Living in Another Language

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Blogging 101: Time Management

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

Time: I swear there is never enough of it. Blogging: There is never enough time to do it. Maybe it's your first week blogging, or your 252nd, but sooner or later you'll realize that serious blogging takes a lot of time and hard work. Not only do you have to write posts, you have to maintain comments, promote sponsors, tweet things, pin things, like things…rinse and repeat.  I never knew there would be so much work poured into my little ol' blog. Why do we do it exactly? To get our blogs well on their way towards success? I'll get back to you when I find an answer to that question.  After figuring out how to defeat 'the time monster', we decided to completely wreak havoc on our perfectly laid out schedule by adding something called ... Read More

Search Terms for the Win

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

You guys. I'm finally crawling out of the deep dark pit of sickness, and was able to sleep for the first time last night in three nights! Go me. I'll be spending this weekend catching up on basically everything: house cleaning, blogging, designing, emails, and getting a manicure (has it really been 4 months since my last one?). Yep. Even expats live 'normal' lives sometimes. What's not normal is going to the bakery, buying a sausage, cheese, and egg roll only to discover the 'sausage' is actually a hotdog made of some unknown substance. I wish I could say I threw it away, especially after the fact that it had been (most likely) sitting out in room temperature for 5+ hours. But nope, I ate that sucker. Here's to hoping sickness round two ... Read More

Blogging 101: Using Pinterest to Maximize your Blogging Potential

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

Pinterest. If you're a female and have lived for the past few years, odds are you've discovered Pinterest and all it's wonderment and glory. I have to admit I used to be quite the pin addict, but over time I've slowly let go of this time-consuming addiction and manage only to get on the black hole of a site once or twice a week. One thing you may not know is that Pinterest can actually be a great source of referral traffic, and can even grow its' way to becoming one of your leading traffic sources. Ok I realize I just lost all my non-blogging readers, so sorry for that, but you never know, maybe this post will come in handy for you one day! A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of writing for Kate's 'Grow Your Blog' series, in ... Read More

Simply Just Blogging

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging, Sponsors

To be honest with you, blogging has been the last thing on my mind the last few days. With this whole homeless chaos and my husband being sicker than a dog due to the mold problems, I haven't had much time and energy. I was up till 4am with D last night because he was having an asthmatic type attack and couldn't breathe or stop coughing. I'd be lying if I said I haven't felt a little guilty over the last few days not blogging and spreading a ton of love to my sponsors. Thankfully Lisette is there for me, constantly giving me reality checks. Here's the deal folks: sometimes real life happens.  Blogging is a great way to connect with the rest of the world, share your thoughts, grow as a writer, and build a business. However, we need to ... Read More

Blogging 101: Advice

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

It's no small secret that growing your blog does not happen spontaneously. Shoot, we all wish it did. I spent the entire first year of my blogging life just hoping the right person would come along and 'discover' me and how awesome my blog was. Yeah that didn't happen. It wasn't until I decided to take over the monster my blog had become did I realize I could actually do things to influence how my blog was going to succeed! We've all had our internet stalking moments trying to figure how this blogger did this or that, and how the heck they're so 'big.' I've found and received really great advice, but have also stumbled upon crappy advice. Blogging is a constant learning and growing process, and I still feel like I have tons to figure ... Read More

Blogging 101: The Sponsor Game

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging, Sponsors

There isn't a single blogger out there who will tell you that figuring out sponsorships for your blog, as well as advertising on others is easy. When I first took the jump into sponsorships I'll admit I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Thankfully there's grace in learning from your mistakes, and moving on. This post is obviously specifically for bloggers, sorry everyone else. I just don't want you to make the same mistakes that I did, and cost you lots of hard work and money. In this post we'll be covering both buying and selling of sponsorship ads. Let's talk about buying an ad space. I wish it was as simple as: buying an ad + ad approval on target site = thousands of new visitors to your blog and potentially followers. ... Read More

Blogging 101: WordPress Plugins

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

I have exactly 20 minutes to write this post before I dash off to make some homemade pancakes for my husband and I to enjoy for dinner. I recently splurged and bought maple syrup from iherb.com, just because their shipping was free to Korea (I would have normally spent the 12 dollars I paid for the syrup in shipping), and NOW I have to incorporate that liquid gold into our daily diets for a while. I've missed maple syrup so much over the past 1.7 years, I feel like I should be writing a post about its wonderful goodness. As much as I'd like it to be, this post is not about syrup, but about Wordpress plugins. A week or so ago I wrote a post called Blogging 101.  I shared with you my wisdom (for what it's worth) on how to grow your blog ... Read More

Blogging 101

Written by: Amanda // Category: Blogging

I am in no means an expert blogger, an 'it' blogger, or any other sort of blogger you may otherwise refer to as a big blogger. I am however a passionate girl who loves to share my experiences with the world. I started this little ol' blog in February of 2012 under a Wordpress.com account. I did my best with material and trying to make things interesting, but it seemed as if my blog just wasn't interested in 'taking off.' It wasn't until I started doing my research  (a year later) that I realized it was going to take a little bit more than people just falling upon my blog due to some google search to get my blogger ball rolling. Now, almost 4 months after my blogging epiphany, I am in complete shock as to how my blog has grown. I mean ... Read More

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2020 has been a year has it not? As much as I love 2020 has been a year has it not? As much as I love social media, I found myself taking a break as the things we were all going through made social media so insignificant to me. 

In January/February I had a miscarriage. It was a horrible way to start the year, and little did I know it was just the beginning of it all. 

Even with the loss, hardship of moving back to the US in the middle of a global pandemic, and navigating our new lives here, we were given many blessings. The greatest of those was finding out I was pregnant again in March.

It’s a scary time to be pregnant right now, especially after a miscarriage, because doctors visits are very minimal. Also, Derik was never able to come to a single visit. I was terrified something would happen and I would be told bad news and have to face that alone. But God was gracious to us. 

We kept our special little secret to ourselves, and it wasn’t until our third trimester before we told immediate family and close friends. My pregnancy was very private for me, and a special time to bond closely with the babe growing inside me.

Our sweet little girl arrived November 30, and yes I had to deliver with a mask on, but she is perfect and I truly feel our family is complete. 💕🌈
 
“When a rainbow appears, it doesn’t mean the storm never happened or that we are not still dealing with its aftermath. It means something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and clouds. Storm clouds may still hover but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of color, energy, and hope.”
I am in love. As I’m sure every other plant/mons I am in love. As I’m sure every other plant/monstera collector is when you get to behold such a beauty in real life. If there were ever #plantgoals, this is it. 

Since moving from Germany, it has been a long and slow process getting our life back to normal. All of our belongings have yet to arrive so we’ve literally been camping in our house on an air bed and camping chairs for two months. 😂 All that to say, having to start my plant collection over again here stateside has been so much fun! I will miss the plant prices if Germany, but the selection here blows my mind. Anyone else obsessed? We’ve lived here for almost 8 weeks now and I already have 11 plants 😂😬😬😬. I don’t have a bed or a couch, but by golly I have greenery. 😂🤦🏼‍♀️🌱
Oh my heart. I’ve been trying to figure out the Oh my heart.

I’ve been trying to figure out the words to say about our time in Germany, but my fingers can’t seem to type out how to express my love, gratefulness, thankfulness, sadness, and heartbreak I feel about leaving. Every country we’ve lived in has taught us something and has given us so many beautiful memories, as well as opened our eyes a little more to different cultures and ways of living.

But Germany was special. The first time we stepped foot into Germany was in 2015, and we loved it so much we stayed the extent of our travel visa (3 months). I was able to visit again in 2016, and then we officially packed everything and moved in 2017. Germany has always had my heart: the people, the festivals, the food, wine and beer, the immaculate home landscaping, and even all the rules that every resident is just expected to follow to a tee (like recycling every tiny scrap of trash). Our family grew from two to three while in Germany. Bringing our daughter into the world, and raising her for a year and a half in a different culture, will be one of the most beautiful memories of my life.

Our move was impacted by the COVID pandemic, and it took three long months of delays, red tape, and countless phone calls to get everything together so we could actually get on a plane and have our stuff packed and shipped to our new home. 
I am breathing a sigh of relief to know all the stress of everything is over and our new adventure can begin. I am mourning the loss of leaving Germany. I am in a weird transition right now trying to grasp it all, but here we are jumping into new things head first! We are back in the US for a while, in the beautiful state of Tennessee, and look forward to many new memories, travels, friends, and being able to spend time with family! 
Photos from my sweet and talented friend @juliejayphotos
I feel like I failed hard this year at Christmas m I feel like I failed hard this year at Christmas markets. We went to a total of ONE market, which is exactly 19 less than I told myself I would go to this year to make up for not going to any the year before 🤦🏼‍♀️(I was 40 weeks pregnant and not feeling crowds). I will say, it was a great one and the weather was so nice, we stayed out until the market shut down.

If there’s one thing I will miss most about Germany when it is our time to move, will be the sheer enthusiasm this country has for Christmas, and I’m not talking about consumerism. Food, laughter, friends, family, music, dancing: celebration. Also, Germany shuts down for not only one day, but THREE. Stores are closed, mail is not delivered, people aren’t out and about. Everyone is home enjoying time with family, and I love it. However, I may have gone into full blown panic mode Christmas Eve when I realized I had a total of 8 diapers to get us through until the 27th. 👀
We spent Thanksgiving back in North America: Whist We spent Thanksgiving back in North America: Whistler, Canada! A 10 hour flight from Germany , and I can’t say this one was better than the one we took over the summer on our trip to Alaska, but we survived! Entertaining a 11 month old for that long is much harder than a 6 month old, especially when they aren’t into sleeping on the plane AT ALL. 🤪

Whistler was beautiful despite the lack of snow, and we enjoyed our time with family, the delicious food, and as much sightseeing as one could do with a jet-lagged baby. 
This was actually my first trip to Canada ever, (unless you want to count the move my parents took up to Alaska from Arkansas when I was two. 😂🤷‍♀️ ) and I loved it! We would really like to take a big Canadian road trip someday and explore more of the country! 😍😍🇨🇦
Being a mama may mean I don’t always have time t Being a mama may mean I don’t always have time to put myself together, but I would rather spend the extra moments making special memories with our daughter that she can cherish forever. I doubt that she will look at this picture and see a tired, messy haired mama that’s barely had time to wash her face nevermind carefully apply makeup, but am hoping she will see a mama that never tires of carrying and cuddling her, or sharing new experiences with her. 💕
Oh Switzerland, you beaut.🇨🇭 We spent a coup Oh Switzerland, you beaut.🇨🇭 We spent a couple days enjoying the beautiful weather in the land of chocolate, cheese, mountains, and cows with bells 😍😍🤩. If you remember, we visited the same area  a month shy of two years ago but but the weather was quite the opposite! I’d have to say though, when you visit such a majestic and beautiful area, it doesn’t matter what the weather is, you’re going to be in awe and love it anyway!
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