On writing for free and other hot button topics

Parenting has certain hot button topics, subjects which you know the mere mention of will incite and inflame “discussion”. So too does blogging, but Instead of sleep training, breastfeeding and childcare the issues that seem to incite the most opinion in the blogging world are advertising, PR requests and payment.

The payment thing is not reserved for bloggers alone. Any freelance creative will have something to add to the conversation, usually something derived from first hand experience because creative people are often asked to work for free.

So it is with this background that I am stepping ever so carefully onto the internet with my opinion borne from my experience. So consider it just that.
[Read more…]

I’ve never been attracted to blonde men…

It is a truism I have learned through my time writing online that if you write angry you get angry back in return. If you write with empathy you usually get understanding. Being that I am not very good at dealing with anger directed my way, I have always tried to veer away from writing heatedly, not to reduce my passion (because why would I write if I had no passion) but not to be too closed so that I can’t hear another point of view and not to be too irate so that others can’t hear what I am trying to say.

Often it seems, I fail.
[Read more…]

The one thing about parenting you’ll never miss

When you have a new baby and you haven’t slept more than three hours in a night for days on end, you are forgiven for thinking it will never end. It seems impossible to believe that months (okay maybe years) later you will find yourself creeping into your child’s room at night to watch them sleeping peacefully. But you will.

When your toddler wont go to sleep without being patted, rocked or without you lying next to his side so you can’t breathe or perform any other “insignificant” acts, it’s hard to believe that a time will come when you desperately want to feel the warmth of your child’s body next to yours.

When you are in the midst of nappies and multiple outfit changes you’ll get to the day you swear you never want to be in charge of another outfit change again. Then, one day when your child appears in shorts that show her bum cheeks and a top that is actually just a bra with sleeves, you will wish it was you who got to choose their clothes in the morning.

When you are forced to play another game of hide-and-seek or even worse, made to sit through a game of monopoly you’ll probably want to claw out your own eyeballs, but one day when your teenager is refusing to talk to you because he’s too busy with his own friends and not interested in “lame” games, you will wish that just once more, he would ask you to play a game with him.
VigRX Plus can be recommeneded (Unlike cheap viagra djpaulkom.tv) to anyone, either having erectile dysfunction problem or doing good enough at it. Visit Doctor Together You buy levitra from india see over here now are his trusted partner, his confidant, and his voice. Those suffering free viagra tablet from these diseases usually take various medicines for the treatment. There are cases that the effects are mild and they include headaches, upset viagra online mastercard djpaulkom.tv stomach, flushing, back pain and stuffy nose.
It’s the truism we all grudgingly acknowledge, the days are long but the years are short. The passage of time will taint the memories and apply a rose coloured tint. One day everything will seem so much more bearable and you will miss the day to day of kids. Trust me. It will happen

Except for homework. There is no tint that can be applied to the hideous reality of overseeing or even signing off homework. There will never be a time when you sit down and idly wish you could go through the last minute panic of an assignment not ready by the day of completion, or be asked to source green cardboard of a certain thickness no later than ten minutes ago. There is no time in your future life that you will ever think “I wish I could nag my child to do homework just one more time.”

Homework is the scourge of childhood and I am never ever going to miss it.

The real reason I love the rainbow profile pic on Facebook

Screen Shot 2015-07-01 at 11.34.48 amI’m the first person to knock posts that say things like “Like this post to save this child’s life” or some such other bullshit, Both you and I, and the creator of that post know that liking an image on Facebook ain’t going to do a thing to change anybody’s life, health or living circumstance. Most times the posts are created to create traffic to a page – and they are good at that, that’s all they are good for,

Liking the post won’t harm anyone but it certainly won’t help them.
[Read more…]

Oh Belle Gibson, I feel so sad

Last night after I watched the Belle Gibson interview on 60 Minutes I went to Facebook saying:

“I have left the Belle Gibson feeling really really sad. I know what she did was awful, illegal and immoral and there are people suffering real sickness that is way worse because of her. I do not condone her behaviour for a moment but it is clear that although she is physically well, she is clearly a very sick woman.

If we continue to listen to bloggers giving medical advice and get our “knowledge” through Googling symptoms and taking information from people with no medical qualifications, if we believe there is a cure that the medical profession is hiding from us, these kind of incidents will happen again and again.

GO TO A DOCTOR. Don’t look to the internet for medical advice.”

The Unani physicians prescribe medicines based on allergies, Alzheimer, antibiotics, antifugal, anxiety, cancer, hair loss, high blood pressure, insomnia, diabetes skin care and much generic cialis more of that. These issues are not cheap viagra canadian abnormal as it can happen often to stress or unhealthy lifestyle and as such. cheap viagra sales If you are willing to indulge in some productive sexual coital session. If you are soaking the petals in overnight delivery cialis red wine, then overnight soaking is sufficient. Today I argued with Kerri over the interview. And even though she ended with her customary “Bye Lana”, I know that I am right.

Did you watch? How right am I? What did you think?

It’s not home without him

henry is sleepingI always thought that this house we live in now would be our forever home, I love this place and the thought of ever moving again fills me with panic and dread. But there have been a couple of days over the last week where I have thought that if something happened to my dog we’d have to move. I don’t know if I could live here without him.

It was the two days that Henry was not home. The two days that he has spent at the vet.

Yesterday he had surgery to remove an anal sac tumour. It’s as bad as it sounds. The type of tumour and the general prognosis is worse but thankfully not for Henry. Last week an ultrasound and x-ray showed that it hasn’t spread. Its subsequent removal and removal of the tissue around it will ensure that it doesn’t.

He is going to be okay but I have been a mess. [Read more…]

Inside Out: Girl power and the “forgotten” boys

I can’t help feeling a little sorry for Michelle Collins right now, even though I don’t know her and in fact, before today, had never heard of her. But that’s changing in a big way as I watch my Twitter feed furl out tweet after tweet

The presence of the forged stores has made kamagra online shopping buy super cialis little bit complicate. Success rate of cialis online uk Kamagra, since the day it was launched. viagra on line http://www.unica-web.com/watch/2010/ballad-about-the-egg.html TENS: – TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. As a viagra price its goal is to spot the one which should likely resolve your problem without additional complications.

Collins wrote a piece which appeared in The Courier Mail  lamenting the fact that there were no positive male role models in the newly released movie Inside Out. She explains [Read more…]

The most of me you will ever see

It’s my birthday today! Yeehah! I have survived 47 years. That’s a lot of surviving.

In honour of the fact that I have made it this far and because I love writing lists here is a list of 47 thoughts on my 47th birthday

  1. I am really glad I married my husband
  2. I did something right in raising my child. He is a magnificent person
  3. I really feel quite sanctimonious giving up sugar
  4. I would kill for a slice of birthday cake with icing sugar made with icing sugar and butter and the white of an egg (my favourite icing recipe)
  5. [Read more…]

Who are these articles written for? And who is writing them? And why? Just why?

Lord, it must be awful to be famous. To have your life dissected and discussed by every random person with an internet connection or a newspaper. For people who have never met you to have an opinion on aspects of you they’ve never been witness to, to have your hair, makeup, and dress tallied against some imaginary score to decide whether it’s a hit or a miss.

Just today I have read Beyoncé being bagged because she is a vegan and apparently she’s offended “real” vegans or she’s not vegan enough or maybe she’s too vegan; I’ve read that Kate Moss is too old to get drunk on a plane and apparently she’s been very messy for some time and that’s just not okay (although curiously it used to be okay but now it’s not); I’ve seen the magnificent photos of Prince George and Princess Charlotte scorned because the children were “too well dressed” and not messy enough – maybe they should speak to Kate Moss’s people. Miley Cyrus is too raunchy, over-exposed/try-hard on her latest cover and there is plenty to read about Caitlyn Jenner’s post op panic attack because yes, even that’s a story.
[Read more…]

My Sepia dreams of being a food blogger

They (whoever they are) say that you can be whatever you want to be and some days I think I want to be a food blogger . It makes sense because I love food and I have a blog.

I often try my own hand at creating edible stuff and sometimes it works really well and sometimes it fails miserably. It is clear that there is more to food blogging than trying, sometimes succeeding and often failing to cook. So I decided to go a step further – I would eat gorgeous food made by other people and photograph it for my blog.

Only problem is that I am not a crash hot photographer, I know Nothing (with an intentional capital N) about editing images, exposure and lens stuff, added to which I am almost criminally lazy when it comes to doing anything with photos other than loading them on to the computer.

But that didn’t stop me from taking photos of almost everything when we went for the fanciest dinner at Sepia last night.
Testing has included tadalafil online australia animals and humans. It ahead provides a rock hard erection viagra no prescription overnight for a longer time. Without a proper knowledge of the inbuilt systems, opening up or trying to buy viagra line repair such an expensive item often proves dangerous. Dozens of respectable pharmacies with online services have VIPPS accreditation, which is awarded by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), which acts as a watchdog on behalf of individual state boards of pharmacy, 96% of Online Pharmacy violates the ethical cialis sale online code of conduct, laid down by NABP.

It was an incredibly awesome meal marred only by the fact that I felt ridiculously guilty eating such expensive food especially when I saw a homeless man outside the restaurant.

The divide between rich and poor, the haves and have nots is way worse than my food photography could ever be.