Supporting the 'Make up free selfie' campaign...

There has recently been a campaign being shared around Facebook encouraging women to take a 'makeup free selfie' in support of breast cancer awareness. This campaign has had support from a lot of women including some I am very close too and respect very much. However the Facebook vigilante's, as usual, have come out in force and slammed these women or at least made negative comments or posted derogatory pictures in response to this campaign. I have chosen not to voice my opinion publicly on this page (facebook) but i feel entitled and driven to voice my opinion right here on my own personal blog page which has very few followers but I will allow others to read these words if they so desire. Lets break it all down. Firstly it's 'Facebook' for goodness sake, if you don't like what others are saying don't get involved, full stop, surely we each have enough self control to achieve that much. Secondly I do believe that a few points made regarding this particular campaign were valid (eg. the campaign should encourage donations), but since when is it each individuals role to pick apart each and every thing other people do and to have an opinion of it? Thirdly, I applaud these women for baring their faces, warts and all, for the whole world to see, it is the World Wide Web, remember. It is really hard for some women to share something that personal as most of us use makeup as a societal mask to allow us to feel more comfortable with who we are and to take it off and expose ourselves is a big deal. Granted it is nothing like what a cancer sufferer has to go through and I would never ever want anyone that I'm close to to have to experience it but maybe exposing their faces to the world is as close as some will ever get to the discomfort of a cancer sufferer? How do all these people who have slammed these women know how much they do or don't support charity's and research organisations, they don't. My personal campaign will be a week of make up free selfies in support of these women. People who have me as a 'Facebook friend' (and Instagram follower) will be exposed to me bare faced everyday for a week and those who take issue with my support of these women, I encourage to unfriend me and unfollow me, because people who need to voice their negativity or any opinion at all that makes another person feel even slightly bad about who they are and the personal choices they make regardless of the context/platform don't need to waste their very precious minutes of this short life viewing my less than perfect complexion.... I mean who knows what kind of opinions they may have.
Just adding a small note. A friend who has joined the campaign just added a very valid comment: anything that makes you stop, think and check has gotta be good for early detection!! 
I agree with this 100%
Well done all of you gorgeous women who are beautiful inside and out.

Becoming an 'available mum'

Another of my endeavours, or rather this is more an experiment. I'll call it an experiment as I'm sure I will tweak a few things along the way. This week, and yes I have given it a one week timeframe, I am shutting down some of the main distractions in our lives for at least 90% of the time (or thereabouts, I haven't done the maths lol). Our biggest household distractions are Tv, movies, the Internet, game consoles and mobile phones. So I have made the decision that the children won't use any of the above and will only be allowed half an hour to an hour of Tv/DVD in the afternoon after school while I prepare dinner. As for me, I'm not overly fussed about missing the regular Tv, my biggest distraction is social networking (Facebook) and watching catch up shows on the Internet. So I won't be using any of the above, my only two exceptions are blogging (which I hardly do) and Instagram (as I'm doing the '100 happy days' challenge and it's good for my soul). I feel like this will make me become a more available parent. When there's no rush to get back to the Tv or computer I think i will be able to spend more time enjoying each moment. I also believe that my boys will appreciate each others company more and learn how to 'play' again. I'm getting ready for quite a few days of complaint and fights but I hope that we make it through the week and come to the realisation that we don't actually need that stuff as a constant in our life. Right now I'm not feeling like the best parent, especially to the little guys that's still at home with me, so for me this is something that my children deserve for me to do and encourage. Day one is nearly over and we've almost made it. Can only look forward to making it through the next 6 x

Rantin' and a ravin'

I probably shouldn't even be writing this post as I don't even blog really anymore. I guess I just talk & talk all of the time that by the time I think about a blog I'm so sick of hearing my own voice in my head that even I'm telling myself to SHUT UP! But I guess I'm in a mood & everyone knows to never get in the way of a woman in a mood... Even i know not to get in my own way! Anyway here's my inappropriate over the top brain explosion for today.....
Some people just piss me off that they are so illiterate & dumb. I'm not talking about the occasional spelling mistake that happens when writing a long winded msg & then typing send or post or publish because you are too excited to do a spell & grammar check, I'm talking about 30 year olds who actually don't know how to spell or use the correct grammar & still can't figure it out with the wonders of spell check & autocorrect. Or younger people who are are still being educated & are highly capable of spelling words correctly and are just lazy. It makes me so cranky to read things knowing that they've been typed & as I'm typing this autocorrect keeps popping up & fixing my mistakes, if you can't spell the word even with autocorrect then don't use the word people!... I'm not saying that i never make mistakes, I do make plenty of them, but i do try to make the effort to correct myself. Then there's the people, who I'm sure, don't actually connect their mouth/fingers (for typing) with their brain. For example: tonight trawling Facebook (oh why oh why did I bother), i came across a post talking about baby names and I love reading baby names so I indulged. The writer was asking for single syllable girls baby names so people were suggesting things like Eva, Mia, Bella.... What the heck! Just because it's a short name doesn't mean it's one syllable... Try saying it out loud to yourself & then type it. Also I think people just disregard the whole point of the conversation just so that they can get their own point across eg. Someone thinking " I like these certain names & they are the best so I will just post them even though they are irrelevant & the writer will have to trawl through all of the crap to get to actual valid suggestions".
Anyway I need to stop typing now because frankly I couldn't be bothered anymore & i already sound like a terrible picky person, but things like that just bother me & I just need to keep myself away from them.
Ok peace out x

Photographing today...

Here's a link over to some shots i took today,

An Inspired Life in Pictures

Enjoy x

Cut it 2014: Food

With this weeks grocery shop came the hard decision not to buy any chips, crackers or baked goods in the hopes that I would bake & make any if those types of foods that we want to eat. This way i know exactly what is going into the foods that my children are consuming. I love my chips, so oven baked chips was the first snack food that I have cooked this week. I have a few other recipes that I plan on trying so I hope that they are a success so that I can remove the processed snacks from the grocery list permanently (except for a rare special occasion).

Cut it 2014: social media

This is a hard one as my iPhone is generally permanently attached to the palm of my hand, so I need to find a permanent place to leave it. It needs to be central so that I can convince myself that I'll always hear it in case of emergency (home phones just don't cut it these days lol) and it has to be out of the reach of little hands who like to take countless selfies and attempt to unlock it to the point of disabling. I know that I could always remove all social networking from my device, delete Facebook, Instagram, google etc. but I think it's self control that I need to work on. Plus one of my favourite life motto's is "everything in moderation". So here I am about to publish this post, and check Instagram & Facebook one more time. I will use my phone to take pictures through the day as Its important to me to document this life but I won't check Facebook every two minutes just in case something interesting may have happened in the last 120 seconds.

Cut it 2014: Food

Just a quick one. Cutting out sugar in my morning coffee & replacing it with natural organic coconut sugar. I've never had milk in it. So will see how I go as I can be a bit of a sweet tooth.