I think I’ve lost my mojo.

But before I call it quits let’s say I’m on hiatus – until further notice.

Until then …

Occasionally I get a little frustrated by the number of blogs, really good blogs, that focus on life with young children.  I’m just not that interested.  I can’t relate.   Don’t get me wrong,  I’m all for mummy bloggers. I’d be one too, but my children have grown up, well almost, and they can read my posts.  I’ve moved on, or rather, life has.

But at times, like today,  these very same blogs touch me deeply.  They take me to a place and a time where my heart was so full.  I want to go back…

Baby number one – an original polaroid shot!

Babies one, two and three …

Number one, aged three years says -  I’m not gonna be goldilocks, I’m just gonna be an ordinary boy.

 
Never…  He always liked a project – from building lego houses to brick ones. Really.  He still does.

 
Number two was a little more cruisy.

A dreamer … Aside from tights, he loved his skinny jeans and high tops.  Still does.

 
Double trouble …

But killer smiles that break my heart.

And then there were three…

Number three loved nothing more than hanging out with his bros, and still does.

He was well trained in the art of marthon television viewing,

sleeping,

and gaming.

Skills he works hard to retain.  They also taught him how to breakdance and snowboard.

 
Number three’s other childhood loves were his dog

and his soccer.

They still are.  He does seem to have lost interest in dance performance with his cousins though.  Such a shame really.  I think he showed talent.  Don’t you?

I just realized that today is the first year anniversary of my blog.  I’m impressed, I actually stuck with it.  I’ve  had a love/hate relationship with blogging.  I’ve almost quit many times.  But today I’m really glad I didn’t.  What do I love about blogging?  I think mostly that it’s a form of self expression.  My blog is a creative outlet that allows me to play and is a place where I can distill my thoughts and shape my words.  My place.

But it’s not just my place, it’s a place I share.  Isn’t that what blogging’s about,  communicating and connecting with others?  And that’s what’s special.  But it also means putting yourself out there and I do struggle a bit with that.  Who do I think I am?  Why would others be interested in my life, in what I have to say?  Am I a self – promoting attention seeker?  I hope not, at least not all of the time.  Then at other times I get disheartened because I don’t engage my readers enough.  Well if I had any …  Boy oh boy,  who knew it was going to be this complicated?

However, most of the time it’s a lot of fun and I plan to stick around a bit longer and hope you do too.

I do have a serious dilemma though.  I recently learned that my eldest sons have been chuckling away for the past year about the blog name – My Pink Door.  Apparently, it sounds like the name of a porn site.  I didn’t know…  did you?  I thought it was a great metaphor, but not for that.  They may have ruined it for me.  What to do? Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Anyway, now because it is all about me, particularly because it’s my blog’s birthday, I’m going to share some of the joy I’m feeling today at My Pink Door.  And I am not going to feel self conscious one little bit.

Actually, that will have to wait.  It’s Christmas Eve for Pete’s sake.  I’ve got food to buy, presents to wrap, a house to clean (Christmas lunch is at my house!), a turkey to stuff (actually Mum does that), and a bit of re-re-arranging to do.  Note to self – even if it seems an imperative – do not start re-arranging the house two days before Christmas.

I’m just waiting for everyone to wake ’til it’s a reasonable hour, so I can crank up the carols and get this place rockin’.

Hope you do the same and have yourself a very Merry Christmas!

xx

Pop over to my sister’s blog Where My Heart Is .  You could win the beautiful book  ‘At My Frenchtable’ – Food, family and joie de vivre in a corner of Normandy.  Bonne  chance!

I’m back, I’m on line and I’m not going into the number of conversations I’ve had with broadband technicians in the last few weeks.  How I was told, I don’t know how many times, that the problem (different problem each time, mind you) was fixed.  Actually, I will tell you about this – the piece de resistance – the day I nearly lost my mind.  The day the (first) technician came to the house. (At least I think he was a technician.  I did notice that he wasn’t wearing any form of identification – that was a little odd.)  Anyway, after quite some time poking about, whoever he was explained that the problem had been loose wiring sitting in water in a pit outside the house.  He had dried and reconnected the wiring and was arranging for someone else to come in the next week to drain the pit.  Everything would work perfectly now, he assured me. He waved good bye with a big thumbs up. “Woo hoo” I shouted and skipped gleefully to my office.

You’ve probably guessed that in fact everything was not working perfectly.  In fact, nothing was working – at all.  But wait for it …  When I rang the folks at Bigpond, in tears, they weren’t surprised.  They knew that my internet wasn’t working.  Their notes read that the malfunction was due to my faulty internal equipment.  Excuse me?  “There is nothing wrong with my equipment, what about the water in the pit?” Nothing about that in the notes.  “Yes”, I shouted, “someone’s coming to fix that next week”.  Apparently not.  I still don’t get it and I really wasn’t taking hallucinogenics that week. 

Anyway, seems like the problem wasn’t my equipment, surprise, surprise, but an ‘outage’, at least that’s what the notes say, and ‘it’s fixed’. As long as only one person is on the internet, it turns out, two and we’re in trouble.  So we’re doing shifts, taking it in turns, day by day. And I’m recuperating, gathering my strength, grateful for small mercies.

For over a week now, I have spent way too much time on the phone talking to Bigpond technicians about the ’outage’  that is affecting/disabling my internet connection.  Still no satisfaction …

(in case you were wondering.) 

I’ll be back soon…

I forgot to tell you something.  Yesterday my house was featured on Jen Ramos’ blog Made by Girl.  I was tickled pink …

I’m stuck.  I decided to organise my blogroll a little, make a few categories, group like with like.  And that’s the problem…  While some blogs are clearly defined and contained by their subject, eg food recipes, design, parenting, health – or lack of it, travel, photography etc, many are not.  They’re about some or all of these things.  They’re about life and that’s why I like them.   And of course, just speaking for myself here, there’s the issue of resisting categories, labels, being put in a box - having structure, being organised – God forbid. 

There was also one other little thing,  I couldn’t actually figure out how to make categories … 

Any ideas on any or all of the above?