A pinch of salt...and I'm sorry.

I was reading this post by Rachel Powers, who wrote 'The Divided Heart'. It got me thinking again about blogging. When I started this blog I did so nervously and very very anonymously, I let no-one know I had a blog and kept my big mouth shut whenever any one mentioned how much time people waste communicating via the internet, chat rooms, forums and blogs. I was a little embarrassed that I had become such a nerd and I as it was anonymous I felt free to write whatever I wanted, my very own thoughts and feelings. I didn't have to worry how the person on the receiving end of my waffle would take it. As I've said before if people find a particular post too boring they can simply click onto the next blog or skim over the worst to glean the essence of what is being said. Something that would be very rude in a face to face conversation.
Then as time passed I began to connect with people I'd not met before and found the blog of a lovely lady I did know who lived interstate. I knew of Kirti when I was at art school and had not heard of her for years until she met K who I had met through Tim. K was travelling in the eastern states when he met Kirti and through him we saw Kirti a little here and there. Reading Kirti's blog allowed me to connect with her and although I knew her I feel I've gotten to know her better as the blog allows us to keep in contact over the distance from one side of australia to the other.
Then one of my 'imaginary' blog friends became real when I met Fifi at the end of last year. It was a very strange situation in that I felt I knew her so well although I didn't really know her at all on an ordinary basis ie. I wasn't sure if she was actually married or not, I knew she had children but not their names. I knew she was funny but I didn't know how vivacious she was in person and now I have a physical voice to go with her writer's voice.
Blogging and 'sharing sites' like Ravelry and Flickr have also enabled me to keep in contact with one of my oldest and dearest friend's (No we are not OLD!) but as I've mentioned before I met A when I was 16. We became immediately inseparable best friends. We talked and talked and talked for hours hardly pausing to take a breath- I know that is hard to imagine now me being one of few words now. ;) over the years our friendship has remained even though there was one embarrassingly long period where we just seemed to get out of sync and left the phone calls too long but it survived that. Now A has two littlies- and a phone line that works intermittently and is in need of repair. Her timetable and mine are totally at odds with each other. I am often up until some crazy hour, and sleep in if it's holidays or go off to work, I then have to drive my much older children to work or drama or fencing or social engagements and then try and find time to prepare my school work for the next day, do marking, cook and find some time to be creative (hence the crazy bedtimes) She on the other hand has to be able to face the day with the sparrows as little ones tend to do. So she finds her creative times during the day or early evening once hers have gone to bed. Using Ravelry and flick-r have enabled us to keep in touch, sharing our own projects and highlighting hyperlinks to show off stuff we love or find interesting or things we think might interest each other. But we can do this in our own time more frequently than we could in person. I wish she lived around the corner but she lives over the freeway and although when it's clear that's only about 25min drive at peek hour it is much much more and the freeway is a mental divide that makes the drive seem so much further (Plus I don't particularly like to drive- I love that I am able to and have the choice to do so but I'm not too fond of busy traffic) Now we catch up in person during my holidays or on occasional weekends but we can keep in touch regardless of what or lives demand we do. For that I am thankful for this medium of communication.
Anyway as I started to become more and more enamoured with 'blogging' I couldn't help but 'confess' to those people I mentioned earlier who disapproved of computer communication that I actually had a blog and I enjoyed it.
NOW here comes a problem. Now my posts were being read or had the potential to be read by people I knew. Even the fact that they were in fact being read meant that I sometimes pause to think before I post and I worry if I can in fact spell the word I'm trying to use.
I've been thinking about this for some weeks now. Blogs are a great way to connect and they are also have the potential to offend and I am worried that I may have done just that.
I still look at this blog as a place where I can put down my thoughts how ever daggy or worries however trivial or large they may be. Sometimes I write things somewhat tongue in cheek. You all know how much I adore my children but I have been known to bemoan their behaviour, I've also had a go at my own foibles on occasion. And reading the posts of others I take their posts in perspective just because one mentioned that swimming with her daughter would deflect the attention of sharks I did not get alarmed or run off to alert children's services. I laughed at another's mean old batty aunt. So I guess we all take each other's rants and comments with a pinch of salt. Sometime we put things that may be concerning us in a flippant way or write a funny throw away line. I suppose that once you get to know a person you begin to judge the overall tone of the blog and relate to it or stop reading it.
Now to my faux pas. I think I may have offended my cousin when I wrote about my aunty joking about making bags the same as mine. I mentioned my blog to her at the lunch we had and she may have read it, but I don't know for sure. It has been keeping me awake all night tonight (it is now just gone 6 and I have been sitting here since 5am having had intermittent sleep since 2am) I feel sorry that I said those things. I suppose that my cousin could take the whole thing as a compliment that I think her mother talented and skillful enough to figure out the design and produce enough product in one week to be a threat and compete with me at the market when I had developed the design through trial and error and spent months creating them. So I felt the need to say I am sorry in the same forum in which I said the wrong thing. I hope that if she did in fact manage to find my blog and read the posts that she will read this and accept my apology.
And to future readers of my posts please don't take my rants too seriously. This is a place where I talk about my stresses, problems and share some successes and although sometimes I am serious more often than not I write in a way that pokes fun at the situation more than the actual people involved. Now it is definitely time for bed as I can hear those sparrows!

breathe

On Thursday Bantam Boy had to go to work at 4pm and by a miracle Chicky Babe was home and willing to come out with me to go for a coffee. I have been feeling like I'd been on a bit of a treadmill. Going to work, coming home cooking dinner rushing about , preparing lessons etc.

When I suggested our local coffee shop just near BB's work, CB said "Why don't we go somewhere different?" So we drove off going nowhere in particular. Suddenly I thought let's go down by the river to Pt Walter, I hadn't been in an age and we were already going in the right direction.

This part of the river is local to us. It is a part of the world where I grew up. I am indeed one of those boring people who as an adult live pretty much in the same place where they were born. In fact I am now about 5 blocks back from the hospital I was born in!!! I have lived in other places, (Kalgoorlie and Mt Magnet.) My children go to the same high school I went to. Every time I drive towards Fremantle there is a hill that you go over and the ocean and harbor skyline pops into view. I just love it. I never tire of it. Every time I see it I get a little rush of joy. My dream would be to live in a house from which I could see it every morning. It is not right on to ocean front but looking across the roof tops and glimpsing the promise of the sea beyond that I love the most.

Anyway that afternoon the coffee was poor but the company delightful and the view both beautiful and reviving to the soul. The place was deserted. We decided to take a walk, as we walked we chatted. We were astounded by the stillness of the water and the number and variety of bird life. We counted 10 different species of birds. We took photos with our phones as the sun set as I had not thought to bring the camera.

So I can share with you what a beautiful afternoon it was and you can see why I live within walking distance of the place in which I was born. I'm glad I took the time to stop and look and actually see what is beautiful around me.