Year in review? Yes, please!
It has been a whirlwind year under the Bearlow Productions umbrella–including the creation of Bearlow Productions itself. Did I ever think I’d have a need for my very own LLC? Absolutely not. Did I need my very own coaching session to navigate the waters in creating it? Absolutely (thanks, Reed!).
Bearlow Productions was busy in its infancy!
- I published my first book, What to Expect When You Weren’t Expecting. It has been extremely well-received, even landing on Amazon’s Hot New Releases list at publication.
- Whine & Wine hit the podcast airwaves as I fulfilled the goal of starting a podcast. This was a stretch goal but, after guesting on a few podcasts myself, I rang up my friend Kathy and we dove into the land of trying to make sense of the world while letting the world listen in.
- Any Adventure Vacations welcomed me under its umbrella when I was brought on as an adventure specialist over the summer. I have loved getting to know the travel industry and mapping out vacations for my growing client list.
- Today Parenting published, well, an unknown number of my submissions but we’ll say twenty-ish. The link is broken so I can only see the first ten.
- Across the pond, Funny Pearls published four of my articles this year. These may be my favourite people to work with! I just love them!
- Grown & Flown grabbed two of my 2023 articles, not an easy feat as this publication is quite popular for writing submissions!
Of course, the origination of all things Bearlow Productions is my blog, Which Way’s Up. Even with so many things going on in 2023, I’m really proud to say that I managed to hit my Monday deadline each week. It’s not always easy. At times, I draw a blank when it comes to the next topic but my brain likes to play this trick where, sometimes, I wake up at 3:00 am with twenty ideas. I think the latter is actually harder as my brain moves faster than my fingers.
What did you read in 2023? Here are the top ten Which Way’s Up posts:
10. Junior Prom: A Note to My Son: Look, there are certainly times when I write with other publications in mind and this one was written for Grown & Flown. While it was not accepted, it was well-received in other arenas
9. Two posts came in at number nine: Influential Behavior and The Meandering Homestead. One talks about the side-eyes received from some when they hear you are a blogger. The other? explained below.
8. The Meandering Career Path landed in the eighth spot. The “Meandering” blogs were written as a companion to a few Whine & Wine episodes in which we talked about how life can give you a left turn when you really wanted to go right.
7. Sometimes, I nab an audience through misguided attempts at something new. Furnace Yoga and the Year of “Yes” was one of those blogs. It tells the tale of my hot yoga journey, which ended almost immediately in a heap on the floor.
6. The Breakup Has Already Begun was a response to an article about how launching our sons from the nest is not unlike a breakup for mothers. This is so true. Again, written with Grown & Flown in mind though they took a pass. I still love the theme.
5. One of my favorites: An Ode to Father’s Day: Dadisms. So fun to write as it involved months’ of notes shared back and forth between myself and the kids as we collected example after example of my husband’s dadisms. Living with a writer is pretty bland for my children so when I get them excited about an article, it is a joy.
4. Lip Service told my tale of prepping for my first television interview and how I opted to channel my anxiety into what my lips would look like on camera. You can see how they turned out here.
3. One of my 2024 goals is to write more about travel and I got a headstart this year with my third most-read blog, To Travel (Agent) or Not to Travel (Agent). Yes, part of the reason I opted to move into a travel agent role is to write about travel. This was a great start as I broke down just exactly what travel agents do (and how they cost the consumer zero dollars).
2. Coming in at number two was Gee, Your Hair Smells…Unwashed. Hair-lariously, this was one of those blogs that I pulled out of my butt at the last minute yet, goodness, it was a winner. And yes, I have taken my hair-washing cadence even further down than when I wrote the article and, yes, it still looks amazing.
Which blog took the top spot? One that I waited months to publish for fear of repercussions. When it did finally land, holy hell, did it touch a lot of nerves.
Finishing as my top blog for 2023: Don’t #Tell Dell (The Exit Interview).
Look, I loved this one the most as well. Writing it was straight-up therapy and helped me understand why moving on from Dell was so difficult. It is a brutal tale of my ending days with a company that doesn’t give a damn about the humans that work there. It was read by thousands of people, many of whom still deal with Dell daily. While I think the article tells you all you need to know, well, let me add one more thing:
Everything I write is on an Apple product.
To you, reader: THANK YOU. It is your feedback that keeps my fingers busy clickity-clackiting each week. Writing is sometimes a lonely occupation and when I hear from you, it lifts me! Which Way’s Up now has regular readers in almost half the states in America and (this is crazy) in ten countries! I hope my words have given you a laugh, a tear, something to think about, or even an eye-roll. From the bottom of my heart, thank you–I truly would not do this if it weren’t for YOU.