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The Seasonal Column | Summer Summary and Fall Preview
Welcome to Sophie’s Blog and the Seasonal Column!
With this new idea of The Seasonal Column, I give you a summary of my life and the blog of the past season. This edition the summer is highlighted and I also give away already a small preview for the fall edition on which I will reflect when winter starts. And oh my! Some major milestones in my life happened! Curious? Enjoy reading!
Summertime
It’s been a short while since the last blog post this summer and now the summer has come to an end and so has my summer blogging break come to an end. Many major things happened this summer and partially it was for my blogs ‘Sophie’s Blog‘ and ‘Sophie’s Tech‘. And second partially it was for the major changes in my personal life. And third partially, very small though, it was for taking a proper break after a year of intense studying and the COVID-19 quarantine and social distancing. I really needed to refill my energy and reorganise all my ideas for blogging and hobbies.
Yes I did that from the blog, partially because I started with the new blog Sophie’s Tech too and designed that blog and redesigned this blog. I separated this blog into two niches and explained everything and the whole process in the blog post ‘Redesign and Introduction Sophie’s Tech‘.
And yes I have been offline for far over a week and went on a nearby camping holiday and I have been offline for a couple of times for a couple of days again. How else to reset your energy level? It’s not just a button that activates. It takes some time and some ‘stay-relaxed-and-off’ effort to properly reset.
But no, I can not sit still!
During the summer I started applying for a job and after a whole application process I can finally say: I have a fulltime job! And I am starting tomorrow the 1st of October! So that is one of the major milestones in my personal life. And I am so excited for it! I am looking forward to the challenges this job will have, as we say in Dutch, ‘in petto’ for me. If I will write a blog post about the job or tell something more than this announcement? The answer is: no! It will stay being a lovely mystery! I prefer to keep – beside of the announcement and LinkedIn info – my daily job and my daily blog hobby separated.
The new job is not the only major change that happened in my personal life. I also moved this month officially – unofficially already during summer – to another city! I said my goodbyes to Rotterdam for now and I say my hellos to ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Another big – in Dutch proportions – city in another province, other characteristics and very very burgundian! You can even stay at home and eat and drink burgundian by ordering or cook it yourself. I will write some blog posts about this lovely city.
Moving means also: cleaning up several times (moved not in once but in multiple sessions) and tidying up like a Marie Kondo. A bit kidding, I am not an expert at tidying up daily. And the Marie Kondo method in books and clothes goes a bit too far for me right now. But I am quite good at tidying up during my seasonal super-tidying and super-cleaning weekends. So in total I donated a lot of clothes and house stuff.
Summer Summary
So after the bunch of four-continuous-weeks exams I had at the beginning of the summer, I have had a blog redesign and the introduction of the new blog. After that I started applying for a job and meanwhile in the application process I have been on a small nearby camping holiday ánd I moved to another city.
And all those blog changes, which felt already really good, also asked for a change offline. With offline I do not mean changing me, myself or I. No. Changing the structure of my ideas, my notes, my offline paperwork for the blog and so on. The planners full of notes and full of lists of the ideas of which I can pick a one to write about. And the real agenda.
Fall Preview
For this fall I am looking forward to my new day job and the evenings and weekends will change a bit. I prepared this summer my blogs and structure-ideas-planner and now during the fall I have to plan my evenings and weekends. Because in no time suddenly your day or week is gone without efficiency if you don’t plan and don’t stick with the plan (unless something more efficient or just better comes up).
The free time I have during the evenings and weekends, I will have to plan properly. So I spend enough time and get things done with the following checklists:
Daily:
Work work work – you know, work as a day job.
Studying – because I like to expand my knowledge with courses
Blogging – as the finishing touch of the day
Reading – A few pages a day keeps mental health oké.
Every few days:
Mealplanning
Groceries
Mealprepping
Laundry
Ironing
Series / Film watching – Items above combined with a series or a film, except for groceries.
Coding – improve coding by studying and projects
Weekends:
Social life – mostly household or online talks with friends or apps or family distance (garden) visits
Coding – Improve coding by studying and projects.
I hope you liked this new idea of The Seasonal Column – under a thousand words – where I give a summary of my life and my blog. This edition the summer was highlighted and already a preview for the fall on which I will reflect when winter starts.
