Friday, November 22, 2013

Puppy Love



You may or may not have been following Harriet's blog: 
My Experience of Walking The Dog and her walk with cancer. Harriet is a brave and gorgeous young woman who is losing ground but has packed more into her 20 years of life than most of us could hope for over three score and ten. She has friends and family who love her and her generosity of spirit and fun is inspiring.

Harriet has gathered a group of similarly remarkable friends and her buddy Rebekah Dorman decided it would be a great thing if we could all say how much we love her with as much happiness and no tears by way of a film, so she could see that (in case she was in any doubt!) before she leaves us.Via Facebook, Rebekah encouraged us all to make and share videos that she could edit into a film and this extraordinary gal, in the midst of Uni exams edited hours of video and pics into an hour long film. We had a film premier at Harriet's old school, Queen Margaret College with food and (non alcoholic) drinks and we laughed and cried in equal measures- but not with sadness, only with joy.

If I were a recruiter I would hire Rebekah in in instant. And to see all those young people there with unwavering devotion to Harriet was very reafirming. They are our future- they have empathy, love and respect in bucketloads. Harriet will not be here in the years to come but she has helped shape the world around her a little, in her own way, through showing her peers what kindness, generosity, laughter and honesty can do.

The video is on Youtube and it's an hour long. Most of it won't mean anything to you unless you know her and it's fairly personal, so I won't link it here. But I did a piece for the film because she's been campaigning for a puppy which her parents are not so into. So here's my puppy for Harriet.
If you follow the instructions and make one, then call it Hat- because that's what her nickname is and all hats off to that beautiful gal xxx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FINupIbUSSM&feature=youtu.be






Monday, November 18, 2013

Spam and Blogger Sammies anyone?





Lovely spam, wonderful spam
Lovely spam, wonderful spam

Spam
Spam
Spam
Spam

Lovely spam
Lovely spam
Lovely spam

Spam, spam, spam, spam

(Monty Python)


One of the reasons I post less on my blog and more on facebook is because sometimes I'm not even sure my posts here get read. My pages get viewed I can tell that from my stat counter, but actual blogging has almost become, at least in my experience, the sort of MySpace of forgotten posts, only trawled through by spammers and bots who leave such gems as: 

'You made some really good points there. I checked on the net for additional information about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this web site. Look into my homepage (www.spammy mcspam)'

or


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and


I appreciate, cause I found just what I used to be having a look for. You have ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye. Look at my webpage (www.spammy mcspam)'

All in reply to how to make a Hat Box Birthday cake. Reading has become a non essential part of the blogosphere it seems.

When the wonderful world of blogging was opened to me, I thought that I'd be suddenly picked out of the masses for my pearls and gems and be offered book deals or columns in online media. I've posted some of my wittiest and poignant pieces on this blog since I started it in 2005. I've shared poems, pictures, insights, crafts, creative news and the odd outrage about the policies in this fair country of ours. I've been happy, I've been sad and I've been honest, all to be noticed I suppose.
But I never expected it to become a spam sandwich short of a picnic. Which is what the trawlers are.

Happily I can report that my most popular post and template is for how to make an ANZAC Day poppy, closely followed by how to make paper poinsettias. I get up to 200- 300 downloads a week for these. I often wonder where they go and who uses them, if at all. Or if spammers are making darts from them. So I was extremely heartened when I had this lovely comment and picture from Melanie Kirkpatrick in Australia on my facebook page:



To commemorate Remembrance Day, students across our campus made over 2000 poppies and 'planted' them as a tribute to our brave servicemen and women. It was such a visually moving tribute to our service personnel. Our Campus is situated near a joint Army/RAAF base and we have just under 80 children enrolled who are from 'Defence Families'. I am employed as a Defence School Transition Aide and I assist these families to settle into our school and the local community as quickly as possible so as to minimise disruption to the families and to the children's education. I also support families when a member is on Deployment or an extended exercise. Educating the students and the community about Remembrance and ANZAC Day is a role I take very seriously and it is a role which is very close to my heart, as I also belong to a 'Defence family'. Thank you for your poppy template, the children really enjoyed this activity and I'm so proud of every single one of them. Kindest Regards, Mrs Melanie Kirkpatrick Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

Melanie, I'm proud of them too and thankyou for using the template :)