Why oh Why am I doing this?

I literally typed the following into 'Google':  'Why do people blog'?  As you would expect, a H.U.G.E list of articles came up. I have since come across articles giving some fabulous advice, funny things to do, quirky things to do, inspirational things to do and absolutely outrageous things to do, it was quite educational.


For those of you who know me and/or have followed my diatribes on Facebook over the past few weeks, you will know that I have been trying to rejuvinate my blog. What a comical disaster of errors this has been. I have searched high and low for a new funky background, I have 'Skitched' and spliced, Picasa'd and Googled, I have deleted and added, changed fonts, swished colours, chosen and un-chosen templates, and even updated my blog roll. I now have a new look and a new focus and I have been all gung-ho to .....


Oh pfft... What the heck am I doing here?  Why on earth would anyone care about what I have to say? Who is reading this anyway?


I know that this sounds a bit weird and a bit self-loathing, but I have had to basically decide whether this blog thing is for me. I mean I could leave my little ripple in the blogosphere and take up cross stitching cat decals on socks and be done with it. Then a Crafty friend reminded me of why I started this blog. I love to write.  No, no, I know YOU love to write too.... But I L.O.V.E. to write.


At night when I wake up, I am in the middle of thinking through story plots, or I am thinking how I can improve a recipe format, or I am remembering something that made me really mad and a letter I could therefore justifiably write (I have a very interesting 'Draft' section in my email account), I am coming up with anonymous letters to people in my street to get their cats desexed, their lawns mown or letting them know that if I stand on the very tippy corner of my bath and lean 32 degrees, I can see into their shower. I love to write. About anything.


So... writing is my first passion when it comes to my blog. But my other passions fit into my blog too - which is handy. I am passionate about 'cool' - ridiculous, right? Not cool for the sake of being cool, but cool as in maintaining a good attitude, keeping good peeps around me, experiencing new things and constantly learning learning learning. I am anti-settling. I am not ready to settle into my hair-cut, shoe style, jeans cut or my 'look'. I am not ready to say I am too old for things (I will not be listening to Beiber and wearing jeggings by the way, don't worry). I am passionate about continuing to discover myself and life even though I have kids and a mortgage (or two).


Therefore, (I wanted to start this paragraph with, 'So', but the previous one was....) within the html of this blog you will find things on fashion, shopping, my somewhat quirky homelife (just wait until you meet 'Fern'), my feeble attempts at crafty things and sewing, and I am going to add cool things about my kids. I was not going to blog about my kids because EVERYONE blogs about their kids, but, you know what? My kids are really cool, and we do really cool things together. Therefore, they get space on my blog.


But you will hopefully find my first love, writing. I give myself little topics to research and write about and things to think about all the time, which send imaginative sparks shooting through my brain.  Topics coming up in my Drafts are the history of Birkenstocks, lists of what you need to get your cool back if you have lost it, rules for shopping, the difference between 'Style' and 'Cool' and the list goes on and on and on and on....


Cool....

So, am I cool?

I have been baffled by the whole concept of cool. When I first had the idea for this blog, I must have been feeling pretty hip, pretty happening; but now, a few months down the track, I wonder if I would know cool if it hit me in the face. This is not an invitation for those cool people out there to actually hit me in the face, by the by.

So I thought I would ask around. But who to ask? My friends are all too lovely and would tell me that I am, in fact, very cool and give me reasons etc etc, but it is not the same as asking someone who would tell me the truth no matter how much it hurt. So I asked Friend #1, who instantly said that of course I am cool, but there are various notions of what that means. He stated that to a surfing, tattooed, mud-wrestling hippie - I may be the epitome of boring. But, to another full time mum, part time teacher with a deep desire to be cool, I may rate higher on the cool scale. He also said that I need to define the difference between style and cool - it was then that my brain started hurting and I asked him to please pass the salt.

I asked my sisters. Who else could really know me and have a historical point of view of who I truly ruly am? I sent each of them a text simply asking if I was cool and would explain why I needed to know at a later date (I am too chicken to mention my blog to them....) Sister #2 did not reply - and the reasons for this could be two fold; 1) She thought my question was stupid, or, 2) She had been eaten my her neighbour's feral children. Sister #1 replied as bluntly as expected and said that no, I am not cool, but more along the lines of cute and quirky.

Herein lies the conundrum. I have been working my whole life at being cute and quirky, because I think that these are cool qualities. So I can only surmise that cool is individual. Of course there are some universally cool things out there and also some things that are anti-cool (see previously posted lists), but I believe it basically comes down to individualism and how this is portrayed.

One of my friends, who I believe is cool, collects things, not Snoopy McDonalds toys, but fine China and black t-shirts - I think this need to collect is cool. Another friend, who I believe to be cool, will wear the same Ben Sherman t-shirt until it is thread bare and then buy a brand new t-shirt - I think this thriftiness and sense of style is very cool. Another friend again, is obsessed with craft: she scraps, she sews, she cooks AND she writes two blogs - passion is cool.

Therefore coolness is acting out your personality not dependent on trends or fashion, but simply on a core sense of being true to one's self. This is my quest - and coolness is my Holy Grail.... Should I mention here that Monty Python rates below moulding fruit on my cool scale?