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First of all I want to say thanks to Jennifer for letting me take up space on her blog today. Thank you, Jennifer!

So who am I? My name is Sofia Essen and I’m the author of a novel called “Change of Pace“. I spent 20 years as an expatriate bouncing around Southeast Asia and the Middle East before settling on the Greek island of Crete three years ago.

People who come to Crete to stay for an indefinite period of time, not tourists, come here because they’re searching for something. They might be in pursuit of a better way of life, love, enlightenment and inner peace, or any combination thereof. Many come looking to recapture the dream-like experience they had as tourists while on vacation.

The reality of living in Crete on a permanent basis is quite different. Cretan culture is unique and can take a little getting used to. Yes, the laid-back Greek island lifestyle is a refreshing change of pace to the bustle of a capital city. This being said, life in Crete is a not without its frustrations. Take bureaucracy, for example, which seems to have been refined into an art form and often requires endless patience as you wade through a mountain of red tape to get anything done.

Living in Crete is what made me pick up a pen and start writing. I was sitting in a café in a small Cretan village one afternoon, watching a couple of tourists desperately trying and failing miserably to order a cup of coffee, and said to myself, “This place would be a great setting for a book.”

It’s now three years later, and my book is published! “Change of Pace” is a story about a woman who loses her job, gets dumped by her boyfriend, and turns thirty in one unfortunate week. In a moment of uncharacteristic spontaneity, she books a ticket to Greece and winds up following a sexy Englishman she meets on the plane to Crete… and then her life really turns upside down!

I’m going to go now before I overstay my welcome. I hope to see you again!

Best Wishes, Sofia

Change of Pace is now available at Amazon & Barnes & Noble

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So yesterday, I took a trip with the fam to enjoy my very first visit to Longwood Gardens here in PA! I had a marvelous time there, despite the fact that I am now in severe pain from all the walking we did while we were there (the place is huge).

I brought my camera with me & got tons of photos as well. I’m a little disappointed in most of them though ’cause the lighting was so bad ’cause of the cloud cover I could barely see the screen let alone my settings and they just came out like total crap (plus my group was moving so fast I barely got time for anything real decent at all), so if they suck, please ignore it. I’ll do better next time.

Kloey also tagged along with us (hiding from the light in my bag pretty much the whole time).

She wanted to show off her new outfit that came over the weekend, and in the process we managed to freak out some little girls. Well, I don’t know if they were freaked out but they were definitely curious as to what she was & why I was carrying her around. I found it funny & it kinda made my day.

But it was a pretty memorable experience & I can’t wait to go again this summer (for their new displays & such). I definitely need more time to enjoy it & get some better photos

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And we’ve made it!! The final day of the A to Z Challenge! I really didn’t think I could do it, but I did & I feel awesome! It’s also have me the motivation to expand the topics of my blog & that’s always a good thing, so here’s to the Challenge! If you’d like to look back on my other challenge posts, you can find them here!!

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I didn’t think I would but…

All content copyright So Very Me - Jersey Mom Blogger

Black

Was farting around with some of the newly discovered features on my camera (’cause I’m slow like that), and got this shot. It’s actually SOOC but I did sharpen it so I guess that counts as editing? Who knows. But I thought it was cool so I’m sharing it

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Link Up!

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Today’s post comes from a member of the OSV.ME community, Ruthy from Superfluous Ambitions. I decided to share this and get the opinion of others because I think it’s a great topic to discuss & I’d really like to get other opinions from other people on this (and help her get this out there as well since she’s the one who posted it).

So what are your thoughts?

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Every now & then I’ll take photos of weird and random things, and it’ll just sit there on my camera until I get un-lazy enough to delete it all. So I thought I’d share some of it with you and make you go, “Oooh you has lot’s of crap!!” So here is my random camera junk for you all to see!

Ya gotta love that random camera junk I have more but I just thought I’d share the best stuff for now. Don’t want to burn your eyes out with all my thingy’s and doo-dads & such.

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I have posted before on the several ways there are to follow people on their blogs once GFC peter’d out (and ways other people follow) as well as the ways I refuse to follow people on their blogs. So once it was gone completely (before I got a chance to email anyone T^T) I have since found other ways for people to follow me (and other blogs). Possibly even some ways you’ve never even heard of!

Let’s begin!

…Linky Followers

I honestly have no real idea how this one works, but I have seen many blogs using it. I did sign up for it though When you do, (I think) it works like GFC. When you follow a blog you get notifications that they’ve made a new post for you to read in your feed reader. But by the looks of it (and I could be totally wrong about this) you only get the notification(s) if you log into your account. But don’t take my word for it. Check it out, ask around (especially people actually using it), then if you like what you hear/see then add it to your site! Simple as that!

…HelloCotton

Basically a news aggregator except you can follow your favorite blogs. You can also “like” their posts & it shows up in a sidebar on your profile page (like mine) as well as the people who are following you & the people you, yourself, are following giving your viewers an idea of what you like to read and promoting other bloggers in the process. Also, all posts are separated into categories to better help you follow only the ones you are most interested in so you don’t have to go searching around for a particular topic! There is also a widget you can place in your sidebar (like I did) to allow people to follow you with just a click of button. But you have to be a member as well to do so (don’t you hate that third step?).

…Bloglovin’

This one has got to be my favourite, even though it’s gotten to the point where I can no longer keep up with it Bloglovin’ is nothing more then a feed reader. You do have to log into your account to get new posts but everything and everyone can be in one place. And again, you can like each post, but this helps to knock your favourite bloggers to the top of the list in their respective categories, giving them more exposure and blog love! It’s pretty cool and I really enjoy using it. I just wish it had external rss that you could add to any reader so that you didn’t have to log in. But oh well. Can’t argue with genius I suppose

But these are only the ones I use. There are plenty of other ways for you to follow people. I believe Blogger users are still capable of accessing their GFC widgets (I’ve seen them!!). And then there is Twitter, Facebook… so many.

So the question is, what do you prefer to use when you’re adding new blogs to your list to follow? You can discuss it with me and others in the comments below or reach more people with your answer in our very own community!!

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