When I started this challenge as part of #Blogging 101 assignment, I have consciously chosen “Absolution” as my choice of word in response to Rebirth of Lisa’s to choose just one word  to meditate upon and be driven towards the entire year.

I have, silly me! only realised that this challenge happens on the first Thursday of every month and so had a little panic attack of being behind again when I got a ping-back from Lisa last week. In actuality, it has only been 2 weeks since my last post on this word challenge when I first decided to participate. I really do need to remember better! Without the ping-back, this would have really slipped my mind and gone undetected under the radar.

What I have been up to, to foster “Absolution” since then, hasn’t been much of a progress. But that does not mean that it hasn’t been on my mind. In fact, it is on my mind c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y.

This is one of the hardest thing I am trying to will myself to do. It doesn’t come easy as I still harbour a lot of angst, resentment and contempt – all of which are negative feelings that need to be banished. Muse’s Time is Running Out  is playing in my head as I am writing this:

I think I’m drowning
Asphyxiated
I wanna break this spell
That you’ve created

You’re something beautiful
A contradiction
I wanna play the game
I want the friction

You will be the death of me
You will be the death of me

Bury it
I won’t let you bury it
I won’t let you smother it
I won’t let you murder it

That’s what I’ve been feeling. Drowning. Asphyxiated. Smothered. Bothered. Asking myself time and again how did it come to this.

The only difference is, unlike the lyrics to Muse’s wonderful song, my time’s not running out. I’m taking my time…to digest, to find a peace of mind, to heal, to be accepting.

And I’m taking little steps at a time to foster absolution by being focused on self-healing which I’m doing through:

• Physically decluttering and cleansing of my home, my work space…and should I say, my aura (!)
• Inner reflection of looking at the positive side of things
• Acknowledging one little blessing in my life everyday
• Reaching out
• Believing. Truly believing.

And I’m still trying to tear down my wall. One little piece each time. One day at a time.

I feel like such a sappy, sad sod. I think I can do with a little hug, preferably one that injects me with some magnificent aura of absolution.

#RebirthOWC

A 30-day plan. Hmmmm….

A 30-day plan!

A THIRTY-day plan?!

Coming from #Blogging 201 latest assignment to pick one social network I’ll use to help grow my blog (done!), connecting it to my site (getting there! as I have just realised that the buttons I have are not quite linking to anywhere!) and THEN outline a 30-day plan for how I’ll use it feels like a full-time job in itself. The irony of having to actually plan for myself considering that I do it for a living…yet I suck at it when it comes to planning things for me.

Today’s post in response to the assignment essentially was meant to be no more than half an hour of effort, but I found myself getting caught up  in the vortex of information and getting distracted with what others have been up to in The Commons. All in all, 2 whole hours spent getting lost in dozens of new interesting blogs I got curious in, scrolling information from other classmates, and no closer to coming up with a 30-day plan. So much for planning!

I have long decided that I’m not going to link up my blog to Facebook – there are just too many “friends” if you know what I mean. Besides, creating a FB page specifically for my blog would need quite a bit of time commitment; a luxury which I don’t have. So that’s completely off my list.

Twitter has been my preferred platform and even though I have been on Pinterest for a while now and really liking it, I have hardly used it because I cannot squeeze any more time in between work, kids and other crazy stuff to spend yet more time on another platform.

I like Twitter for its simplicity and its round-the-clock updates, but I have always tend to be quite selective with the stuff I tweet mainly keeping it to recipes and mostly re-tweeting other people’s shit. I have been keeping it to the minimum mainly because I haven’t gathered enough guts – I mean, what if I tweet something really stupid? That would just be too embarrassing for my already fragile and non-existent ego!

Actually, the first time a Twitter Superstar followed me (and I didn’t know who he was then), I was in shock. I wondered why he bothered because my existence in the Tweeter world is insignificant. I still don’t know why and it’s nice to be followed by an influencer even though I have nothing much to give. I’m surprised he  has not unfollow me yet, but this  guy tweets some of the most thought-provoking, hilarious and really useful stuff!

With this new assignment though,  I guess that habit is about to change! So, here’s me, taking a deep, deep solemn breath, gathering shameless guts and invoking my occupational calling in planning with Twitter as my weapon of choice (for now!) to do the following:

• I’ll start following other Bloggers who are on Twitter
• I’ll publicize *most* of my posts
• I’ll update at least twice a day as supplementary content and featuring recipes every Friday
• I’ll share other bloggers’ posts at least 2x a week.
• I’ll upload one photo every week (photo-worthy permitting!)
• I’ll start creating a list on Twitter

And, if you are following me @GrubbsnCritters, I’ll be happy to re-tweet your stuff, too! How’s that for some gutsy deal? (just don’t give me grief about my Follow Twitter buttons yet on my blog because it’s really late now and I’ll need to get help on it!)