Strocel.com | About Amber Strocel, Vancouver Mom Blogger

I am Amber.

I am Amber, crunchy granola mom and suburbanite. I am a writer, dreamer, storyteller, social media enthusiast and engineer. I started this blog in 2003 as a way to chronicle our home renovations when my husband Jon and I bought our first house, and I just kept writing. Along the way I’ve had babies, changed careers and logged a lot of posts. Those babies grew into seven-year-old Hannah and four-year-old Jacob. We live in the Vancouver area with our irrepressible cat Dorothy.

I am on a continuing journey to create a more meaningful and purpose-filled life for myself. I call the journey Crafting my Life. It’s all about re-discovering my dreams, finding my passions and making space in my life for myself. I am helping other moms do the same thing through my Crafting my Life online tools. I’d love to have you join me, as you seek to live with greater intention in your own life.

As I re-invent myself I’m simplifying and living a more sustainable lifestyle. I meditate. I make stuff and work in my garden. I dance with my kids in the kitchen. I volunteer as a peer breastfeeding support person. I am gluten-free. And I ~~frequently~~ sometimes sneak chocolate when no one’s looking.

I write.

Writing is my passion. It is at the core of who I am. I love using written language to share information, spread ideas and convey emotion. As an engineer I did a lot of technical writing. I can’t share it because my former employer is big on confidentiality. But trust me, it was awesome. I used lots of fancy-pants words like empirical and Gaussian. These days I write a lot about parenting and life. This blog showcases that best. But I’ve written some other cool things, too:

I wrote Living with Greater Intention: A Playbook.
I am the Content Manager for VancouverMom.ca, which means that I write and edit web copy, online articles and weekly newsletters.
I have an E-book, the Quick Guide to Canadian Maternity Leave.
I blog as the Climate Crusader on The Green Phone Booth.
I write for The V3H, covering news and events in and around Port Moody, BC.

I connect.

Calling yourself a social media enthusiast feels vaguely ridiculous. But I’ll own it, because I’m doing it. I believe strongly in the power of the internet to bring people together and build communities, erasing barriers of geography and culture. In order to build real community we must use social media well. Follower counts and blog subscribers don’t mean anything if we don’t really engage and create honest connections. Here’s how I build community:

I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Flickr.
I run the Strocel.com Podcast, which is on iTunes.
Strocel.com has a Facebook page.
Crafting my Life is on Facebook, too.
I run the VancouverMom.ca Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Through Strocel.com, I occasionally partner with people who are a good fit to help them get their message out. I am choosy, because my readers are awesome and I consider them to be my personal friends. I consider my advertisers to be personal friends, too – so I need to make sure we’ll be able to help each other. If you like what I’m doing, and believe we are a good fit, I would love to talk about how we can work together. Check out my advertising page to get started.

Check me out on other blogs.
If you want more of me check out my guest posts: