What a year 2020 has been. With its ups & downs. Never ending twists & turns. Despite it all, this has been the year where My Country Life Blog has gotten the attention and love it deserved for years. I know this post doesn’t really fit into the normal categories, but I thought it would be interesting to look back on 2020 and note down all the victories. And also look to the future what 2021 might bring.
To make it easier I will split the review out into two parts: personal & My Country Life (hope you don’t mind). There have been a lot of things happening behind the scenes and in personal life, that also affect MCL.
On personal note
This has been a massive year for us. We got married days before 1st lockdown in England and moved house during the pandemic. We now have 3 cancelled honeymoons. Had the best Hendos’ and Stagdo. My hendo in Latvia allowed me to see my friends, who later weren’t able to make it to our wedding do to Covid-19. So the time I spent with them is even more precious.
Starting married life in lockdown where we are spending 24/7 together, working in the same room, has brought some challenges. But since we’ve made it this far- I think we’re doing pretty good. Over the past few months we have learnt that it is OK to spend some time alone and do things for yourself and not feel guilty about it.
To have been able to move during the pandemic was great, as not sure we would be as happy spending this much time indoors in our old house. Much more space now, in house and outdoors, with amazing parks and walks on our doorstep.
My guilty pleasure has been playing The Sims 4. I’ve had the game since it came out, back in 2014, but only played it a bit once/ twice a year. At the beginning of lockdown I came across a Sims player channel on YouTube – Deligracy. Deli creates these amazing storylines in her Let’s Plays. Soon after I came across James Turner channel as well. James does these Rags to Riches challenges with every pack that comes out. I’ve learnt a lot from both players (build & buy, custom content and game play), to make my game more interesting. According to James- I am addicted to Sims… (eyeroll)!
One of my good deeds this year was my hair donation to Little Princesses Trust. After 8 years of growing my hair out, I decided to cut it all down and have a nice little bob. But I knew I wanted to donate my hair and Little Princesses Trust seemed to be the perfect place. If you want to check out my Big Chop journey- click here for YouTube Video.
Planning, planning, planning
For the first time ever- I created my 10 year plan. The scariest thing about it? That I will be nearly 40 (aaaaa) when it will run out! Nothing too crazy in there, just few notes and goals I want to achieve, or places we want to visit. I got some short term goals there as well (6months), to break the big chunk up and make me feel like I am ticking things off it.
What about My Country Life?
When the pandemic hit, I decided to have a proper go at blogging and actually – give it more love. I was a hot mess, I was just writing about everything, without any real structure or guide. I am so happy & proud of what I have been able to do since I joined Christina Galbatos Blogger Bootcamp. Her course really helped me understand what I want to concentrate on MCL. It gave me confidence in believing I can do this. The course was great in also giving me the tools and knowledge to make this work.
My Victories:
- Niching down- having clear structure what I am concentrating on and where my focus is
- Website upgrade & complete re-design (including logo design)
- Always having 2-3 posts ready & scheduled
- Posting consistently every week
- Ever learning & improving my Photoshop & video editing skills
- Slowing building my Instagram following
- Being able to grow on Pinterest and generating traffic from it
- Understanding SEO and why it is so important
My next years goals for My Country Life are to continue to build on the things I started this year. One of my top things is to improve my photography skills, as I do think it’s letting me down at times. I would love to be able to build my community even more with email list and Instagram.
I really do LOVE working on MCL- planning and creating content. Then writing about it and putting all together. Every time I finish a post- it makes me so happy. I will always tell my husband or show him what I’ve done and how it looks. (James always reads all my posts before or just after they’ve gone live for any spelling mistakes).
My Top 5 Posts from this year on My Country Life:
2 – Gingerbread Recipe & how to make it into a gift
3 – What to look for in Wedding suppliers?
What were your victories this year? Did you start something new? What are you most looking forwards to next year? Maybe a new adventure?
Warmest of wishes & Sparklingly Good New Year!
x
A
Leave a Reply