The day the storm took away my lifeline

after the stormI woke up the morning after the storms to a disaster that the SES could not help. My internet was down. I spoke to a machine at Bigpond and then a woman in India who confirmed that the cables were damaged in the storm and would be not be fixed till the following day at 6pm at the latest. Two whole days without internet. This loosely translates to two days without oxygen for me.

I am not proud to say that I don’t know how to live without internet. How was I even supposed to phone Bigpond to confirm the calamity if I couldn’t look up their number? [Read more…]

Not The Bachelor review you’re looking for

There’s s a strange phenomenon that seems to happen every time The Bachelor airs. Thousands of women sit down in front of the TV and tear apart other women under the guise of reviewing or live tweeting the show.

I don’t watch The Bachelor because I don’t agree with the premise, I don’t like the concept of dating shows and I am trying desperately to stop hate-viewing/reading in general. But by mistake I watched Twitter for a while last night.

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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.
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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.
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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…]

The contents of my head

contents of my brain

I think (and talk) a lot about how much of our children’s lives we should be sharing on social media and with other people. I am all for respect and boundaries. I have chosen to share carefully. Often I make mistakes.

I don’t think some “bad” person is going to steal my son’s image or but I do worry about exposing him to the world from my vantage point, without his adult consent and the understanding of all that it encompasses.
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The compromising photos we probably shouldn’t see

You know that a post may be terribly misinterpreted when you start to write the disclaimer before you’ve even really clarified your thoughts… but here it is. This post is not meant to stand in judgement of anyone who reads it, it’s my view which may be different to yours at best or wrong at worst.
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When do you just let things go. Also known as the end of the thermomix wars

It feels like the whole of Australia knows that I have “issues” with my Thermomix given the absolute huge amount of traction my humble little blog gained when I wrote simply that the Thermomix was not everything that I had expected it to be. News.com.au contacted me to ask me if they could republish it and the next thing I knew I was, for want of a better phrase, going viral.

The post started popping up everywhere and I was hugely impressed and delighted with how many people agreed with me. I wasn’t a leper after all. Many people find that they are not using the Thermomix as much as they thought they would. The comments on my own blog were beautiful, smart and very considered. Even the people who didn’t agree with me.
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The bazillion things I love about living my life online

You know that feeling when you have so much to say but your blog has been having a few days off at the health farm (ie getting fixed from the silly spammers that hacked it) and then when it comes back all shiny and clean, you forgot what you wanted to say? Funny that, because that’s exactly what happened to me!

The one thing I have remembered during this small hiatus that no one would have actually noticed (such is my random blogging nature) is how much I love and depend on my online life.

Even though I am not one of those diligent people that blog every day, I love my little place on the net, not so much the words on it but the community around it. I love what my blog has given me; I love the people that come to see what I’m thinking, those that hang out with me on Facebook and those who engage with me on Twitter.

I recently realised how bad I am at what the professionals would call “branding”. My blog and my Facebook page have the name Sharpest Pencil and my Instagram and Twitter have my real name, I am all over the place online much like I am in real life. But that doesn’t bother me, that’s not why I do it. Not for the brand, not for the numbers, not for the business but because I love the connections I have made.

I am absolutely shite at real life professional relationships, I am stubborn and pig-headed and I believe what I know very strongly. I’m much better working in my own space and attracting like-minded people that I can talk to as friends rather than colleagues. I am well suited to being a freelancer and consultant professionally and an avid social media fan personally because I get people like myself, I feel comfortable with my online world, I love people that I have never met.

I love the fact that last week I hosted a soiree for people that I had only met online. (Because I am a very non-professional blogger I took photos of the table settings rather than the people, but I think that speaks more about me than anything else.)

blogger soiree

I love the fact that on Monday I took a photo of a dessert that I served and it ended up on 2Day FM’s Facebook page. That’s the click and buzz of social media.

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I love the fact that yesterday 9News used one of my tweets in an article about the great Facebook outage of 2015. That’s the power and high of talking online.

Nine News #facebookdown

I love the immediacy of the internet, the online interaction and the range of opinions and views I can learn from (or slam, because really I am already quite opinionated) . I love the fact that I can talk to Marian Keyes or Caitlin Moran or a person I’ve never met or heard of just as easily as I can speak to my friends around the corner.

I love the fact that even though I am possibly the shyest person you will ever meet I have a voice here. I love that I get to share it online with you.

 

Dear GOMI

anger

It’s a weird thing when you hear people have been talking about you behind your back and you’re 46 and not at school anymore. It’s even weirder when you get to see what they’re saying about you because its been written online.

You see just the other day I found myself on GOMI (Get Off My Internets) which is a forum where people go to rant/vent/discuss/critique blogs. It can be quite a vicious and bitchy place mainly because the people who contribute to the forums only seem to read said blogs to hate on them. Personally I don’t get that part of it, I mean why would you continually read something that you really angers and irritates you? As the saying goes, “anger is just sad’s bodyguard”, I’ve learned not to read stuff that makes me angry because invariably that makes me sad. But that’s a post for another day. [Read more…]