Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Bloggers are Great People

I'll take this opportunity at the start of the year to encourage us all. We're all making a wonderful difference, whether we know it or not. It's the 21st century and the World Wide Web is a fantastic tool to influence as many as we can so we might as well make use of it. Since I've been blogging, I've read a countless number of uplifting posts from a variety of people spread across the world.

My husband and kids still grin and giggle if we're at extended family gatherings and someone remarks that the word BLOG stands for "Boring Load of Garbage." Yet I know they find my blogging quite interesting. I have to smile myself whenever I hear my dh refer to "friends of ours in America" during conversations. Both he and I agree that the only thing that would top blogging would be to actually travel over & visit all our friends in person. But alas, we don't know when that will ever be. Especially since we'd want to make a concerted effort to cover as much of North America as we possibly can. We'd start on the West Coast and visit Call Me Kate, The Leingangs and Coffee Mom. Then we'd want to catch up with Comfy Denim in the centre. And no way would we miss Juggling Paynes and Vicki on the East Coast. That's just to mention a few. So the whole thing would mean juggling of time, finance and organisation but oh boy, how great it would be!

I'm also thankful for bloggers closer to home. Last week I followed up a comment from a lady named Kylie Willison, who lives quite close to me. It turns out that I met her at a homeschooling conference in Adelaide where I was trying to sell my books. Those of you who have been following my blog for awhile might recall a post I wrote last May about what a write-off I thought it was from a business point of view. I'd managed to sell only one book all day and had a bit of a whine about how it probably cost me financially, when I considered petrol on the way down and table hire once I got there. And some of you commented that we have to do these things and you never know the outcome. Well, Kylie turned out to be one of those special encouragers God holds back for awhile to surprise us with when we're not expecting it. Not only did she end up ordering my Quenarden series through my website after that contact, but she's also encouraging other people to visit my site & blog and read my books. (Turns out she keeps a very interesting blog as a bonus).

I think one of the appealing things about blogging is that you can't help forming well-balanced friendships. We all get a chance to stand on our soapboxes and yabber on about whatever strikes our fancy, yet we are also happy to spend the time reading what others have to say and discussing what's on their minds with them too. Nobody gets to take over and monopolise the conversation. And nobody needs to feel as if they're retiring and not being heard either.

Just to round off the whole experience, we can heat up our kettles and enjoy a nice cup of tea or coffee with each other too.

8 comments:

  1. I love blogging, too! I love the acronymn your family has! I would love it if you guys could come and visit us here in the states. If you came now there would STILL be snow on the ground. But what would be even better is going to visit you there! My boys, especially Zack, really wants to go to Austrailia someday. He talks about it all the time!

    Thanks for being a great blogging friend!

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  2. Don't forget if you ever visit Disney World. I am a mere 2 hour drive. Let's do coffee!!

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  3. *sniffle*
    The feeling is mutual.

    Sorry for not commenting much lately. I'm in the middle of this book... ;o)

    I loved your advice below about writing a page every day. I had been considering doing that myself! I'm trying (once again) to figure out how to gather my comics into a collection along with some of my thoughts. Who knows? Maybe this year it will happen! I owe you a book, after all!

    Peace and Laughter!

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  4. I agree - totally! Todd and I have been kicking around visiting Australia and/or New Zealand for several years - and IF we ever do, we'll give you plenty of notice!

    Wouldn't that be an excellent road trip - start here in the Northwest and work your way across America. First, you'll have to make lots of money selling books, then you'll need 1-2 months to fit everything in. No problem!

    I haven't blogged in quite awhile - I'm still in unwind mode from Christmas. I'm going to ease back into blogging by leaving exceptionally long comments.

    Thanks for being our friends!

    Kate

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  5. I should see if I can get Andy to write to him. I loved having a pen pal in Germany when I was his age. He's not a big writer, but I may be able to get him to e-mail Logan if he has one. Would Logan be interested? I'll see what I can do. :o)

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  6. Hi!
    And through Kylie talking about Quenarden I found your blog!
    Have a great day.

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  7. Well, you know, if you're ever here on the West Coast you best be planning on dropping by here to say hi!

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  8. Oh, wow! We feel the same!! I had a dream a while back about Australia - and got tickled. I told the Professor that if we moved to Australia, I had one very important thing I needed to do!! Visit the Apple Leaf Family!!!!

    We're very grateful to you all.

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