Day 7: Blog every day in May: The thing(s) you're most afraid of:

Look at me go – Day 7 of the 31 Day challenge and I am still keeping up.

There are hundreds of bloggers around the world taking part in the challenge this May and I am betting that any of them that are parents would say the thing they are most afraid of is anything happening to their children. We all want our children to live a harm free, peaceful and healthy existence. We also want to be there to share it with them.

There is nothing I am more afraid of then something happening to the owners of these feet.

But let’s say that you have to discuss the thing you are most afraid of but it CAN NOT relate to your children.

Hmmmmmmmmm

I would hate to have a TV show turn up at my house to surprise me with a prize or something. I would most likely be in my pajamas, there would likely be dishes in the sink and floors that needed cleaning and I wouldn’t have enough milk in the fridge to offer the camera crew a coffee – and the last bottle of wine would probably be sitting empty in the recycle bin*. It would not be a surprise I was happy to receive (unless it was a million dollars - any camera crew is welcome if they have a $1mill).

I also have a problem with throwing myself off a perfectly safe and stable surface. I see no reason for a sane person to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane, no reason to tie elastic to my ankles and dive head first into a river and no real reason to climb a rock wall that was not meant for walking on only so I can abseil down 1 km of rock face. Afraid - totally.

Would you invite Dr Harry to do a surprise house call at your place, or would you prefer to jump out of a plane? What else are you really afraid of.

*I am not a huge drinker, so we don’t keep much wine in the house, we have no cellar.

If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?

I have been stumped in answering this question before. 
Mr H and I were on our honeymoon in Borneo. He enjoys diving and we headed out on a boat for the day with some other people. I am not a diver, I am also not really into adventure sports. On this day I was going to be snorkelling above the reef and hopping in and out of the boat, hanging out on an island and pretty much enjoying my day.
Mr H had to team up with someone else and they flipped themselves off the boat in all their tanks and flippers etc. Everyone had a great time. I lost 5 kilos from the fear that I would be eaten by a shark or left to drown out on the reef when I floated too far from the boat, but other than that it was fun.
Then at lunch, the woman who had kindly offered to partner Mr H, and her female companion asked me "So if you don't dive, you don't camp out on mountains like Kota Kinabalu, you don't mountain bike, you don't snow board,  what is it exactly that you do - because it doesn't seem like you two are a good match?"
I sat there thinking.
Then I sat there worrying.
I do nothing was all that was going through my head.
Of course I worked, I went to the gym, I went out with friends, I loved books. But that was nothing to these adrenalin junkies backpacking the world. They seemed rather sad for Mr H. He was fun, exciting and wonderful and I was just this little blonde nothing thing. 
Eight years later I am much more confident and would probably ask them if they actually had many friends as they didn't seem like the people many others would like to hang around with, and yep, that is probably why your husbands LEFT YOU.

So if they asked me today, I would say:
 I like to do little things that make a difference to someones day.  I am social. I visit new destinations. I get to know other people and hear about their lives. I am a part of my local community and involved with what's happening. I like to learn new things and read books by new authors. I attend pilates for the injured where women cry at how their bodies are failing them. I dance (around the kitchen). I look after my children and provide them everything they could possibly need  and then throw them a fantastic birthday party on top of that.  Then I blog the lot. 

What about you? What do you do? 

This is what makes me uncomfortable

The question is, what makes you uncomfortable?

The obvious answer for everyone is, bad undies. Undies that are the wrong cut or that give a wedgie. Really pure discomfort.

Or maybe it isn't the obvious answer for you.

There are other times I am uncomfortable.

There are the times I put my jeans in the dryer in a hurry to get them ready to wear out and burn myself with the heat on the steal metal points on the pockets. Yep, that was uncomfortable.

Blood tests are uncomfortable, and even more so when you faint when you have them. This is also uncomfortable if you hit the floor quickly.

Telling the school Mums that you are a blogger. A whatter? That's uncomfortable too. Makes you get all nervous and sweaty and worried they will google you and find all sorts of random stuff you have written and think you are officially crazy.

Public speaking - TOTALLY uncomfortable. Especially if you think the room is full of people that are smarter than you, or worry they will see how nervous you are, your hands shaking and even worse, the thing that makes me really uncomfortable, people asking a question when you are speaking, then again if no one asks a question at question time, the silence is, well uncomfortable.

How do you answer the question: what makes you uncomfortable?

Whimsical is not used enough.

There are sayings all over the Internet telling you the best way to live. Finding a favourite is impossible, but that is my task for today in the 30 day blogging challenge.

You are likely to have heard some of Mary Oliver's words before, but this is one I like to see pop up.


“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”

― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese


Now go be a little whimsy!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

How to enable restrictions on an iPod.

When you work in social media there are lots of questions that come up about online safety. Mainly from parents about protecting their kids.

I am often asked by people if I can provide some assistance with how their children are using social media and I am certainly happy to help.

The absolute first thing I think parents should do before handing over an ipod or a smart phone to a child is this.

Learn how to use it. It really isn't hard. Your small child is teaching themselves how to do it. But if you are not going to learn how to use it then you should at least do this:

GO TO

Settings

General

Restrictions

Enable Restrictions

Then you simply put in a pin number - don't tell your child this number- but if you have a few children you can use the same number or you can use something else (I like something relating to their birthday).

See all those things that say 'ON' you just swipe it with your finger to "OFF".

This will put you back into some level of control about what is going on. This is the area you go to manage what your child can and can't access.

When I "Lock Up" a child's iPod I like to ensure a couple of things are  addressed first.

1) Location Services

You don't want your children sharing where they are all the time (if ever) but you do want to be able to find the iPod if they lose it (which is why you should also have the Find My Phone App on the device)

 

Simply turn on Location Services by swiping to ON - I do this for my own apps all the time. Then go to each thing that you want to turn on and off. You can have some on and some off and pop back and change them whenever you like.




2) Apps

On a child's ipod I would swipe this to OFF

My eldest child is 7, so I have her iPod set at 4+, this means that there are lots of things she can't get access to. Too bad. I have set my nieces iPod to 9+ as she is now 10 years old.  This means if they do happen to download anything or access any sites that are not classed as appropriate for children of either 4 or 9 years old, it won't work.  I am not going to tell you they haven't tried to get me to change this, they both have. But, I am not budging.

As far as I know, there isn't a single social media app that allows children under 12 to access it. Not Kik, not Keek, not Instagram, not facebook, not Vine...


In the enable restrictions area you can customise quite a bit, very easily, just turn it on or off as you please.

Lastly, to ensure no one in the house gets woken up by overnight messages, in Settings, just hit the Do Not Disturb button on too.

This post was encouraged by the prompt: Educate us on something you know about from Blog Everyday in May

A challenge to myself: Blog everyday in May

Sometimes I like to give myself a personal challenge. Some of you would make a challenge a physical thing, like run a marathon, which just isn't my thing. Others will find giving something up a challenge, but I find the give up things challenge pretty easy. No alcohol for a month - easy, no chocolate - harder, but still easy. But doing something and staying committed to it every day for a month, I find that really hard. You need to find the time. EVERY DAY.

Anyway, I have decided to give it a go to Blog Every Day in May. But not just any old blogs, I will be following the daily prompts from this list here.

Clearly, I have missed the first few days so I have to make up for them, plus I might have even more to say on some days and actually post twice, which might annoy some of you who think that a blog post from me twice a week is already enough.

But, I am going to give it a try anyway.

Now that you know what I am doing, here is the first challenge: Which is harder than it sounds...250 words is not a lot.



Day 1, Wednesday: The story of your life in 250 words or less (or one paragraph... no one will be counting your words... probably)

I was born in a private Catholic hospital in Melbourne.

My parents moved around a little bit, not for any real reason, just because there were better opportunities, and more fun to be had at the next destination, so I attended four schools in all before I hit university. When I was ten we moved to the country and I had a love hate relationship with it from the start. I hated my new school, but found new friends on the bus, I hated horses, but loved lambing season. I hated being so far from the city but loved the space we had to roam around in.

After uni I headed to the big city and worked in finance marketing for a while, I headed to Europe and backpacked around on my own, then went back again two years later and then went to Ireland for a year to work and play.  I just wasn’t all that settled in Melbourne, and probably would have ended up in Europe permanently but by this stage I had also met Mr H. We hooked up, got married, had two kids, got ourselves a picket fence and a mortgage and after working here, there and everywhere I now work for a private Catholic hospital in Melbourne – yes, the very same one!

UNBLOGGED - Anglesea - AUGUST 2013

We had such a fun time getting unbloggy a couple of months ago that I am organising another weekend.

What is this Unblogged I speak of?

It is a weekend for people interested in blogging and social media in general to meet up and talk all things related to the industry. The weekend is relaxed, it has no meetings to attend, no workshops or seminars. There are no obligations to tweet, instagram, facebook, review or share anything at all.

But you can if you like.

No invitation is required, if you want to meet and hang out with people who love social media, than you are welcome to attend.

You can come on your own, bring a friend, your family, whatever works for you.

Why?

Often bloggers or social media managers (like me) work in teams of one. We work from home or in the back office under the stairs. When we have networking opportunities they are usually sponsored by someone else and can come with obligations. Also, you never know who will be there to chat with and for how long. Other conferences might be more formal with lots of workshops etc. They are also big and can be intimidating for some people. Getting unblogged is just about going away for the weekend and chatting to other like minded people.


Enough with the chatter, just tell me the details.....

This time we are hitting the coast - in Winter.

Friday 9 August and Saturday 10 August 2013
ANGLESEA VICTORIA

Big 4 Anglesea is the place to book.

The phone number is 5263 1640

There are cabins - new and older versions, there are camping spots and jumping pillows. There is a pool and there are kangaroos.

When you call to book in, you can ask to speak to Jess or tell them you are after the Unblogged Group Package:

Two nights in a 2 bedroom unit for a family of four - $270 
Two nights in a 3 bedroom unit for a family of 6 - $350 

Camping does not have a two night minimum, it is $40 for 2 people and $10
extra per person OR a package: Two nights on a powered site for up to 6 people $90.


Depending on what you prefer, there is a facebook group or a Google + group that you can join to keep up with all the news, connect with others or discuss any issues. Otherwise, just leave a comment and I will answer any questions. 



Hope to see you there!

Calling the favourites

There isn't a lot of stuff on the box that I just really love to watch. There is nothing that I miss and must try and catch up on at another time.

Except for Call the Midwife.

Every now and then a show comes along that I just fall in love with. They are shows that I want other people to watch with me, but at the same time, I don't want anyone to talk in case I miss a single second of the story.

I love any show that tells me a bit about history from a personal point of view, with characters that I think I would have liked to have been friends with. Stories that make me think about how I would have handled a situation had I been placed in the world at that precise point in time. Just what would life be like post war, in hard economic times minus the technology that we now consider so very basic, like constant to water. I love the one liners that are smart and fun from Trixy, how Jenny is so contained when you know she is so shocked at the situation and how the nuns are able to surprise you with their solutions to find the best ending.

Mix all this with actors that seem born to play the parts, costumes that represent the time accurately and I am hooked. I watch each Sunday night and it feels like I am catching up with my new friends. Then the series ends.

There is a big sigh from me and a simple hope that the series will return another day. I don't go and buy the DVD box set because even when I love the show, I have seen it.

The void needs to be filled with books instead. I have never been a part of a book club, but I just finished a book and all I could think afterwards was "what would I have done? " and "why was that particular story line a part of the story, it could have been totally left out and the book would have been just the same?". I would have really liked to have had a few others to chat to about the book, to know if they enjoyed it as I did and what they think they would have done. The book is called The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty, and if you are a part of a book club, it's an easy read that has some twists and turns along the way, could be a fun one to discuss.

Are you in a bookclub or are such things way too dorky for you. Are you too cool for Call the Midwife or do you love it like I do?

 

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