Blogging

Aiming for rubbish free lunchboxes? + Giveaway

by Veronica on November 4, 2011

in Sponsored Posts

Amy’s class has been talking a bit about rubbish recently and how to reduce rubbish in their lunchboxes. Of course, I didn’t realise this until I was at the swimming carnival with the Kinders and heard one boy proudly telling the teacher that he had “no rubbish today!” and being praised for it.

I know that Marita’s school has been doing similar things and so I started to think about how to reduce rubbish in our lunch boxes. I use reusable containers for as many things as possible, but I am guilty of just quickly wrapping things in cling wrap and sending them, because it’s easy.

Imagine how pleased I was when the lovely Rebecca from 4 My Earth expressed interest in running advertising on my sidebar, and having me review her products as well. 4 My Earth sells all kinds of things, but I was really interested in the lunch wraps and pouches, that allow you to wrap sandwiches and keep them fresh.

Not to mention that they are super cool looking.

I’ve been sending these to school with Amy’s lunch for a week now with no problems whatsoever. I was a little worried that they wouldn’t make it home again, but Amy has adjusted really well and they are making it home at the end of the day perfectly.

They’re really simple to use and according to Amy, they’ve kept her lunch “yummy and delicious!” as well. You place the sandwich in the middle and then wrap it, using the velcro to hold it closed. Plastic lined, but woven material on the outside means that they look great and they keep everything fresh.

To clean, I’ve just been rinsing them in the washing up water at the beginning of the washing up and then hanging in the window to dry, which seems to be working well for us.

The pouches are exactly what they sound like and are pouches for placing food in. I haven’t tried these out properly yet because I’ve been too slack to bake, but the large pouch would hold a piece of quiche, or a slice quite well, whereas the smaller one looks perfect for putting crackers, or sweet biscuits into, or even slices of cucumber and olives.

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Giveaway!

Because Rebecca would like you guys to try out these eco-wraps and see how amazing they are, she is offering two Eco-Packs to give away, including one large sandwich wrap, one small wrap, one large pouch and one small pouch.

You MUST enter through the Rafflecopter widget.



To enter, tell me, what is your favourite lunch box food?

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This is a sponsored post.

 

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The key to success is failure

by Veronica on October 26, 2011

in Blogging

The key to success is failure. It sounds weird and like I’m going at things backwards, but this is one thing I have learned that holds true through everything.

I was reading Shae’s post about her epiphany and I was struck by how similar her thought processes were to mine. It’s easier to pretend that you don’t care about your blog, than to put it all out there and run the risk of failing. After all, failure is something that we hate and something to be avoided.Empty House

But is it really?

Every time I have done something, on this blog or in real life, that has failed, I’ve learned something. Sometimes it’s small things like how fast to whisk in oil so that my mayonnaise doesn’t split. Sometimes it’s when to keep my mouth shut to prevent my family hating me for twelve months because of something I wrote. Every step forward I make has been inspired by a string of failures.

This blog is no different and in fact it is the thing I fail at the most. I’ve never expected myself to be the perfect mother, or the perfect homemaker, but I did expect myself to be the perfect blogger. To be able to comment back every time, to read everyone and to write beautiful words that will resonate with everyone, every single time.

Blogging doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

My blog is becoming more successful. Showcase Tasmania is doing well, my subscriber numbers are slowly climbing and my traffic is sitting at a level I am comfortable with.

To get here, I’ve had to fail numerous times. For every five pitches I send, four businesses ignore me. For every contact I make and click with, there is someone who thinks I’m an idiot. For every blog post that does well on traffic, there are two that don’t.

Funnily enough, I’ve found that it is the small failures that I learn the most from. Working out what I did wrong and how to not do it again, I learn what I should have done instead. Sure, it’s trial and error a lot of the time, but that is life, isn’t it?

Amy blowing thistle resized

Failure is scary. No one wants to fail. We all want to be successful, all of the time.

However, I’m not sure that you can have success, if you didn’t build it on the back of failure.

And the only thing I can see that all successful people have in common is: They refused to give up and stop trying.

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6 Things I Learned at the #PBevent

by Veronica on October 23, 2011

in Blogging

I’m sure by now that there are a multitude of recap posts from the Problogger Training Day, but hang in there because mine is going to be better than all of them. Probably.

I learned a lot of things and had some other things that I knew already cemented into my brain properly. It was a great day and I was exhausted by the end of it, but the networking drinks and the possibility of ice-cream pepped me up enough to network. I don’t claim to have made any sense however, I was so exhausted I felt a little trippy.

– Passion is everything.

People want to hear about your passion. Sometimes they don’t care about what your topic is and instead hang around for the way you’re writing about it. Passion shines through and is incredibly important. You might not think that what you love is interesting to anyone, but usually it is.

– Blogging from the heart, VS Blogging smart.

You need to do both. There is no VS here. Successful blogs are built by people who manage to meld these two things together. People love personal touches, but you also need to be clever about how you interact and present yourself. Your blog needs soul in order for people to connect with you, but also technical cleverness (design, marketing, useability) for people to stay around.

– People love storytellers.

I keep telling everyone that we are all storytellers, but I’m not sure people believe me. People are storytellers, using different mediums to tell their stories. Readers LOVE stories and blogs that I read the most are the ones with the stories woven in and around the content. Maybe I don’t care about what you ate for breakfast, but if I’m drawn into your story, you can tell me about it and I’ll enjoy it. Even blogs filled with technical tips often have a story or two thrown in. Readers love it. Tell more stories.

– You can do anything you set your mind to.

Maybe I didn’t learn this specifically at the training day, but it seemed like it was a common theme. All of the speakers, all of the success stories – they all had an idea and then worked to make that idea reality. Very few people win lottery and are magically rich, even fewer people are instantly successful. Work out what you want and then work to make that happen. Keep trying until it happens.

– Successful people build their own momentum.

This feeds into the above tip. You’ve got to build your own momentum. You can’t keep hanging around waiting for a PR company to dump things in your lap. You have to work for opportunities and make them happen yourself. You want a first class trip to New York? Write yourself a proposal and start sending it to businesses that are a good fit with you. You have to make it happen yourself and stop expecting magic and fairy tale endings.

Networking is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

We all know that networking is important, but sometimes we forget just how important face-to-face meetings are. The networking and talking that you do at events is more likely to land you a job or sponsorship than 100 proposals sent out. It doesn’t mean you stop sending proposals, it just means that you have to go out and meet people too. Inevitably the old saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know” holds true.

If you attended, what did you learn? If you didn’t, what is the most important piece of advice you would give another blogger?

{photo credit Simon Pollock who is not only a great photographer, but incredibly funny as well}

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Relegated to the naughty corner in the airport

by Veronica on October 22, 2011

in Blogging

At least, it feels like the naughty corner, at the far end of the airport, down a long flight of stairs and in a warehouse type thing. I’m flying out of Melbourne in 90 minutes and this is the first time I have seen this part of the airport, or had a quiet moment to write. Not that you can call an airport quiet.

The Problogger event was such fun and I’m going home with my head full of new ideas (not the magazine, that would be scratchy) and things to implement.

Not to mention the three or so hours of recordings that I need to listen to and take notes. I’m not sure that the kids will let me do that for a few days however. As always, the networking before and after was amazing fun and I got to meet and talk to some amazing people. Not linking here because it’s too hard on a tablet.

I’m rather looking forward to seeing my children, even if Isaac refused to speak to me on the phone this morning (he’s punishing me for leaving  in the first place, when he insisted that “You haffa stay home wiv me mummy, you not haffa go on an airy plane”) and Amy is just interested in what I have in my suitcase for her.

So, Internet, that had been my last few days, give or take some things I have no doubt forgotten to tell you.

How are you?

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Blogging: I’m doing it wrong

by Veronica on October 15, 2011

in Blogging

I shouldn’t be writing a post right now. Haven’t you read the posts telling you when the best time to post is? Saturday afternoons are bad. So are Fridays. And Mondays. And Thursdays. And Sundays.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are okay, but only if you publish them at the right time of day; before breakfast, or during the lunch hour – not at 5pm when people are getting home from work, or mid morning when everyone is busy.

No. You can’t post things whenever you like.

And okay, I get that there are optimal times to publish thing and I GET that sometimes traffic is higher and lower and if you want to “work the system” then you need to tune into these times and play the game. The problem remains however, if I only post at optimal times, then I’d never write anything.

I’m a bit sick of the system and I sure as hell don’t want to play the game anymore. Blogging isn’t a game to be tweaked, it’s STORYTELLING. I don’t want to tread on people to get to the top. Maybe other people do, but I’m not that person.

I’m doing it wrong.

I’m not scrabbling up a ladder, or jostling for position, or elbowing a baby in the head in the race to get to the front.

I can come to terms with this.

I’ve been “doing it wrong” for my entire life and look where that has gotten me. I have beautiful kids, a partner that I’m marrying next month and a life I love living. I think I can safely say that doing it wrong is what I do best.

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I got caught up in the PR noise, chewed up and spit out.

It wasn’t until I sat down to really work out why I was feeling so blah about blogging that I realised: I had been basing my entire self-worth as a blogger on the pitches that landed in my inbox. Absolutely ridiculous.

I had been pressing send/receive, waiting for things to fall in my lap. Hoping that interesting things would happen and pouting when they didn’t.

Now that I’ve realised what was bothering me, I can let it go.

I should be basing my self worth on how I feel about things, rather than on what emails land in my inbox, or how many comments and retweets I get.

And frankly, I feel pretty good about things lately. Showcase Tasmania is doing really well and I’m loving it, there is a huge opportunity on the horizon and when I stop having panic attacks about it, it has the potential to be really huge (and really fun) and this is my blog and I can post whenever I like.

I think I can safely say, if this is doing it wrong, then I probably don’t want to be doing it right.

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