blogging

Nothing to Write About

/ Kate Wally / 5 Comments

Husband: Write about the cat eating his chicken wing.

Me: That’s really dull.

H: Introduce a narrative, make it interesting. How he was meant to eat it on his mat but didn’t so I had to wash the floor.

M: Wow. That is dull. I’d do better to talk about the time you punched yourself in the face.

H: And I was completely sober.

M: And you were allowed to operate machinery

H: A pulley isn’t ‘machinery’

M: It is.

H: That’s proper English?

M: It’s machine-ish.

H: See. There’s a blog post, right there.

M: You still punched yourself in the face though.

H: Shut up.

M: Just sayin’

 

 

 

 

 

Excuses, Something else, Nano Poblano

/ Kate Wally / 5 Comments

Day 30. The final day. Last post of the month. I blogged every day in November!

HUZZAH!

*Clears throat*

Well.

Almost.

I kind of succeeded 93% of the time. I blogged 28/30 days. Which is a 7% fail. Which is still 28 more posts I might have done otherwise. But also. I’m not sure if that’s how this works.

And while I say 93% success, I cheated on some of those. Cheated within the rules but against my own brain’s blogging standards. Brain expects more than simply blogging everyday. Brain says I have to write proper, meaningful posts. Photo-posts are a no-no, imbedding music videos with the hashtag ‘currentmood’ doesn’t meet the grade. A post where I waffle on with excuses of tiredness – CODSWALLOP!

Which means Brain thinks I had a 56.6% success rate. I can round that figure up, right?

Fortunately for me, in recent years, I’m better at ignoring that part of my brain.

So, thank you team Cheer Peppers! Thank you to those who found the time to read my posts and those who were able to leave a comment. Thank you Ra, for Nano Poblano.

Well done everyone, whatever your success rate – never forget that you blog for yourself!

*Group hug*

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Define a Waste of Time

/ Kate Wally / 16 Comments

I’d love to know what you think constitutes as a waste of time.

I have this niggling worry everyday as I find myself spending more and more time caught up on the internet. I’m on social media, or I’m Wiki-hopping from one interesting link to the next. Or I’m taking too many photos of the cat so I can ostensibly capture an instant on Instagram.

I’m not necessarily saying these things are a waste of time, but I can’t claim they’re not either.

I’m not even a big social media addict. Twitter and Instagram and WordPress are my big distractions. I rarely check Facebook, and except for Instagram, I don’t have any of these as phone apps. If I duck out from work to get lunch, I’m not among the people in the queue who browse their phones.

I found myself going to my laptop this morning to look up something simple and became so distracted by the alerts and reminders and emails that I completely forgot my original purpose. Time ticked on. By the time I closed my laptop and thought about changing out of my pyjamas, I realised I’d intended to check the weather forecast.

Completely revealing my age, as a child my aunt and uncle had a Commodore 64. Which at the time, was A-MAZ-ZING. My brother and I played on this thing for hours and hours. Children don’t feel quite the same level of guilt as adults but as much then as now, it’s not that I don’t enjoy my computer time – only that I think it could be better spent with something I enjoy as much, if not more. But it’s easy, isn’t it? You get caught up and before you know it you’ve been browsing your Twitter feed for an hour.

How do you waste time? How do you willingly spend time but regret it later?

nanopoblano1

Tiny Peppers, blogging every day in November – you can find them here!

 

 

I just spent five minutes trying to find an appropriate meme for this post.

I stopped myself.

No meme for you, more time for me.

Did I make the right choice?

November Stuff

/ Kate Wally / 11 Comments

Okay.

So it’s NaBloPoMo.

Or National Blog Posting Month. Or, if you follow Rarasaur, it’s Nanopoblano which is the same thing, but more awesome.

And while I’m potentially still jet-lagged, I have just travelled for 6 weeks and I hopefully have a fair bit of blog-fodder to work with. I’m giving this a go. I’m blogging every day for the month of November.

Let’s get back on the horse.

Also.

Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. Or is that an Australianism?

*hugs*

That’s a Wally-ism.

Goodluck and keep writing.

nanopoblano1

 

Visit the other Tiny Peppers here!

Believing

/ Kate Wally / 13 Comments

Two days ago, I began a whole different post.

It was about failure and resolutions for a year we’ve now lost. Failed resolutions. I didn’t intend to fail, but then, I didn’t make any real effort to win so technically, failure was assured. Actually, that’s not even technical, that’s logical and I cannot (or should not) lament something I chose.

After Nano Poblemo, I said I would blog more. I haven’t, yet, and I’m not sure why I feel guilty about it. It’s crazy because I’m creating failures for myself.

So, it seems that this post too, is about failure.

It is.

And it isn’t.

Nano Poblano was a resolution. Not one timed with the New Year but one that came at the eleventh hour on the last day of October. I’d procrastinated. I’d thought about it for days previously before I finally committed to it. And then I did it – I blogged everyday for a month.

I won.

I set myself some resolutions for 2015. None of them were unreasonable or unrealistic but I didn’t take them on. I wondered how they were any different from my Nano Poblano challenge.

They weren’t different. Except, there was this little part of my brain that believed I could write a blog post everyday.

I believed.

This post was going to be about lots of things. Instead of resolutions, I’m going to focus on believing.

Happy New Year, my friends.

Whatever you do in 2016, be your best.

An Award! Yay!

/ Kate Wally / 11 Comments

Thanks to Fairweatherpaddler at Home Grown Heaven, I’ve  been nominated for THE VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD!

*Releases party poppers*versatileblogger11

Before you read on though, go check out Home Grown Heaven. It’s delightful, insightful, inspiring and practical. Her family are living the good life, so it’s hard work!

Go on. I’ll wait.

Looking around the  blogs of other fellow nominees, I feel privileged to be among these awesome folk.  I’m personally a little bemused with the title ‘versatile’. I suddenly feel the need to construct this post from origami.

Okay. So to the rules…

  • Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy.
  •  Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy.
  •  Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
  • Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
  • Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

Now, I follow an extensive number of blogs, all of whom are worthy of a nomination.  To keep things simple, I’ll focus on new blogs I discovered during Nano Poblano (or NaBloPoMo). They not only wrote some amazing, honest, emotive, funny stuff, they also shared the love by visiting fellow Nano Poblano bloggers. And, they took to time to comment on my over-thought blog posts!

But. No strings attached. As awesome and as awards are, I know they can sometimes be a burden. Sometimes you don’t have time, sometimes you’ve been nominated for this award already (or something similar) . It doesn’t matter, the point is, if you don’t wish to participate. I don’t mind. Just know – in case you weren’t sure – I think you’re amazing.

I wish to nominate:

A Heart on the Matter
Behind the Willows
Breaking Moulds
EchoShadow
FlightScarlet
Judah First
Musings of an Eccentric Mind
Never Trust a Jellyfish
Part-Time Monster
Quixie’s Mind Palace
Sidereal Catalyst
Spoken Like a True Nut
Teleportingweena
The Tawny’s Blog
Vanessence

I seriously hope I haven’t left anyone off.

Seven things about me.

  1. My second toe is longer than my bigtoe, my third toe is the same length as my bigtoe. I’m a freak of nature.
  2. I have over 100 pictures hanging in my house, mostly saved from markets or junk yards. I haven’t counted them but I bought a packet of 100 hooks and ran out. Also, I’m fast running out of wall space.
  3. My birthday essentially starts with my first birthday card. Then I have my birthday. Then I’ll probably drag it out another week. Because, why not.
  4. Packing and organisation are my super powers. If you’re moving house, I’m your girl. If you need to fit a pile of stuff into the back of your car – move over.
  5. I suffer from this thing my family calls I-can-do-it-Kate Syndrome. If there’s something you can’t do (like taking a lid of a jar, for instance), I’ll be itching for a try.
  6. In my youth (in my youth! Crap, does that mean I’m no longer youthful!? Nooooooooo!) I could sit on my hair. People used to state, ‘Wow, your hair is really long’. It was profound.
  7. On that note, my favourite kind of humour is sarcasm.

 

 

Off the Back of NaBloPoMo

/ Kate Wally / 16 Comments

Or as we Tiny Peppers like to call it, Nano Poblano.

Or, as I’ve been calling it lately (today), NaNo Problemo.

So, Day 30. Here I am, I took you on. I won. The only day-fail coming off the back of an ice skating accident and taking my friend to Emergency. Friday the 13th and all. But I caught you up.

IN YOUR FACE, November. IN. YOUR. FACE.

*ahem*

So, where am I at? What will this mean? Has it changed my life?

Meh. Huh? Maybe.

Time will tell. Today, I feel I will blog more often, which honestly, is a stupid thing to say because blogging more often than I did before NoBloPoMo won’t exactly be a stretch. But, irrespective of whether I do or don’t – I know I can. I’ve blogged every day for a month. WOOT! Two years ago I didn’t think I’d ever do that, the very thought would have made me vomit.

Not literally. Obviously.

I’ve been forced to rein in my self editor (who’s normally brutal). And I’ve been posting with mistakes. I been posting without twenty-million re-reads. Without relying on my husband’s proof-reading.

Congratulations to those who took on NaBloPoMo and/or Nano Poblano and won. And congratulation to those who gave NaBloPoMo and/or Nano Poblano a go. There are no losers. You’re all amazing.

And I wish to thank you. All those people who’ve found me here during my thirty day blogging frenzy with special thanks to those who’ve taken the time to leave a comment. I have found new friends here.

And thank you, Ra. You have no idea how much awesome you make.

Truth of Lies

/ Kate Wally / 15 Comments

I’m feeling pensive.

As Nano Poblano draws to a close, I find myself looking back.  I used to write blogs and not post them. With Nano Poblano (or NaBloPoMo), I found myself ignoring my normal blog-filters and I wondered if there was one post which should have stayed in drafts. Sticks and Stones.

Over the last month, it was my most ‘silent’ post. Being the self-deprecating, panicking sort, I wondered if it was okay. I am alone in these thoughts? Did I offend people? Was I wrong to mention how I managed bullying at school? I don’t know.

This made me think about truth and lies and how sometimes they’re black and white and other times they’re grey.

In my post, the technique I used to survive bullying at school I related to an Aesop’s Fable. I went with the flow, I acted like I didn’t care, I played situations down. I acted like they didn’t happen.

I handle adult life in a similar way. I play the game. So long as I maintain my moral compass, I tend to be what people want me to be. It’s only when things I vehemently believe in are challenged and when that affects me, do I stand my ground. Everything else, I let go.

I play the game. A friend of mine says it’s not an honest game. I’m lying. By ignoring things that upset me, I’m pretending to be something I’m not.

She right, you know. It is dishonest in its own way.

But I’m me when it matters.

If you know me well, I’m me when I’m with you.

That’s the truth.

nanopoblano2015darkDay 28 of Nano Poblano!

[That’s Ra’s version of NaBloPoMo]

Two days left!!!!

 

Free* Conditions Apply

/ Kate Wally / 19 Comments

Free.

It’s such a strange and complex word for something so small and oddly similar to Fee.

Banker: Let’s talk about fees…

Client: How about I give you an ‘R’.

It looks weird too, especially if you stare at it for ten minutes while you  try to write a blog post but your brain has gone off track with random bank scenarios.

Free

I wonder sometimes, if we use the term ‘free‘ too freely. I wonder if we forget what it means.

To be clear, I’m not really talking about the free that is freedom. That is far too deep for Day 7 of Nano Poblano.

*deletes extensive brain tangent about the price some people pay for freedom*

This world offers us heaps of awesome, wondrous stuff that is free. Air is free, nature is free, clouds are free, the sky, water, rivers and wildlife are free, but only while we care for our surroundings.

Catalogues are not free. They cost money to print and the fancier they are, the more they cost to print. Consumers pay for this. We pay for gimmicks and any kind marketing when we buy the company’s products. We pay for ‘free gifts’ in the things we purchase to acquire them because businesses have to cover their costs.  Buying two brocolli to get another free is only free is you can eat three brocolli before you need to compost them.

Maybe I’m just cynical.

Free gifts are called presents, or donations or charity. If you love the ‘free gift’ or bonus thingywhatsit you get when you buy and you’re there for the ride – that’s great.

But it not free – it’s free*

*Conditions apply