Living in Europe, my dream for ever since I can remember.  Now I am here and it's amazing, but I miss my family terribly.  I try to focus on all my dreams and work hard to make them a reality, but the distance is still 5,898 miles. What kills even more is the time difference.  Every time something happens to me good or bad, I am used to sharing it with my family and Social Media helps, but there are rainy days like today, where nothing helps.  I guess is part of the adjustment process.  According to a Lloyds International survey it takes 2 years for expatriates to feel fully at home in their new country, well I guess that means I have 1 year and 2 months to go before I feel fully adjusted to being here.  Until then the experts say expatriates go through periods of disappointment to depression.  So I just have to keep on looking at the positives and holding on strong when the waves of loneliness and sadness go through me.

How to Carve Out Blogging Time

Blogging unfortunately is not the only thing that requires my time.  I have a career as an English Teacher, translator and begining as a Teacher Trainer.  I have my recently transplanted 8 year old who is adjusting to her new life in Madrid, new friends, new school, lots of homework; all in Spanish.  A language, that although, was her first language is no longer her Native language.  A new puppy that needs to be feed, walked, trained and played with. Last, and unfortunately sometimes least, my lovely husband who is being very supportive with the blogging as long as it doesn't interfere with the rest of my life.:-)

I have 3 other blogs including this one and about to start another one.  My two other blogs Vanguard Women and Mujeres Vanguardistas are for support and celebration of Women who are braking barriers to find their place in this world.  The other blog I still need to plan more and focus, so that it is as useful as possible and not all over the place.  I am also a guest blogger for Anglo-Info, where I write about my experience as an Expat in Madrid.

Find Uninterrupted Time
With all these challenges how do I carve out time to Blog, so it doesn't take over my life and I can still enjoy my loved ones and not flake out at my job.  I'm a morning person, my husband is a night owl, so every morning as soon as I see that I can't sleep anymore, when tossing and turning is no longer an option, I wake- up and start researching for my blogs on my Motorola Zoom. If my husband catches me and says go back to sleep I continue under the covers with my Android phone, how did I live without one before?

Sometimes I am done sleeping by 2 am, but most of the time it's by 5am. When it's already 5am, I get up and got to my desk and start working on the things that require concentration like editing and putting the final touches on my posts before I publish. It's also the best time for me to write my ideas down because the house is quiet and after taking the dog out and giving her water, she sits by my side and I work on my blog.

Be Ready for Inspiration
Inspiration is finicky it appears when it wants and disappears when you most want it. I carry a notepad with me wherever I go, so that I can catch it and act on it.  I jot down notes fast on, so that it doesn't have time to fly away.  Sometimes I get these great ideas while I am on the Metro and if don't write them down when I try to bring them up later, they are just not as fluid as when I first thought about them. 

Your Cell - Your Best Friend
At times when I wake up in the middle of the night with a clear solution to something I've been pondering for a long time, well I can't very well turn on the light on and start jotting down, because the one who is going to kill my inspiration will be my husband.  So, I reach for my cell phone and jot down my notes on my ColorNote app.  It's easy to use and it keeps my life organized, since it has the choice of entering Notes as Text or Tasks and it also gives you the ability to organize your notes by color.

Just Drafts Please
When I first started blogging it was really hard to complete posts because I didn't have enough time, then I decided to write them as drafts.  During these times when I want to write a post and I am not at my laptop or desktop, or I don't have enough time to research the subject or check spelling and all that is needed to Publish, I just draft.  I use the Blogger app and just write a draft of my post that I can come back to later and put the finishing touches.  I once wrote a whole entry on my notepad as I rode the Metro.  I was so inspired by a woman riding the Metro, that I just wrote away.  Later I typed it and the inspiration was such that it didn't need much revising.

Organize Your Blogging Time
Blogging when it is not your full time job is challenging and there is only a part of a 24 hour day that you can use to blog.  At the beginning of my Vanguard Women blog, which was my first blog, I spent a lot of time on design, actually most of the time.  That's when I started to realize that it was not only important to find the time to blog, but that I needed to organize that time once I found it.  I don't keep to a schedule of posting my blogs for this blog because since I just started it, I am adding posts as much as I can, but most top bloggers recommend is that you have a schedule so that your readers know when to expect a new blog.  Other than the stolen times when I blog I can dedicate about an hour or two every other day to blogging. For me organizing my blogging time meant decide when I would do what.  My schedule now is like this:

• Crack of dawn time - jot down ideas, draft posts, research
• Early morning time - editing, revising and publishing
• Scheduled blogging time (usually an hour every other day)
• adding to draft posts day
• exclusive for design issues day
• promotion day
• research day

I had to break it down like this because I love blogging and I if I let it, it would take over my life.  This way I feel like I am moving forward with my blog, but I still get to enjoy my family and be responsible for my other work.  I keep the schedule flexible because sometimes it's easier to work on some items than others.

This is what is working for me right now. How do you organize your blogging time? I'd love to hear your ideas.

Walking Through Madrid

Sometimes I have to stop myself and look to see how beautiful Madrid really is and how lucky I am to live here.

 

La Puerta de Alcala

Success and challenges

What is success and what is failure? I like many people, have always been afraid of failure, which many times has stopped me from doing the things I wanted to do. I've also had very high expectations and want to do everything perfect which was also a deterrant on getting started or completing a project.  Now days I'm trying my best to have realistic expectations so I don't set myself up to failure.  I am also staying active and taking care of the things I need to before they become a problem.  Added to all this I've learned to look at problems as challenges and not giving up at the first obstacle.

Blogging gives me great practice in all of these. For one although I was afraid to put my writing out there and still am I am doing it. The trying to make it perfect is a constant challenge, but I am working through it.  For example eventhough the design of my blog was not yet absolutely what I wanted I've published it and continue to improve it as I go. I could sit and design for days until I am completely satisfied, but I don't have the time, nor is my body willing to go through that.  So, I work on it and as long as I am able to make one improvement I am satisfied.  I have also put myself on a schedule so that I don't blog for days and forget all my other obligations. Lastly for this blog I chose the Simple Blogger design modify some fonts and voila!  I know I need to work on it more, but for now the most important thing is writing my posts.

Celebrating my success instead of looking at what I still can't fix, well I am truly happy that I was able to find a design I liked for my other blog and it looks great.  I found out this week it has a problem with the thumbnails on the summaries of the post on the main page, but instead of scrapping it or spending hours trying to fix it I have sent a message to the designer and hopefully she can help me out.  If she doesn't answer I will research how to fix it and if I still can't well then I will have to modify how I use pictures.  The point is to be kind to myself and don't set myself up to fail with unrealistic expectations and honoring when I have done something right how ever little that is.

Inspiration it's Got a Hold on Me

Boy, last night I went to sleep wondering if I was ever going to find a Template that fit my blog and if I was ever going to break my writer's block.  This morning at 5am to continue the search.  After an hour of searching for another blog template I found it.  It was actually designed for Cooking Recipes, the irony, I am using it for my Vanguard Women's blog,  calling for a liberation from the cooking, no I am kidding, if you love to cook more power to you, there is definitely something zen about it.  But any how the Template is called Cocinando con Adela.  Fabulous, just what I was looking for, love it.

The great thing about it is the code is so well organized, with call-outs as to what is what and instructions on how to modify it yourself.  I had tried probably 8 different templates and most of them had very disorganized code and too many restrictions on modifications.  Word to template designers, clean code and directions are make a difference.  I just can't get over how I finally found it and for free, which is the best thing.  So thank you BTemplates for featuring this great template.   

Now that is taken care of I've writing like a woman possessed.  I even ate my cereal by the computer.  Love Inspiration, thank you, thank you.  Here is a link so you can see for yourself it's the Spanish Version of my blog Mujeres Vanguardistas.  The English version I will tackle this afternoon.

The Search for a Template Continues

I am like a wonan possed. I want to work on my blog constantly. I want to get it off the ground. 20 posts is not enough, but yet I keep on working on the design and have not worked on the writing.  I need to be positive and I can't say it is all for nothing because I have learned a lot. I now what doesn't work for my blog and have a very good idea of what design I want, but I have not been able to find the right template. Last night instead of going to sleep I continued to look for templates. I found one that I liked and the home page is working perfect but the second pages are not working. So its is back to trying to customize it.

During my search I did find a template maker that might be the solution to my problem, but of course I have to pay money for $49 for it. They have a 30 day trial version which is what I will try today. The problem is with the trial you are only able to get a html version which worries me that when I do the xtml version something won't work. But I have to take the risk.

About

This past year I started a new life moving from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.  It has been a huge move filled with hope, tears, fear and strength. 

I have also started another journey Blogging, this journey has also been a great move from the security of a fulltime job to finally jumping into writing which has been my lifetime passion.

I don't know where either of these journeys will take me, but one thing is for sure they are both challenging me to take risks and LIVE my life taking the bull by the horns.

A Life of Blue

Sometimes you work at something and it doesn't seem like you are getting anywhere, then all of a sudden the door you have been knocking on for awhile suddenly opens up.  That's what happened to me last night when I was reading Problogger and I stumbled across A Life of Blue blog. The author has started this blog recently, but as Problogger said she has started on the right foot.  To start the blog design is simple, organized and somehow very soothing. The articles are just what I needed to get inspired to continue on my blogging path.  She also lists her resources which are pretty awesome.
Last night for me what did it was her link to International Women's Day which is tomorrow.  Women's issues are my passion and the subject of one of my blogs, so I click the link.  I found many inspiring articles and events conmemorating this day. I also found that you could create a website in their site to promote your activities to promote women's advancement and since that is what my website is all about I did.  I also tried their Twitter link which got me the Twitter account that I had been procrastinating to get for a long time.  All this activity got me a lot of hits on my vanguardwomen website.
All thanks to A Life of Blue inspiring blog.  Keep up the good work.

Blogging in Madrid

I've been living here in Madrid with my family for the last 8 months.  Adjusting to life here has it's ups and downs.  The best thing about the move has been a better quality of life for our young daughter.  She has adjusted tremendously well.  She has more friends here, she socializes more and is becoming stronger to boot.  Some of the improvements in her life have to do with the less stressful life her parents are now living.

For me the fact that I have discovered blogging as an outlet for my love of writing, photography, technology and living social, is a great addition to living in this beautiful city.