ARE YOU IN THE MUMMY BLOGGER ASYLUM?

My love of blogging is bittersweet. It has enabled me to write which I love, but with all things that one falls heavily for, measure needs to employed at some point. Blogging is so the mother of all rabbit holes. It leads to twitter, a Facebook page (don't start me on Google+), a newsletter, instagram, constant website improvements, getting published, interacting in communities, functions, conferences and hours and hours of publicity and marketing and so on and so forth. Writing actually becomes the least of your worries, and then suddenly it becomes a huge worry because you find you have no time to actually do what started the whole thing, that is just tell a story, share an anecdote, talk to the world.

There is definitely so much value in keeping it simple. The complexity can really burn you out of the blogging world as fast as it took you to set up your blogger or wordpress site. But giving up on blogging is not the worst thing that can happen. What is worse is losing touch with real life. Valuing your three-dimensional relationships less, especially those closest to you. You see a bit of attention from a virtual community of people can do crazy things to people's minds. When you are getting compliments from strangers and people want to meet you - you can get a weird sort of invincible out-of-body type feeling that leads you to devaluing the people you actually need the most.

So upon recognising this I decided to write myself some rules, that hopefully will guard against ending up living in a box next to a power outlet at the local wi-fi spot with only my laptop as company.

Any addicts out there got more tips? Please share!

Image background source: http://lady-himiko.deviantart.com

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What will you remember about 2011?

This year has been one of those ones that stands out. I'm not sure if it's just my baby brain having a half life of six months and so I've completely forgotten everything about 2010, but this year somehow has made it pale into insignificance.

IMMORTALITY MEET FINITE LIFE
2011 will always be the year that I realised I will not live forever, it was like Death was trying to tell me something and for the first time I listened.

I never knew Steve Jobs but his words back in 2005 "have the courage to follow your heart" will haunt me until I truly take that first step towards my destiny. His death still makes me sad. What an amazing visionary that was taken from all of us far too early. At the same time his amazing thoughts and words inspired me to the point that I wrote an article about him that got published in a major newspaper, which ironically felt a touch like where my heart was leading me.

I met Gavin Larkin once, in a pitch situation. He was larger than life, vivacious, intelligent and compelling. At the time I didn't know that he had started RUOK? day for the prevention of suicide, and he didn't know that he already had cancer. His death this year was incredibly shocking, he was younger than me and left behind his wife and three children. His amazing life was captured by Australian Story, if you missed it I highly recommend you watch it here.

Ten years on we mourned again the loss of thousands of innocent people as we remembered 9/11. I had managed to not think too much about it since the shocking event took place, as I didn't know anyone who died. But with the gravity of motherhood I saw the grief of parents, partners and young children in a much deeper and clearer light, and one that cut me deeply. My heart still breaks for their loss.

And most drastically my immortal status quo was irreversibly challenged, when a beautiful friend with two kids the same age as mine was diagnosed with cancer in October. Something about someone so close to you, living a parallel life and it being disrupted so frighteningly has rocked my world. I'm sure not as much as hers and her gorgeous family's, but my heart broke when she told me and I know I will be in limbo until I find out she is going to be ok.

BRAND NEW EYES
In 2011 my two babies became little boys. Their personalities developed and my eldest started speaking and giving me a whole new insight in to the way he sees the world. My youngest also showed us who he is going to become with his unwavering determination and gusto for life. And I woke up from probably a couple of years of sleep deprivation to realise how lucky I am to know these two amazing little beings. Yes they are hard work, yes it is insanely stressful trying to constantly protect them as they totter towards stairs or learn to jump off fences, but they are my universe, my joy, my pride and when I feel their arms wrapped around me, when I see them collapse in giggles, when they look at me with wonder and love, I realise it is me that has been given new life, in the creation of theirs.

MY WORDS FORMED A SMILE
Thanks to the existence of said perfect little creatures, in February this year I was inspired to start blogging, which has lead me to realise that writing is a bit of a passion of mine and one I'm hoping will continue to change my life. All those inane years of journal keeping seems to have had some benefits, other than one day explaining to my ancestors why they are slightly insane. I have been lucky enough to have work published all over the place but what has been more exciting is meeting other bloggers. In them I have found friends who somehow get the insanity that is the need to write and overshare, I mean, contribute to the world. The generosity, wit, intelligence and comradery I have found is so brilliantly unexpected. There are too many to mention but I can't let go of this year without thanking some of you for your support, encouragement and friendship:


Maria Tedeschi of Mum's Word

Purple_cath of Precocious Lotus Jewels

Nathalie Brown of EasyPeasyKids

Danielle Uskovic from Lenovo
Brenda Gaddi of Mummytime and Digital Parents

Emma Ashton of Reality Ravings

Andrea Zanetich of Fox in flats

Bernadette Morley of So now what?

Denyse Whelan 
Yvette Vignando of HappyChild

Dan Hanks

Sharon of Twitchy Corner
Mary-Ann Harris of Mah73
Kathy from SmallKucing
Alexandra Carlton and
the worst until last
Joe Hildebrand (aka the online sensation)

and Happy New Year to all of you, 

thanks so much for taking the time to visit and 

I hope I've given you as much joy this year as you have me! xxx

What will you remember about 2011?

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