The sun peeping out shyly from behind scattered clouds
After a week of heavy rain. Finally today saw a lull and I actually managed to catch the sun set.
Happy weekend.
Ciao
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Yesterday I got a message from WordPress congratulating me on being 17 years with them. Before that I was with Blogger. So it’s been a long time since I’ve been blogging.
I started out as Penelope Potty Snooper on Blogger Then I morphed to Mumbai On A High on WordPress and actually got a professional to re-design my blog since I went self-hosted. and finally I’m here with Jetpack as 25×7.
A long journey
It’s been a great ride . As always, I jumped on to this bandwagon as a complete novice. Categories, tags, social media, algorithms – these were words which frankly only now are beginning to make sense.
Like most people my age, I was scared to approach this new technology – being accustomed to a manual typewriter.
From typing on my clunky 486 to flitting between my iPhone and desktop, I’ve learnt to navigate my way. I learnt how to make my own images on Canva, transfer straight from my phone and do many wonderful things with the blog.
(But still I find it difficult to master reels and stories and posts and basically all that is INSTA, so VLOGGING is not happening yet)
Still bumbling
From figuring things out on my ownI went into joining blogging communities at Blogadda and Indiblogger. Those were really fun days when I throroughly immersed myself in blogging. It was fun attending their events and I enjoyed meeting a whole load of people through the opportunities it got me.
My first ever thrill of winning was with Blogadda’s competition that gave Blogadda that earned me Rs. 5000 coupon. Then, I went on to win a Hamilton Grill in another contest. The highlight of my blogging journey was winning a competition that enabled me a 4 day all expenses trip to Malaysia. This was sponsored by the Malaysian Tourism board and was totally unforgettable.
I once had a hair raising experience driving a newly launched car to Lonavla and back with a bunch of guys even younger than my own children! And one of them didn’t even possess a licence. This was a contest Blogadda had with Tata Motors to promote their then new launch BOLT. The car has long since been discontinued, but the memory of that ride will stay with me forever.
Through blogging I made a tonne of friends online and even managed to meet some of them in person .
By participating in blog hops like the A to Z Challenge I discovered so many wonderful writers.
For years I participated in the annual #A to Z challenge, #Skywatch Friday and several bloghops like #ThursdayTreeLove.
I used to enjoy those bloghops and consistent bloggingso I wonder what made me stop?
change is the only constant
When I started out, my intention was to let my family and friends overseas know what was happening in my life.
I soon realised that no one was interested so I began writing for myself.
I had three blogs – One on food that I called Foodities where I shared food memories, restaurant reviews and recipes. I signed off this blog as Bellybytes which I thought was a great name!
My second blog was on parenting or rather grandparenting and was called Nappy Tales.
Once again, I found it difficult to keep up writing three blogs and didn’t manage to generate any traffic or followers.
So these naturally fell by the way and I am now on this one blog in its latest avatar 25×7 since Anna Shetty convinced me that Mumbai On a High sounded like the confessions of a regular substance abuser!
I wonder how long I will stay on this journey.
It gets disheartening when the followers don’t come. I get disappointed when I find that despite Social Media feeds, the likes and comments are not forthcoming.
And more than anything else, trying to master newer skills on Canva etc becomes really difficult if you have to carve out minutes in a busy day.
But, I hope to be around for a few years more.
So see you on this blog.
Ciao,
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Today was one of those days where I actually felt happy. After a long time.
Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com I am happy most days but today, the happiness was different – I felt lighter, calmer and more at peace.
This was all the more significant after the weird experience I had yesterday, where I just froze with fright and, for the first time in my life, felt inept, incapable and stupid. It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to do it, but because I was scared. Scared that if I gave the wrong advice, I would be screamed at.
For the past several days or may be months, I’ve found that what I said wasn’t going down very well with my family. Suddenly from being a person who could solve any problem, I became a bumbling idiot. My content was wrong, my tone was wrong and my timing atrocious. Thus even the most innocuous comment was dismissed as foolish and unasked for. Sometimes it was a mild rebuke but on two occasions it turned into a loud screaming tirade that actually made me feel that I’d committed a heinous crime. Since then, I prefer to keep my counsel lest it be misconstrued.
So we were going to a building which we had never been to before and even though the GPS was on, when we took a little detour, its orientation changed and for a while I was confused. So when Hubby Dear stopped the car and asked me if he should turn left or right, I just froze. I was too scared to answer lest he took the wrong turn ( because of my directions) and then listen to him scream at me for the rest of the ride.
Eventually we did find our way but my self-confidence was shattered. Since when did I become so incompetent?
I found that I was not alone in this shift in family dynamics – many of my friends are in a similar situation when problem solver becomes a problem.
This made me deeply unhappy.
I got up feeling sad and barely went through my yoga routine. Sorry, Saurabh, I could just about do the warm-up before abandoning the session. The walk downstairs didn’t do much to lift my spirit.
But after a delightful afternoon spent in the company of my cousin, left me feeling exceptionally happy. Because she shared with me her experience on choosing to be happy.
THE SECRET OF BEING HAPPY
It is essential, she told me, to identify what is making you unhappy or sad. Write it down and think of what you can do to change it. If you can’t, just accept it and decide that it is not going to get you down. Crumple up the paper and throw it away..
Thus, you should choose to be happy. Because a happy mind makes for a healthy body.
So tonight, I’m going to bed, choosing to be happy.
Ciao,
Twenty- five Seven 