Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • An open letter to the spiders in my house

    [No photos because I haven’t taken any.]

    Dear Spiders that live in my house,

    I’m officially putting you on notice.

    Up until this point in time, you’ve been allowed to live in various corners, without being molested, squashed or destroyed. I allowed you to do this in the hope that you would do something either a) interesting or b) useful – both of those things involving flies.

    If I thought I was seeing a noticeable difference in the amount of house flies I was seeing inside the house, I would not be writing this. If you were doing something interesting, like eating flies, or spinning webs, you would also not be in trouble.

    I let you stay, hoping that I would be able to photograph a decent insect massacre, or show the children how you kill flies, but it appears that all you’re doing is creating unfancy dust collectors in my corners and threatening to bite me when I drop the curtain rod on myself.

    You’ve got one more week. If I don’t see any improvement in your behaviour by then, I’m going to vacuum you.

    You’ve been warned.

    Sincerely,

    Not Impressed With Your Behaviour House Owner.

  • A simple guide to blogging wrong: For everyone who doesn’t want to make money, or jump on bandwagons

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    11 Steps to Blogging Wrong, according to my scientific study of bloggers.

    1 – Refuse to sign anything. If it requires an electronic signature, it can be considered a bandwagon and you probably don’t want to jump on it.

    2 – Post only when you want to, but write as often as you need to.

    3 – Take inspiration from your friends and copy what they do, insomuch as it works for you. Give credit, always.

    4 – Change things. Develop a brand, change your mind and start again. Rework your theme, decide to be different.

    5 – Find a big blogger, work out what they are doing wrong and then don’t do those things.

    6 – Listen to critcism. Critics are usually right and only in some cases does it stem from jealousy. Maybe you ARE boring. Decide to change (see point 4).

    7 – Remind yourself that NO ONE IS THE BOSS. You will forget this, over and over. No one can tell you what to do. If you’re not breaking any laws, you’re going to be okay.

    8 – Resist the urge to listen to the ‘Yer doin it WRONG’ crowd. Wrong doesn’t exist. You can’t do it wrong.

    9 – Listen to your gut, always.

    10 – Find your crowd. Find the people who understand your humour and love what you write. Don’t pay attention to how many of them there are. Two good readers who get you are better than 50 who don’t.

    11 – Ignore everything I’ve said and walk your own path. Decide what you want to do and do it. Ask questions of people you trust and work out what works for you.

    That’s it.

     

  • Aurora Australis as seen from Tasmania

    We were lucky enough to be treated to a sky show of lights this evening. It’s possible I will update this post with more photos if the lights return again. I’m in the Southern Midlands of Tasmania and the conditions were perfect. Icy cold and so so clear.

    The Aurora is simply fantastic.

    Aurora Australis

    Aurora australis

    Aurora australis

    Aurora Australis

    Aurora Australis

    Aurora australisSee more Sunday Selections here.

  • The days are long, but the years are short

    I stepped back and took stock of everything. It’s nearly June and the dread of the month is probably far worse than the actuality of it. I remember not writing about a lot of things, for fear of upsetting Nan and now, I look back and wish I had a record of each day as it passed, of the emails sent and received, of doctors visits and prognosis and finally, inevitably, the downhill slide to death and grief.

    I wish I had every word, every memory, saved for posterity, rather than relying on the memories of a stressed and sleep deprived mind.

    Someone said to me once, about life with children: The days are long, but the years are short. That fact slapped me in the face as I realised that it’s been nearly two years.

    I’m not sure where that time went, except it’s gone now and wishing it back again isn’t going to change a thing. Would that it could.

    Two years ago my son was small and placid, content to lie on the floor by himself. He was smiley and he attended every appointment with us, while I wondered how much time she had left and whether she would see my children grow up.

    Life is hard. When you’re the one having to move through life after death, when it feels like the world should just stop and allow you time to process your grief and learn to live again, that’s hard.

    ***

    Stop. Move around and remember to breathe. In and out, out and in. Don’t think, don’t remember, just get through the day.

    Make it through until bedtime, then go to bed. Sleep, dream and wake, to do it all again, over and over.

    If you haven’t torn your hair out by now, what’s stopping you?

    We get caught up in the drudgery of the days and fail to see the years passing by, faster and faster. Like a river, speeding up as you head towards the waterfall (a hurtling death), you can’t seem to slow it down.

    One day, you’ll turn around and look at the river of years behind you.

    ***

    The years are short, but the days are long and I need to just keep moving.

    Everything will be okay.

  • It doesn’t change my reality

    I’ve been thinking a fair bit about Internet stuff and how it affects my day to day life. Some things have happened in the last few months that shook me up and made me intensely annoyed and while I was in the middle of it, my family was getting the brunt of my grumpiness.

    I was laying in bed one night and finally thought ‘Fuck it. What does it matter anyway? It doesn’t affect how I live my life.’

    Suddenly, I was able to let it go. Sure, I was frustrated and angry and that comes and goes still, but what happens on the Internet doesn’t change my life. It’s like an alternate reality working online sometimes.

    I’ve been featured in the upcoming “Power Moms” book and I am thrilled to bits about it. But I’m still going to the supermarket and buying no-name bread and the cheapest cheese blocks that I can find. I’m still changing multiple nappies a day, and cooking dinner and washing dishes. I still have to do laundry and take my autistic son to therapy and sometimes, it feels like the Internet isn’t real.

    I mentioned to a school mum the other day that I’d been to Melbourne recently for “work” and of course, the first question asked is ‘what do you do?’

    Explaining blogging is hard, for me. Somehow “I write things on the Internet and get sent free stuff a lot” doesn’t explain what I do.

    To someone who isn’t part of the blogging world, how do you explain why companies are bending over backwards to get backing from mumbloggers? Or why a PR company would host a brand event and send 50 mothers home with more freebies than they could carry. How do you explain internet famous to someone who doesn’t run in our circles? Does the average person on the street know who Heather Armstrong is and why she has so much clout?

    Is this even important?

    I spend a lot of time online, with the thought to making money from it one day. One day I’m going to get paid to do this, the thing that I love. One day it will all come together and I’ll know how to answer the ‘what do you do?’ question.

    Until then, I get to go to bed at the end of the day, knowing that whatever drama I’ve been witness to online, whatever names I’ve been called and whoever has linked to me, that stuff isn’t my reality. It doesn’t change my daily life, or make me a better or worse person.