2018 was my second year of blogging and compared to the first was less active than I would like. It wouldn’t be right to blame it on the kids or the work-from-home-mom life in general. That was part of the reason and there were times I gave them the due priority, but more than that it was my procrastination and lack of the needed level of organization. Hence a lot less posts than I expected to publish. Nevertheless, I got some things done! Some dusty old drafts finally saw the light of the day. There were some spur of the moment, quickly done posts written during height of productivity. I reached the highest ever number of monthly page views towards the end of the year and some new titles appeared in the popular list alongside the firm favorites of last year. Here are the best 5 of the best of Sojourning in Life – 2018 – one incredibly short year in this sojourn called life.
Towards the end of 2017 I started a series on home made baby food recipes as we had been making baby food at home a lot for the past few years. One of the major highlights was the baby food mixes. These instant mixes are freshly prepared from grains and nuts and stored in powder form, making meal prep easy and freshly done everyday. The most well performing of these posts were the ones with less popular ingredients like millets as they ranked high in search results.
This post sat in the drafts folder for quite a while. I finally hit publish more than an year after having my third child and I had the highlights of 3 stories to tell in one post. As it turned out, women love to read birth stories!
3) Nursery Rhymes or Horror stories?
This was another dusty old draft completed this year and it did well. I was surprised to learn all the dark stories of nursery rhymes and decided to share it in this short humorous post. Moreover, as muslim parents we have a lot more other important things to learn, repeat and memorize so its better if we educate ourselves and avoid the senseless nonsense taught all through kindergartens around the world. Probably the title of this post helped in getting the views.
4) Travel Series
I am an avid traveler and love travel writing. Even before the era of blogging I wrote travelogues on ink and paper as a little girl. In the beginning of the year, I wrote this post on my travel plans for 2018. It was a short list compared to what a “travel blogger’s” list would look like. But considering as we don’t have the finances or the time for frequent vacations, I had stretched it a bit almost sure that I could make to only one of the places on the list – back home on our yearly vacation. SubhanAllah, Allah is the best of planners! Indeed we visited 3 of those countries and finalized plans of the remaining in the near future. Strictly speaking in terms of blog stats, one of my oldest posts on Umrah Road Trips and my newest post on Travel Dua Cards have been bringing in the numbers.
5) Authentic Hyderabadi Cuisine
Lastly back to the recipes, I have started compiling the authentic recipes of my hometown – Hyderabad, Deccan. Still a long way to go to the compendium I have planned, some of these have been a hit, the 2018 star being Kababchini Gosht (Cubeb scented meat)
Looking forward to a more active and productive year ahead.
DISCOVER MORE
Thanks to fellow parenting bloggers who have organized this retrospective post which has given some great insight for planning ahead. Head over to their awesome blogs to see their best of 2018.
Best of Multicultural Motherhood
Best of Jameela Ho Muslim Parenting
Love the second pic….MashaAllah….you have come a long way….wishing you all the very best for the coming years…keep up the good work…keep blogging….
I actually don’t think I’ve read some of your earlier stuff, but REALLY love your later recipes, they’re so unusual to me, coming from a place I’ve not heard of & I always enjoy reading 🙂
Looking forward to more!
Masha’Allah a lot of different topics that did well. Agree that people love to read birth stories! Curious about your nursery rhymes post now as don’t think I have read that one.
I love that your blog ranges different topics, it opens your audience much more wider because there’s something for everyone! (www.spicyfusionkitchen.com)
Wow your blog covers a wide variety of topics! You have a full, rich life mashaÁllah. I loved the travel dua cards post, but now I’m interested in your birth stories! I can’t wait to read more from what your wonderful journey has in store insha’Allah!
A lovely round up on the previous year’s posts, I have been planing to do this too as last year I was more productive at blogging and got quite a few blogs posted. I am all set to try out the deccanni ghosht recipe😋
Alhamdullilah, all your posts are wonderful. I especially liked the post on the travel dua cards and have downloaded and shared them. May Allah reward you for all your efforts, Ameen.
Ma shaa Allah tabarakallah such an amazing journey! Love all your posts….from kids related stuff to traveling and cuisine! It’s all great <3 Keep up your good work! JazakilAllahu Khayran Kaseera 💕
Jazakhallah khairan for your post. I love the idea of travel dua cards! I have to admit I clicked on the nursery rhymes or horror stories post hoping to find something juicy too!!