WordCamp presentation on Genuine Blogging

Some of you may remember that I wrote a proposal here on this blog in late October to speak at WordCamp Victoria 2012 – a day long conference everything to do with WordPress. If you haven’t been keeping up on my business site, then you may not know that I delivered the interactive presentation a couple of weeks ago and it went great!

I won’t go into all the details here since I wrote about it in two posts over on www.bethcouglerblom.com, but if you’re curious you can check them out here:

Speaking About Blogging Genuinely

More on Genuine Blogging

I also included a copy of my presentation.

Thanks to the WordCamp Victoria 2012 folks who gave me the chance to speak at this great conference! And special kudos to all the fantastic women of the FlyTribe who chimed in on our private Facebook group with their thoughts about blogging to help me prepare.

The Beginning of WomenAlive

Supplies all laid out for Collage Night

Last November I decided to start a group to bring together all the amazing women that I know here in Victoria. I decided to call it WomenAlive. My vision was to create a group through which women could get to know each other in a meaningful way, having deeper conversations than sometimes we have during our rushed and hectic lives. And of course, I wanted us to have fun! I envisioned that we’d have some events at people’s homes, and some events out in the community doing things that we don’t normally get a chance to do on our own or actually make the effort to undertake for ourselves.

In short, I wanted another excuse to live the kind of life I myself want to live, and I wanted to bring together other women who might want to do the same thing. And I’m so pleased to say, it’s totally worked so far!

The first event was at my house in November, where about 20 women came together to mix, mingle, have a few beverages and generally get to know each other. We spent a lot of time going around the room and – one by one – answering questions that I had made up beforehand on little cards. We each drew a card and answered questions like:

• “What is one thing you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done yet?”
• “If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?”
• “How would you spend the perfect afternoon?”
• “If you could be the best in the world at any one thing, would would it be?”

And so on. It was amazing. Right away the group was honest, open, full of life and laughter. Some vulnerabilities surfaced, and everyone was supportive, connective and great. It was amazing.

Since that night we’ve had two other events: a Walking Pilgrimage earlier this month with Nicole Moen, and a Collage Night last night at my house. While very different events, both left me feeling energized and happy. The group is turning into exactly what I want it to be.

My vision is that even though WomenAlive may grow in size, we will keep the numbers of each individual event small so that people can connect better with each other. This is not a networking group, it’s meant to go deeper. Friendships are developing! And for the most part, we really don’t talk about work. Right now, there are about 40 women in the group, either people that I know or people who know someone else in the group. While we are taking new members, it’s by referral only. We connect through a Facebook group ostensibly, but the real connections happen at the events. A running group has even started because of WomenAlive!

I’m going through life trying to figure out ways to build community and this is one of them. Doing things like this helps me feel alive, so hence the name. I can’t wait to dream up our next events!

If you are a friend or acquaintance of mine in Victoria and you’re interested in joining WomenAlive, please ask me. For the rest of you, I encourage you to start groups in your own area such as this! Just think about it…what would it take for you to feel really alive?

 

My word for 2012

I’ve been reading a few blog posts lately about people choosing words to guide themselves throughout the year. I like the sound of this. The idea is to choose one word to keep in mind about something that I’d like to be, have, do. Something that I want to remember to remind myself about when life gets busy and I get caught up in a whirlwind. To have the kind of year I want to have.

In the late part of 2011 I realized one thing: I haven’t been having enough fun. There are likely a few reasons for this but the cost of living here in our beautiful city has a lot to do with it. Honestly, it costs so much to keep our roof over our head here that it doesn’t leave much room for other types of expenses. When I realized, after tracking my expenses using an iPhone app the entire month of November, that what we were spending on “Entertainment” was shockingly low (I mean less than $50), I realized that we have to start doing something to change this. We need to have more fun.

And so my word for this year is ENJOY.

Given what I said earlier about expenses, my challenge will be to find ways to enjoy myself this year that don’t cost a lot of money. I want to try to remember and recapture the things that give me joy. Music, art, fashion, travel … I’ve let some of these things go by the wayside a little bit over the past few years of parenting and busyness. I’d like to do more.

And so, to enjoy myself this month I’ll be going for a 90 minute massage (thanks to health benefits and a saved birthday present from last year), going on a walking pilgrimage, getting acupuncture, holding a collage night for my women’s group, and joining a choir – for a start. And you’ll likely see me using my blog to talk about them. I’ve said before that blogging keeps my feet to the fire to do fun things in my life…it’s time to recapture that. I think it’s also time to dig out the rest of my Year of New ideas that I didn’t have time to finish when I did that blog project too! I had so much fun that year. I still have to go zip-lining and more…

And so, in 2012 it’s time for me to ENJOY. What will you be focusing on for 2012? If you had to choose one word for the year, what would it be?

If you don’t have a will you should be scared as hell

A couple of months ago my husband and I sat down with someone and did a very important thing. It was something we had been *meaning to do* for more than three years now and had just never gotten around to it.

We made a will.

Do you have one? If you own property or have young children, you should. Actually, to be perfectly frank: if you don’t have a will you should be scared as hell and run out and get one soon. I don’t think that we were scared enough ourselves that we didn’t have a will. We should have been. Dying without a will in place is not a good idea.

First off, let me ask you two questions:

1. Do you care who your assets go to if you die?
2. Do you care who becomes your child’s (or children’s) guardian if you die?

Our answers to both of these questions was a resounding YES. And having a will now means that we have made legally-binding decisions to take care of both of those issues if and when the time comes.

In November 2010 The BC Notaries Society found that only 51% of BC adults had a will in place – a shocking number, really. Why is that? Are we lazy? Do we trust too much in the system? Are we too busy to make time to do this stuff even though we know it’s important? Yes, it’s probably a little of all those answers. It was for us for sure.

We went to a notary to create our will, and she was quite helpful. Of course, she had been through the process many times before with other clients and was good guide for us along the way. It didn’t take that much time (just two meetings) and it forced my husband and I to have some good “what if…?” sort of conversations. I must admit that it was a somewhat unsettling process, and I did have a tear come to my eye once or twice thinking about the worst case scenarios, but it was all worth it in the end. We walked out of the notary’s office with a will AND a long list of other “to do” items and questions around our deaths that we knew we had to take care of right away.

I know the holidays may not be the right time to think about death and wills, but really – when is? The timing doesn’t have to be right. We put off making a will for far too long – scarily long – and time just went by. If you haven’t yet made a will, don’t put it on your New Year’s resolution list, just make the call now and set up an appointment for early January with a notary or lawyer that you know. If you have to, scare yourself into doing by imagining the worst: if you and your partner died this Christmas, what would happen to your children? I’m sure you’d like the chance to choose their guardian and determine how your estate gets divided and settled – a will will do it.

If I’ve got you thinking, here’s some light reading to get you going:

What Happens When You Die Without A Will

A house for Gingy

I realized tonight that I hadn’t yet posted a photo of this year’s gingerbread house (yes, it’s a family tradition) so I thought I better rectify that situation right away, in case people were on pins and needles about it. Hee hee.

Well I think this might be the best of the last three years, if I do say so myself! After the pitiful excuse for a house that I put together in 2009 (where I broke my rolling pin making it) there was nowhere to go but up. Although I do admit that the photo above is showing this version’s good side! I sort of muffed up the other roof side, trying to put my daughter’s initials in Smarties on it and still trying to have the “eaves look”.

Maybe next year will be the keeper! (Not sure what I’m worried about though, we do end up smashing them all to smithereens in the end … and they all taste the same!)

Check out 2009′s version and 2010′s version and let me know what you think – which is the winner? Mmm, can’t wait to get at this one on Christmas eve. My favourite part is the Smartie-laden edges…yum!