Grow Your Bog Party - postcard winners

Wow, what a party it was! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. I discovered so many interesting blogs and never imagined I would get so many visitors, myself. I was also overwhelmed by the number of kind comments and new followers.

As promised, today I took three numbers randomly out of a bag and I am pleased to announce that these lovely bloggers will be receiving a postcard from Portugal:

Terri at Cache-Mire

Tanya Breese

Phoebe at Lou Messugo

Thank you to Vicki and all the people who helped her to make this event so cool!

p.s. I look forward to visiting all the blogs on the list, but it will take a couple of months...

Grow Your Blog 2014

I'm joining the party this year.

Let me tell you a little about myself and my personal blog, just in case you are a Grow Your Blog partyer or a first time visitor.

Africa is where my life story began (Zimbabwe, to be more precise) and the Algarve region of Portugal is where I live now. My parents were Portuguese, from a town to the south of Porto, but it was too cold for someone like me who is literally allergic to the cold! I decided to call my blog Africa to Algarve because I wanted to share with you everything that makes me miss Africa so much and all the things that remind me that moving to the Algarve was a great decision.

I started an A-Z of Zimbabwe and the Algarve, then I joined in Jake's Sunday post challenge, then I discovered Carol's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day monthly meme and Cee's Fun Foto challenge... and here I am, nearly two years later. I even started another blog in Portuguese. Rather surprisingly, I have found that lately that blog is getting more page views than this one.

A-Z Zimbabwe - Aloes

A-Z Algarve - Chimneys

Sunday post - Captivating

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Cee's Fun Foto challenge - Water

My job keeps me very busy. I'm a English teacher in a state school. In the past 2 years the financial crisis has taken its toll on most people in Portugal and I am no exception. I'm working longer hours for less than I earned 5 years ago and the fear of redundancy is ever present after almost two decades in a secure position! Posting may not be like clockwork because, quite frankly, I do it for the fun of it and when I can or when something inspires me. My A-Z sections are a work in very slow progress. When the weather is good and here it is a lot of the time, I have to be in my garden or out walking my dogs.

I hope you will stay a while, read a post or two and find something you like. I have found many interesting blogs and made friends with many gifted bloggers since I started my blogging adventure.

If you like getting postcards from different parts of the world, leave me a comment with your email and you may be one of the 3 people I will be sending a postcard to on the 15th February. I'd love for you to follow my blog on Google Friend Connect or Google+, but it is not a requirement for getting a postcard.

Thank you for reading and thank you to Vicki at 2 Bags Full for organizing this blog party.

Best regards,

Mara Paz

Edited to add:

Today I am taking Pandora for her first obedience training session. I may take a while to reply to comments but I promise I will answer each one and visit each blog asap.

Insecure Writer's Wednesday

A while ago I jumped on a blog hop without actually being fully aware of what it entailed. I only realised what it involved when I got a reminder last month about having missed a post. I investigated pronto and became very insecure, besides feeling quite silly.

I'm a ESL teacher and a relatively new blogger. I'm not a creative writer. You will not find any short story or novel published by me anywhere. And you are not likely to, because I am not an aspiring author. However, I got myself on this blog hop and I'm not leaving without contributing a post. 

I guess everyone feels insecure at some time - I certainly do. I thought quite hard before starting my blog. Could I do it? Could I make it interesting for others? Sometimes it seems I have nothing to write about and writing a post takes ages, sometimes I have lots to write about and I can swiftly turn out a post.

Writing a short story or a novel must be incomparably more difficult than writing a blog post, of course, so how can I offer encouragement?

Well, I have found two quotes by authors I like that I wish to share with insecure writers of any kind anywhere.

"When asked, 'How do you write?'

I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'"

- Stephen King

and

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Agatha Christie

Click on the image to visit others on this blog hop.

Blog hop