BACK in the Blogging Business

Back! I am finally back in the business of lifestyle/fashion/food/health/parenting blogging. Since last November, it was a long hiatus, but sometimes life is moving on way too fast to catch up, even for someone so fast and multi-tasking as me.

I missed terribly updating the blog, but besides some unpleasant medical problems that are addressed currently with the highest consideration, I needed some time off for reconsidering the entire content I publish on the blog. 

What really happened during this time will be probably shared in one or maybe more blog posts in the coming days or weeks. What will really happen is that I am more than ever decided to continue my journey of sharing inspiration for busy women, that are not giving up and despite all the challenges on the way, they will keep fighting. 

The structure of the blog will not change, only hopefully the content will improve, and, hopefully again, there will be more frequent posts. I will try to feature more articles about health, wellbeing, work and life balance, as well as healthy eating. As I am not an expert on the topic myself, my plan is to have as many experts and specialists as possible sharing their inspiration, through guest blog posts and interviews.

One of the things I miss the most those days - more about that later - is cooking and eating in general. I slowly made my way to food despite being a former anorexic and in the coming posts I will like to explore more my relationship with food and how I succeeded - almost on my own - to evade the traps of the eating disorder. In addition, I can´t wait to start experimenting in the kitchen again, learning and sharing new recipes, spices and cooking techniques. I have lots of cooking books to review and get inspiration from, therefore wait for a lot of tasty posts soon. 

Last but not least, I want to feature creative minds and small entrepreneurs, preferably women, active in a variety of domains. My mission is to inspire women to dare find and express their voices, therefore, and hopefully I can offer the best examples in this respect. 

Expect also posts about hobbies, parenting pre-schools active boys, dating, weekend tips, self-help book reviews. 

I am back in the business and happy to connect with both potential sponsors, contributors and many new readers! 

Keep in touch with good news very soon!

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...

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.

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!

Good news: Content redesign

The blogging is getting very intense in the last weeks, and I wish I will continue at the same pace. However, as I dedicate more and more time and energy to my online writing life, I decided that it is about time to diversify the topics covered by this blog. 

The food and the kitchen will be the main topics of interest. I will share - I hope - interesting posts about my adventures in the kitchen and the fancy meals I am preparing or discovering. I will try regularly to write extended posts about regional and local cuisines. Right now, I document a post about Canadian cuisine and I am reading a book about the Hungarian cuisine and I will continue regularly to offer historical perspectives not only about various styles of cooking, but also about dishes with local flavors.

The books and publications about cooking will be featured more frequently. In addition, when possible, I will try to get more interviews with authors and food writers, as well as with chefs. Before cooking food, I always cooked words and I want to try now to make a perfect cocktail for increasing the quality of the blog.

I intend to add more interesting pictures and find out interesting photographers that focus on food. There it is a long term project and a lot of research will be involved as well.

I tried a couple of months ago to introduce some kitchen products reviews and I will continue doing so regularly in the future. I have in sight some nice sponsorships, but till there it is not a final deal reached, I prefer to keep silent. 

As this blog is equally about healthy life, there will be at least one weekly review about some healthy cosmetics and perfumes. I do not want to switch this blog into another blog about fashion, but I felt very often the need to cover more topics related to healthy life and various ideas that implies DIY, such as how to prepare your own soap or cream. I know, I need to take some basic classes in video production. Maybe the last half of this year, I promise.

I am lately interested as well in kitchen design and kitchen interior design and I intend to write as often as possible about what I find appealing in this domain. I have in mind some interviews with designers and participation at special fairs and events, but this will happen only when this blog will grow big enough to be noticed by the big brands. Till then, I will humbly do my job of writing food chronicles.