I whole-heardtedly agree with Stephanie’s views about the recent changes to WordPress and the effect it is having on blog readership. If you’ve found it harder to find blogs or had your stats drop recently, please check out and “like” her post so that hopefully people start listening! WordPress, Why’d You Go And Change? x
Tag WordPress
First Giveaway – Swarovski Aura Eau de Parfum
Yep, you guessed it from the title… I am doing my first giveaway!
I have a 15ml bottle of the super sexy smelling Swarovski Aura fragrance to give to one lucky person! (Cue, excited jumping around!!!) To enter, all you have to do is follow me on Twitter, etc. (the usual kind of stuff) and the draw will be taking place in a couple weeks 🙂
Providing this giveaway goes well, I’m planning this to be the first of a quarterly giveaway just to say thank you to people for reading my blog. As an FYI, WordPress hosted blogs do not support Rafflecopter properly so you’ll need to follow the link below.
Big loves to you all and good luck!
Say Hello to Pseudo-Sam
When we’re children, most of us are encouraged to dream about the future; what we want to be, where we want to live, etc. and then when we get to the teenage years it becomes less about what we want to be and more about finding who we are now. That fabulous phrase that so many people use comes into play, “finding myself” – whatever the heck that means! Generally, once we actually reach adulthood, we’re pretty much supposed to forget all of this and just be. Be who we are, doing what we’re doing and if we’re lucky, we like it; if not, it’s pretty much tough, there’s not enough time in a day to try and change it.
Or so it was…
These days we seem to be encouraged to dream all the way through life and never settle for anything less than perfection. Some of us are natural born dreamers; every personality test I’ve ever taken and more recently, the Strengths Finder test I took, all say that I’m a dreamer. When I speak to those around me, I realise that they haven’t spent their whole lives wishing for something else, it seems to just be me who has to spend all day, every day in a bubble in order to survive. Essentially, I will never be satisfied because I’m always striving for something better in the future. I blame my mother; she told me that if I worked hard I’d get everything I wanted so I am working hard and now I’m expecting everything I want! (That’s a joke…sort of.) Anyhow, being of a naturally dreamy disposition, I realise I have fallen prey to the virtual world and become a victim of my virtual life.
Rather than really living my real life and changing the things about it that I hate dislike, I’ve created a pseudo-Sam. She’s the online presence that represents me and she is way cooler than I am. Pseudo-Sam wears cool clothes; I know this because they’re on WIWT.com. Pseudo-Sam is a writer- uh, I wonder where you’ll find evidence of that!?! Pseudo-Sam is also way up-to-date on all the latest trends; Twitter tells her what they are. All of these web-based activities represent the me that I wish I was; pseudo-Sam only associates with the people I wish I was like, the people whose lives I covet. The most realistic version of Sam you’ll find is on Facebook. Facebook got in there first; it has both Sam’s – the photos represent pseudo-Sam who is always happy and loving life and the statuses represent real Sam who is mainly disappointed that she hasn’t morphed into her pseudo-persona.
What is this strange world that we inhabit and how do we extract ourselves from it? Will I really have a life left if I cancel my Facebook, Twitter, WIWT.com, Pinterest and WordPress accounts or will I collapse without pseudo-Sam there to prop up the flimsy real Sam that remains? It’s a genuinely tough question to answer and for now, I think my flimsy self is too scared to find out so I’m going to let pseudo-Sam carry on playing, I mean, is it really that different to watching SATC and wishing I was Carrie Bradshaw!?! x
30 Days of Truth…or Self Indulgence???
At some point or other every week I like to have a mooch around on WordPress to see what other people are blogging about or have blogged about. Sometimes the posts I read lead to others which also lead to others and I end up in a tangled web of blogging fantasy. This week, I somehow stumbled upon this concept of the 30 days of truth, which essentially is an opportunity to write for 30 days on the following topics:
- Something you hate about yourself
- Something you love about yourself
- Something you have to forgive yourself for
- Something you have to forgive someone else for
- Something you hope to do in life
- Something you hope you never have to do
- Someone who has made your life worth living
- Someone who has made your life hell or treated you badly
- Someone you didn’t let go but just drifted away
- Someone you need to let go or wish you didn’t know
- Something people compliment you most on
- Something you never get compliments for
- A band or artist that got you through tough days
- A hero that has let you down
- Something or someone you could not live without because you tried it
- Something or someone you definitely could live without
- A book you’ve read that changed your views on something
- Your views on gay marriage
- Your views on religion and / or politics
- Your views on drugs and alcohol
- (Scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you fought with them an hour before. What do you do?
- Something you wish you hadn’t done
- Something you wish you had done
- Make a playlist for someone and explain why you chose those songs
- The reason you believe you are alive today
- Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
- What’s the best thing going for you right now?
- If you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
- Something you hope to change about yourself and why
- A letter to yourself, telling yourself everything you love about yourself
At first I thought, great idea! Some of the topics are better than others but what the heck, at the very least it could be some kind of therapy. However, I then started reading some of the posts on the first topic, hating yourself. Now the blog where I found this idea actually had a pretty good post, some of it I can sort of relate to, you can read it here. However, when I started looking at what some other people had written, it was just the biggest bunch of drivel ever!
People were writing things about hating how everyone can see their potential but them, etc. and to me that is just asking for an ego massage. It’s like when people put really emo statuses on FB and you want to punch them in the face and tell them to man up. This all got me to wondering when we decided that sharing and caring means attention seeking in a negative way rather than doing something to actually make others want to lavish their attention on you. If you lack in confidence so much, why are you so aware of it and choosing to do nothing about it? Most likely because you are a pampered, over indulged little brat surrounded by others in the same boat who feed the negative beast within you and actively encourage this ridiculous behaviour.
So, to get to the crux of my rant, I’d like to send a message to the world to remind everyone that the universe is bigger than you are so essentially nobody cares about you until you do something to make their existence a little bit easier or happier. Therefore, my advice to all these emo bloggers is: get off your fat asses and actually live your life. Then, and only then, other people might start to find some value in your existence and give you the attention you crave! Point made.
Hopefully this week I will find something a little more exciting on my travels through WordPress 🙂
30 Something Dreamer 