A whole month of steps forward

I can’t believe that I started this blog a whole month ago. OK it’s 30 days to be exact: however, the blogging challenge that I started to coincide with launching The Canbace Diaries with a 30-Day Blogging Challenge and not a 31 Day one. Having reached the end of the challenge it’s a great time to stop and reflect on progress.

Don’t worry I won’t be going through ALL 29 blogs. Instead I’ve going to share a few beautiful perspectives on each of the seven words, so I touch base on them one last time. No that doesn’t mean after 30 days I’m stopping The Canbace Diaries: however, there is a change of strategy on the cards.

By the time I share the first blog of “The Canbace Diaries”, the idea for Canbace has been bubbling away in the background for a couple of weeks. Canbace was no longer happy to be kept a secret by four people: it was desperate to be set free to make its mark upon the world by encouraging other people to start Creating A New, Beautiful And Courageous Existence.I do need to take a moment to thank Brandi Lytle, of Not So Mommy, and Sue Johnston, The Infertility Advocate, because I cannot put a price on their support and encouragement over the last 30 days. In the weeks that followed. Creating a new beautiful environment allowed me to celebrate the progress I was making in taming the garden after years or neglect, Whist our first visit to a night market in YEARS is helping us to create a more sociable canbace life. We didn’t feel quite up to tripping the light fantastic on our first venture out: however, we’ve found out the lovely and talented Mickaël Vigneau is playing near us towards the end of August so there is still time for us to be dancing on the tables before summer is over.

A Step at a time made me realise that steps can take many forms and that small steps can have huge impacfts. Steps can range from an impromptu karaoke session in bread isle of the local super market to understanding why IVF pregnancy announcements had always been a huge struggle for me. Obviously allowing my 10-year-old’s brain dictate who I responded to the BFPs was not a sensible strategy!

Items for my New(s) and Reviews came in thick and fast over the last month. Being part of promoting “The Story of Penny” and seeing their fund raising campaign reach their target was brilliant. On a personal note, it was wonderful that someone “purchased” by Writing Mentoring package and I’m really exited to get starting with that during this week. To think that I almost didn’t offer my “offering” because there was only four or five days left of the fund raising and I thought it was too little time to really help. I’m so glad that I kicked my inner critic into touch. I also shared other important New(s) and Reviews (such as World Childless Week and Fiona Tate and Sue Johnson’s initiatives and our very own Canbace/Childless Awareness Ribbon) please check the out as they are all important initiatives and deserve bucket loads of support.

I really enjoy my “Beautiful perspectives” series. It gives me a chance to develop ideas I have about my own healing and happiness. Discovering that my faded inner flamingo is itching to become a fabulous flamboyant flamingo now that I’ve hit 50 is a highlight of the whole 30 days, however, mowing the grass so we can see the elephants grazing in the field by the drive comes a close second.

And now for something completely different turned out to be exactly that. We had loads of puppy love cuteness, a plethora of silliness from Python, The Two Ronnies, Rowan Atkinson et al, several “guilty pleasures” and a battered brown suitcase. The result? A reminder that “it is a truth universally acknowledge that cute photos of puppies will be shared on the internet.” Perfect timing for the BBC showing the delectable Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. If I’m AWOL from social media for a while over the coming days you’ll know that it’s because I am indulging in some “pleasurable pleasures”. There is NOTHING guilty about it at all!

An unashamedly indulgent wallow in smouldering looks: be still my beating heart …

And what I think is one of the most beautiful scenes of the whole adaptation: Elizabeth “says” it’s OK I will protect Georgian and Darcy’s admiration grows.

However, I digress …

Courageous Canbacers has been fun and though provoking too. People loved that fact that Andrew shared a little of his story and thoughts and were intrigued by my thoughts about Queen Elizabeth I being a Courageous Canbacer. Whilst the blogs about Jody Day and Saalumarada Thimmakka helped me to honour two amazing canbacers.

Existence can be hard has been surprisingly hard to write because it’s a challenge to write about challenges in an up-beat, we can be positive about this, way especially when the challenges in questions are HUGE. The result has included looking at healing as a “game” of Snakes and Ladders, and realising that sliding down the same snake twice, can still be progress because your healing has become a snowball as it reaches a tipping point and builds momentum. I am sure this will get easier over time especially when I have a bit of a breathing space which means I can plan my blog content in advance and see the big picture rather than writing one blog at a time. More on that later.

So, what has my 30 Days of living the Canbace life and doing the 30-day blogging taught me in a nutshell?

About blogging:

Blogging is an art (that I am still perfecting) and having the wonderful guidance of Sarah and Kevin Arrow, of Sarke Media, is a huge help to get you started. Having started with ZERO views I’ve reached almost 1,000 in 29 days. I’ve also had my blogs shared over 350 times which I think is blimming marvellous! I’m learning more about SEO, content rifting, infographics, killer headlines and tuna sandwiches (!) all the time. I’ve still got a way to go before everything becomes like second nature to me: however, that’s fine. Part of my new Canbace mindset is that “good is good enough”!

About Canbace:

Canbace is far, far more than simply a word. It is an ethos, a mindset, a life style. 30 days ago I decided to structure my blog around the words that form Canbace thinking that I needed week repetition to help hard-wire the concept. By the end of the first week I knew that wasn’t necessary. My Canbace life was building momentum on its own. I didn’t realise that I had been waking up with feeling the weight of being childless resting on my shoulders EVERY DAY because being childless wasn’t a conscious thought as I woke up. However, every morning for the last 30 days I HAVE woken up thinking “I am CANBACE: what adventure am I going to have today.” That is a HUGE shift!

Which leads me conveniently on to what’s going to happen over the next 30, 60, 365, 3,650 days. Well I will be blogging at least for the foreseeable future: however, it’s not going to be every day. I’ve written over 30,000 words for the blog already and I also wrote 15,000+ words for the magazine as well which, even for a writer, is not sustainable. As from 6th August I will be publishing a new blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday together with the occasional extra blogs on Tuesdays (News and Reviews) and Thursdays (Courageous Canbacers) as required. I need to take a very little break because my head is spinning (in a positive way) after this very “full-on” month. Hopefully three blogs a week will mean I have more time to plan the content, so it is slightly more coordinated and longer blogs can be divided into multi-part series. I’ll also have more time to spend on the other Canbace related initiatives that I have planned for the future.

As for the rest of my/our future …. Well that future is BRIGHT because the future is CANBACE!

In CANBACE friendship!

If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about so if you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know and I will keep your words private.