SUCCESS! The April A to Z Challenge 2018 Completes!

Dhan tanan! Stand up, applaud, cheer for me!

Once again, I have successfully completed another April Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

This year it was particularly challenging because my life was a busy mess, yet, look at me ... surviving like a champion! Yayyyyyyy! Now, it's time for reflections, thoughts, and what nots!

What was I up to in April?

My Blogging from A to Z theme this year was once again all about my passion and hobby of baking and cake decorating: SARA'S BAKED CREATIONS! My love, my talent, my favorite thing to do! All throughout the month I was posting delicious detailed blog entries. For each one of my selected baked wonder of the day I showed off beautiful and extremely tempting pictures, behind the scenes shots, the making, and the detailing. For a month my blog was boasting mouth watering content from top to bottom. It was so so so much fun! You can find the main index of all my entries right here!

The good, the bad, erm .. yeah!

I have been doing the challenge for a couple years now and I love it. There's a special kind of excitement on my blog in April thanks to the challenge. It's just so much fun! Buttttt ... I think out of all my years of participating in the challenge, this year was my slowest. I had a new baby niece arrive in our house on the fourth of the month and then dad came over to meet her. We had some guests over thanks to the little darling too. Oh and my wrists weren't in their best condition. I have pain in my wrists because I've overused them a bit while traveling and dragging luggage around so they hurt real bad and feel stuck. With all this happening I wasn't able to schedule all my posts ahead of time. Usually I do that so when in April I have free time I use it to go commenting on other participants' blogs. This year, I spent the few moments of free time that I had writing up blog posts so I won't miss a day. Guess what happened? I wasn't able to go discovering and commenting on other blogs. So I'd say this year I was pretty dead where interacting was concerned. Not good!

Maybe it was because I wasn't able to leave comments, but I also noticed that this year I got far less comments than I've received in all my years of this challenge. It was sad because I find the comments very encouraging and motivating in a world otherwise full of negative people and bullies. Anyhoo, those who left me comments had awesome stuff to say and I intend to go back and get in touch with them now that I'll be freer in May!

Now let me talk about the new changes we saw on the A to Z blog this year. Basically, there was a new Master List and the Daily Letter Lists. I had no problems with them at all, though I admit the daily letter signups should have stayed open all month because I know each year there are people catching up with posts on the weekends. I was able to post everything on time even though I had nothing scheduled but still missed a couple of daily letter forms because I was busy and couldn't enter my link in them. So my opinion: I'm fine with the forms and everything but they'd be so much more fun if they stayed open for entry through the challenge! Also, I think the A to Z team should look into RTing posts tagged with #AtoZChallenge on Twitter so they get more exposure! Ummm, the rest, I think the team manages everything EXCELLENTLY! I'd say I have no complains.

Just like always I loved participating regardless of how rushed I was or how many comments I received! I love getting a chance to revisit my baking and find pictures of their making. Behind the scenes are always fun! I also love how, thanks to the A to Z, I have a sort of April feature on my blog that's all about my baking! I'm seriously considering making this a thing for sure. Oooh and I'm also considering taking part in the road trip the A to Z team is hosting. I was planning to go and visit the blogs in my free time anyway so the road trip definitely sounds like my thing! You know what? I'm already thinking about next year's challenge! *laughs* Would I do the same theme? Different one? Would I make it? Would I survive? Time shall tell ...