Tag: Blogging

Happy February!

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I love February. I might be slightly biased because it is my birthday month, but I think it’s a pretty great one. Sure, there is still snow on the ground (not if you live in Oman, though!), but the really dark days of winter start to evaporate, the sun comes out more and, depending on where you live, you might even start to see some signs of life returning to the garden. I hope that wherever you are, the veil of winter is lifting and you can see warm days ahead!

As one month is officially over, I thought it might be a good time to round up all the things I have done so far this year. I mentioned at the beginning of January that I didn’t make any resolutions for 2016 and, instead, I am working on doing what seems really relevant and valuable to my life at the moment. I’d like to share with you what I was able to accomplish with that approach because I am really pleased with myself and, I’ll admit, even a little bit proud.

Here we go. In January, I:
  • Got new eyeballs – It was scary, it was gross and it was the best thing I have done for myself in years. I can’t believe how instantly different my life was after the big surgery. If you are thinking about doing it, stop thinking and do it. It’s incredible.
  • Read three books – I used my new eyeballs to do some reading. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and two books by Haruki Murakami (Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World). I enjoyed them all too, particularly Big Magic, which helped liberate my creativity in a wonderful way.
  •  Travelled – We spent a night camping on a cliff side (spectacular) and a weekend in Dubai (not quite as spectacular, but necessary). We’ve also booked our next holiday (Sri Lanka!) and are soon to book our summer excursion to Indonesia for a diving extravaganza!
  • Wrote – For years I have said I wanted to write one post a week on my blog and every week when I’ve sat down to write I’ve felt burdened and heavy. Without that one-a-week demand hanging over me, that “have to do” pressure of sitting down to write something every week, I have written 9 posts! That is crazy to me! I wasn’t stressed and frustrated. I didn’t feel I needed to do it. I just wrote because I had things I wanted to say. It’s been lovely.
  • Met new friends – Part of the reason I have written so much is because I have thrown myself into the blog community in a truer way than in the past. I’ve found people I love to follow –Happy Fish Tarot, Sabiscut’s Catalog, Two Brown Feet, Violet’s Veg*n e-comics, Travel-Stained – and I love catching up with them online. It’s great to meet real people who have valuable things to add to the online world and to see life through their eyes. It is because of reading about their lives and their experiences that I have been to write so much more than I ever could before. Thanks, guys!
  • Created a Morning Routine That I Love – I started to write about all the things this means to me and how I went about it but it is starting to become a post all of it’s own. It looks like I will be writing about this shortly, but in the meantime, know that this is by far the thing I am most proud of accomplishing this month and the thing that has made the biggest impact on my life, although it is probably the most mundane. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

That’s about it for January!

What about you? How did your January go? What were you able to accomplish that you are proud of? Even the smallest things are fabulous to stop and appreciate. I hope it was a good month for you!

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Many Topics, One Blog

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My blog often feels all over the map. I’m a traveller, an expat, half of a diving duo (hoping to open a place of our own), a doodler, a curiosity seeker and many others. Trying to fit that into a blog that makes sense, that has a sense of cohesion has been tricky for me and often the result is that I don’t write as much as I want to because it feels like there is no focus. I am reblogging this post because a) it is incredibly helpful, giving ideas for how to organise a blog like mine b) is a great reminder that it’s okay for your personality to be the focus, not a topic and c) because I don’t want to lose track of it in the future when I need reminding again. It’s a great help if you are like me and think that pretty much everything in the world is wonderfully fascinating and worth writing about!

A Sense of Direction

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In my last post (aka my first post), I said I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about on this blog.

That is total bollocks.

I totally know what I want to write about.

I got nervous that you as readers might not be into it, so I thought I had to change it up and to make it sound appealing somehow. Blogging lesson #1 learned: this is a place for me to talk about my passions with my voice. It might be scary to put myself out there and it might be appealing to try and emulate the voices of all the incredible bloggers who are writing already, but, terrifying as it is, this is the place where I get to share my words.

So here’s what I want to talk about:

– When I was walking around London for my most recent project, I saw a lot of parallels between the way I approached my walks and the way I *wish* I approached my life. I learned some great lessons from it that I am challenging myself to apply, and I thought perhaps those things might be helpful to share with other people. I can guarantee I will suck at accomplishing these things most of the time, but it’s all in the trying and laughing about it, right?

– I love to travel and I love to read travel blogs, but I think one essential aspect of travel gets overlooked a lot: walking. I love walking. It is the best way to get to know a place. It is the only way you can get into some areas (often the best places), and it is the best way to get a feel for the pace of wherever you are exploring. So I will definitely be talking about walking and sharing stories from the walks I go on.

– Slowness. It’s hugely important and yet it is insanely hard to find in our culture. I learned this many times over on my walks. Taking time to stop, to appreciate, to be aware, to just be, makes a remarkable difference to my outlook and resilience. Life is hard. Travel is hard. Being an expat is hard. But when I stop to look around and see that I am actually on an amazing adventure, it changes my perspective and highlights what really matters: enjoying it along the way.

And there you have it. That’s what this blog is all about for me.

Phew. That feels more like it!