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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Wrapping up March and April

The last two months were significantly more quiet in terms of blogging as usual. With the restrictions of the Pesach holidays and some personal and health - good - challenges, my writing activities were slightly limited in the last 60 days. And everything was fine on my side, not because I was taking a break from writing - this can hardly happen, anyway as all my activities and projects involve writing at a certain extent, even if it is only as a translation - but because I needed to settle down some important offline projects before keeping up with the usual blogging pace.

Of course that at least twice the day, I was checking my blog email considering if to apply or not for a sponsorship opportunity or for being more than worried that my readership will suffer as long as I am struggling to set up my own business, but good things are always happen to those who wait. Now, after two intensive months, I can openly declare that the good things are just about to happen. A lot of projects were done meanwhile, and many other topics are already written waiting only the right moment to push the button 'publish' for getting properly 'on air'. Some of them waited for at least 4 months, but it was a waiting fully worth, as I needed to have the right time to properly approach them. Plus, so many cooking books and inspirational books and parenting books that I can't wait to review, in addition of my own cookbook which is in the final stages of editing (more details soon).

Meanwhile, I am fully embracing the spring and its balm weather, the perfect inspirational time for both my writing and my personal development. 

As for my health challenges I've mentioned earlier, I'll be dedicated a full post of it in the next days. 

Because today, more than ever, I am fully BACK in the business...

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Tracking down February

At the end of January, I was a bit disappointed that my foodie side of the blog was under-represented, but February, although the shortest month of the year, was full in tasty experiences. Practically, if you browse my blog entries for this month, you will mostly find a lot of recipe tasting and first and foremost, my first entries as part of the Brand Ambassador for Spice Kitchen UK, a lovely Birmingham-based company I previously worked with, many years back. 

Another foodie achievement was to explore the flavors of turmeric, in the already classical golden milk. 

But the blog also shared my thoughts on (local) dating or advice about how to practice yoga without leaving your office, strongly recommended to all busy business women out there, in search of some short muscle exercices. 

February was for me also a month when I had to keep thinking about how to further develop my business, especially from the technical-bureaucratic level, but also when some unexpected personal events made me think more about life, friendship and family ties. As a dear friend was took to the hospital with a mild stroke, I've spend a huge amount of time visiting, while trying to bring her a bit of sunshine and encouragement when things were starting to look way too gloomy. Fortunately, she is out of any danger right now, with a slow recovery process in the front of her, but all the events that unfolded in the last two weeks were eyes opening and made me reconsider a lot of thoughts and attitudes regarding friendship ties and how we can grow up our family ties and go beyond old misunderstandings and conflicts to nurture warm and heart-to-heart talk.

As the weather went completely crazy out here, in Berlin, Germany, with two-digit below 0 temperatures, I had to be an unpleasant amount of time indoors, cooking, but therefore without a way to explore other possibilities in terms of pitching and topics for my articles. Hopefully, this time is over now and I can go out more often and create more interesting content. For a long time, both me and the baby we fought with the strange flu that seemed to never end, so my original energy aimed at blogging, parenting and working was significantly diminished. But I did a lot of sleep which helped me at a great extent to keep somehow the battery fully charged. 

For the last three weeks, I tried also an experiment of limiting seriously my spendings, as trying to buy only what I really need, while combining wisely the available ingredients I already had at home. I am usually a minimalist, and I hate clutter but this time I tried to think at least twice before purchasing a specific food item, and focus my mind on what I can really do with that specific product. If not, what about not buying it at all? Thank G-d, I do not suffer of any shopping addiction, so it was easy to follow a simple line, but for me also meant that I can rather keep and save money for really valuable investments, such as a great bed for my son. Post detailing my experience coming up soon on the blog.

Last but not least, February meant to me a lot of freelance work, as the frozen and slow paced January was finally behind and people started to get interested in moving on with their business plans. My works involved a diverse range of activities, from proof-reading, the usual translations from and into 3+ languages, a bit of guest blogging, but also some business consulting. Overall, not bad at all, and I hope that this intense pace will continue. 

What March has in sight as for now? As Pesach holidays are just around the corner...there is a countdown I prefer to ignore sometimes, as there is a lot of stress associated with this part of the year usually, I will probably try to set up some recipes and stress-free suggestions. Unfortunatelly, I wanted so much to give some tips for both Purim and Tu B'Shvat, but my everyday life was overwhelming enough to challenge my plans. I would also have some fashion and style posts, probably a feature of a jewelery maker I've had the chance to meet in Berlin a couple of months ago, plus some interior design inspiration too. My posts about beauty tips will also continue, with some reviews of products I've tested and loved. I do have some parenting tips I am ready to share soon and maby some parenting books reviews too!

There's all for now! Let's hope in a meaningful and filled with good news month of March. Cheers to that!

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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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