Spring is here and it’s time to spring forward. That being said, it doesn’t feel like Spring here and there’s still lots of snow on the ground. Oh, the joys of living in Canada! 🍁
This month has taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of learning to let go and move on with your life. Although I have made some progress, I still have a long journey ahead of me. I have the itch to physically and emotionally declutter my space, so that is what I have been doing. I am currently in the process of decluttering my old laptop, phone, and #Twitter feed. It’s a work in progress but I am starting to feel a bit lighter.
Fill Your Own Cup First
This month, I only shared one post on this blog other than my Monthly Goals and Recaps. Although I had anticipated sharing more articles from Medium, I hadn’t found the time to do it yet. Nevertheless, I still have the intention of publishing my most recent article from Medium on here as it is an inspiring self-help article! If you want to read it now, I will share the Medium link here:
♡ Related Article: Nobody is Coming to Save You
Trial and Error
I also started a 1-month Medium subscription trial earlier this month and have already made plans to write an article regarding my experience with that. Although this content won’t be published on my blog due to its highly niche-specific nature and the fact that not all readers of my blog may be as interested in this subject matter, I do plan on writing th follow-up article eventually. For now, you can check out my article about my initial thoughts on getting a Medium subscription:
♡ Related Article: That’s it. I’m Buying a Medium Subscription!
MARCH GOALS 2023
Career Goals:
- Stay up-to-date on my work schedule I wasn’t too pleased with myself during the month of March as I had two days off. One of them was spontaneous as I didn’t feel well and the other one had been planned for a while in order to do some shopping before our trip.
- Attend in-class sessions on March 14ᵗʰ & 15ᵗʰ I attended this class and got 100% on the exam. I was surprised because I didn’t feel ready to write it.
- Request March 26ᵗʰ off as it no longer fits my schedule As stated above, I planned this at the beginning of the month.
- Complete the Connect Care modules on MLL I made sure to review every detail twice prior to the upcoming exam in order to ensure that I had everything covered.
👉 Screenshot of Work Schedule TBU (To be uploaded…eventually)
Personal Goals:
- Publish 1-2 blog posts + monthly goals/recap blog posts In March, I published only one blog post which was a cross-post from Medium. I didn’t bring anything original to the table this month – sorry.
- Publish 1-2 articles on Medium + share articles on blog If you’re interested in reading these articles, you can take a look at my work here and here. I already gave an overview of these articles up above (re: Nobody is coming to save you).
- Sign up for a 1-month Medium Membership trial ✨ Yes, I signed up for the 1-month trial on March 6ᵗʰ Will continue with it once the trial ends? That’s for me to know and for you to find out in a future Medium article.
- Keep tabs on doctor’s appointments/pending appointments I have been managing my schedule without any sort of planner and it’s amazing that I haven’t missed an appointment yet. However, it is time for me to update my planner this week as doing so will help me stay more organized.
- Daily Duolingo practice 🇩🇪 I am determined to learn a new language but I’m choosing to take my time and go at my own pace. From what I can remember, I believe I am currently on Day 111 and have been steadily progressing this far. Since starting Duolingo, I have lost count of where exactly in the learning process that I am and know that this streak will be broken once we go on vacation. To be honest, after 3 months of using Duolingo, it has become quite tiresome and mundane which often leads to me forgetting to even open the app unless it notifies me with a reminder. Not gonna lie, I do miss the social aspect of the leagues and will likely re-join at some point.
Health Goals:
- Treadmill on days I am not working + upload progress At the start of this month, I really made an effort to get back into using the treadmill. Unfortunately, I slipped back into bad habits and eventually stopped. Bad habits seem to repeat themselves, don’t they?
- Limit drinks to water, tea, and coffee I mostly stuck to water, tea, and coffee this month. I also drank a lot of pineapple juice because I ate a lot canned pineapples 🍍
- Track steps on Pikmin Bloom app By default, this app tracks my steps. I wasn’t too active with the social aspect, so I didn’t really plant virtual flowers.
- Healthy/clean eating 80% of the time I was really diligent about eating plant-based during the month of March up until this point lol Since I am currently on the go, I cannot eat as healthy as I would like to. I prefer eating low-fat, plant-based whenever possible. I am not vegetarian or vegan and do eat meat when plant-based meals aren’t an option.
(っ◔◡◔)っ FYI: If you’re not already following me on Twitter (@serene_hilz), I’m tracking my fitness progress, and you can get real-time updates about my day-to-day life there.
•♡•♥•♡•♥•♡•
And there you have it! Just a quick update that I won’t be posting Monthly Goals for April 2023. Why? Because I will be visiting Nick’s relatives in Singapore. Although travelling stresses me out, at least Singapore is a tropical island! 🏝️ I even named my #ACNH island after Sentosa, which is a beautiful place in Singapore. Before I go, I will share with you some photos of Sentosa, my Animal Crossing island. Do you play Animal Crossing too? Let me know in the comments section below ↓
Thanks for stopping by! ♥
Sereneluna 
Have a great trip!
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Thank you!!
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Have fun and stay safe on your trip!
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Thank you! The second (and final) plane landed about 30 minutes ago – it was a 17 hour flight. 17 hours too long lol ✈️
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Oh wow. That sounds stressful!
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Very. Glad it’s over now!
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Have a great trip to Singapore, and do enjoy the Little Red Dot!
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Thank you- I had to look that up haha. I will do that! 🇸🇬
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I read your Medium article (and followed you!) and I do like the format of Medium a lot more than WordPress. You don’t need to worry too much about images or formatting because a Medium article can only look like a Medium article; not a bad thing, I used to spend far too much time obsessing over WP layout for every post.
I wonder if your decline in earnings on the platform is simply due to not as many people using Medium. Unless it shows up as a result for something I’m researching, I never go to Medium. I’ve been turned off over the past couple years by all the dubious shill articles that try to sound objective but are quite obviously paid advertisements either through affiliate links or other means. That’s certainly not even close to the majority of Medium writers, but it’s just been the only interactions I’ve really had with the platform.
I’ve even thought about starting one myself in the past, but the REALLY GREAT articles there are so far beyond my capability that it scares me away; I don’t want to be just talking into a void (although that’s what I mostly do on WordPress so maybe that’s not a good excuse 🤣). You’re right though: if you’re serious about writing on Medium, the subscription fee is not bad at all. Trying to circumvent it almost seems like more work, lol.
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Thank you for following me on Medium! Yes, I agree that the format is much easier than WordPress formatting. It allows me to be lazy about the photos and nobody judges lol It’s a lot faster writing a Medium articles than it is writing a WP blog post because of the points you listed. I get it, I really do.
I think the decline is due to not writing often enough. Posting 1-2 Medium articles a month earns me about $2-2.50. One article went viral once (2.6K claps, 60 comments from 60 different people) which earned me about $6. Whereas some people write daily and earn much more. With the Medium 1-month trial, I engaged more with people but it didn’t really lead to more traffic like I was hoping. I’m not active enough on Medium to really take full advantage of the earnings. Yes, there are a lot of crap, sub-par articles on Medium so I try to follow accounts I’m genuinely interested in. I still prefer WP but I earn no money on this blog. $2 is still better than nothing even if it is pocket change, but I can’t justify spending $6.47 CAD/month for a Medium subscription. I might do a monthly Medium subscription if I can commit to writing more often.
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If Decentralized Social did better, I’d recommend that. I’ve made about $10 there last year and didn’t post much but it’s really stagnant. The developers could host a master class on wasting a good opportunity.
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I heard they changed the way ppl earn now. It used to be based on number of claps, but now it’s based on reading time. I wanted to see if getting a Subscription = more people reading my articles, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. $10 is still $10 but I know what you mean – hardly seems worth the effort going out of your way to make content for Medium.
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Oooh, your Singapore vacation island-getaway sounds like so much fun!!! 🏝 I hope you and your family have a great time! Great job on your goals – you seem super determined, and that’s a great quality to have! 💯
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Thank you, Samantha! It’s very hot and humid in Singapore – the complete opposite of Canada! 😂
It’s actually quite helpful writing out my goals and monthly recaps. I want to continue with it but won’t have time to upload anything for most of April. It really does help keep me on track though. As for Duolingo, I ended up going private because the leagues were stressing me out haha however, when I get back I might switch it back. Going private mode is quite boring and I’m less motivated to complete the lessons.
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Hot and humid – nice!!! 💖 I imagine writing out your goals and monthly recaps is a great strategy. I enjoy reading them from you because they’re inspiring, plus it’s nice to see what others are up to in their life! Ahhh, makes sense about Duolingo – I wondered where you went! 😸
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I ended up switching Duolingo private mode back to friend mode now that I’m home. This time, I don’t plan to continue with the leagues but will still try to complete the daily and weekly challenges. Duolingo was so boring that I didn’t bother completing the March challenge badge thing. So hopefully, this time will be a better experience! Yet, I still managed to keep the streak going while on vacation by doing the bare minimum! 😂🤣
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That’s awesome!!!! Glad you’re back! I hope this time it’s a better experience for you! And, thanks for the congratulations on Duolingo on my 1 year streak, by the way! 💓💓
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I’m trying not to get too caught up in the leagues this time. Hopefully this will still be motivating enough to do enough daily Duolingo practice.
One year is very impressive! I hope Duolingo gave you a nice XP boost for unlocking this milestone! 💖
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Decluttering is a great way to help reduce stress. Sometimes we have way too much stuff in our lives. In the physical world I have been daily working on getting rid of stuff in my life. Each day I travel from room to room and look for 1 thing to get rid of. Over time your space starts to come together. You end up with only the things that matter the most to you. And getting rid of only 1 thing a day skips past the stress of letting go of stuff. As for digital stuff that’s a hit and miss for me.
I really enjoyed reading the information about Medium. Both in your post as well as the comment section. I’ve only been blogging for a year and never heard of Medium. You got me curious, I’ll have to look it up later. Anyway, I just wanted to say I enjoyed your post. Have a fantastic day.
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Hi Razz, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I find that both physical and mental clutter causes me stress. I am trying to cut down on both but struggle with it on a day-to-day basis. I do the same thing where I try to throw something out from each room or throw out a few items each day. The clutter still accumulates though – most of it is my husband’s and daughter’s stuff. I wish I could throw out their stuff but I think they would be very upset with me if I did lol
As for Medium, I still recommend joining but to make it an extension of your blog. Medium allows you to reshare blog posts which is nice. But I also join Publications and they discourage cross-posting. Lately however, Medium has been a really “dead” platform. I noticed that if I am not very active that my stats suffer a lot. The potential to earn commission is always a nice incentive, but I earn pocket change. If I’m lucky, I might earn enough to buy a coffee or two. I know some bloggers that earn $50-$100+ per month on Medium. Hope that helps!
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Oh yes the clutter of others. I hear you, I have a daughter in-law going through it now. Stressed out so much she actually hiring an outside company to come and declutter her place.
Yes your info is very helpful, thank you very much for taking the time to fill me in on your insights.
Funny thing happening, cause I mentioned I had not heard of Medium, now it keeps popping up. I’ve seen it mentioned at least 3 more times in other peoples articles. It reminded me of a few years ago when one summer I noticed a woman with a purple hat, you know the fancy ones from a sherlock holms movie. Thought it was a neat hat. Since then purple hats been popping up here and there. My wife tells me there is even a purple hat society. I just find it so funny how every time I say out loud that I have never noticed something then next thing they start popping up like dandy lions.
Thank you very much for your response. Not sure if this will be of any help. However when I run into a situation that gets me frustrated. I sometimes spin it and say out loud to who ever is near me. And it does sound corny but it works, not sure why or how. I say: Man these first world problems can be so annoying. Just tossing it out there.
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Have a wonderful April, I’m sure you will in Singapore since it’s such a lovely place. Hope you have a great time there. I think eating healthy 80% of the time is a wonderful achievement and obviously it’s not easy to eat healthy when travelling so don’t stress too much about that.
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Thank you, Pooja! It’s hard to find internet so I’m hardly online these days. Makes it challenging replying to comments. No data on this phone.
Singapore is lovely. Very hot and humid though – not sure if I could live here but I do want to visit again. This is my second time visiting Singapore. As far as eating healthy goes, that went out the window by Day 2. I tried so hard but ended up eating what everyone else eats. But I have been getting a lot of steps which helps make up for the unhealthy eating. Haven’t gained but haven’t lost weight either. I try to eat like the other Singaporeans which means eating meat which I don’t like, but I eat a lot of rice and noodles so at least there’s that.
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I totally understand. I guess it’s harder to find plant based foods there especially when everyone around you is eating meat so I definitely understand. Just focus on having a good time and you can go back to eating mostly healthy and plant based when you get back.
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They mostly live on chicken and rice, or noodles soaked in oil with meat. I had to eat Pizza Hut the other day and it was SO greasy. Never again am I eating it unless I have no choice. They also like their deep fried chicken wings.
One thing I’m going to miss the most is the freshly squeezed sugar cane juice and fresh fruit. Fruit is so good here.
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Ooh I love sugar can juice, we get it fresh squeezed here too and it’s delicious. I also make my own molasses from it that I use as a sugar replacement.
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Sugar cane molasses sounds interesting!
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It’s super delicious and so much better for you than refined sugar. You pretty much just boil sugar cane juice till it’s concentrated and becomes a past.
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