On Holiday – Almost

Work is now almost over for me: there were two meetings earlier this week and the exam results will be out tomorrow. This means that I’ll officially be on holiday.

Holiday is always relative when you are a teacher as reading and preparation are of course on the agenda. But at least this is something you can do at your own pace and on your own terms.

Therefore I will most certainly blog at a different rhythm too. Expect fewer posts and more photos. I will however try to post the weekly review.

Have a lovely and sunny summer!

Three Months Later

It’s already been three months since I resumed blogging after a four-month hiatus. In fact, in hindsight, the pause was a good idea which helped me focus on what I enjoy about writing this blog.

It is also five years since I started blogging altogether – in January 2007. I had of course no idea then that I’d still be writing and loving it five years down the road.

I now seem to have found a rhythm: two posts a week and an extra if I feel inspired. How do you organise your blogging time? Has it evolved since you started?

Just for fun, I have created a Wordle of the most read posts in the past 90 days. Click and enjoy!

An Old Blog in a New Skin

For numerous reasons I had more or less disappeared from the blogging world but after almost six months I realised that I missed it. So here I am again!

For technical reasons, I have merged my two blogs by importing the first blog into the second one. This means that you can read the posts which were on Ilana-Davita as well as those posted on Hannah’s Nook. Of course, I have kept the header which I find fits the blog perfectly but I have adopted a slightly different WordPress theme.

To ‘celebrate’ my return to the blogosphere, I have added a new page – Books I’ve read – where you can find all the book reviews on this site. I hope some of you will find it useful.

Time to Move On?

Seven months ago, I expressed my doubts about where my blog Ilana-Davita was going. I had written there for almost five years trying to share snippets of my life. It had been an opportunity to write about books and films, to post photos and recipes and sometimes to explore the ‘meaning of life’. However I had never expected the richness of the interactions it would bring; thanks to blogging I have met wonderful people – some of whom are now my friends on Facebook.

In March, I started Hannah’s Nook as an attempt to keep a blog that better encompasses all that I am. It never really took off. Some projects fell through and I realised that building a new audience while retaining some of the former one is not easy.

I have now reached a point where keeping a blog is not as fulfilling as it used to be and I am still not sure whether I wish to go on with it. I believe blogging should be fun and inspiring rather than a burden so maybe ‘someone’ is trying to tell me something here.

Since I do not like things to hang in the air, I have decided to stop blogging during the summer holiday rather than keep wondering what I shall blog about next. I plan to come back at the beginning of September having hopefully made up my mind concerning the future of my blogs.

Meanwhile I’ll share a few ‘fun’ facts about Ilana-Davita
– Much to my dismay, the most popular post is Easy Potato Kumara Mash
– The blog has been viewed 161,786 times and has received 12,524 comments
– It is visited mainly by visitors from The United States, New Zealand, Israel, The United Kingdom, Australia and France
– It is followed by people from 37 blogs

Have a great summer!