I love it when I hear from new readers to my blog, and I like it even more when they seem to relate to the stuff I churn out this side.
I realise I am not the soft lighting Living and Loving Mom with the happy gurgling baby (only because they have turned down my numerous requests for a photo shoot and styling ideas ……) nor am I the happier than happy cookie cutter mom you can google.
I get why someone likes a happy person, but I realise I am just not happy folk – faking happy leaves me exhausted and usually clutching a large bottle of Chenin in the corner with a bendy straw.
But nonetheless even angry resentful people like to be shown a bit of love on occasion.
I got a “Hello” from mom305.wordpress.com - who is a new blogger and she gave me a little blogger love/pimping in the form of a “Thanks for Writing” Blog Award.
Part of this kind of thing is to create relationships between bloggers. To find out new invasive information and to also introduce readers to new bloggers out there. So it is all good.
It is blogging’s equivalent of a chain mail letter, just without the threat of anal leakage if you do not pass it on. I am more than happy to pass this one along and spread the love.
So my end of the deal is to share some stuff with you:-
Include the award logo in your post or on your blog - here I am going to amend slightly. I love blog awards, but if the graphic is lacking,then I sort of give it a little spruce up.
So I am including the existing image as supplied to me:
And then I improved (or destroyed depending on your frame of reference) and created an amended/new one – so if you are here to grab the image, please feel free to us the original or the one I created and am using:
Say 7 random things about yourself that the readers don’t know yet
This might be a bit difficult as I tend to tell you everything including my toilet routine, but here goes:
1. I have Micophonia which is a strong reaction to sound – specific sounds. Doors slamming, someone chewing, rattling of windows and so on – the sound takes over everything and gets so loud in my head that my teeth literally get put on edge. It is more common than you think, with no known cure. The only possible assistance is CBT and to keep up your anxiety medication.
2. I am so excited that Linkin Park is coming to Cape Town. I normally am less than arsed to go to a show, I am normally more than happy to get the live DVD, but I will make Linkin Park the exception. So going to that concert.
3. I have been on sleep medication since September last year. It has literally changed my life. I take medication to make me go to sleep, and medication to keep me asleep. It has wonders to manage my anxiety, stress and depression. Cannot recommend it enough.
4. I used to bite my nails right down to the quick – that little half-moon in your nail. I have always bitten my nails. In 1999 I went along to Dream Nails and put an acrylic set and kept it maintained for a year. It broke the habit. But, I have to keep my nails long, as when I cut them short I tend to start putting them in my mouth and nibbling on them. So, I have long nails but the only reason is to stop me biting them – strange but true.
5. I give blood – and I hate needles, like throw up hate. I go along, and then look the other way from when they do the pin prick on your finger to when they put the needle in to take blood. I really feel violently ill and scared when I see the needles, so I just don’t look. The blood transfusion bank also put a cover over my arm so I do not have to see anything.
6. I really love my little Boston Terrier – but the fact that he is not getting toilet training is doing my head in.
7. I have discovered Red Velvet cake this year and I am so very glad we got introduced — and then eat the entire thing like a crazed lunatic cake eater!
Nominate 5 – 10 other Blogs you admire …..
This one is going to be particularly difficult because I have been on a social media and blog black out for a few months.
It was nothing personal it was purely because I had started to blur the line between what was important and what was other people’s stuff.
I needed to get some space and focus my head in my stuff. I had a total rock bottom crash last year, and one of the factors was definitely my inability to rationalise between what was really related to me and all the other noise that exists on the internet, and how I processed it.
But that being said, I am happy to PIMP blogs that popped in to my head — but I do wish to apologise that I do not follow them as much as I used to, and I avoid commenting even though I lurk around you and you just don’t know it.
The kicking single motherhood up the arse Charlotte over at http://thestilettomum.wordpress.com/
The wry and brilliant Countess Kaz over at http://countesskaz.wordpress.com/
The spectacular and often-makes-me-sniff-back-snot Sharon over at http://www.theblessedbarrenness.co.za/
The legendary and awesome Laura at http://www.harassedmom.co.za/
The how-the-hell-does-she-keep-it-all-together Cat over at juggelingactoflife.blogspot.com/
The super model beautiful and talented Natasha over at http://www.littleandbunny.blogspot.com/
I could go on for quite a while. If I did not mention you I am sure that one of the above bloggers will when they do their own PIMP list.
Thanks for the props Mom305.
If other bloggers wish to pick this up and pass it along, here is a quick should-do list:
1. Include the award logo in your post or on your blog
2. Say 7 random things about yourself that the readers don’t know yet
3. Nominate 5 – 10 other blogs you usually follow
4. Let the nominees know that they are nominated & include their blog-links
5. Link the person who nominated you
The dilemma of bloggers and blog readers everywhere …..
I think this image accurately depicts the “trauma” all bloggers and blog readers go through.
I have got much braver about commenting on blogs in the last year.
I know in the beginning I was all wide-eyed and red-faced at the very thought of commenting on some cool person’s blog. I would read the post in awe, and then sit there and think “I can’t comment, I can’t think of anything clever to say …. everything sounds so naff….” and then I would sit there.
I have a similar problem with Facebook and then often my “comment” runs through my mind so much and I evaluate then re-evaluate, and then try to think what the person will read, that it becomes so “paralysing” that I go back and delete it.
I think Mommy Bloggers have it a bit harder than most .. but I can only speak as a Mommy Blogger.
Blogging can be very cliquey (is that the correct spelling?) and there is some inherent bitchiness, and new bloggers compete to be noticed, and there is always the “IT” blogger whose attention everyone is vying for. <<it by the way is not me, in the event you needed some guidance on that issue>>
Or am I just reading a bit more in to it than it actually is?
I think blogging does start as a personal vomit about your shit, and that is why people read it. A bit like slowing to look at a car accident and gawking at the blood spatter and seeing if you can see the injured person in the ambulance – or am I the only person who does this?
The problem with “blog traffic” is that at some point you stop writing about what you really think and how you feel, but you start to write what appears to be “popular” and then you lose the plot from there. Or so I think at any rate.
I am as guilty of that as much as the next person of being aware that someone is reading this now, so maybe I need to tailor what I say.
It is sometimes difficult to stick to your opinion and put your neck out on an issue when you realise the “popular” discussions are going in another direction. So as much as I want to say what I think, I do start to question how acceptable it will be to put it out here, or there. And then I start to think too hard about what I say, and who I say it to.
And then I just become a cookie-cutter blog ….. sad but true. Don’t you love social paranoia?? It rocks!
<< apologise for not being able to credit this image, I dropped it on my desktop ages ago, and unfortunately there was no reference on it …. so apologise for no credit on the image>>
Posted by reluctantmom on January 11, 2012
http://reluctantmom.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/the-dilemma-of-bloggers-and-blog-readers-everywhere/