Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: So Now What?

Welcome to the Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute series on my blog. It's to celebrate my birthday and blogiversary week. Each day until and including 15 December I will feature a guest blogger who I admire. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I did collating it.

Bern Morley from So Now What? has a talent. She's successfully drawn me in to her blog which is part of a genre that I have little interest in. The Mummy Blog.

She writes her blog with such wit, intelligence, honesty and compassion that I can't help but love her blog. Even though I don't have children, I can relate to her so well.

Bern likes Savage Garden and is not afraid to blog about it - big tick! Bern tells funny and sometimes poo-filled stories about her kids. And heartfelt ones. She made me cry with the story of her mother's decline in health. And this blog entry about her father is one of the most moving pieces of writing I've ever read.

I've come to know her through Facebook and Twitter, and will be meeting her next March. She's beautiful inside and out. And I know she'd fight me for Callan Mulvey. Game on, Bern. But let everyone read your guest blog before we have the showdown!

Guest blog by Bern Morley:

WHY I BLOG

If you had asked me if I blog eighteen months ago, I would have thought you were enquiring as to my toileting habits. To be quite honest, you could have spoken Norwegian to me and made more sense, such was my ignorance.

Around that time though, I started using Twitter. I had tried Twitter before that, and it just hadn’t stuck. It was like I was sending little 140 character statements off into the ether and I guess I felt like a bit of dick. But this third time, more than likely because I was bored, I followed some local people and they answered me back. And then I got Retweeted for something witty I had said and BAM, I got it. Like Whitney to a crack pipe, twitter was my new addiction.

It wasn’t long before I noticed people tweeting about their blogs and I clicked their links to discover what in the hell they were talking about. I was and still am, an avid reader, so to think I may have missed out on all of this diverse information for so long kind of bummed me out. Imagine if these had been accessible to me when I couldn’t get my son to sleep all those years ago? Or when my 2 year old daughter at the time, started having night terrors? I especially wish I had been aware when our son was first diagnosed with Aspergers. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have felt so alone and ashamed of myself. Shared experiences count for so much more than any kind of information pamphlet a doctor can hand out.

I am a pretty bog standard working mother of three in the two thousand and tens. I am not crafty or incredibly talented in any one area. I have one child with Aspergers, one on the cusp of leaving her innocence and naivety behind, and one who is a natural disaster on legs. My husband, a plumber, just comes along for the ride in this theme park of a life and for the most part, does not complain.

I guess that doesn’t really explain why I blog.

To be completely l honest, I started blogging because I thought I had a book inside of me. Some years before, I had woken up one morning and seemingly out of nowhere, penned two chapters of a book. Then that was it. It was left to fester in the wasteland that is my overworked hard drive. So, probably more than likely trying to avoid an assignment one night, I signed myself up to blogger and then I posted those two chapters as my first blog post. And then I ran and hid in the toilet and held my breath.

Eventually I came back to face the music. And to my surprise and delight, not only were there comments but there were lovely comments. Encouraging. Almost instantly, I was addicted. Addicted to the positive (and sometimes negative) responses to something I, Bernadette Morley, wrote with my own hands and mind.

The funny thing is, I’ve gone back and read those two chapters and they are complete shit, but I do have them to thank for getting me started and keeping me there.

Thanks Carly. You are one of the other reasons I blog. Because you are inspirational, funny and quite possibly are one of the most unique individuals I have ever met without actually meeting. Oh, and you have the best freaking dress sense in the world. Thanks for having me. xxoo

http://bernmorley.blogspot.com/

Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: Business Chic + Bon Jovi review

This is a bit of a different Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute blog entry. My friend and fashion blogger/multimedia extraordinaire, Cheryl and I went to see Bon Jovi last night (11 December at Etihad Stadium Melbourne). She has written a guest blog below. Before it though, I will tell you about our Bon Jovi experience.

Cheryl has a fantastic fashion blog called Business Chic which showcases the stylish workers on the streets of Melbourne. I've been following her blog since I read about it on the Vogue Forums, probably her third blog entry in. She is a talented writer and photographer, and provides me with lots of inspiration for dressing for work.

As Cheryl will tell you in her guest blog, I met her in person when she photographed me for Business Chic. Tonight was the second time we met - and it was lovely to catch up properly. She is such a beautiful, caring person.

It was Cheryl's childhood dream to go to a Bon Jovi concert. And tonight she wore her Bon Jovi tshirt which she has had since she was in grade five. The jumper comes with funny story - when she was in grade five, she wanted to go to Bon Jovi, and asked her Dad to take her, but he didn't want to go. So he bought her the jumper as a consolation. Recently when she told her Dad she was finally seeing Jon Bon Jovi in concert, he told her 'you know he's an old man now!'.

Our night started with two unfortunate yet funny events. The first was that the Docklands restaurants were all booked out, and we were buffeted from the buffet we wanted to eat at (despite them having many empty tables).

The second was that the fierce wind blew my tickets out of my hand, and I shrieked while Cheryl ran after them. Fortunately they blew on the ground for a few metres, and Cheryl rescued them - clutching them to her heavily beating chest until we entered the stadium!

I am so lucky to have gone with a serious Bon Jovi fan! Cheryl knew all the words to his classic songs. She sang with passion. It was very cute to see her brimming with emotion about seeing Bon Jovi in concert - at one point she said 'I have no words'. Adorable. Much of the first hour for Cheryl was spent in a state of overwhelming awe:

Bon Jovi were amazing, and it was no wonder Cheryl was in awe after being a fan for so long. Like some of the other bands I'd never thought I'd see but have done recently (U2, Crowded House, Hunters and Collectors), I was so excited to see Bon Jovi, credible leather clad power balladeers.

(source)

Bon Jovi played for two and a half hours. The band has such stamina. They were jumping and singing and breaking a sweat. Jon Bon Jovi is 48. With great teeth. And charisma. Jon Bon Jovi made a comment that he is the only one with big hair.

And the band has such an extensive catalogue of hits. Living on a Prayer. Bad Medicine, You Give Love A Bad Name, Dead Or Alive, I'll be there for You, Always, Someday I'll be Saturday Night, It's My Life, Have a Nice Day, Runaway, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Keep the Faith... The setlist is here. In the middle of Bad Medicine there was a jukebox projected on screen and Bon Jovi inserted a medley of other songs: Roadhouse Blues and Shout. And During I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the jukebox theme came back and the band sang Start Me Up.

Jon Bon Jovi interacted with the audience and the band, much more than Bono did at U2's concert last week. The stadium was packed. At one point Jon compared Friday night's concert at Rod Laver Arena to the Etihad Stadium concert: 'That was like a club gig compared to this. This is going to be better'.

The band didn't need special stage effects to hook the audience. Just rock and roll, and interaction did it. The songs are timeless. The audience were so enthused. It was more vibrant than U2. The energy was electric, even in the very back row where we were. Almost everyone sang along to every song even the lesser known ones. A few verses of Wanted Dead or Alive were sung solely by the audience. Jon asked the audience whether we wanted him to sing the song.

Jon Bon Jovi got into the local spirit by wearing a Melbourne Heart soccer jersey during the encore. Apparently he is the club's number one international ticket holder. Unfortunately Melbourne Heart had lost the game against Melbourne Victory. last night. And Jon couldn't make it to the game either because he was playing a concert at the same time.

A friend of mine wrote on her Facebook 'Looking forward to ultimate 'mass karaoke' night out - the Bon Jovi Concert!'. This was so true! Cheryl and my voices were sore from singing. We punched the air like the rest of the stadium. We sang our hearts out! Here is an example of my karaoke during my favourite song of the night, Always:

Thanks for the great concert experience Cheryl! I had so much fun letting my inner bogan rock out! And thanks for writing the guest blog!

Guest blog by Cheryl Lin:

I started up my Melbourne-based streetstyle fashion blog, Business Chic on March 1^st of this year. I was about to say it hasn’t changed my life but honestly in some little ways it has…

Because of Business Chic, I now have an excuse to ask well-dressed folk about what they’re wearing and where it’s from. Like a great pair of shoes, cute skirt (Target has been popular!), great accessories or a beautifully cut suit. No more waiting for the train, staring wistfully at a great bag, tie or wondering where that gorgeous lippy is from – I go find out and in some cases have great conversations with lovely Melburnians that leave me with a spring in my step. Sometimes I even hear back from the featuree saying my compliment left them smiling too!

My blog is my portfolio and has led to me photographing and writing for a number of streetstyle fashion websites. It means I get to meet more emerging designers who I hope to one day be able to profile on BusinessChicTV or my other project – the eco-chic ThreeChicsTV. It means I get to use what I’m learning to style and photograph great projects like for the Melbourne Zoo. Did you know that the Melbourne Zoo has a program that helps families and wildlife in Northern Kenya survive drought? It’s called Beads for Wildlife – and now you know!

But most importantly, having a blog has led me to meet other bloggers which as one other blogger Poppy Get’s a Life! once said to me – “is unexpected but really so lovely.” I agree that it is indeed the cherry on top. I’d been reading Carly’s blog and was surprised when a Carly Findlay started popping up with comments on Business Chic – a lurker on Radio Carly, I’d always been too shy to actually leave a comment – and then, there she was – ON MINE!

Around that time, a designer whose work I’d featured on Business Chic (Alexi Freeman) invited me to blog from his pop-up store at the GPO. So I did and invited my readers to come visit me and felt quite cheeky when I asked Carly to come visit me so I could photograph her for Business Chic – AND THEN SHE ACTUALLY DID!

Business Chic is about individuals who put in the effort to showcase their personality within the confines of a workplace dresscode – and I was thrilled that Carly liked the photos enough to blog about them. Because there is nothing more exciting than someone you like, liking your work. Oh WAIT – YES THERE IS!

It’s when that other person is the only other person you know IN THE WORLD who will come with you and let you be a daggy bogan at the concert of your childhood hero – BON JOVI. Happy Blogiversary Radio Carly – I can hear your laughter in your gorgeous writing and it makes me happy. I hope we do some TV collab one day but in the meantime I look forward to more laughs and fun with you in the future. Xx Cheryl

http://businesschic.com.au/

www.Twitter.com/busichic

Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: Rellacafa

Welcome to the Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute series on my blog. It's to celebrate my birthday and blogiversary week. Each day until and including 15 December I will feature a guest blogger who I admire. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I did collating it.

I first 'met' Hayley Cafarella from Rellacafa on Twitter in 2009. I was tweeting about how much I love Sgt Brendan Joshua on Rush. I searched for the #rush feed, and found a few other girls also tweeting over their love for Josh, or Lawson Blake. Soon it became a regular Thursday night event - watch Rush, and me, Hayley and a few other (excited) women tweeted our commentary about the episode of Rush, particularly what we might like to do should Brendan Joshua arrest or save us. Like this: 'Josh on Rush. Reliably keeping me satisfied.' and 'I am loving the BROmance between Josh and the Sunnyboys in this season of Rush.' and 'Wow! Next week Josh has his shirt off!'. Fun times.

There was more to Hayley than her Rush tweets alone. I discovered she had a blog before I started mine. I came to know Hayley through her blog. She blogs a lot about her journey with her disability - chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS). And she inspired me to write about my own illness.

Hayley is so articulate and creative in her writing. She explains her disability so clearly - including all of the emotions associated with it. Sometimes it is difficult to read or watch (she does videos too) - the reality of disability - the pain, the loneliness, the financial stress - is confronting. But it's so important that people like Hayley tell their story to raise awareness about the situations, and also form communities with others online. Hayley uses her blog as a form of therapy, and in each entry, no matter how bleak she feels, she always finds some positivity. I am always moved when I read her blog.

We finally met in person at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival earlier this year, and then again at the Rush premiere in July. She came to my birthday party last week (and blogged about it).

Hayley and I have become great friends through blogging. We email, tweet and chat on the phone frequently. We understand what it's like to be physically limited by a chronic illness or disability. We are both creative. And still both love Josh. I also recommended her to the ABC Ramp Up editor, and she was also asked to contribute her brilliant writing to the website. Here is her first brilliant article!

Thank you for writing this guest blog, Hayley! You're a really special friend.

Guest blog by Hayley Cafarella:

The internet is a pretty wonderful place, once you get past the psychos and porn. A couple of years ago, I was completely unaware of the amazing world of blogging. Thanks to being struck by Complex Regional Pain Syndrome in 2006, I ended up surfing waves all over the web in order to distract and entertain myself. I was amazed to discover the calibre of writing that appeared on blogs and found myself fascinated by writers adding a personal touch to many different topics.That’s when I decided to get in on the action and start writing for myself.

My disability is a pretty hard thing to understand, even for the doctors who specialise in it, especially for the patients who experience it and perhaps even more so for the families and friends who support them. My blog began as a way to try and communicate what I was going through; to spread awareness about CRPS and hope that some day my condition would be understood and accepted. Something that I never expected when I started writing was the way in which I started connecting with other people suffering from the same condition and the comfort and support their existence would provide me. When there are no cures, comfort sits atop slippery anxiety and simply sharing stories and rants with people who understand has meant that, often, I am able to get a better foothold in my mind and stay sane.

As I became more confident about interacting online, I began to meet more and more people through Twitter and Facebook who were dealing with disabilities different from mine. Quite often, I found that I have a lot in common with anyone suffering from a condition that limits their activity or causes pain, as my condition does both. Chronic pain or illness brings about a lot of psychological changes that one must deal with and I think the support that patients can offer one another in this area isn’t limited by the specifics of their condition. Sometimes, we just need to reach out and feel another hand take ours; a cyber hand can feel just as reassuring as a fleshy one.

Carly is one of the few online friends that I have made and had the pleasure of meeting in person. At first, I was incredibly hesitant about meeting up with people from the internet - they could be anybody, right? Well, yeah, but the times are changing and the separation between online and real life identities is getting smaller. I have found that most people whom I reach out to and form relationships with through social media turn out to be who I expect them to in the real world. Usually, what I have learnt about them online is just a small taste of their awesome and it’s nice to go out and basque in the whole deal. Meeting up with Carly has been great, I think almost every occasion she has introduced me to other new and fascinating people that are now a part of my world. That’s the run on effect of making new friends, you see, they often come with a whole bunch of other potential new friends to get to know! Some friendships might begin in the online realm, but the real world effects of taking time to meet up and broaden these relationships brings even more rewards.

The most wonderful thing about meeting up with people who have gotten to know me through my blog is that they are already aware of my CRPS and, to an extent, how it effects every aspect of my life. When I meet people randomly, this can be kind of hard to explain and also hard to avoid. “What do you do?” is right up there at the top of most small talk conversations! My answer usually leads to a little disbelief and then pity. When I meet people who already have a little background info on me, that dark shadow is lifted from our interaction and I am not left feeling misunderstood or disconnected. Once upon a time, not very long ago, I approached an internet social meeting with a bit of trepidation. Nowadays, I look forward to these outings and often find them less stressful than a social setting that will have me small talking with people that I don’t know at all.

As a species, we tend to focus on the negative aspects of things. This has great ramifications for surviving in the wild; remembering a plant that made us sick or a place where we tripped over and hurt ourselves is important in a biological sense. How many times have you asked someone about a holiday or an event and had them reply “It was a pretty good day, but, my food was cold/the bridesmaids looked awful/the bed was lumpy...”. When it comes to the internet, people often focus on the negatives and find themselves hurt by comments from strangers. Exposing parts of yourself in order to connect with other people can make you feel vulnerable and cause anxiety about how your words or actions will be perceived. I have had unpleasant experiences myself, however I choose to let those go and keep focusing on the positive interactions that I have and the supportive relationships that I have built with others. The warm fuzzies that they bring into my life far outweigh any small minded comments from people that I don’t know.

Having a disability can lead to a very lonely lifestyle. I could not be more grateful that the internet is here to allow me to share my journey and learn from the experiences of others. Blogging allows me to stay connected with old friends as well as connecting with new ones. To an outsider, bloggers might appear to be self indulgent, narcissistic or frustrated writers who are unable to get published. Those bloggers do exist, but they aren’t the whole community and it is worth going to the trouble of weeding through them to find the talented gems. I am so glad that I share parts of my life in this way. Blogging has already allowed me to find great new friends, like Carly, and I am looking forward to connecting with more amazing people over the years to come.

www.rellacafa.com

Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: Luscious Llama

Welcome to the Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute series on my blog. It's to celebrate my birthday and blogiversary week. Each day until and including 15 December I will feature a guest blogger who I admire. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I did collating it.

If you haven't seen Lanelle Elizabeth's blog, Luscious Llama yet, you should visit it pronto. She shares snapshots of her life, in word and photo form. She is a very talented photographer. You will see that in her entry below.

I also like the way she dresses. And her lips are seriously enviable. Luscious in fact.

She has a cool boyfriend called Mr Maus. He made her this funny card.

Luscious Llama's a teacher in training. Her enthusiasm and passion for teaching, as well as her intellect makes me confident that future generations of students are going to be in safe hands. I liked her 'I love teaching' entry.

And she loves stationery (me too!). This blog entry about packing for teaching prac excited me no end.

Go give Luscious Llama some love. She deserves it!

Guest blog by Lanelle Elizabeth:

Carly as most of you readers know is a wonderfully interesting and exuberant person. She found me through my now defunct University Literacy course blog, on our mutual devotion on antiquities such as May Gibb’s Gumnut babies. Henceforth I recently reignited my interest in blogging – something I’ve done on and off since my high school years.

My name is Lanelle. I am fairly young, have nearly finished a double degree at University and I plan to become an art teacher. Currently I freelance as a fine art photojournalist. I’ve exhibited work in numerous regional and city galleries in NSW. Other than that I live a pretty standard life somewhere between Newcastle and Sydney.

Blogging, alongside the internet has been the growth chart against which I’ve lived my life. I’m twenty-two now and my family first obtained a computer in 1990. I suppose I never really considered diary making and so forth because I never had anything to write home about till I started commuting into Newcastle for high school everyday. For that I started with the Livejournal platform, which allowed me a glimpse into the lives of other persons in my year cohort at school which I would not normally get to know. I enjoyed reading about their thoughts and kept mine and I think this is how I became interested in writing, moreso than posting pictures and what not. Livejournal for me was the centre of my life from late 2003 onwards and I kept it till I was entered into a HSC blogging competition in 2006, my final year of school. It wasn’t an official competition by departmental standards or anything of the sort but a competition that sort of ran on an unofficial HSC advice forum website – kind of like vogueforums for high school kids who are more interested in pop culture and insulting one another’s intelligence, than style notes or the latest designer for Target collaboration.

To get selected, I had to compose a short piece on why I would be a suitable candidate. I don’t remember the particulars but I did include that I was Asian, a band photographer and lived in a very ‘white’ regional part of NSW, had a ridiculous amount of interests that I loved the arts, wasn’t bothered with mathematics and wasn’t in it for prizes or anything. I simply wanted to meet new people that were interesting an around about age from other places.

There were 9 of us to start off with, 4 schoolgirls and 5 schoolboys from the eastern seaboard areas. I was lucky enough to make the first culling round, where the 3 other girls were voted out. This I thought was unfortunate because I was basically the only girl amongst 5 boys. So I got a lot of the female votes I believe simply because I was the only school girl left. Some other bloggers made their entire Year 12 cohorts vote for them but I only told a few friends because I didn’t want to make a scene within my already bizarre high school (I attended a performing arts school).

I would write about things that happened in my day, subject content I found pointless, silly things my pet cat would do, my anxieties, my joys, mindless trivial things like what to put on your Year 12 jersey, food I liked to gorge myself on, troubles in my life, my less-than traditional Asian family, pictures of my HSC art project, and just life basically. For some reason my blogging style seem to appeal to a wide variety of people which have gained me some of the loveliest of friends post-HSC. Best of all it also gained me my current boyfriend, Mr Maus who’s good mate had entered in the competition and gotten his entire year to vote for him and write awful comments (of the trolling variety) on people’s blogs. Nevertheless Mr Maus could never find it in his heart to write something nasty about me and we ended up keeping in touch, meeting up and falling in love once the competition was all over. So that is my nice little story about why blogging has been a very important part of my young life so far.

I think my manner of writing is fairly predicable – I don’t have an original writing style, given that my creative abilities lie within photography but I do enjoy expressing myself. I also love reflection and in writing this particular post I can remember the kind of person I was back then – and how all these experiences have shaped the person I am now. I think that blogging, particularly as it is a typed form, offers a very interesting introspective methodology on which we can see ourselves live to this modern age. It seems to me, a new kind of historical footprint. It's one that requires us to carefully choose our words and opinions but one that finds us open to the possibilities of a global community.

And that folks, is the end, and here I leave you with some pictures from my life 09-10.

Me and Mr Maus on Skype

My Sydney loves at some fancy place.

An Andy Warhol 21st.

Morpeth Times with Newcastle Loves

Cats are excellent. My favourite domestic creature.

This is me on Bastille Day in Bordeaux.

St Emilion, the loveliest vineyard in Gironde

I had two 21sts, this is one of them.

Our first picture together after 6 months of being in different countries

Bastille Day with Excellent Europeans.

My Newcastle lovelies.

Me in my teacher mode - photography is fun with Year 12 kids.

I went to Japan with these people, we have reunions biannually.

I'm a photographer to The People, particularly young and not very wealthy people. But I love it!

My high school friends. We graduated nearly 5 years ago.

http://luscious-llama.blogspot.com

Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute: Raising Ruby

Welcome to the Enough about me, let's talk about YOU for a minute series on my blog. It's to celebrate my birthday and blogiversary week. Each day until and including 15 December I will feature a guest blogger who I admire. I hope you enjoy the series as much as I did collating it.

Christine Gillow is my first guest blogger celebrated in the 'Enough about me let's talk about YOU for a minute' birthday-blog-week. I am so thankful and honoured she took the time to guest blog - I love how she writes.

It's strange that I didn't actually know Christine's name until last month, although I've been reading her blog, Raising Ruby almost all year. I knew the blogger as 'Ruby', an adorable labrador service puppy in training, and 'sister' of Kiva. 

I don't remember how I found Raising Ruby but I remember the night I did - I was captivated by the blog full of pictures of a then baby puppy. Retrievers always make me squeeeee. That night I read every entry dating back to when Christine and her husband first received Ruby to raise. And I commented on almost every entry. I have followed Ruby's journey ever since. 

I love Christine and her husband's dedication to the job of raising a service puppy. They are so aware of a service dog's importance to a person with a disability. Their blog has raised my awareness of what the importance of service puppy raising is to the community.

If you are in Australia and want more information about raising a service/seeing eye puppy, you can visit the following websites:

Guide Dogs Victoria

Assistance Dogs

Aware Dogs Australia

It was interesting to read just how clever dogs are, and also to know that puppies are puppies, no matter how serious the task is for them to focus on. This video is one of my favourite things on the blog. It is delightfully cute. And funny!

Christine and I have been leaving comments on each other's blogs, and exchanging emails and tweets. I love this friendship we have made. When Toby and Jazz died, I received beautiful condolence messages from her. It is comforting to know that someone else understands just how much a dog means to a person, and how difficult it is when they die.

Ruby has graduated to 'college' now. I've never patted Ruby. Or met Christine. But this entry moved me to tears. It is a bittersweet moment letting the beautiful puppy that you have taught and loved go to the next stage in their journey. I am really excited to think about the difference that Ruby will make to someone's life. She will be their best friend.

 

Guest blog by Christine Gillow: 

Raising Awareness for Service Dogs through Blogging

Raising Ruby chronicles the life of a Colorado service puppy in training, Ruby, on her journey toward becoming a service dog for an individual with a disability.

Last July, a 10-week-old service puppy in training joined our household and I considered blogging about our experience. "It would be a great way to track Ruby's education," I said. "But blogging is a big commitment," I debated. "I'd love to give the gift of her puppyhood to her future partner," I countered, "and maybe potential service puppy raisers would find our blog helpful as a resource."

I still wasn't convinced. "If I start writing about Ruby, well…I'd absolutely have to see it through. Be very disciplined and dedicated for the next year and a half, no matter what else is going on. Can I do that?" I looked down at the puppy and the computer, both in sleep mode in my lap. I continued arguing the case loudly with myself, when my newspaper-reading husband across the room pounded the gavel. "Do it! Of course you can!" His enthusiasm beckoned mine, so as I began raising Ruby, I began Raising Ruby.

A tiny yellow Labrador Retriever/Golden Retriever mix puppy, Ruby was beyond adorable as she barreled around our home and ventured on her first public outings. We shot hundreds of photos those first few weeks (impossible not to) and I wrote about our training adventures. I knew at least my mother was reading my blog and I figured maybe a few out-of-town friends were getting a kick out of it, too.

I wasn't entirely new to blogging. I had started a blog in 2005 and enjoyed posting for a few months until life got hectic with a move out west. More recently, I had been following a lot of blogs on a wide range of subjects. But I was blogging Raising Ruby without a supporting Facebook page (still don't have one!) and without a stat counter (at first), so it was a big surprise to realize that people were beginning to follow us as well! In September '09, we were named a "Cool Dog Site of the Day." By early autumn, comments were popping up from new friends and fellow bloggers, emails were arriving, and then a well-known style and fashion editor tweeted about us. In November '09, that same fashion editor, Liberty London Girl, wrote a blog post on Ruby and our international traffic grew. Google’s “Blogger” named Raising Ruby a "Blog of Note" in March '10 and this summer, we were nominated for a 2010 Petties Award for Best Cause Related Blog. 

I have volunteered for service dog organizations for many years, but through Raising Ruby, I've been able to work toward raising awareness for service dogs by reaching areas I never would have otherwise. Ruby and I met hundreds of people on our outings in daily life and countless more via the blog; there is no better ambassador than a puppy to help people understand the challenges that individuals with disabilities can face. Our little Roo has progressed to Advanced Training now, and if she is ultimately placed as a service dog, I'll be thrilled to present her partner with the story of the sixteen months that Ruby spent by my side. Having such a detailed account of our time together is a gift that lives in my heart as well.

Even though Ruby has moved on, the friendships I've made through Raising Ruby continue. Last winter, I woke up one morning to find my inbox full of thoughtful, kind, and funny blog comments, all from a young woman in Australia. Carly had been suffering through a particularly painful evening thousands of miles away, but somehow she had found our Roo to keep her company. She let me know that she had read Raising Ruby start to finish that night; I was very touched and so glad she was able to find some comfort through the antics of my little yellow service puppy. Carly wrote a beautiful piece about Ruby in February and consequently, some of her many loyal followers in Australia and around the world became Ruby’s fans, too! Since our first "meeting," Carly and I have kept in touch through our blogs and correspondence and if she and I were ever to meet in person, I am quite sure we would immediately share a bottle of wine and a lot of laughs!

Happy Birthday and Happy Blogiversary, Carly! Ruby and I thank you for helping us raise awareness for service dogs; your contributions and support were such an important part of our journey. I look forward to sharing in your journey for many wildly successful years to come!

http://servicepuppyruby.blogspot.com/