Showing all posts tagged blog

In Business & Blogging

My Blog, My Rules.

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on 25 Comments

 

photo by Laughing Squid via PhotoRee

 

I didn’t go to CyberMummy11, purely because when all the bookings were being made I just didn’t feel I could leave my youngest that long yet (coming from North Yorkshire it would have been a very full weekend). That’s not to say I didn’t WANT to go and I enjoyed it by proxy via the wonder that is Twitter Hashtag! I found myself scribbling away snippets about vlogs, niches and the like and was mentally putting it all into play on here and then I thought…”STOP!”. I don’t need to do it all tomorrow, I don’t need to do it all, at all!

Initially I decided to start blogging to house guest-posts and the like for freelance writing projects. Yeah ok. My blogging is completely separate to my work and I love it this way! Yes Curly & Candid earns me bits and pieces and I am immensely proud of the fact that I have a regular readership and yes, have done well in ratings so far – but C&C is more than a tool. It’s mine,and as much as I like seeing the extra readers / points and badges – I have realised that I have to stick true to what I want for C&C.

Hearing a lot of great things about vlogging for a second I thought – “Oh I must try this then and…” but stopped. WHY must I try it – I bloody hate being on video. I’m the queen of “Urrmm” and it just doesn’t ring my bell. So why on earth would I do it? I can’t imagine my reaching out to “readers” if I can barely look at the camera.

It’s very easy to get carried away with what we “should” be doing and I’ll hold my hand up and admit that sometimes I feel myself moving with the tide rather than standing my ground and enjoying the view! I’m not CM-bashing, far from it, I will be there next year with bells on. This is just me reminding myself that Curly&Candid is what I make it. It’s not a factory bought and published website, it’s individual and it’s ok for me to not do what others are doing or to try something completely different. Nothing I do on C&C is wrong, because it’s mine. I must try not to forget that!

In Funny, General, Parenting

Mystery blog swap

Author Nicki CawoodPosted on

Something different! I have a guest post on today, but I can’t tell you who it is. You have to guess! Sound confusing? Read this and it will all become clear. Can you work out who is blogging where? Author unknown, a fantastic post about the rollercoaster that is a Secondary school appeal!

IF ONLY I’d chosen a home 2 miles to the left! – Secondary School Appeal.

My daughter didn’t get into the secondary school of her choice. It’s been a disaster.  We knew it was a long shot as the school was oversubscribed and we live the furthest away but after relocating 2 years ago and my daughter settling in with a new group of friends, it’s become very stressful for her that she has to go to a different high school to them; a high school that she really doesn’t like.

Preparing for the appeal panel was tense. Finding reasons to justify that the stress to my daughter outweighs the logistical difficulties faced by the school for allowing her a place was a challenge. The Powerpoint presentation cover had lots of photos of my daughter with her arms around her pals (children that had all been allocated a place already) in the hope of tugging the heart strings.

The reasons where three-fold and very detailed, focusing on mostly emotional arguments. Presenting them to the panel last week, I battled throughout to maintain composure. 28 children are appealing and it seems that they usually allow 3 or 4 children in on appeal. Why does my daughter deserve a place over the other 27 children who are also heartbroken that they cannot attend the school of their choice?

I thought we had a strong case, drawing examples from our lives that have been a bit of a nightmare the past few years. I threw into the presentation a photocopy of a court order that could be used to support my argument and tried to wow the panel with my daughter’s high achieving school grades. I also mentioned my other daughter who was 12 months younger, also wanting to attend this school and how her life would be turned upside down if we were denied a place. The unique point I had was that my ex husband is a supply teacher in the area of the school that my daughter has been placed but not in the area of the school she wants to attend.

Turns out, after finding out a bit of gossip in the playground, everyone else seems to have a strong case too so I’ve started gently mentioning to my daughters that the appeal will not be successful.

We’ve had tears and tantrum while we wait for the results next week.

I’m pretty sure that we haven’t been successful with our appeal and I’m not sure how to deal with the consequences.

 

 

All original content on these pages is fingerprinted and certified by Digiprove