Year in review: looking back at what has been

I like to read a year in review for others and decided to make one for myself this year as well. Nothing complicated, just a review of the year. The year I quit my practice, I started blogging full time and we had several parties to celebrate.

How it all started

For my annual review I first go back to how it all started. A year ago I decided to stop my own practice. A decision I found difficult to make, but one I made very consciously.

Six years ago I had started my practice as a weight consultant.

Quitting work

I originally come from a healthcare background. But stopped working in 2011, because the care for our ( chronically ill) children became too heavy. To get away from it all, my husband also quit his job. The four of us took a seven-month RV trip through America and Canada.

Here the care remained the same, but we noticed that regularity was much better for the children.

Studying as a stay-at-home mom

Back home from that trip, the decision to become a stay-at-home mom was quickly made. I did want to keep doing something when the boys went to school. I trained as a weight consultant. I was super motivated. The training was a lot of fun.

However only when I took the exam, I found out that besides me, 200 other people took the exam. I was not at all unique. But it also turned out that the profession ‘weight consultant’ was not protected at all.

Education or not, anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.

Starting your own practice

At first my practice ran fine. Clients came by mostly when the boys were at school or in bed. However, the competition from gyms was getting bigger and bigger. But the boys got older too. I could no longer put that to bed early because a client was coming over.

Actually I started to dislike it more and more. I then made the decision to stop my practice. This was not overnight, I thought about this for a long time, but it was a relief when I finally spoke the words out loud.

Blogging is my passion

The new year began. And in my annual review this should definitely not be missing.I realized that I could now occupy myself with what I really enjoy doing. And that is writing.

I started my blog again with fresh courage, Optimized many of my old blogs. And am still busy with this. Because the boys are in school during the day, but of course they are also bigger, I can blog during the day.

Going to more events

I also went out for my blog much more often this year. I went to the second Bloggers by Nature event, to press events and attended the Nintendo event and the opening of the first Spoorwegmuseum room in Utrecht. I continue to develop myself and am currently taking a typing course in order to be able to type fast and blind as well.

More collaborations

Because I can actually devote all my time to blogging, I noticed that I could post more content and get more offers of collaborations. But I also find that writing a good article, taking photos’s, sharing articles, answering emails and everything else takes a lot of time. That’s why I deliberately don’t blog during my vacations, but take a break from Social Media and after this break I really feel like blogging again.

Editorial board member and writer for an association

My blog site is not the only thing I write for. In March I applied to join the editorial board of the association hirschsprung’s disease at the members’ day. Our sons have this disease and I thought it would be great fun to be part of the editorial board of this magazine.

I immediately started reading a book on editing texts. Because although I write a lot. I too still find myself with errors in my writing. I am happy to be part of this group of people, it is great fun to be able to write articles, do interviews, approach people and review texts.

I am totally in my element.

But there was more in this year’s review

But there is more to my year in retrospect. Funny, because looking at it this way, my life does consist a lot of blogging these days. But of course more happened this year. Very nice things. It was also the year that we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary with a week in Paris and Disneyland Paris, it was also the year that my parents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and that my sister and her family came over from America.

Besides a beautiful celebration, we all spent a week on vacation together. The boys are doing fine and growing up just so fast. This year the boys and I also went away for a few days together.

They had a super fun sailing camp and I enjoyed myself in Friesland while they were on the water.

This is a review of our year. I can say that I am happy every day with the choice I made and look forward to the new year with great joy. But first, let’s get through the busy Christmas season and enjoy a well-deserved vacation.