Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, Happy International Tea Day!

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Happy International Tea Day!

“Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp” The Minister of Leaves, The Republic of Tea

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Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

Slow down
Listen
To the world
Around
Forget
That strife
Just Enjoy
Without a ploy
The simple pleasures,
Purest treasures
Of life

A cup of tea,
Plain and simple
Easy as
Your A, B, C
Soon you’ll see
A dimple
On your cheek
Will sneak

Breathe in
Breathe out
Relinquish
All doubt
Nothing to it
You can do it
Relax a while
It is no guile

Soon enough
The moment
That should have
Forever lasted
Has passed
You are back
On track

Remembering,
Hoping
The moments
Between now
And running out
To the
wide open
Would last
Longer than
A token

tea

Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

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Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

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“When I first came out there was no such thing as Twitter or Facebook. And the blogs! Like, what is that?” Christina Aguilera

Blogging 201: Day Seven: Make the Most of Events

When it comes to building a strong community around your blog, nothing replaces steadily publishing and commenting on others’ blogs — but that doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself (and your blog) target new audiences through blogging events, both virtual and in real life.

Today’s assignment: create a recurring blogging event on your site, and/or make plans to attend a blogging conference.

Why do this?

– Because hosting a blogging event attracts visitors beyond your immediate network of blogger friends.
– Because running an event or participating in a blogging conference helps raise your profile in the community and grow your audience.

I really appreciate the hosts put their time and effort in the shows for the blogging events. Lots of work and effort are needed to keep up with the posts, updates and what ever it entails. I, myself am currently more a part taker than a caretaker. The benefits of the events are the sense of community, valuable feedback and of course, more visibility.

As for myself being a host to any such event: If and when I am ever blogging as a full time paid blogger, then I will seriously consider hosting some events.

But, until such time, feel free to invite me to your event, I am in whether writing or photography or maybe even something different, I’ll be there!

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Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

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Source: Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

Upside Down or Opposite Day (Writing 101 Poem A Day)

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Writing 101, A Poem A Day, Day Six: Fallacy
Poetry & Photography

Unsound arguments. Failures of reason.

Today, let’s write poems that are wholly illogical.

Let’s see how miserably we can get reason to fail; both our reason and the reason that guides our readers.

Try not to consider this prompt as a call to nonsense but rather a call to use your good (creative) sense to arrive at firmly misconstrued ends. Surprise yourself!

Alternatively, make poetry from known philosophical fallacies. Make that straw man stand by a red wheelbarrow, put the genius of the crowd to the test, or tell the tale of a (tautological) tub.

“Poetry…where magic is supreme and where therefore things happen which realistically-minded strangers find difficult to understand.” – Robert Graves

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“This is not the rhyming song!”

Upside Down or Opposite Day

Chocolate as a dietary measure
Which can be the ultimate pleasure
To get the same effect
From this heavenly confect
You would by eating a carrot

Oh don’t listen to the parrot!

At least double the amount
No no you don’t have to count
Per each pleasurable bite
When enjoying this healthiest of delights

Chocolate is the answer
Never mind what the question was!

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Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

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Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

Blogging and commenting are about connecting. We connect with one another through stories.

Today, leave a comment in which you share a personal story about yourself.

When you tell a personal story, you show the original blogger a few things. First, that their post resonated with someone — something every blogger strives for — and second, that you’re ready to open up and engage in real conversation.

Share a personal story in a comment — something relevant to the original post.

Again, we encourage you to leave this comment on a blog where you’ve never engaged before. This just might be the start of a beautiful friendship!

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“I plead the fifth”

Blogging 101, Commenting Bootcamp, Day Two, Share a Personal Story

For today’s assignment, I must “plead the fifth”.

Call it personality, call it national heritage (Finnish inherited personality), promoting myself shamelessly while enjoying someone else’s product is something which is not in my nature to do. If there is a funny anecdote to be shared, then that is fine, when the situation demands it. I have even written a comment in a poem to one of my favourite blogs, but sharing something truly personal on someone else’s blog, is really not me. Of course there are always exceptions to any rule.

What prompted this?

Definite “no-nos” from real life, which I have received as comments on my posts:

“Excellent story and colourful pics: now come and see my site…”
“Rant, rant, why I hate religion, rant, rant, nothing to do with your post, continued rant”
“I really don’t like black and white photographs”

I like to follow my dear departed Grandmother’s motto “If you haven’t gotten anything nice or constructive to say, shut the hell up!”

Keep calm and keep blogging, and commenting all!

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Tuesday Morning Sunrise

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In honour of the month of December
&
Posted in response to The Clinic-Photo Rehab hosted by Lucile De Godoy
Poetry & Photography

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“I had a rule that I had to go to bed before the sun came up. So I used to look up the sunrise times because I thought it would be bad karma to be going to bed as dawn was arriving” Eric Schmidt

Tuesday Morning Sunrise

Tuesday morning Sunrise
What a pleasant surprise
For the early morning riser
What could be finer
Than being greeted by the magnificence
Of mother nature’s excellence
On this fine december morning
A few days before holiday glory

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“Tonttu” (Daily Photo 2015-12-15)

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Posted in the Daily Photo series
Poetry & Photography

Drawing credit to little Helmi girl and thanks to UllaPia for sharing this master piece!

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“All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories” Neil Gaiman

“Tonttu”

An elf is an elf
Of course of course
Not staying on the shelf
For sure, for sure
Come and join the circle
Even if you are a mere mortal
Tonight the elves are out
And about

tonttu

Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

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Posted in A Quote a Week Tuesday

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“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted” Mae West

Quote a Week Tuesday, 2015-12-15

Today’s quote is for something we all love, or as I do, love to hate, SNOW.

But seriously, snow is fun when you can travel to it and leave when you had enough, much like it is with my relatives. Snow is fun when you don’t have to shovel it, when it doesn’t cover your car in the morning and when it is not over a meter high. Snow is fun when it is a pictoresque view of which you can snap beautiful photographs and then leave for a warmer climate to publish them.

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water” Carl Reiner

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