Two Busy Months...

The first two months of the year didn't bring too many news and inspiration for my lifestyle and foodie blog. Caught between the high-end priorities of building my business, learning how to deal with various bureaucratic and organisational challenges, while keeping working hard to my ongoing projects. Life and love caught up too, with more -or less - interesting dates, need of re-adjustment and reconsiderations, decisions, decisions and decisions again.

With two and half other blogs that require a lot of research, networking and social media maintenance, my hobby blog suffered considerably, with only two posts in the last 60 days. At a certain extent, it reflects the state of the things I am currently doing. I didn't try a new recipe in a long while - with eating out or a frugal lunch were part of my daily schedule. I've seen some interesting interior design and fashion projects, but my mind couldn't stay focused too much. My 'rest and relaxation programme' continued, with some very interesting classes that I've took for full weekends in the last weeks, mostly focused on non-conflict and inter-personal communication, but I was so fast caught back to my other realities that haven't considered (yet) to share my experiences on my blog. I haven't pursued too many collaborations and lifestyle projects because money was always coming from other parts and was relatively unhappy with the lack of reaction of many brands -unless I was overnight growing my audience at over 100,000 followers.

All being said, I am pretty well tough. I have a good focus and a long list and ideas and possible collaboration to be developped in the next months. I've happily find my voice as a writer and happily involved in some writing projects that will probably lead to another two new non-fiction books published. I'm glad to be part of various personal and professional support networks of women that are providing valuable insights. Every single day I am becoming a completely new person with a fresh, peaceful and emotionally involved perspective on love, life and relationships. 

Together with my little boy, I am able to understand the world differently, while learning every single moment what does it mean to be a parent, although only a single one. 

With a better time management and motivation, hopefully will be able to share more episodes from my daily journey of becoming every single day a better person, for myself and the people around me.

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Tracking down January

Freelancer life - not always a bed of roses

With a bold generous agenda set up in the last hours of 2017 ahead of me, both in my professional and personal life, I decided to keep an even stricter track of my goals, events and time management achievements and failures too. Tracking down... will hopefully be a regular presence on my blog, published on the first of every month and aimed at offering an overview of the previous month and some lessons learned. My hope is to be able to share inspiration with other people coping with the same issues or trying to improve their situation and find their own professional and personal path of life.

Blogging life

Blogging life was good in the last 31 days and promises to be even better, with a couple of sponsorships already done, and a couple of others in the making. I did maintain a permanent social media sharing and interaction, and things are growing up, although too slowly for my liking. The traffic is steady and, at least with BoiledWords, I am far beyond 100,000 views and growing which is a good thing after all. In terms of food experiences, I had only failures - including today therefore I am a bit behind with my recipe sharing. My waffle book and another two books that are almost done, but need a serious editing, were on hold, because...there is just no excuse for it anyway.

My bookish blog was by far the more active and more successful this month, with a couple of blog tours, interviews and new collaborations sealed for the next month at least.  

Interaction with other bloggers and influencers was a bit different for the better, but I am still not in the right place, I am trying at least. Not too hard, though. 

I finally learned how to make attractive Pinterest covers and I am really enjoying this newly creative tool. Better YouTube and SEO are next on my to-do-list. 

To be continued though, hopefully in a more steady direction, as I am not happy at all to swim over and over again in the same mud for a couple of months already, without any sparkle of change. I can probably keep doing what I am doing and being happy with it, but I am sure I can do even more.

Right now, I am reading Confident Digital Content by Adam Waters, and more such books are prepared for a crash learning course this weekend so maybe I can change something in the right direction. 

Freelancing

January started a bit slowly in terms of freelance work, but I had at least two projects to achieve per week in the last three weeks. 

In order to keep a good track of my income from freelancing, I was finally able to create an Excel which covers the income both from blogging and freelancing. The frustrating part is that there are projects done and paid later - if ever, and this could create at least for a while a serious financial disbalance. When you have bills to pay, you need to have a permanent flow of money happily jumping in your account and the aim is too really create this best case scenario. I am not even half through achieving it, though. 

In terms of the content of my freelance work, I did mostly translations, which I am doing for already a couple of years, but which is not my favorite professional domain. Editing and writing are always my no.1, with photography and online teaching coming next, but because too lenient to do some research and pitch my ideas, I keep doing it. 

Time management

Since my school years, I am very strict in terms of time management, tracking down obsessively my schedule and trying to be as busy as possible. With one single exception of a couple of days, I kept being very busy in January, with only a couple of days when I was really lagging behind. Those days paid high too, as there were supposed to be spent chasing blogging and freelancing opportunities. 

My aim for a couple of days is to get the best of each day and hour, and most of the time I am doing it, but once in a while I am too tired or really need a healthy procrastination hour before doing anything. And this time never comes back. 

Personal life

Personally, things were with ups and downs too. Maybe this is life, but I am sure some improvements can be done. Baby improved significantly his speaking abilities therefore I am more relieved and stress free when it comes to his development. An appointment by the pediatrician is in the cards the next week when I will get probably the best advice, as usual, about the next steps to be done.

Baby kept being my priority for the last days, with a lot of efforts being done towards securing a place for a kindergarten at least from September this year. Apparently, there is much easier to be accepted to Harvard than to find a place to a decent Berlin kindergarten and the struggle is real. 

I've spent also some great times with my friends having lunches out but reclaiming me time was sometimes almost impossible, so all I was able to do was to take some extra hour of sleep.

The relationship with people that I have to deal with, although they only create discomfort and tensions was smooth and I am finally able to ignore their negativity. As for the negativity of people that are actually close to me, this was very hard to deal with, and keeping them and their thoughts at bay was quite a hard, difficult and almost impossible mission. 

Some good modest things happened too, such as the fact that I was finally able to have a general dentist check-up and another general medical more awaited check-up. I also started to gather information about the best driving licence schools around me, which will finally pave the way for me being able to drive. 

I am also looking forward to learning new skills online, and registered for some free classes on Coursera, but I keep being distracted by other things going on around me and every evening ends up with me being unable to switch on to the learning. However, my German exercises went smoothly, with at least one hour of practice - which included also reading and writing - every day. 

Overview. What's next

To be very honest, I am 75% unhappy with the current situation, but in a very positive way which creates a healthy pressure to finally make those much awaited and well-deserved changes in my both personal and professional life. I know I can do more and I will definitely work hard towards it, with a better time management and better determination. 

Let's hope that February will bring it on more positive changes and improvement in everyone's life. I, personally, can't wait to let them happen and share them here.

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Cheers to a Successful 2018!

This year was, by far the best since the launch of this blog, back in 2010! With almost 100,000 views reached, more than half of them only in the last 12 months, tons of new collaborations with great brands, such as the German drugstore chain Rossmann, and a big range of articles shared, Boiled Words was busier than never before. Although the social media was a bit behind - with Instagram (I am boiledwords there too), Twitter and Facebook slightly behind, with a relatively limited social interaction, the blog took the best of it, with an increasing number of visitors and brands reaching out for collaborations.

But it is still a lot to be done to both my blog appearance and my writing, and I do have lots of things that would love to do it better - such as learning to be a much better cook, with more focus on creating edible complicated recipes and a better knowledge of kitchen tips and daily recipes. There is a foodie book in the making, that I can't wait to finish probably in the first half of January. And many more collaborations with local and international brands bringing to you, my dear readers, the best beauty and fashion tips and inspiration. I am also preparing more posts about good and healthy life tips and how to juggle with your professional and personal life of a single mom, without breaking nuts. Which is not the easiest thing on the planet, regardless what people say!

I am aware that there is a very long way ahead until being one of those famous influencers invited to the red carpet of fashion shows and glamorous events. But I can clearly see the light now, much better than 12 months ago. Besides all the challenges of my everyday life, I am trying as much as my time and health allow to keep the positive energies flowing and share my ideas for a better life, especially when you think that there is no way out of the mess you are living in. Been there, done that, and if I did, you can do it too!

I wish myself and my readers too, a full year of positive encounters, with daily moments of gratitude and the power to see the change you want to be in the world. One step or one blog post at a time, good things are coming to those who hustle! Keep up living your life and don't forget to always put yourself first!

Happy healthy 2018 to all of you!

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