from somewhere in my imagination

Be Mindful - Insights from Healthminder 2012

That's me, looking up.  Making mindful choices.  Experiencing the world around me.

When I first decided I was going to BlogHer sometime last year I signed up for Pathfinder day.  Fast forward nine months or so to the night before and I was reading through the information wondering why I was going.  My attention drifted across to Healthminder, which was being run at the same time, and I decided that it had much more to offer me now than Pathfinder.

The BlogHer people were more than happy to switch me over and I spent a great day learning from bloggers representing the nutrition and fitness niche.  Much more me right now and more representative of where I am heading with blogging in the future.

The day was a mix of information sharing and people sharing their stories.  Here are a few insights and words of inspiration from the day.

• Stop assuming that there is an age gap when it comes to technology, consider it a skills gap.
• Terry Walters said 'I have to live the life before I can write about it' I couldn't agree more with that sentiment.  It is the main reason sometimes I manage to write most days and sometimes I don't.  You can rest assured I am living my life, and often mentally blogging about it.  One day someone will invent a brain to text translator for me :)
• She also said 'It's okay not to connect with everyone'.  Wise lady.  Erika from Black Girls Guide to Weightloss shared this gem 'haters are so often about what they feel is wrong with them'.  Truth.  Both online and in real life.

The first panel (Terry, Erika, Roni and Tina)shared some great tips on connecting with readers across all genres...and people in general.

• Share your journey without judgement
• Write/talk about the things you know now to the person you used to be who didn't know
• The more you put yourself out there with your true intention the more you will get back
• Assess the person you want to be and wonder if you would want to hang out with yourself?

My favourite quote from the panel...

You are not changing in isolation, the world is changing around you and readers/people around you are coming along on the journey with you.

The next two panels were related more to the technology side of nutrition and fitness than the storytelling side.  Much of what I learnt came from the conversations between the panelists and the audience.  Here are a few quotes that particularly struck chords with me.

• Generally speaking people find it difficult to do something today that they won't see reward for until sometime in the future.
• Competition is good for motivation....not surprising but worth keeping mind when you really need to challenge yourself.  At the same time it's important to find peace within yourself rather than head down the comparison track.
• Data can be powerful but it can also lead to 'self-loathing' behaviours, and I'm not just talking about personal health data.  Be in control of how you use data.
• Focus on the things that bring you joy.  Don't do something just because someone else thinks you should or that's what the rest of the crowd are doing.
• Balance is not just about time, make balance about what it valuable to you.  Make compromises within what you want and don't want to do.  You cannot do everything all the time, we need to give ourselves a break sometimes.  Prioritisation is key.

It was a day about blogging, apps, nutrition, heath, fitness and life in general.  It was a great day for me to re-energise a bit.  Get some clarity about what I want to do in the future in many areas of my life.  I'm so pleased that I decided to switch paths for the day because it definitely helped to cement where I want to steer my blogging path before the two days of BlogHer.

Big thanks to all the panelists, the 4 ladies I have already linked about and also Stephanie, Angelica, Gena, Renee and Carmen.  Better grab a cuppa, there's a whole bunch of great reading for you right there.

Tatum xx

Behind The Scenes

I've been quiet of late.  It hasn't been intentional.  I write in my head constantly, unfortunately I either haven't had the time to sit and write or get writer's block when my fingers touch the keyboard.  I've started and retitled this post three times already, then it took me nine days to come back and finish it.  Case in point. 

I think it's partially because I have so much I want to say and also due to a fairly introspective patch I've been having lately.

I daresay the new work life mix combined with the commitment I have made to exercise and the gym have much to do with my mousey quietness too.  There is minimal time for couch sitting and even less for couch sitting with laptop open.  When we are home together as a family I want that to be family time.  That's what matters most to me.

I am here though, ticking away behind the scenes.  Thinking and planning.  Getting my ducks in a row ready to launch myself headlong into blogging again.  I have new ideas and vision for where I am steering this little ship.  I'm excited.  I am committed to sharing/writing/discussing here.  I love this little piece of me on the interwebs.

I hope you'll jump on board with me as I surge forward again.

Tatum xx

Bluescreened

On Thursday night I turned on the laptop to do a few things.

The laptop, unfortunately, had other ideas.

I was greeted with the failure to boot message, repeated attempts to repair were unsuccessful which left us resigned to the fact that our old faithful laptop had finally died.

Steven was quick to pull out two other laptops, hop on the internet and order a replacement.  He’d obviously been researching it for months.  I don’t weigh in on purchases of electronic things usually, he’s a gadget man and knows what he wants.  Me, I’ll just be happy to have left hand shift and control keys I can use again and computer speed that is faster than something powered by two aging mice.

Until the replacement has arrived and my clever husband has retrieved the unbacked up portion of our hard drive and installed a few key programs blogging might be a bit sparse.  Frustratingly I had several posts planned out, but photos and all are frozen inside the old machine for the moment.

Have a happy week, hopefully I’ll get a chance to pop by.

Tatum xx