Something to Share

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Posted on September 7, 2016

Tonight I want to share a Facebook post that popped up on my newsfeed.

“As someone with Aspergers, as well as someone who knows several other people on the Autistic Spectrum, I find it unfathomable as to how the anti-vaccination movement can find a mind like mine so appalling that they feel justified in risking their child being crippled or killed by preventable diseases like Polio and Whooping Cough…..

Not to mention the suggestion that vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorders are linked is unfounded rubbish.”

The intelligent young man who penned these words happens to have Asperger’s Syndrome and is my nephew.

Busy Being Frugal

Some Random Stuff

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Posted on February 13, 2015

There is no real theme to this post – hence the title.

A couple of years ago I wrote this post about the highs and lows of social media. One of the wonders of it is the ability to easily connect with family and friends. Today I have spent some time setting up a group for my cousins and other extended family. This will allow us to keep in touch across vast distances and generations. The catalyst was a seed of an idea to organise a get-together on the centenary of our grandfather’s arrival at Gallipoli. He was not with the first landing on April 25th 1915 but it was significant for our family as a sequence of events that followed this led to him spending time in England where he met his future wife (our grandmother). I already have feedback from far and wide which simply would not have been possible without Facebook.

As I was taught at school – “new thought, new paragraph”………

The decluttering continues – I have a small bag of a few more things that will be leaving the sewing room. I generally keep a plastic supermarket bag on the bag of the door in the sewing room and add anything that I find and then drop it off to the op shop when the bag is full. I also have 2 small cartons of books which we sorted from the bookshelves last month. They have been sitting on the floor next to the bookcases waiting for me to get organised and find a new home for them. I have listed them on a couple of local buy/swap/sell sites as well as Freecycle but if I don’t get a taker by the end of the weekend I think they will be going to the op shop as well. It is a difficult task to balance the desire to have things gone and not hanging around, against finding the perfect home for them. How do you manage this conundrum when decluttering?

I have also set up a ‘Decluttering’ tab at the top of my blog. Check it out if you are interested.

Finally, I just wanted to share these couple of photos with you today. In my next life, I think I will be a dog………….

or maybe, a cat!

These photos were taken at about 4.30pm and the cat has been on that chair ALL DAY!

The weather is not looking fabulous here – in fact it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale so I am not sure what the weekend will bring. I hope you have a fabulous weekend wherever you are.

Sexism, Sadness and Simplicity

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Posted on November 17, 2014

The catalyst for writing this post came in the form of a post on a friend’s Facebook page where she posted a link to this article. While the ‘extreme grooming’ that is described in the article is about a television presenter, it can be seen every day in our offices and shops.

Then just to top it off I found another link via Facebook about the ‘social experiment’ conducted by Karl Stefanovic. He wore the same suit every day for a year – and no-one noticed. This was his silent protest to highlight the way his female co-hosts were constantly judged and critiqued on what they wore and their hairstyles.

These articles in the media highlight the unreasonable pressures and expectations that society has on women in general and more specifically women who are constantly in the spotlight such as television presenters. It saddens me to realise how much of this pressure is on women in all walks of life.

There have been small, incremental steps to break down these ‘societal norms’ but we must all be a part of the solution if things are really to change. The Little Brown Dress project by Alexa Martin in 2005 – 2006 chronicled her anti-consumerism stance in which she wore the same dress every day for a year. Like Karl Stefanovic, no-one really noticed. Project 333, is loosely based on the same principle – have a small number of clothes that you wear and love and realise that the world mostly does not care what you wear. Anyway, none of us should be defined by the clothes we wear.

To return to the first link in this post, make-up and grooming are yet another facet of us feeling the expectation that we have to present ourselves to the world in a certain way.

I have never been a great fan of make-up and tend to keep my make-up to an absolute minimum. I no longer colour my hair and have a small but much-loved selection of clothes. My clothes fit my lifestyle and I feel good in them.

What about you? Do you feel pressured to present a certain face to the world? Does your workplace have an expectation of how you are groomed?

Social Media – Splendid or Scourge

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Posted on January 11, 2013

Social media is essentially a phenomenon of the 21st century. It may be Facebook, Twitter, a forum relating to your special interest or the millions of blogs, just like this one that are out there in cyberspace. There are very few people who do not have same interaction with their cyber ‘friends’.

Patty Beecham has eloquently captured the essence of the type of conundrum which confronts many social media users at times. Here is a short article which was published in the ‘Courier Mail’ (Brisbane newspaper) today. Yes, I am friends with Patty on Facebook and I know her in real life also.

These various forms of communication and interaction via the internet have grown exponentially over the past 15 years and taken on a life of their own. There are no etiquette guides on how to deal with the plethora of situations you may face as a result of involvement in social media. Maybe it is time to ‘write’ your own book of do’s and don’t’s for social media use to get you thinking about how you might deal with some of the challenging situations that could arise. Think about the ‘what if’s?’

If you look at the right-hand side of this blog, you will see that I have 140 ‘followers’ of my ramblings. There are some of my closest friends and family and others whom I feel I know through their thoughtful and supportive comments. Some religiously read every new post that I publish, others drop in occasionally and still more have probably forgotten that they even hit the button to follow. I am not too hung up about how many followers I have or who they may be.

I have a Facebook account which I use to publish my blog posts, play Scrabble and keep in touch with a few friends. At the other end of the scale I know of people who collect Facebook ‘friends’ like trophies. Some have over 1,200 friends and personally know perhaps 100 or so.

Social media certainly has its place if used wisely. The internet was the initial contact with some of my best friends. I am very grateful because it is unlikely that our paths would ever have crossed, otherwise.

Please click on the link in the second paragraph and have a read. I would love to hear what you think. There is also an opportunity to comment at the bottom of the article. I sure Patty would be interested in your feedback.