Best of blog posts: travel, cooking, life lessons and moving

Please forgive the long absence from this blog! I get confused and concerned when my favorite bloggers don’t post for months at a time, and here I am doing the same. Hopefully you guessed that I was busy with the podcast, which is true!

 

Since starting the podcast in June 2020, 37 episodes have been published and 3 recordings are scheduled for upcoming episodes. Details are at www.40Minutesoffaith.com 

During the stay-at-home orders for the past 11 months, I didn’t feel like I had much new to report. I’ve been thinking about what to write in the absence of travel, lack of energy to try new recipes, or learning interesting life lessons. If you have any suggestions for topics, please share.

I never looked at blog analytics until I started considering podcast analytics. I was pleasantly surprised to see what the top 10 blog entries were since beginning with recipe posts in February 2012. The blog evolved from going through the spice rack to a few arts and crafts posts to lots of trave posts when we moved to Germany. In case you’d like to catch up on previous posts, here are the most read posts:

4 popular posts about food include:

Sesame aioli- by far the most read post - who knew?

A remake of church cookbook recipes of carrot souffle, sweet potato and corn casseroles [Kleenex alert- if you are from the midwest or the south, I am not trying to make you cry by drastically reducing the amounts of sugar, cream, eggs, butter, etc.]

Mac’n’cheese

Spekulatius cookies (I considered this to be a relative fail & enjoyed locally store bought cookies in Germany for 5 years. Alas, no stores in upstate New York carry them)

1 very popular post about food and travel was about grocery stores in Germany

 

4 popular posts included life, moving, and travel:

Week 1 of Yesses and Nos when we got to Germany

Reverse culture shock when we returned to the US 5 years later

Yesses and Nos when we were moving back to the US

Missing Germany 

1 popular post about life after losing a job

 

Finally, here are the 10 most popular travel posts out of 262 blog posts in the last 19 years:

Off the beaten path (OBP) Sequoia, California

Treetop walk in Germany

Switzerland - mmmm, cheese followed by chocolate!

OBP Spain

OBP France

OBP Finland - one of my favorite trips!

Trash removal in Germany

Gozo Island/Malta

Stuttgart Botanical Gardens and Zoo

OBP Mainz, Germany 

I intend to resume regular blog posts and will strive to not think of everyday life as “boring” or not worth writing about. Maybe I have learned some interesting life lessons!