Happy New Year to all of you!
I have enjoyed my so far one and a half week of vacation. I have mostly slept, read, watched TV and made food. Oh, and I have cuddled with Canavar. These few off days have truly been wonderful. I have also been itching to blog again, but then decided to wait a few more days, put a bit more time into thinking and coming up with more ideas. After a decade of blogging, I feel I want to just write more posts and not try to make them as perfect as possible anymore. It puts too much pressure on this hobby and takes part of the fun away. Let’s see how 2020 goes for my blog. I am definitely not done writing it.
Personal review
I already looked back on 2019 on Instagram, but also want to sum up my great year here:
- I traveled a lot: I started the year in Montreal. We went to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Antelope Canyon in February. I undertook weekend trips to NYC, but never enough. We spent a week in England in summer and visited three European countries (France, Germany and Denmark) within 9 days in October.
- I moved yet again. Only this time I was very happy as I left the city that never felt quite right for me and came to Manhattan so that Canavar and I can live together with his second can opener/my boyfriend right in Midtown;
- I started a new job that I totally love – it also showed me one full circle of a teacher’s life: after I said goodbye to my amazing! graduated 12th graders, I am now the homeroom teacher of a sweet 5th grade class.
- I am grateful for all my friends who live elsewhere (because not only I move a lot, but they do too) and who I can always talk to. And I’ve made great new friends in NYC.
- Another year together with Canavar has passed. Unfortunately, he had a little poisoning from drinking the Christmas tree water, but he is all well, fluffy and cuddly now and just the bestest cat in the whole world.
All in all the past year feels like smooth sailing, but I am also aware how often I was unhappy during the first six months. I was so ready for something new, the move to New York City, living together with my boyfriend, a new job … and ever since I have been much more relaxed and content. My work life balance has improved enormously. I hope that 2020 continues in this way.
Blog review
As for my blog, I am still surprised that I published 98 posts. That is a much higher number than expected. What I remember better though was when I managed to incapacitate my whole blog in fall. The theme I had used for years had become so outdated that I had to overhaul the whole technical part behind the blog to keep it online. Overall, my blog did not receive enough attention because I can only deal with so many things and moving has always stressed me out, but I feel ready to blog more and regularly. In 2019 Instagram was fun as always, despite me losing a lot of likes over the year (not followers though). I find the constant change of algorithms rather annoying, but I still enjoy posting pictures and looking at other people’s photos.
These were your top 5 posts on my blog in 2019:
- 5 Netflix Series I Recommend Right Now
- Recipe: Baked Peach Donuts
- Fünf Fragen am Fünften – February 2019
- Janavar Moves to New York City
- 3 Months in Manhattan
And these were my top 9 photos on Instagram:
And now let us all start into a wonderful 2020!
© janavar
