Big walk = big bucks... hopefully

Princess Margaret Hospital for Children means a lot to my family. My sister spent a lot of her life there, I had countless asthma admissions there, and Tricks has had two surgeries, asthma and allergy admissions there. If it wasn't for the fact that it was a public hospital I reckon we'd be getting a bulk discount right about now.

When my friend's boy was diagnosed with cancer this year I felt impotent. The whole wanting to help but not knowing what to do thing is a bitch of a feeling. So, I figured throwing money at the problem might help somewhat. I could have done a naughty cake sale to raise the cashola, but decided that walking 6km would have to do.

It remains to be seen whether I'll be able to walk 6km non stop what with the whole chronic pain thing. But I figure if kids like Adam can put up with chemo then I can pop a couple of painkillers, get off my fat arse and push through the pain. I might end up on the couch for a week but screw it, I'm gonna do it.

I'm also doing another fun run a few weeks later. Because I'm a dickhead. But if someone could loan me a wheelchair for December, that would be ace.

If you feel like helping the sick kids then you can donate here. If you're going to be in Perth on Sunday the 4th of November and feel like joining in on the action (HAH! Action? Please, it's me we're talking about, this will be a casual stroll!) then join the group here - the password to join is Glowglow. There's a few other bloggers/tweeps already involved but we'd love some more - that way I can hide amongst the group so no one sees me hobbling along. 

We'd like to raise $500 (well actually we'd like to raise a shed load more than that, but we're being realistic) and we're almost half way there already.

On the day you can follow my slow deterioration by checking out the #BigWalkBloggers hashag and then join in the linky that will be hosted here after the event.

Will you support us? I will give you endless love and devotion. 

EDIT: If you join the group it doesn't actually let me know your contact details! Please email me glowless@wheresmyglow.com and I will let you know where we're all meeting on the day! It's also not letting me know the contact details of people donating so I'm unable to thank everyone individually. But I can say now, watching the tally go up has me crying happy tears. Thank you so much x

SlackKeeper: The must have app for Slackers

Glow Industries is proud to present the newest and greatest app ever designed to help you faff around and do nothing all day: SlackKeeper^TM

In this increasingly corporate world where hard yakka is, regrettably, rewarded, it's difficult to keep track of your laziness and ensure you spend enough time faffing about on each of your interests rather than doing actual work.

But now, thanks to SlackKeeper^TM, being productive is a thing of the past! SlackKeeper is the perfect app for bludgers who want to keep track of their Slacktivities^TM and simultaneously increase their calorie intake whilst reducing their physical activity.

Left: Keep track of how many packets of chips you're eating and optimize your carb intake per minute with handy, easy to read graphs.

Centre: Using your phone's gyro and GPS features, SlackKeeper^TM alerts you when you have been physically active for more than 10 minutes at a time. Because you don't get to be Slacktastic^TM by exercising!

Right: Optimize your doughnut eating skills by doing the SlackKeeper^TM Doughnut Time Trials - you'll be eating a doughnut a minute in no time!

SlackKeeper^TM has been designed specifically for bludgers who are also social media junkies and love to inundate their friends and followers with pointless updates. Your SlackKeeper^TM account automatically posts your accomplishments directly to your Twitter and Facebook account - you don't have to set it up, because we know you're too much of a slack ass to do it!

Available on both Apple and Android systems for $2.99, SlackKeeper^TM is the most effective app you will ever find to help track, measure and improve your slackness.

At Glow Industries we're so confident you'll be the champion of slacking off after using this app that we're offering a money back guarantee! Use the app for 60 days and if you don't see either a reduction in productivity or a gain in weight in that time, we'll refund your money... if we can be arsed.

Are you gonna get slack with me? If you could create any app what would it be?

The Homecoming

A dramatic scene unfolded at Casa de Glow yesterday afternoon. Like a lot of important events in my life (such as my own engagement) it started with me being woken up from a nap. What? Isn’t everyone woken up from a nap to be proposed to? No? Awkward. Righty-o, moving on.

“Glow, there’s an injured bird in the yard. I need your help so Sprocket doesn’t eat it”

Map Guy produced a big black shoe box and told me the bird was inside. I peeked in. It was so small and fragile. It had long scrawny legs and fluffy grey wings that stood out at awkward angles.

But it wasn't injured, it was just a baby. Something inside me stirred. It was only a bird, sure, but I felt an intense urge to protect it. To make sure it got home safe. Reunited with its family.

We put the dog inside and placed the baby bird on our weedy lawn with a lid of water in front of it and stood back to see if it would try to move. It didn’t.

I thought it might already be too late.

But then it blinked, opened its mouth wide and cheeped.

What we can only assume were the parents started flitting around anxiously watching us. The Google Gods tell me they were White-cheeked Honeyeaters. After a few minutes the mama bird swooped down to feed it. I wanted to take a photo but I didn’t want to go any closer and scare it. Plus I’ve not had much luck with wild animals recently and had visions of the mama bird swooping me and becoming lodged in my eyeball. So I stayed well back.

Image: Ralph Green

She flew off and landed on the fence near her peers, all of them watching closely, never straying far from the baby. My heart broke and I cursed evolution for not giving them arms or hands or an Ergo.

We studied the trees around us and the five or six other identical birds swooping in and out of our neighbour’s tree that overhangs our fence provided a useful clue as to the whereabouts of the nest though we couldn’t actually see through the dense branches.

I ducked inside to call to the vet to find out exactly what we should do while MG kept guard. The receptionist said as long as the parents were still fretting and trying to feed it then we could put it on any branch in the tree and it would be helped back. If they weren’t? Well it was likely the little dude had been pushed and would just be pushed out again. Darwinism at it's finest.

By the time I came back the previously motionless bird had flapped it’s wings and managed to half fly half jump a few metres. A definite improvement on its previous movement record of blinking. We took it as an excellent sign that it was in fact not on death's door.

Map Guy put the bird back in the shoebox, made all the more difficult now that it had decided to attempt this ass-bumping half fly half jump routine and lifted it in to the tree. Then the most amazing thing happened... the whole tree, full of Honeyeaters we hadn't even seen, erupted in tweets.

As in the cheep cheep kind, not the @MamaHoneyeater: “OMG @BabyHoneyeater is being lifted in to the tree by @MapGuy83 while @Glowless looks on holding that kid with the cheeks” kind.

Now it might be my hormones or the fact that my rellies are here from interstate for their own reunion to see their dying mum, my Nanna, but the loud and frenzied cheeping heralding his homecoming pulled at my heartstrings with its unmistakably triumphant chorus. They were overjoyed at the little guy's return and all I could think about was how my Nanna would have felt that same joy in these last few days, seeing her five children at her bedside.

We stood and watched the baby bird hop from branch to branch until he was deep inside the protective arms of the tree. He was home. Safe and sound.

And it was all I could do not to weep.

Postscript: I wrote this at 4pm on the 7th of October and set it to publish for the morning. Just after 9pm my Nanna died after a long illness. I'm sure she chose to go then because she was finally secure in the knowledge that her five children were home. Safe and sound.

SEO tips for lazy bloggers

I've never been one for SEO. I mean, what can I promote to search engines? My whinging about nappies? That I'm one of a gajillion women who blog in Australia? I have no real niche so unless I can work in to a post "stuff SAHMs should read for shits and giggles while their kids sleep", I'll just keep plodding along as usual.

The only thing I do that is in any way SEO friendly is the titles of my permalinks, and that function has only been available for a relatively short time now so half the time I forget to do it.

But because I can see my highest ranking posts and the search terms that found them, I've decided to just include the keywords used in them in as many posts from now on as possible, and I highly recommend you should too. It's an SEO goldmine I'm tellin' ya!

These are some of my top posts of all time and the keywords they are found by:

Cold Power Competition - washing smarter. I shit you not. How on earth people find this blog when searching washing advice I have no idea. They'll be very disappointed, that's for sure.

Mappy Birthday - assless chaps. Yes. Think about what type of reader are you trying to attract. If it's one who likes bums, use assless chaps in a sentence today. Don't delay!

10 Reasons I Don't Read Your Blog - why don't people read my blog. Sadly people are reading this and possibly taking it as gospel when in fact it's just me ranting. 

This One Time I Pissed Myself Laughing - jump run leak wee. So I'm kinda proud of this one, it was my first attempt at SEO and it's actually working. It meant 2000 entries (OMG!) and lots of traffic even after it closed.

50 Shades of Torturous Writing - should I read 50 Shades of Grey. Yeah, the whole world is obsessed with it, no surprises there.

5 Reasons Shark Culls Are Bullshit - shark attack shark culls WA. Every time there is another shark attack, the government bangs on about killing sharks. The last person to be killed was actually a friend of a friend, and I still stand by this.

How To Use Chalk To Colour Your Hair - hair chalking. Yep, the coloured hair craze is still going strong.

So there you go. By my very scientific calculations if you write a post called 50 Shades of hair chalk and shark attacks on men in assless chaps who do the washing, leak wee and don't read my blog you will be hitting the SEO JACKPOT! Prepare for the servers to melt.

Do you optimize your posts with keywords? Or think SEO stands for Sugar Eating Opportunity like me?

No, we are not fucking there yet! Plus giveaway

We all remember Go the fuck to sleep, right? Well there's a new book about to launch that is Bonney Press' (as opposed to Boney M's) take on it, written by Andrew Willis and Robin Swift.

No, we are not fucking there yet and other universal truths of parenting. A poetry and picture book for adults with kids. Not for adults thinking about kids, though, because I'm positive that there would be a mad rush for the tying of tubes and a little snip snip after page one.

As someone who does long road trips with a toddler, this book title speaks to me. It speaks to me in foul language covered up by a little love heart. Because love hearts make swearing like a trooper socially acceptable. Perhaps I should walk around with a love heart on my lips?

It's not all about car trips though, it covers everything from food flinging, being pissed on, eating slugs, trips to the emergency room and, of course, mama's special grape juice, all in rhyming prose. Divine!

I love love love this poem:

On reading it and seeing the picture I'm about to ask for royalties because I'm pretty sure that screaming blond kid with the chubby cheeks is Tricky. You cannot call my kid's bluff. If you wave and say you're leaving, he'll stop his tantrum long enough to wave right on back to you and then keep going. Asshole.

If you'd love to get your hands on this book before it's released (it would  make the perfect evil baby shower gift!) plus a whole swag of other Hinkler/Bonney Press titles to entertain your feral lovely children with while you read and giggle in the corner (including How Do I Love You, 501 Things for the Quick Draw Kid, Ghostly Glow in the Haunted House) valued at over $100, all you have to do is enter through the Facebook App.

What is your universal parenting truth? Mine is: the whiter the clothes, the larger the poo explosion.


Hosted by Three Lil Princesses   This is not a sponsored post. I received a complimentary copy of No, we are not fucking there yet.