So, What’s it All About Then?

I  hear that question in my head every time I think about my blog.

It’s a normal question, a natural reaction to the news that someone is blogging. But over the last few days I’ve realised it is easier for me to address the question with a series of answers best described as “what its not”. And that bothered me to the point that I dusted off my long neglected "business skills" *insert raised eyebrow smilie here!* and created a mind map of categories I might use for the blog. It was challenging, but fun to isolate topics, make the connections between them, and finally see, on paper, a better idea of areas that interest me enough to write about and publish online.

In brief, this blog will fall into two main areas

–                          Family, with themes relating to Expat life, Growing up in Northern Ireland, Kids, Health, & Household stuff including recipes.

–                          Creative Arts related themes including Book reviews & Music.

However, I’ve also realised that it is probably worth stating a few things that I don’t want the blog to be.

I’m not making any money from it, and I’m not a blogging expert so it should never be taken as any more than my personal opinion.

If I like a product or service, I might mention it here and provide links but this blog is not monetised. And by the way, I do have products, services, musicians etc that I am hugely supportive of and there will be a few Fangurl moments, but I don’t receive any remuneration or other benefits for them beyond my own desire to support them.

A more grey area is the challenge to keep the blog personal without making my family, in particular my children, vulnerable in any way. I’m not sure how exactly to do that, given the power of search engines and social network sites etc, but their names will never be published in my blog, and I’ll work the rest out as I go along.

And finally, this is not going to be my online punch-bag when something or someone is bugging me. 

Neither is it a form of self-imposed “therapy”.

I won’t only post positive, happy stuff coz I’m no Pollyanna, but equally it won’t be all doom and gloom or “woe is me”. For me, keeping it real is as important online as it is in the tangible world.

Yeah, I probably could have said all this more succinctly, and I’m probably just about to…  This blog will be a series of realistic snapshots about my life, the good and the bad as well as the bleh.

I’ve done some interesting things, met some famous people, been involved albeit on the periphery, in some historical events, and I’m a stay at home mum of 2 kids who hasn’t earned any money or done a “proper” job in the last 15 years. 

So it is a case of leaping from the sublime to the ridiculous, with all the boring bits sandwiched between.

What follows are my reflections on my world, and I’m sharing them with anyone who cares to read them. I welcome your comments, and look forward to hearing from you if you either agree or disagree strongly with any of the content. 

Now that wasn't so hard was it...

I'm still here :D  And I've even gained a few followers overnight which is great news!

I'd love to post a better introduction to myself, my family, the purpose of my blog, and the sort of categories, topics, opinions that you can expect in coming months. But, in reality that's not me. For the moment I'm going with the flow. And today  is all about family.

 Its my son's birthday, my parents arrived this week, and my husband heads off on a business trip on Monday. So its all go here today. Did I mention that we might be expecting 10 people to turn up any time now for a BBQ. I say "might" coz I'm not sure if there will be 2 or 10...   but we have enough food to feed an army, and the fridge is full of beer & wine so What the Heck!  Crazy house time.

And I love it. Days like this are what what being a mum is all about for me. Three generations playing on the Wii together, my first ever attempt at a pavlova sitting dolefully on the kitchen top while my mum finds the nicest way to word her suggestion that we try to do something creative with it, and most of all, the bubble of love, reinforced by laughter, which is keeping out the realities of everyday stuff. These days don't happen too often, but I for one appreciate them when they come around.  Everything else can wait....   until tomorrow

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Ok I have finally done it. I have taken the first step and signed up for this blog. I'm not sure exactly what I will post here, or how often...
But I finally took a big dose of "catch yerself on" as they say in my part of the world, and realised that the biggest obstacle to my implementing change is myself.

The realisation that for the last few years my life is always about other people, and that I have been comfortable hiding behind that, using it as an excuse not to face challenges has finally spurred me on. Initially my reasoning was thus: "Oh I can't work here coz its too hard to get a work permit", which  I stemmed briefly with 2 years studying. But then I found a new mantra 'Oh the kids are too young, I need to be at home for them". Since then there have been countless projects  undertaken: from bed-covers and jewellery design to the more recent foray into web design, voluntary fan-forum management, and helping friends get started with social media platforms for their businesses.

Smokescreens one and all. Each and every one has been a foil for the fact that, in the past few years anyway, I've been too scared to step back out there, into the real world. The world where your work is given a monetary value and consequently there are real expectations attached to it.

Finally I can admit this to myself, and to any readers out there who aren't just on the page coz they are family (Hi Mum! LOL ) that "The workplace" has changed dramatically since I checked in at the airport with 100kgs of luggage to bring me to my new home, new fiancee and new start on literally the other side of the world.

And basically, I'm not good at failing. I've never been good at failure. So the fear of being found wanting in relevant skills, or knowledge, or aptitude to learn has held me back. But now, it is also what spurs me on, because that little groove of fear has got too comfortable and even I have seen that something needs to change. And the change has to happen soon, before the groove starts to spiral inwards on an irreversible downward path.

So yes, here goes.  A big deep breath, a glance over the precipice. It's time to step off that cliff and hope that I can still fly.

And one final comment - I'll start the real blog tomorrow ;)