The count down begins!

3 weeks to go!

Next week I leave South Africa to travel to the US on my own. I can hardly believe it! First the east coast (NJ), then Phoenix, then San Francisco – then back home again. I’ll be in Phoenix some days before the 1st April, when Susan Schwartz and I will revise our posts and hopefully push a button and UP will appear our posts on the accompanying day of the letter. I’ve been saving our posts in the draft folder of the A-Z – a mission.

 I did not have a theme for last year’s A-Z blog challenge, my first time. This time the theme is very much on ‘Aging & Becoming’. As mentioned before, Dr. Susan Schwartz and I are collaborating on this and each post will alternate between the 2 Susans.  I am not sure having a theme has made it any easier – it is challenging nevertheless, as was last year.

I sincerely and deeply thank many co-hosts e.g. Guilie, Damyanti, and many others who have gone beyond kindness in helping me create a link to my comments on other blogs. And for all the co-hosts’ ongoing, helpful posts as to to A-Z guidelines. Their encouragement is contagious!

 I know only too well how irritating it is to jump hoops to comment back to the person who  commented on yours. I know this has been the case with mine. Many of you use Bloggers or blog.com as your host. Mine is WordPress and this has caused difficulties in the past, now resolved.

I’ve been jumping around on the list which is growing steadily and leaving comments and I’m amazed at the number of posts that do not yet have the A-Z badge displayed. Those who have not yet put up your badge please do so! And those who have captchas really need to remove them – please!

Please use the sign up on the right hand side if you wish to automatically receive my blog posts. I would so appreciate this. Usually I email many friends to say I have just put up a post, but I don’t think I will do this any longer after this one. It feels to me that I am putting pressure on the receiver and it is time consuming on my side.

Re: images to use on blog posts – a tip. On Google, there is an images button and these are free unless they have a watermark! I’ve been checking them out for suitability and use for mine and there are some great ones.

I know that many if not most of the A-Z bloggers are from the US and that the weather is improving with signs of Spring! So great! Here in SA the weather is really cold and damp and we’ve had tons of rain up here on the highveld. It’s enough already…I’m so looking forward to coming to the States … it’s been too long since my last time.

All best as the count down begins!

Aging & Becoming

Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage: Anais Nin.

The 2 Susans, one in Phoenix Az., and I in Johannesburg, South Africa, are preparing our posts for the April A-Z blog challenge 2014. We’re hoping to be able to schedule them so that come the day, come the hour, we can just press a button and voila! UP they appear!

In the April A-Z blog challenge we’ll be posting on topics on the theme: ‘Aging & Becoming’. 

We’ve done several so far over the airwaves, all still to be edited and fashioned according to the A-Z script – (not too long for one thing). And still more letters of the alphabet to do. I’ll be with Susan in Phoenix towards the end of March. I can only imagine two non-techie non savvy individuals trying to get this all sorted … press a button and UP they go? Pictures, quotes and body of post?

We’re enjoying doing them though it has been tough putting into 500 words or so what we want to say for that particular letter. We do not know whether this is a topic that will garner interest on the April A-Z blog challenge. Naturally, we hope that our psychological posts are of interest irrespective of age and across all ‘fields’. Naturally, we hope that our blog posts receive attention and comments – whether in agreement or not. (No attachment to outcome I keep telling myself …)

For the last several months Susan and I have been working on a collaborative effort i.e. a book on ‘Aging & Becoming’. It is very psychological – from the psyche – the only way.

We’ll be posting blogs on topics covered in our book.

In our book we combine our diverse experiences of life and share our perspectives and cogitations. We note how ‘aging’ is applicable to us and we wonder how this process is shaping our lives. We’re both in a different place emotionally than several years ago. We wonder about yet ‘becoming’ as we step into this particular stage of our lives – one with its own challenges, peaks and valleys. Still able, and yet feeling tremendous shifts.

We comment in our book – and will do so in the A-Z blog posts as well – about, inter alia, the conscious and unconscious restraint against the older woman in Western oriented cultures. Because we feel the restrictions around ‘age’ we decided to write about it. We felt that something needed to be said.

We continue to work on our book ‘Aging & Becoming’ on a shared document over the continents. Sometimes we lose several pages of the document which is very upsetting. Somehow we find them again. It’s a bit like aging – lost and found. Losing and finding – and not just documents.

I’ve been popping into the A-Z blog challenge list and making brief comments here and there. The list will no doubt grow as 1st April looms ..

Your comments are always welcome. And so is sharing on various social media – thank you.

Please subscribe in the box made available if you wish to receive posts leading up to the 1st April and the actual challenge itself.