Identity and a #BigWalk

The last few weeks, I have been having many late night discussions with some lovely call centre people in Manila. They were incredibly friendly and polite, but at the end of the day, they weren't able to help me fix my blog. I had to take my business elsewhere. While I did that, I also decided to change my blog address.

You see, I have big dreams. Big dreams, that are full of vivid colours, full of ideas and hopes that my little blog might one day have a direction. So, for the time being, it is going to seem I am having an identity crisis. My blog address says one thing, my blog is called BossyMummy, I have a BossyMummy Facebook page, but my twitter name is @RedDirtMum and my instagram identity is @reddirtblueskies. Confused yet? Me too. But until we make our move North, and I have a bit more time to devote to this, I think it is best to stay this way. A bit of a higgle-de-piggle-de mess, but quite representative of me!

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A few months ago, Glowless from Where's My Glow put a call out to Perth Bloggers and Tweeps (People Who Tweet) to get involved in the John Hughes Big Walk to raise money to support our local children's hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital.

We walked the 6km, I had thoughts of doing the 15km, as I had run a similar 14km course in May, but I am so grateful we didn't - it was one of the worst days Perth has had weather wise all year - rain, lightening, thunder and at one stage, hail. We were saturated, but still smiling!

Glow was walking for her friends young son Adam, who was there on the day and the team raised over $1400 for the cause. Glow's team was Adam's family and friends and some bloggers. Pretty awesome stuff. The total raised for the walk was over $225,000.

I want to give a big shout out to the other bloggers who walked on the day-

Yvette from Little Bento Blog

Feli from My Life in Mono

Rhonda from Silly Mummy

Emma from Easy Toddler Food

And Rachel who tweets at @rachiepie6

All fab Perth ladies, so check out their blogs.

After all that exercise, I definitely deserved a treat. So I had some of this pie my lovely friend made - wow! I think I needed to do a few more laps of the river!!!

Another fabulous lady is Jess. Jess hosts I Blog On Tuesdays and she has just launched a new blog - and she had a launch party with party hats and ducks and everything! Her blog is now Essentially Jess, so head on over to check out some great posts.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Happiness in a Weekend

Sometimes, I can have weeks on end of 'couch weekends' - you know, the weeks d where you don't venture out and only do the basic errands, but have no major events. Life has been like that for me for the past few months - and by no means isn't a bad thing to have that time to chill.
This weekend just gone however, was mahoosive (yep, new word alert!). It started off for me with Thursday night dinner at a Mexican sans child (woo hoo!) followed by the Tea Party gig. I was transported back to 1995 and loved every minute of it.




Jeff Martin from The Tea Party

Friday, I had a 'me' day. TBone looked after Master Z and I was able to have my hair done and spend the day shopping in Claremont - and I had a coffee and dessert that I got to finish to the end!

 

Saturday I had a birthday party for one of my beautiful mother's group friends followed by an engagement party for one of TBOne's friends from school. Sunday was then spent catching up with work friends in Freo.


But the HIGHLIGHT, was Friday night's Christmas in July for W.O.M.B.A.T. (that's 'Website, Online Media, Bloggers and Tweeps' for the uninitiated!) at Black Tom's. I was bricking it and very close to pulling out at the last minute. I was heading to an event with 25 other Perth bloggers, whom I had never met and only chatted to on a few occasions and I was petrified!


I had previously tweeted that I would most likely spend the night in the toilet - my go to place when I am uncomfortable - but I needn't have worried. The first person I met was Yvette from Delightfully Tacky Lil Squirts, who I speak to every Tuesday as a fellow #IBOT team member. She was lovely, bubbly and her conversation, mixed with some champers went a long way to helping me relax.

Yvette, Glow and Karen

There were several bloggers there that I have read from my first discovery of blogging and it was pretty intimidating and awesome at the same time to meet them. I was stoked to meet Glow from Where's My Glow?, who is as warm and funny as her blog and the beautifully serene Sarah from Dear Baby G, who has the most beautiful energy about her and is exactly how I imagined her from reading her words.

Georgia, Lani, Sarah, Catherine, Taryn

It was also lovely to meet Georgia, from Parental Parody, Taryn from This is Taryn, Feli from My Life in Mono, Kim - @RealJiveTurkey and Lani from Me & Boo - all blogs in my reader and I devour their words every morning.

Glow and Taryn

I met some other bloggers that I had not come across before, the gorgeous Karen from Yellow Dandy Dreams, Rhonda from Silly Mummy, and Cie from Pathetic to Pin Up - blogs I journeyed through on Saturday to catch up.
As with anything that involves a bit of wine, there were shinanegans, and I may have ended up in Leederville - where I was id checked for the second night in a row - woo hoo! Thank you to my two partners in crime - I had an awesome time getting to know you - and the random people we followed there because they showed an interest in our boxes.

Kim and Glow

Thank you so much to Colin from Superparents and the others who organized the event and the sponsor, Koo from Bubblerdeals for the beautiful Tiffany blue boxes full of goodies that were the envy of many other Black Tom's punters - particularly the guy below who we decided looked like David Brent in his music video.

David Brent?

I had a blast meeting everyone, some people I didn't get to, so will have to catch up next time and I can't wait to do it again!

My happiness cup was well and truly filled to the brim on the weekend!

Linking up today with Jess at Diary of a SAHM as its Tuesday!

New Kid on the Blog

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See what I did there??? Yep, the corny 90s shine through in my attempt at humour too! I am new to this blogging thing and I will say I have been surprised by the blogging community. From my experience in parenting, pregnancy and weightloss forums, I assumed the blogosphere would have a lot more negative inhabitants than it does. Sure, I have seen a few trolls that are clearly jealous of certain people and need to get a life, but overall it has been such a supportive, caring community to be part of. The disagreements I have seen have been respectful and constructively argued. I am sure there are a lot more that have happened in poor taste and have hurt the people involved, but I haven't seen that much evidence yet.


From what I have observed so far, it definitely seems that the blogging community can be likened to a village or school environment. There are the 'cool kids' that everyone wants to be. These cool kids are popular outside of the village as well. They have opportunities to promote themselves in the media and instead of any jealousy like that is seen in the school yard, there seems to be a respect that they are paving the way for the rest of us and are promoting blogging as an important social media tool. I think too, some of these bloggers are in this position as they are just so damn funny, witty and have a certain spark that everyone wants to be around.


There are the 'beautiful people' - the ones whose blogs are just stunning. There design is gorgeous, the photos are well composed and the pages are just awesome to look at. I scroll through the photos, dreaming wistfully of rooms in my house looking as bright and breezy and put together as the photos, then reality comes running into the room with vegemite on his face 


There are the quiet achievers. These are the ones who consistently publish amazing, insightful posts, but do it without too much fanfare or self promotion. Their posts are very well written and you know there is a novel waiting in the wings for all of them. I have found they are also often the most supportive and encouraging on other people's blogs. They are more than happy to share their knowledge and skills with others.


Then there are the class clowns - or court jester, depending which poorly contrived analogy of mine you are following. These bloggers post in a hilarious way about sometimes the most mundane of things and they have you laughing at every post. I love to go to these pages for that 2pm pick me up when I need a good laugh to get me through the rest of the day - but it is OK, if you are the court jester, you can sometimes have a serious post, it shows you are a balanced 'normal' person :o)


Then finally (but of course not limited too, just for the sake of this post...) there are the blogging 'geeks'. The one's who are really, really good at what they do. They get computers, they actually know about programming and not just where to turn your laptop on. They understand terms such as SEO and RSS feeds and their posts are often a great resource for the rest of us that are bumbling our way around our computer. They are PR and marketing savvy and are often able to actually carve out a living from this blogging caper. Imagine that! Many are not just about the technical side either. There are some wonderful bloggers that can do all of the above and also write creatively about their lives. 


Of course, like any village, not everyone is a nice, supportive person and some blogs I have stumbled across can be negative, moaning and just plain mean. You have the Esme Watson* gossips, Brooke and Taylor** bitchy cat fights and the Issy from Neighbours conniving. The beauty of the internet is that you can choose what you can click on and off and its very easy to not visit those sites.

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So even though there is such a variety of blogs out there, the blogosphere can be likened to a village. So many different personalities make up a village. There are similarities, similar passions, styles and ideals. It is also an eclectic bunch with as many differences. The one thing than shine's through though, is the sense of community and the support.

How do you find the village? Do you feel supported?

Chantel x

*Showing my age - A Country Practice gossip - think Colleen from Home and Away
**Surely you know who these two are!!!!
***Sorry for the blatant generalisation and labelling, made it easier to write.




Linking up today with I blog on Tuesdays with Jess at Diary of a SAHM