Coffee Catch-up # 8

If we were having coffee I would tell you it seems like forever since our last coffee catch-up, although the reality is that it has only been 3 weeks. During this time, most of my time has been taken up completing the Blogging from A – Z challenge. It was fun, although some days the pressure to come up with inspiring posts took over my world. But in the end I was happy with all of them even X, which for me was the difficult one. I certainly enjoyed putting the “I survived blogging A – Z banner” on my blog as I feel like I earned it. Next year, I think I will do a lot of pre-planning in the hope that makes this challenge easier.

If we were having coffee I would ask you where you thought all the smoke haze around Sydney today was coming from. My hope would be that unlike me, you may have listened to the news and have known that it was coming from more than 40 hazard reduction back burns happening all around Sydney especially in the Blue Mountain areas. The smoke was so bad it was playing havoc with the fire alarms in many businesses including the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, where for more than 30 minutes of our aqua aerobics class this morning, the instructor had to yell or mime the instructions. Oh and ironically the alarm stopped at the same time as our aqua class. Who knew!

If we were having coffee I would tell you that this week has been a shocker. If something could go wrong it did. For me, the most frustrating thing was that instead of enjoying myself on Wednesday night, I got to sit and wait for NRMA roadside assist after I quickly discovered that in a moment of mindless thinking from my stressful week, I locked my car keys in the boot. I think it has been over 20 years since I last did this. I also had nothing with me to do, not even a small bit of paper to write a blog post on but fortunately for me it only took them 45 minutes to come instead of the 90 minutes they promised service in. Thank you NRMA.

If we were having coffee I would tell you that I enjoyed District 90 First Annual Toastmaster Conference last weekend. It was held at Rooty Hill RSL — the largest RSL club in Australia. I had never been before and the venue, the food as well as the conference’s educational sessions were fantastic. I am sure the other parts of the conference were also excellent, however due to time constraints I was limited in what I went to.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about my work’s cultural lunch this week. This is a regular event where you take a dish from your culture for everyone to share. For me this has always been difficult because being a hospital we are a very multicultural workplace, however I could never really come up with a dish from my life to share that was interesting and easy to share. This time I got it right. My trifle was a great hit and will now be my signature dish. I hadn’t made a trifle in years and I only remembered about them at Easter when I took desert to a family friends house. It was weird not making it with sherry but the sacrifice still tasted yummy.

If we were having coffee I would ask you what you have been up to this last week, let me know in the comments.

Coffee Catch-up #7

 


Raison D’être

On Mother’s Day 2014, I started Inspiring Max. I had researched and considered my options for 5 years before I finally plucked up the courage to put myself out there. Up to this point, I had lived me life in secret but knew to achieve my dreams something had to change. You see after completing several writing courses I knew that to improve my very remote chance of my book being published by a publishing house, I needed to start a blog. Although my blog was never going to be related to my book’s subject—eating disorder recovery—it has helped me develop my voice.

Over the past 2 years, today is Mother’s Day 2016, Inspiring Max and I have developed in ways I never thought possible.  I am so pleased that finishing my book and needing to think about publication pushed me out of my comfort zone and into the blogosphere. Because of blogging I have grown not only as a writer but also as an editor. Another great blessing I have received through Inspiring Max’s blogging community is great feedback, which ensures that I write in a way my audience understands my meaning. This gives me confidence in my writing style and helps me to minimise confusion, which hopefully I have transferred to my book – I’M SO OVER THIS!….. A Skill-Based Guide To Eating Disorder Recovery.  At present, I think I am still on track to self-publish it in the second half of 2016.

Whatever your reason for blogging, if you are still in the contemplative stage give it a try, you’ll be pleased you did. There literally is an audience out there for everyone.

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