So here we go again, version 3. Due to technical difficulties with my tablet, lack of techy knowledge and what not I haven’t been active for a while. But I’m back now! Hopefully my shiny new toy (Santa came early and got me an iPad) will mean I can be more active and genuinely achieve what I wanted to when I started, you know, the first time round.
So raise your glasses, here’s to new beginnings. Again.
The world can be a big, scary place sometimes. It’s full of bad people, and bad things. But just when the dark clouds are forming and you start to fear for humanity, a ray of sun can shine through.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the various Facebook posts out there highlighting heroic acts and bravery, and I mean not to belittle them in anyway whatsoever. They are heroes. But what I’m talking about is the little things that we take for granted.
Last week I suffered from an awful ear infection (and once again fell behind with blogging101!) but it meant that my left ear became completely blocked. I could hear hardly anything out of it, and it made me a bit wobbly. I made an appointment with the nurse to have my ear syringed, which was a most odd experience, but it resulted in this hallelujah moment when my ear was finally unblocked and I could hear fully again. I sat in the nurses chair and could hear the fan whizzing on the computer, the sound of the door snugly returning to its lock, and the birds outside. Walking home I had the biggest grin on my face, like a child discovering ice cream for the first time, and I vowed to myself that I would not again take the little things for granted. In fact now I’m sat in the garden in the lovely sunshine with a cup of tea, just listening. Yes, I can hear the main road and the kids in next doors garden. But really listen. There’s a whole world out there, just waiting to be heard. Go listen.
So, day 4 into the blogging 101 course and I’m already behind (I seem to remember this happening before! At least I’m consistent). This is about as far as I’ve got with it before, so I have previously written the dream reader blog, I’m gonna try to include a link to it at the end of this post, have a read of it if you fancy. I’m going to use this post to consolidate the blogging 101 tasks 2-4, to ensure I’m fully caught up and ready for tomorrow.
Task 2 had us address our tag line; Outdoors mum, the adventure that is family life. Having chose this previously, I’m still pretty happy with it, as I hope to blog (more!) about family life and the adventures we get up to, and to be able to connect with other like minded folk.
Whilst I have fallen behind with my posting I have still logged on daily and followed the tag, so I was able to partake in task 3 with a bit more ease (reality; 10 minutes online whilst the kids were watching TV and I was meant to be doing the housework!) it had us follow new topics and blogs, which was good, but reading another bloggers post I was inspired, and, like her, actually found myself deleting topics to narrow down and focus my newsfeed. It was refreshing.
Then to toady, task 4, my dream reader. I think I wrote a pretty darn good dream reader post first time round (if I do say so myself ;)) which is why I want to include a link to it here. I hope you read it … It could be you!!
So, blogging 101! But first, I must confess. I have previously signed up for this course, but didn’t manage to get that far with it, which was purely my fault, as life got too hectic and I didn’t allow it the time it deserves. This time round though, I plan to thoroughly indulge myself and tackle it head on.
Life is hectic for 2 reasons; my gorgeous two girls. Big is nearly 6 and small will be turning 2 within days. As my User name suggests, I want to use this blog to document our adventures as a family and connect us with other like minded folk.
I’ve deliberately not copied and pasted my original ‘blogging 101’ post, but I don’t want to ramble on too much longer knowing that I am repeating myself and bits I’ve said before. Now, if I were more knowledgeable I might be able to post a link to that original post. But I’m not, well, not yet anyway. But that’s what this whole course is about, so lets do it!
The latest blogging 101 challenge was to write a post to your perfect reader. I find this challenging for two reasons; I’ve fallen behind (already!) as the end of this week just got crazy busy for me, and also, wtf?! My perfect reader?
Perhaps it’s because, as I’ve already said, I’m not in it for the hoards of followers and the comments. I want to be a part of something online that’s as meaningful as real life. People I would sit down with and have a coffee and a natter with.
I realise I’m in danger of sounding aloof or high and mighty. I am not. I don’t like change. I don’t like new things. I’m of the opinion that I’ve got enough friends. But then I go and surprise myself, and find out that by actually letting my barriers down and letting people in, they turn out to be pretty awesome and amazing. And I need to do this more often.
So I guess that’s it, my perfect reader is my friends, old and new, so stick with me, we can do amazing things x
It also said we had to something new, so here’s a picture of some cake we could have with our coffees.
Today’s homework was to sort out your name and tag line. I chose my name as the original name I wanted was already taken; I’d started adding the hash tag #busymomma to a lot of my tweets, but also found I was growing frustrated with Twitter and its character limitations. I was going to start a busymomma blog, as a lot of my tweets were about what me, big and small were getting up to. But alas no, the name was taken, so I had to think on my feet.
I’m glad I did. Outdoorsmum describes me much better! I’ve enjoyed doing outdoorsy stuff from a young age, and find myself wanting to pass on that enjoyment and introduce my girls to the outdoors. But alongside that, the majority of my time is spent as mum, doing and saying things I never thought I would. I throw down a mean hokey cokey, know
all the words to frozen and give a rather dramatic reading of the gruffalo. It’s refreshing and reassuring to know that there are others out there too.
Alright, not really my first blog, but the first as part of the blogging 101 course being run this month. In my original first post I tried to identify the reasons for my blog, why I was writing it, which I wasn’t too sure on. But since posting 5 or so blogs I’m coming to realise what it is that I enjoy about them.
When I was 10 my best friend and I would save our pocket money and buy pens and notebooks and interview several, patient parents in our young, journalistic careers. And this feels similar, reporting upon my days in a light hearted way. So it’s not for follows, or comments, it’s to get things written down, maybe not even as they happen, because life gets busy sometimes.
There are two big reasons why my life gets busy and hectic at times, and that is big and small, my daughters. Big one is 5 years old, and small one is 18 months. They are my world. My loves. My everything. And my blog tells of our adventures, our ups and downs along the way as they learn about life and teach me a thing or two along the way … join us??!!
I’ve signed up for the blogging 101 course, and am rather impatiently waiting for it to start. But then it hit me, I could still write this even though the course hasn’t started yet. Sometimes I see things specifically in black and white, and lack the multicoloured, unrestricted viewpoint of youth. Which is odd, considering how much of my time is spent around a 5 year old.
And it is she who joined me on Friday for a lovely day out to the cinema and shops. We live in the sticks, so it’s a 30 minute car journey to the nearest big town with cinema and chain retailers. I haven’t been to the cinema in 2 years, so I was quite excited, even though it wasn’t exactly my choice of movie. And it was only her second time to the cinema, and this time she was allowed popcorn! So good times all round.
Then a trip out for lunch, which I was able to enjoy whilst it was hot as 1 year old was in nursery, allowing me to focus on myself for a tiny little while. It was lovely to have the time, entirely focused upon big one, to indulge her and listen to her world, and find out what’s going on.
And that’s just it. As much as I would have preferred to have been climbing a mountain with her, or taking her climbing, for her a trip to the cinema is equally exciting. It’s that fine balance between introducing her to the life we try to lead and the life a 5 year old needs to lead. We’ll get there. I hope!
My best friend is expecting her first child in April next year, and whilst I’m sharing in her excitement, I’m also finding it hard not being ‘that friend’ that knows everything, issues prescriptive advice and believes her children are absolutely perfect. But my friend has no other friends who have kids, so she is looking to me for advice. So I thought I’d get it all written down here.
To be honest, the first few days home from hospital with your firstborn aren’t too hard, especially if the dad is around and can have some time off work. He can take shifts and let you to sleep once baby is nursed, or even take a shower or have a bath. Luxury. There are two adults vs one baby. Someone can be doing something productive whilst the other watches the baby. Even fighting with a scary poopy nappy at 3am seems easier when there’s two of you involved.
But then there comes a time when you need to leave the house. Food shopping. Drs appointments. Registering the birth. And this is when it hit me, 5 years ago, that life had changed. Staying at home, in our new baby bubble, we did fine. But venturing out into the world, a world that doesn’t stop or change just because you did something like having a baby, that’s when I realised that it would never be the same again.
We were 20 minutes late for our appointment with the registrar to register the birth. As we were putting little one in her all in one suit on we were hit with a waft of poop. It required an immediate, complete outfit change. And damn it, she did another one, about 25 minutes later as we sat down in the registrars office after adamantly apologising several times for being late. And it was a stinker.
I can’t wait to meet my friends little lady, but I need to allow her the space to make her own story, and look forward to hearing all her disaster tales. After all, babies are resilient little beings, it’s us adults that add the stress and social awkwardness to these situations.
Tonight I sat down with a lovely young lady and was able to catch up with all the gossip. Important things, like what Alexandra (bff) is getting for Christmas, why Olaf is the best snowman ever and how the robin red breasts are actually Santas little messengers checking you’re still being good in the run up to Christmas.
The young lady in question was my 5 year old daughter, who is most delightful (obviously I’m biased). But whenever she stays with my parents or babysitters, everyone always says how wonderful she is. So instead of rushing around doing housework and getting frustrated with all of her cries for attention, tonight we kicked back, grabbed a cuppa and some colouring pens and coloured in some delightful festive scenes. And it was wonderful.
outdoorsmum 