explain how excited I am again to be restarting this space for me and you! I’ve moved my blog from blogger to wordpress which was one of the most technologically complicated things I’ve done yet ._. and there are still things to be fixed, organised and sorted, so please don’t mind the scruffiness of this space or the silly amount of ads (I will figure out how to reduce them soon!). Initially I wanted to wait till I had completely overhauled my blog, before posting again, but almost 3 months later and I’ve realised I’m simply wasting time. It’s much better to get started with posting and improve as I go along, because before I know it my daughter will be a bouncy toddler i’a and I’ll have forgotten so much.

With all that being said, somewhere there’ll be a subscribe button (to the left of this post if you’re on a tablet or laptop) and I’d love it if you’d do just that. Oh and what to expect on a monthly basis from here? An honest reflection of new motherhood, my favourite things across various categories (lifestyle and beauty), chats and reflections regarding my faith and finally an incredibly exciting project, which has been in the works since 2021…I’ll share videos where I’ve had the time to make them, but mostly it’ll be my raw words, with hopefully some beautiful pictures to accompany. I’m aiming to post once a week minimum, but twice a week when I can.

Also please excuse the random photos for now, it’s definitely going to take a minute or two to get back into the swing of blogging again…but it already feels like I’m on my way home 🥹. (I will also for sure be limiting my emoji usage to just a couple per post ha).

Find me on my socials if you’d like to see other content:

Youtube | Instagram | Tiktok

Thanks so much for reading, love Iqra x