Madison M Hofmeyer

Now knowing what it’s like to transition to having a new baby in the house while also having other kiddos to care for, I think my desire to tackle these items sooner rather than later is stronger than it was when we were waiting on Collins to arrive. I’ve been under NO illusion that it’s going to be easy to get these two sleeping together in the same room, but I figure it’s better to tackle it sooner rather than later when I’m the momma of a sleep-deprived newborn. We’ve now had two nights of transitioning the girls into their shared room situation and I’ll be honest in saying that I’m writing this while currently VERY exhausted from a night of interrupted sleep. Collins is used to falling asleep in a pitch black room, she usually cries and fusses a bit before she finds her groove and falls asleep on her own without any distractions, things in her crib, etc.

Today I’m SO excited to share all about our family’s experience using a travel agent for the first time as we planned our trip to Iceland! I started crowd-sourcing suggestions on Instagram and Facebook, and that’s when Heather of Heather Christopher Travel reached out to me about outsourcing my trip planning to her and her amazing team! Travel advisors literally travel and plan trips for a living – we are in the “trenches” day in and day out versus your well-meaning family & friends who plan one or two trips on average a year or every other. We’re getting industry related e-mails on a daily basis to keep us up to date on what’s open, what’s closed, and what’s changing in the world of travel!

Because it’s difficult to make enough money with any single revenue stream as a blogger, most bloggers I know make money through various different revenue streams. Sometimes I wish I could still be as diverse in my revenue streams as I was in 2016, but in this season of life, I have such limited time and capacity to give to work (a choice I’ve intentionally made while our girls are little) that I’ve had to focus and hone in on where I’m spending that time. So, let’s do a bit of a deep dive into each of the revenue streams listed above: Advertising Revenue // Although advertising revenue used to be the core of the way that some bloggers made money blogging, these days the piece of the pie that traditional advertising revenue makes up is very small for most bloggers. I joined Beautycounter right after making the leap to full-time freelance/blogging because I was looking to add in another revenue stream to support my somewhat unpredictable freelancing career and modest advertising revenue.

Over the years I’ve also learned a little (lot) about what it means to work a more flexible schedule, how to make it work best for our family, and how to set reasonable boundaries on that time so everyone can stay sane. but it’s sometimes challenging not to feel like your work is less important, or that your work doesn’t matter when you’re the default parent for most of those inconveniences. so we can find time elsewhere during unpredictable weeks to get the work done – even if that means heading to the coffee shop after Joe gets home from work some evenings or working on a weekend morning. Additionally, it’s important to keep recommitting to the choice you’ve made to work a flexible schedule and reminding yourself of what a gift it is to do work in the way that you do.