Ex's - Can You be Friends on Social Media?

I was reading a blog the other day about how no one, and I mean NO ONE, should be friends with their ex’s on any form of social media (and you know what, I can’t find the link to reference it, but go to google and you’ll find plenty of stories!).  Apparently it is bad for your self-esteem, well-being and overall health.   I’ve got to agree.  I’ve been cyber friends with one or two former boyfriends over the years and after a while you just wonder why the heck you’re bothering.  It wasn’t going anywhere, or obviously they wouldn’t have been an ex – so why want an insight into their life today?

 

Anyway, I just thought I'd pose the question - it's an interesting conundrum.. 

 

Mean while I will leave you with a quote, not sure who by, probably an anonymous who couldn't let go of their ex on a social media platform...  But anyway....

 



Do you agree or disagree?

 

I Am Kind of Unique!

At this time of penning this blog the following statistics were taken from the population clock (ABS Population Clock).

 On 26 June 2013 at 04:24:27 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

23,096,105

This projection is based on the estimated resident population at 31 December 2012 and assumes growth since then of:

• one birth every 1 minute and 43 seconds,
• one death every 3 minutes and 34 seconds
• a net gain of one international migration every 2 minutes and 15 seconds, leading to
• an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 20 seconds

Now, I heard on the radio yesterday that about 17,000 people will take part in Dry July (up from 15,000 in 2012).  Honestly I was amazed as I thought it would be a lot more.  It works out that the percentage of Australians taking part in Dry July is:

0.07360548456114137 % 

NOW I know I need to account for babies, children, religious beliefs, tee totallers and other parts of the Australian population that don’t drink but fair to say I was blown away at how few people participate.

So my question is, actually my statement is, I am unique!  As are the other 16,999 people who participate.

I know it gets tiring and expensive donating to every cause.  Believe me, I’ve given my fair share of death stares to bucket toting koala bears who wander the streets of the Sydney CBD (don’t you just want to kick them in the shins?) and I have listened patiently to the spiel of the “charity” collectors who ring my front door bell.  To be clear, I am not talking about The Red Cross, Salvation Army etc, you KNOW the ones I mean.

I promise I will not go on and on about Dry July, but sometimes it’s worth bringing these things to people’s attention.  You don’t know what you don’t know – and this piece of trivia (I worked out while driving to work on Tuesday after hearing an ad on the radio) proved interesting to me (obviously, I blogged about it).

I may not raise a lot, but I will be able to say I helped, in some small way, to those who need a little bit of help.  And in doing so I will help my own liver and well being along the way.

Thanks for reading.

At the time of posting this blog the population stats are:

On 26 June 2013 at 04:42:27 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

23,096,118

You've got to admit my picture to illustrate unique is kind of cool and kind of apt.

Seal - One Memorable Outburst...

You know, I used to be a Seal fan.  Sure he had one memorable hit and one mediocre hit, but I liked him. 

He split with Heidi, and back before my epiphony that he was a nutter, I thought "if they didn't last, no one can".  Then he ranted.  And ranted some more.  Some not very nice things about her and I grew to realise not all was as it seemed.

Then I saw him on The Voice.  Night after night after night..  And he wore thin.  His pompous, smarmy attitude and condescending ways made me cringe, to the point I turned off The Voice, never to turn it on again. 

And now he is ranting over Joel and the infamous 5 grams of weed (for the record, I couldn't care less about the weed..) and saying he wants to go home and we are all - well you can read it for yourself.

Seal's Twitter Rant

Can I book your ticket home Seal?  I'm sure there's a few of us who would even pitch in to pay for it. 

For the record he apologised, apparently 11 weeks away from his family is taking its toll.  You'd think with the money these people are paid they'd suck it up.  Apparently not.

Seal's Apology After Twitter Rant

The Dry July Diary.. Entry 1

So I've decided to use my blog as a Dry July Diary for the next few months...  Kinda like a Bridget Jones kinda diary me thinks...

Here we go - entry one:

So, the word is out there that we are doing Dry July (Sarah, Taryn, Deb + Allégra = Abstinence in Oatley)... Other people seem to be more concerned about us going a month without alcohol than we are.. It's weird, people actually look at you like you've just said you were abducted by aliens last night when you tell them about it.. It's made us realise how many people seem to enjoy a tipple or two regularly.. And yes, we fall into that category, but on the same token we are not freaking out about participating..  Let's see how we all feel closer to July 1st shall we!

Our local RSL (Oatley, of course!) has indicated they are keen to get behind us (Oatley RSL) which we think is fabulous (they will be losing some revenue through out July, but know they are getting behind a good cause!)!  Looking forward to some mocktails made by the fab bar staff when we frequent there is July.. 

Finally, the donations have started rolling in the door, okay, two people have so far, but two is better than none!  And it is only early days yet. 

Till next time - thanks for reading!

Dry July - Abstinence in Oatley

Dry July - Abstinence in Oatley

Some of our best (and to be fair, most hair brained) ideas and schemes have been lovingly concocted over a glass (or two..) of vino or bubbly..  Maybe even a beer on a warm day..  However; this is our best idea by far (yes, you guessed it, decided over a glass of vino).  In July, for 31 days, we will abstain from alcohol to support a great cause – cancer.  And this is where you all come in.. 

To those of you who know how stressful days can be made that little more tolerable with a tipple or two, to those of you who enjoy a drink socially on a Friday night, and to those of you who know or have known someone affected by cancer, we ask you support us as we embark on “Dry July”.  The four of us will become your designated drivers, the angel sitting on our shoulder encouraging you to have that glass of water in-between beverages (okay, we promise not to be annoying) but most of all, the four of us want to make a sizeable donation to the “Dry July” campaign; we want to make a difference, a contribution.  So, if you have a spare few $’s we’d really appreciate you digging deep.  We will keep you updated of our progress. 

There are some of you out there who think we can’t do this (and that is a fair statement, given how the four of us love our social gatherings and dinners out).  To all of you I say we can. 

SOOOOOOOOOOO........  Dig deep everyone and follow the link below to donate..   You will see the individual team members (four of us, obviously!) - click on one OR all (if you are feeling generous!) and you will be walked through how to make a donation..

Our aim is $2,000 between the four of us - that's only $500 each, and we are sure we can surpass that!

Dry July - Abstinence in Oatley

Through the Eyes of a Child...

So this blog had the potential to go one of two ways...  Let me explain...  I am in my home town for the first time in two years.  I haven't seen my parents, siblings or niece and nephew for two years.  Life got in the way.  It's no excuse, it just did.

Life isn't always easy - when I woke up this morning there was nothing in my head telling me to blog.  But if there had of been, it probably would have been a piece about how Parkinson's Disease has robbed my mother (and my father, as her full time carer for the last 10 years) of life and how much it, well quite frankly, sucked.

Then something magical happened.  I spent the day with my soon to be 3 year old niece and saw life though her eyes and suddenly everything seemed less dire.

I picked her up at 11am, intent on doing some shopping, have a spot of lunch and a walk in the park.  I got that and so much more.  I got honesty, lots of smiles, lots of giggles, lots of thank you's and a gently tug at my hand every time I looked in a shop window for too long.

We started with clothes shopping.  One tutu, one dress and an array of tights and tops later, we meandered through the mall, hand in hand, stopping to look at "diamonds" on the footpath (purely decorative but oh so exquisite to a 3 year old), listen to a one man band busking in the arcade, window shopped in the lolly shop before ending up where my auntie and mum used to take me for lunch 35 years ago.  It's still there, serving the same food, just a lot more expensive.  We chose sandwiches, chips and a culinary desert of "frog in the pond".  We munched away, people watching, giggling at the group of senior citizens at the next table slurping their milkshakes and keeping out of the 30+ degree heat.

Then a stroll to the local park to look at the monkeys, ride on the train around the park, play on the swings and go down the slide (100 times).  Not once did I feel the need to check in with work, I was too busy having a blast with my niece.  We splashed water at each other at the old fashioned bubblers, we played in the first autumn leaves, we stopped and talked to every "little person" we saw - simply because that is what little people do.  Big people could take a leaf out of little people's books any day..

And then as we are driving home she says "You are my best friend in the whole wide world".  AND I'm happy to be her best friend, she demands nothing but attention and love and the occasional tutu.....  I can manage that no problem.

If you are 40, or older, you might think this is funny...

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today..   You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

a)    I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

b)    There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

c)    Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

d)    There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

e)    Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

f)    We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

g)    There weren't any freakin' mobile phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

h)    And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

i)     We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

j)     You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

k)    There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

l)     And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

m)  And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

n)    And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd



Please note; I did not write this, I found it and it has no author, but who ever you are, it's funny and oh so true..