What's it like on the other side humans?

Would it be strange to say that it feels like we're coming out of hybernation from the COVID lockdown instead of going into hybernation as we go into winter , er we're in the Southern Hemisphere, winter solstice was yesterday in Oceania, yes the world is upside-down)

winter solstice in OZ

I've hopped back on me bike and been trying to go at least 2 or 3 times a week to get these unused glutes, quads and hams back in to some semblance of shape and strength.  I get a lot of "c'mon gal, keep going" " and you can do it" as I huff and puff my way up little inclines.  It does put a grin on my face when I don't have to get off the bike anymore and push it up the hill! ha ha ha .

Looking around me the world has gone slightly out of focus,  we're led by what we read in the media, who as we all know love to hype up events.  it's akin to standing at the edge of a cliff watching the world disintegrating in some parts and bloom in others.  Strange times indeed.

who can forget the Italians singing and making music from their balconies

However I've now proudly joined the nana brigade! Oh yes my friends, along with two other friends who've coincidentally also had their grand babies born a few weeks apart from my lovely lovely little grandson.  I cannot tell you the joy I feel inside.  When my son broke the news to me at New Years, my response was "please don't joke , because if this is true , it is the best , best , most awesome news I've had".   And lo I received a pic of their ultrasound scan.  Cried like Bridget Jones, danced across the hall like Hugh Grant, and did the fist pumps like Flo Jo! The only draw back is I still can't see the little bubba, as I'm on the opposite end of the word and the UK is still under lockdown.  From what we've been told , international flights might not occur till next year.  So thank you Zoom and thank you Skype, there are times when you can't beat technology.

My little bubba

I did make a resolution, and that  was I'd start doing more videos , especially cooking ones, as I've been delving into more plant based cooking, pushing boundaries to find ways and means to make tasty food (I've got the vegan kimchi down pat yo). However, (yes there is a however) my clip to hold my camera in place on the tripod snapped like an old trout, and the replacement has yet to arrive, all international mail is taking time, but I'm still grateful to our lovely posties and curriers, you guys rock.!  Plus with everyone at home, it's kinda hard to look at the camera and chat when you hear "maaaauuuummmmm, do you have....(insert whatever here if you have kids) So here's hoping I'll be back to it in by next week. cross fingers and toes everyone!

Oh and by the way, I bit the bullet, went in for my eye check up as I was a chicken shit and was worried it would be cataracts due to the steroid drops I had to put in my eyes as part of  what chemo treatment required.  Luckily it's just more eyesight deterioration ... wait did i just say luckily? whaaatttt!  Ok it wasn't as bad as I expected, my vision now requires multifocal lenses so I can read the sign someone holds up in the car as they driving past saying things like "help me, my mum has grounded me for life"  or "if you can read this you're driving to close to me and can you get me a latte"... "or skydivers do it best, join the mile high club"...type thingies. Come to think of it, I should have just not bothered, having slightly blurry vision is nice, who needs life in ultra 4k HD???

it's too CLEAR!

So on saying that, keep posted, I'll do my best to stop piffilling around and get to the juicy stuff soon, in the mean time, take care of yourselves, be good to one another, try to post one positive thing you see, read or hear everyday .....and stop honking at me while I'm cycling!, makes me wobble terribly!
mwwaahhhh
Dx

The "M" word

So much has been spinning through my mind lately, it was hard to focus on exactly which topic I wanted to write about this week.  I realised that sometimes you do have to share some personal aspects of your life because somewhere, someone is going through the same thing and could possibly benefit from knowing they're not alone in their experience.

Lets set the scenario shall we.  I get a text from my son Christopher in the UK and he says "hey mum, you wanna Skype on Sunday?'.  Nothing out of the ordinary there as we usually speak once a month on Skype, so when we did have face time I was surprised to see his girlfriend Irena next to him on the screen.  Even more surprising was the fact that he was just staring at me after the initial hello and was keeping silent.  My youngest son Ayden who was next to me said "dude, this is getting awkward man, say something" aaanndd he did, "Mum Irena and I have decided to get married, after all we've been with each other for 6 years now and feel the time is right " he must have said more but all I could hear was "I'm getting married".   Now my son is 26, which is not an unusual age to get married, after all I got married at 25... WHICH is why I freaked out all the way from Skype, to my room,  to calling my mother up in the UK, to crying on the phone to my best friend in Australia.

father and son

Why was I freaking out?  Firstly he'd just finished his degree in Uni, had hardly been working for more than 6 months at a job he didn't particularly like whilst waiting and applying for what he was qualified for, secondly he had no assets what so ever including savings and LASTLY as I quoted to him, my marriage to his father at such a young age was a total disaster and I didn't want the same for him.  The most worrying part was that he was going to quit his job, pack up his flat and come back to Malaysia (as Irena is Malaysian) because Irena wanted a "traditional" wedding and he thought he could work here for a few months whilst all the marriage preparations was going on and wanted my blessing, (cue me clutching my chest and doing a southern belle swoon, well more like a Hobbit needing CPR if you ask me)

Back to the Skype conversation, by this time I was incoherent with anger, sadness, frustration because everything I had been hoping for, for him to work towards was thrown out of the window in a blink of an eye in a spectacular manner.  I said I did not agree to the marriage, and would not give him my blessing.. the conversation stuttered to a halt, and eventually I excused myself whilst Ayden took over (ever the diplomat to smooth things over)

To try to write about what transpired in those two months would be akin to a Latina Telenovella script.  Once Irena flew back to Malaysia, he packed up his things, went to stay with my mother for a week, and though she tried to talk some sense into him he was determined to see it through. Meantime back in the land of no smiles and political unrest, my father had been diagnosed with non hodgkins lymphoma and was undergoing chemo, my youngest brother whom I had not seen for 20 years was coming back to KL to see him and Christopher flew into town without informing me, which really hurt.

My best bud Ron and my brother Zaki on the right

Seeing my younger brother after so long was like a ray of sunshine, we had grown up in our teens and twenties in Hong Kong and had been close.   He had eventually settled his family in Australia and has been working offshore all this time, I have missed him so.   I took him aside at the family get together to have a quiet word with him, and he in turn had one with me.  He said "do you remember what  you were like in your twenties? and when you wanted to marry Chris's dad and how mum was totally against it? did anyone or anything stop you? think about it.  It's his life, and if it's a mistake it's his mistake to make, give him your blessing and let it go"  I mulled it over for a bit, thinking back to when I was the same age and what I was going through and feeling at the time. I laughed out loud in realisation because my mother reacted the same way as I did when I told her I was getting married!

Yup I got married against my mother's wishes !

So I wrote my eldest son, whom I love so much and had gone through so much for to have in my life, a letter from my heart to tell him in the gentlest way my concerns, to reassure him of my love for him and to give him my blessing because at the end of the day, the most important thing was his happiness.  Isn't that what all mothers want for their children?

Today I'm helping him sort out his wedding trays (in Malaysia they are called "Dulang" it holds the gifts he will present to her at their wedding ceremony),  making the door gifts for the guests, listening and discussing with him possible job opportunities, attending the food tasting for the banquet and generally any information he needs to help make his marriage and time here (as he's reassured me he's not going to "live" here) as stress free and as smooth as possible.  We've got a month and a bit more to go before the big day.

at his 21st b'day when Chris started dating Irena

The most important thing we are put on this earth, is for and to love,  and it is with love I write this (but please god let my other two kids be 350 years old before they get married!!!)   Have a great week and thank you again for reading my blog.

Socially yours

Fying Elephants curtesy of www.floatinglemons.com 

I had an interesting chat with a friend the other day (well at least for me it was!)  She said " I'm terrified of social media marketing".  I blinked, looked at her and asked the most intelligent question ever created by the English language, "Why?".  ( I do try, we all have our bimbo moments)

This is what she said :-

"I don’t hate social media, I just have a slight phobia when it comes to sharing things online; personal things mainly. I pick and choose what I say and share like a lot of other people do, I’m sure.  I’m not a social butterfly – I’m far from it. I’m more of a major wallflower. I don’t have many friends at all. It took me ages before I got onto Facebook, and that was only because someone else set it up for me and handed over my username and password, “here you go, welcome to the world of social media…finally,” she said.

It is nice to see photos and read updates once in a while – catching up on the on-goings, and I suppose it can be a great stress reliever and morale booster when you get great comments and loads of likes on your posts. But then again, I do also believe there is such a thing as oversharing…a fine line, and the amount of hate that goes around too, oh boy. Sometimes I find my pulse racing, my palms sweating and my facial expressions morphing and I catch myself holding my breath. Sometimes I feel like a nosy little neighbour for some odd reason…it makes me feel creepy. Strange, I know…it’s probably all just in my head! 

I suppose being the homebody that I am I do tend to like my privacy and my space – I absolutely adore my studio and every day I design and work on something creative and fun. I used to blog about my creative endeavors and have only recently realized that I have almost 200 000 hits. Having quit my day job as a university lecturer and working on my design business from home now, I do believe I will take on board the advice so many have given me about doing more with my endless creative streak, start blogging about my journey again and share my creative processes once again…I might just befriend social media after all."  ~  Oxoloco's fb page is FACEBOOK OXOLOCO

Liza is a designer and artist, her site is http://oxoloco.wix.com/oxoloco

Talking to Lisa one can understand being gun shy of starting your own social media marketing, it's natural to feel a little apprehensive.  Later on the same evening I was having another one of my regular chat sessions on Skype,  (doncha just love technology!), you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for long distance calls anymore and you can chat for as looonnggg as you like, why didn't they have this when I as a teen? (my mother is probably saying the same thing!!)   Anyway I brought up the the topic of social media marketing with my good friend Mariana. She had a more philosophical response, and went on to explain:

"To say that I was extremely reluctant to interact in any way online when I first started my business 8 years ago is a huge understatement. I couldn’t see myself trying to convince others that it was in any way a good thing to buy my art, or products – even a soft-sell was a horrifying idea.

I was fortunate enough, however, to discover a community of like-minded artists who were hugely embracing and encouraging, and who persuaded me to begin blogging, and eventually open up a facebook page. Tentatively, I began posting my work and was surprised at the wonderful response. Complete strangers stopped by to comment and leave compliments, so I went over to their blogs and pages and left messages of thanks, and read and commented on their posts in turn, learning how to interact online! A whole new world opened up before me.

The fear of expressing ideas and thoughts online is now gone, replaced by an appreciation for the inspiration and motivation that groups of friends on various social sites are sharing. Products and illustrations are marketed on a regular basis, art is being shared, ideas are discussed, and not only have new friends been made online, but I’ve reconnected with old ones I might never have met again if it weren’t for social media. The trick is to learn how private or public you’d rather be on it, and to adjust your settings accordingly.

Having discovered that personal posts attract a good response, I’ve learned to mix those along with art posts, and the response is still incredibly encouraging. Sales and confidence have increased – what’s not to like about that?"  ~  Mariana is an illustrator with her popular blogsite called FLOATING LEMONS  as well as  MARIANA BLACK ILLUSTRATION

Mariana is in the midst of doing some illustrations for a children's book, http://www.marianablackillustration.com/

So you see, we all go through some form of unease to start with, but like learning to ride a bike it gets easier all the time. (that's not what my scarred knees say but that's me!)   To simplify,  I'll just break it down for  you in girl talk.   A fast way of hitting  three platforms simultaneously is via instagram.  You'll be able to share with twitter and facebook at a click of button, 3 birds 1 stone so to speak,  that's as long as you have accounts on them, (opening new accounts are easy so don't hesitate) .  We always take a load of pics, so why not take pics of  you, your product, your product and a customer, your customer telling others about your product...,  get my drift, and make sure you hash tag words pertinent to your picture. (#socialmediarocks)    Once you are more comfortable posting and have worked out your timing,  then start to interact more with your posts and likes and online adverts (facebook and twitter offer this).  And remember, ASK QUESTIONS always, there is no need to be shy about technology, it's there to help you.

I know a lot of you will be wondering about the "follow me and get 20K followers" accounts that ask you for a fee and say they can get you hundreds and thousands of followers/subscribers.   You want my opinion about it? (well you're going to get it anyway!)  Those are just not worth it.

As for Social Media Marketeers, you have the ones who are really good and some that are totally .. let's be mild here... useless.   Here's an example, on one of my media platforms, one of these social marketeers was promoting a client's product and quoted from a book Ayn Rand wrote called "Atlas Shrugged".   If you have read the book the most famous quote is "Who is John Galt?", so I posted the quote on his feed, he then responded back by saying he didn't KNOW who John Galt was.!! (contextually he was probably wondering WTF),  I explained it was a quote from the book, and get this, he hadn't read the book and didn't know the quote.  His only interest was pushing out the product en masse.   If I was using a social marketing person, I'd make sure whatever they quoted was relevant  to my product and it was a personalised.   So if you are going to use a social marketing person/company make sure you research them and their work ethics properly, get recommendations and make sure you look at their work, after all you're paying for their services.

There are so many more platforms,but I chose to talk about the ones that we're all familiar with and ones I work with.  Cheers all, have a lovely week ahead, I look forward to your comments and mails, so keep it coming!

A new year a new begining

I truly hope everyone had a great beginning to the New Year. I most certainly did, in fact I spent it with my closest and dearest friends and in the following days spent it with a new, and just as endearing friend. I'm truly blessed, the heavens above are surely smiling down upon us this year.

After taking a good hard look at all the internet marketing work I'm doing I've decided to do away with the ones that are not performing, as with all work, it will only benefit you if you put in the effort and are guided by the right path.

So after discussing this with my wellness coach for almost 6 months now, I've decided to really go for it and immerse myself completely into Life Force, www.lifeforce.net/20804473. It took a while for me to get there, but I'm so glad I did. I've been guided by my wellness coach from day one, and he's been in touch with me every day either via skype or texting me on the phone. I feel like I've finally been embraced by a great benevolent family who only want the best for me.

I've changed all my web urls as I'm going to totally focus on Life Force, I've been given some great incentives and I'll do my best to get them. This week I will be picking up my body balance liquid wholefood for my consumption, and I'll log in as soon as I've started to take it to relate how different it makes me feel.

Life force is all about empowering your life.
Dx

New Year's Eve

Where are you tubs?! shouts James down the phone.
"I'm at home man" "where else would I be! he he he!" I reply.
James says " hey, you forgot you were supposed to be with us tonight for New Years Eve"
I say "after all the crapola that has happened to me in the last couple of days, I really don't feel like heading out, I'm perfectly happy here drinking champagne and talking to M on line!"
"No way am I going to let you celebrate alone at home, Andy is going to be coming by in a bit I'll get him to pick you up on the way!" James says
"James it's already 11.30pm, there is no way I'll be there on time, go ahead an party on " I say, sipping more bubbly and grinning.
"No tubs, you're coming over and that's that. Get ready and we'll see you in a bit" are James' parting words as he rings off.

I look at M on our skype video call, and we both giggle, "oh well D, guess you're going out mate!" she says. "well if I'm going so are you, I'm bringing the damn laptop along!" I hiccup merrily! "eeekkk " says M, "NO thanks!" "go on and have a great time, I'll catch you later!" "OK" I slur back, "I'll be back for your NYE countdown !" M is 7 hours behind my time line, so I can go out party, and be back in time to party more with her!! PERFECT!

Andy calls up and says he's waiting to take me to the venue, I'm laughing as I know that the only way we will  make it for the countdown is if we had a time machine!( and since I haven't built mine yet...)  My kids  call me as soon as Andy speeds off into the night, taking us closer and closer into the twilight zone! I realise it's gone past 12 midnight when Andy says "hey D, Happy New Year!" I grin at him and all I can do is pat his arm, as he's driving and the kids are still on the phone and wish him back.

At approximately 12.07 am we arrive at the venue and Jeff, who's James son is waiting for us outside, once he's bear hugged Andy, he grabs me off my feet, swings me around and laughs out "I'm going to carry you in D!"
"Put me down " I squeal to no avail, I enter back first, two feet off the ground into the party, and get smacked, tapped, pinched, patted and finally put down in front of the table that was heaving with drinks and many many merry faces!

James begins to put the obligatory party favours on top and around me, and eventually I look like a Christmas tree gone wrong, but as it's New Years Eve, it's actually pretty right! he he he. The music swells and they are playing our songs, everyone stomps off onto the dance floor the waiters are standing in shock at the flailing of arms and feet! More drinks are pressed into my hands, and I'm taking tons of pictures, so much so that I've captured the entire sequence of James and his boys dunking his daughter's boyfriend into a bath, yes a claw foot bath on the side of the dance floor, that was filled up with ice and left over drinks!

A couple of hours later, everyone said "right! we're off," and Andy whisks me off back home and deposits me in one piece at my doorstep, a little more inebriated that when I left, but happy.
I stagger to bed and somehow manage to wake up at 6 am, flip on the skype and count down the New Year with M online !! two celebrations in one day! I'm time traveling to the max!

An hour later, I give up and tell M I have to go to bed as my eyes were closing on their own, bid her a great New Year and crashed out!
The last thought I had was that I'm so grateful and lucky that I've got such a bunch of wonderful wonderful friends who love and cherish me. Bring on 2009 it's going to be Fandabidozi!
Dx