ms-havachat started a few years ago now, as we were leaving Japan for our next adventure in the UK. A friend suggested I start blogging about being an expat and what's involved in moving, landing and settling as she (and others) thought we did it very well.
I always thought it was easy; we've one child; an employer who on the whole is pretty good at moving us around, and we're open to all that a new gig offers us. MissM and I are pretty sociable people which helps, and G, who is of a quieter disposition is happy to come along for the ride.
It was still a huge compliment, and as I enjoyed writing for business all those years ago, I thought why not? Even tho there are thousands of expat women writing blogs about exactly what I was going to write about, with way more experience than me (at that stage we were on our 2nd move, so really in the scheme of things what did I know?), but I figured, why not? It would fill in a few hours a week, give me something constructive to focus on amongst the organised chaos of moving, and maybe help me sort out things emotionally by putting them onto paper as it were.
I wrote for quite a while with only a handful of friends knowing. I was working with their feedback, and encouragement; it would take me days to finesse the chat to be published then wait anxiously to see if anyone opened the page to view.
Then I emailed a few more and invited them to read ..... and a few more ...... and today my stats read:
Pageviews today
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21
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Pageviews yesterday
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55
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Pageviews last month
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1,090
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Pageviews all time history
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16,458
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I'm pretty happy about that. THANK YOU! All time page views over 16,000 - how awesome is that (and the exclude mine just in case you're wondering, otherwise it would be much higher)
My highest read ms-havachat was Online Shopping in May 2013 with 204 page views followed by Vacation, Staycation in April 2013 with 190 page views.
I love reading where you are all from!
The stats for Audience is awesome! I don't know anyone in Russia, Germany, Turkey, the Ukraine or Latvia - so THANK YOU for finding me. I have 3 friends in Paris, but there's no way they are reading ms-havachat that often, nor the handful in the UK or the USA so somehow ms-havachat has a lot of new online friends/followers.
I'm pretty happy with ms-havachat, tho there are times when I wish I was more like 4 kids, 20 suitcases and a beagle or woogsworld or BAMS Kitchen but I'm not brave enough yet to 'go public' as it were with a FB page and possibly be found out.
I'm thinking of a new direction, tho what it is I'm unsure about.
I'd love a new web page, a new look and feel. This free bloodspot has been very kind to me, but I feel like it's time to move on ....... or maybe stop fooling myself that I write a blog when really maybe it's just an online diary which is what a blog is but I'd like mine to be more, tho more 'what' I don't know.
I hope you enjoyed my attempt at being a travel blogger when we were in Italy over summer. That was kinda fun. I might start doing something like that for Ireland from our days out'n'about.
Maybe I'm feeling this way because life in Dublin is pretty normal, unlike say, life in Yokohama. There isn't really the day to day expat cultural things to navigate or learn, until recently when we welcomed new friends into our lives who arrived from overseas to start their Irish Adventures.
Reliving the arrival phase, the settling phase, the why-am-I-here phase brought back to me how far we've come, how far I've come, and that while we might only be on our 4th Adventure, we are experienced, and we do move well and I do have experience to offer, along with a shoulder to cry on, arms to hug with and a kettle that is always on.
So maybe my new direction is simply more of the same, but fancier. Maybe I'll work out a look'n'feel to ms-havachat that's missing and spruce her up, maybe I'll find a voice and create that FB page (I have it sitting there, ready to go).
Or maybe, like in life, it's not the quantity of friends we have but the quality and I am blessed in the real world and here to have YOU as a friend,
Thank you for dropping by,
With friendship
x
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