Blogging

Bakers Delight and the BCNA – Pink Buns

by Veronica on May 12, 2011

in Blogging, Cancer

Subtitled: I took my daughter into a commercial food preparation area and no one cried.

In aid of the Breast Cancer Network Australia, Bakers Delight is icing finger buns with pink icing, selling them and donating the proceeds to the BNCA.

It’s a pretty cool idea and something I was happy to support, especially as cancer has been a bit of a theme in our family. My great grandmother beat breast cancer years ago, but sadly lost her sister to the disease. Her sister’s ring will be my wedding ring in a few months and while I never met her, I like the family connection through my Nan.

Because the BCNA was asking bloggers to raise awareness, somehow I managed to get myself an invite to the closest Bakers Delight store, to see what they’re doing first hand and ice some buns myself.

Of course, being a “mummyblogger” I took Amy with me. What better way to ice finger buns, than to take a 4yo into a bakery?

We had fun, icing buns and chatting to the staff. Amy loved it and was so well behaved. I couldn’t be more proud of her behaviour.

Bakers Delight is aiming to raise $1m to give to the BCNA, which helps support women with breast cancer.

And, if you live in the area, I can highly recommend Tim and his team at Bakers Delight in Claremont Village. Their finger buns are delicious.

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Disclosure: I was not paid for this post and I didn’t request to be. Amy and I did get to bring home the finger buns that we iced, plus a loaf of bread and some rolls – but that was because the owner/baker Tim was generous, not because he had to.

Supporting people through cancer is something I feel strongly about and therefore, so is this cause. If you can buy a bun in the next week and photograph yourself (or your child) with it, then send it to me, I’ll add your photo and blog link here.

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Decompressing, whinging, sad and stuff. My brain hurts.

by Veronica on May 11, 2011

in Blogging, Cancer, Grief, Headfuck

Sometimes, I write things here and it all goes along swimmingly. Sure, you don’t get the whole story of the ups and downs, but that’s because no one wants to read 3000 words on how my feelings are feeling and how my kids are acting up. Not to mention I don’t want to write 3000 words about my feelings.

Other times, I go to sit down and write and come up blank and I end up walking away from the computer, rather than writing things out. When I’m feeling like my blog isn’t my safe place anymore, there is usually someone tromping all over it with their muddy boots, making smart arse comments designed to make me feel bad.

And let me be clear, I’m not anonymous in this space. I’ve never been anonymous. People find me here and then meet me IRL, or the opposite happens and I have no issue with this. In fact, if you know me IRL and you’re reading here and I don’t know you are, I’d love to hear from you. Even if you’re my next door neighbour, or one of the school mums.

This space stops being a place to talk, when I’m seeing snarky comments written about me. When there are judgements being passed, when they have no idea. When people don’t believe that what I’m doing is beneficial for anyone and so they set out to make me feel bad, by snarky, passive aggressive shit posted online.

That is when I retreat.

I’m not sure if I stop writing to save my own sanity, or because I get angry enough that I want to throw rocks at people, but either way, I sit on my emotions and stew and nothing gets written.

Then I get PMS and I cry on the phone to my mother because it’s a week til payday and I’ve run out of bread and milk and while there is enough money to buy more bread and milk and not have a cent left, this shit sucks.

When it’s not about the money really. It’s about feeling powerless, and angry. About being bitter and not having anywhere to talk about it. About being hurt and upset, because seriously, what adult goes out of their way to make someone else feel bad? Are you five?

My last major retreat from being able to blog was shortly after my grandmother died, when shit happened and I was so broken emotionally that I couldn’t connect enough to write what I was really feeling. Sure, I wrote surface stuff, but writing about how breathing hurt, or how I just wanted to sit in the sunshine and cry, that wasn’t happening.

I still miss my grandmother and the emotional shell I drew around myself 2 years ago has shattered and I’m feeling things, crying and being miserable. Grief is a process and you don’t always move forwards.

Amy’s Kinder Aide was speaking to me yesterday morning about Amy and some issues we’ve had in the classroom regarding friends. She looked at me and said ‘Amy is such a lovely child. I look at her and know her grandmother would have been proud. I think about Lyn a lot, and know she would have been so proud.’

I had to leave, because I was going to cry.

It is lovely to know that my grandmother made such an impact on people.

And then I cry, because lung cancer in a non-smoker is not how life is meant to happen.

Life has been getting on top of me and that’s okay. It’s okay to be sad and emotional and not want to write about it.

What isn’t okay is feeling like I can’t write, because of the judgements being made.

That’s when I get upset.

This is MY space. Not anyone elses. And if you feel like I’m not contributing to society enough, or that autism isn’t real, or that my joints don’t really dislocate, you can get stuffed.

And that’s that.

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On not working for peanuts

by Veronica on May 4, 2011

in Blogging

I read a post a few months ago about online magazine owners not paying their writers. I was interested, but didn’t think it was an issue for me.

However, I was pitched this week about joining the writing staff of a soon to launch webzine, with a section for parenting and opinion. Whilst initially interested, I skimmed the email looking for what I would get out of it. Exposure? Payment? I wasn’t sure.

I had to look a fairly long way into the email and there it was: Payment by ad revenue sharing, with the writer to get 70% of the ad revenue. We’ll ignore the issues I already have with Ad.Sense and look at it objectively.

I know that sidebar advertising makes very little money for most bloggers and webzines. If you calculate how much 70% revenue from one post is, I’d say we’re looking at miniscule money and I’m sorry, but I don’t work for peanuts.

Even if the exposure was likely to be huge, I was turned off by the list the length of my arm of what I could and couldn’t do, what they did and didn’t want (no self-deprecating humour? REALLY?) and how many posts I would be required to write every month.

Okay look, I get strict guidelines for writers. I GET it, that they want their webzine to be exactly what they want and how they want it – that’s their prerogative.

But seriously, if I’m going to put that much energy into posts, I’m going to do it on my own website, or on something I truly believe in. Not a webzine who form lettered me, asking me to apply.

BECAUSE YES. Oh wait, what’s that at the end? If I want to write for them, I need to apply first. Even though they approached me.

It’s a bit crappy.

Look, if a friend approached me and asked me to write for their website, because they felt that I had something to share, I absolutely would. I’ve contributed to the Mummy Blogger Blog before and I will again, because I believe in it, and what Louisa has done with it.

You know what would have been more effective? Spending the $50 to advertise on Problogger’s Jobs Board, because that way, you wouldn’t have offended me with the work for peanuts mentality. I would have just ignored the ad as not for me, and moved on.

I’m not a fan of working my arse off for someone else’s project, unless I adore that person, or think that the benefits for me personally will outweigh the work. I’ve done it a few times now and it hasn’t worked out for me. I’ve had to take a step back and say selfishly – what does this do for me? Do I get any recognition for doing what I’ve done? Am I being paid? Is my own profile being raised? Well then, no thank you, but I don’t want to do this for you anymore.

So for me, I’m not going there again.

If you want me to write for your webzine, it has to benefit me personally, in some way. Or, I have to love what you’re doing and want to be part of it.

Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.

This blogger doesn’t write for nothing.

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Social Media Chat

by Veronica on April 27, 2011

in Blogging

Last night, I was having a conversation with Naomi about subscribing and subscribers and slowly, our conversation grew and morphed to include Kelley and Clairey, and we covered everything from subscribing and the state of our Google Readers to PR companies and reviews.

We tweeted so much that we sent Naomi to twitter jail and likely cluttered up the streams for nearly everyone we know (sorry guys).

But it was a lot of fun and from what people had to say, it seems it’s something that people are interested in, especially newer bloggers.

Louisa came in during the conversation and we’ve since discussed it and tonight, we’re going to trial doing the same thing, on Facebook, and invite everyone over to the Mummy Bloggers Blog facebook page to participate.

The idea is to share information on social media and how to get the best out of it, what we do personally and why.You can ask questions and we’ll endeavour to answer them, as best we can and I’ll probably be asking questions about the why’s and whyfor’s of some things.

So, meet us over on the Facebook page tonight (Wed) at 9pm AEST and we’ll hopefully be chatting up a storm.

I will tweet and remind you too.

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A few answers to questions I know you’re going to ask:

This is only in Beta stages – we’re looking at chat room technology, or other various ways of doing the same thing easily, if there is enough interest.

We elected for Facebook, to prevent cluttering up the twitter streams – until twitter develops a mute button that allows you to filter out some people, or some hashtags, I’d prefer not to clutter it. I know how frustrating it can be to be not interested in a “twitter party” or similar thing happening and have that be all that’s in your feed.

Also facebook, we wanted the information to stick around, so that people can use it and refer to it later. Twitter is relatively transient and tweets get pushed down easily and you can miss replies and half the conversation.

If you’ve got ideas about how this could work, suggestions, or questions, please let me know in the comments and we’ll see what we can do!

And remember, 9pm AEST tonight on the Mummy Bloggers Blog Facebook page.

 

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Let’s talk about mothers day

by Veronica on April 22, 2011

in Sponsored Posts

Mother’s day has never been a big thing in our house. I’m sort of blaming Nathan for this fact, because the kids are little and it’s his job to buy me something (anything!) for mother’s day. Or at least ensure I get a sleep in and a cup of tea made for me.

Of course, like everything though, this hasn’t happened and I’ve spent my previous 4 mother’s days walking around the house grumbling about being under-appreciated and screamed at. Thanks kids, mummy loves you too.

I’m not bitter.

Anyway, this year being the first year that Amy is at school, there will be a mother’s day gift coming home for me, probably hand pasted with glitter on it somewhere. Considering it will be my first mothers day gift, it’s going to be brilliant, whatever it is. I’m quite looking forward to it.

I’m lucky. My biggest worry is that I won’t get a cup of tea, or that Amy will jump all over me in excitement and make sure that I can’t sleep. Both of these things are likely to happen.

Some mothers aren’t so lucky, and there is a big drive to buy charity gifts for mother’s day this year.

UNICEF has an online store, where you can buy charity presents for this mother’s day. The Mother/Baby pack is especially important, because it would allow a HIV positive woman to give birth and breastfeed, without passing HIV to her baby. One thousand babies a day are infected with HIV, and without treatment, many will die before their second birthday. Medical centres are often long distances from remote villages and travelling to them is beyond most mothers means. The mother/baby pack allows medication to be distributed and used easily by the mother.

So, if you’re wondering what to get your mother this year, or trying to work out what your older kids can buy you, and you’d like to help out a family in need, then the UNICEF shop is for you.


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Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Kidspot and I received monetary compensation for writing it. I wouldn’t have agreed to participate in a campaign that I didn’t feel strongly about however, and I think that UNICEF’s charity gifts are an excellent idea.

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