My first post on my own blog

My favourite habit is 7 1/2 PLAY!!
Here's one of my favourite players - JOHN HIATT.


Finally here - so many links on so many pages just to be sure I wasn't missing out on something I absolutely needed to know before I started.

Yesterday I was wasting time waiting for Coles to open - no Saturday trading for ANZAC Day -what a bummer - desperate for bread and milk to stuff down the open mouths of the starving boys in my house - and in the window of the bookshop was a notice about a new novel from Brisbane author Anne Infante that she has written on her blog. It bothers me that she won't receive a penny for her labours, but what a concept. When I told my son about it he rolled his eyes at me (as he sometimes does when I open my mouth) and led me to MY (not that you'd know it) computer and showed me site after site of similar blogs, including one where he has 4 novellas posted. And I never knew about this secret life of his - his pen name is Instigate Insanity - makes a mother proud!

So already I have learnt about places to explore on the internet that I had no idea before how to find. And already I have learnt that someone I thought I knew as well as anyone could know him had a whole creative life that had no connection to me - he'd made it all for himself. So despite that awful pen name I am proud of him.

Lifelong learning is a process that happens every waking moment to every human being - it's just that some of us have a better time of learning and a clearer and easier path to follow than others. So I have resolved to no longer despair that my boy is learning nothing by sitting attached to the computer for hours because in 5 minutes he showed me a whole part of his world that was vibrant and alive and had meaning for him outside of the world I have so carefully built up for him to live in. (Instead I can just despair about his cigarette addiction or the state of his room).

So - the hardest of the 7 1/2 Habits for me? I think it's accepting responsibility for your own learning - because it's so easy for me to make excuses not to follow through with projects - like managing all the stuff of everyday life often takes up as much time as I have to spare.

And the easiest? Creating my own toolbox - because I already have one just waiting for things I can add to it - the best part of 23 things is that it's giving me permission to do stuff I wouldn't make time for otherwise. Mind you I am already pretty comfortable with Habit no 7 1/2....

WOW That's Tasks 1 to 4 taken care of.