I gave myself today off work but kept to my usual weekday early morning routine which includes a walk around the park although I dallied a little and communed with the swans and ducks.
As I wandered home via the bakery to grab a sourdough loaf and croissant, and walked along King Street, Newtown I noticed a new item of paste up street art.
A timely reminder, it vindicated the choices I’d made about today.
2012 has slipped by. In a couple of weeks I’ll have been blogging for a year. I’m not going to write [yet] another post about why I love blogging. That I’m still doing it is testimony enough. And then there are the bloggers who have become an extended part of my household via their blogs I read & comment on as they do mine…
The past year has seen subtle change, shifting and settling for me. I am no longer constrained by time and space. I exist happily physically more than I ever have, connected virtually with people who have the care and interest to participate in a global community.
Nothing will change how we coexist with family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and people on the street, but I believe we are amongst the forerunners of a connected, informed convergence interrelating within another but no less real dimension.
Bloggers, not with the intention of imposing but simply by sharing their thoughts, questions, perspectives, lives, opinions, experiences and expertise are stepping away from pay-for-say and mono-cultural society commanded by governments and big business served by commercial media and advertising, into a powerful but subtle authentic collective.
elladee_words started simply as an outlet of expression for my frustrated spirit, and as my spirit unwound my eyes opened and the elladee_images blog happened, underwritten by the credo “There is art in the everyday. It’s easy to walk through the world and not see. Time moves on. Things change. I’m taking the time to look & stop & capture moments & colours of ordinary things & day-to-day life in snapshots.” The commenters and followers of these blogs were the first to expand my world and elladee_places was my effort at reciprocation.
merci mes amis
daleleelife101.blog 
thanks for this thoughtful and expansive piece about blogging elladee …. we are a community unrestrained by time and space, well said! now i have the links to your other blogs i am popping over for a peek 🙂
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You’re welcome, and thank you. I wanted to mark the occasion but I used up my quota of ‘I love blogging’ posts during the first heady months!
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Great post and observations. I love this line “powerful but subtle authentic collective.” – it’s so true about the blogging community – and it’s becoming recognized as such.
And I do not understand how so many of you manage multiple blog with such style and grace. Simply amazing. (Feeling most inadequate…but still not gonna attempt it!)
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Thank you… I’m glad you like that line. I was worried it was too many adjectives 😉 Blogging has been an amazing ride 🙂 I was asked “Is it a hobby?” No. “Penpals?” No… I think it’s a way of life 🙂
I don’t even attempt to treat each blog equally, they’re receptacles for when the muses throw inspiration at me, and I bounce it into one basket or another… all together in a single blog would be too much like all together in my head, and no-one else needs that!
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RC Cat: “We so approve of your last paragraph. It has been our intention for some time to debut a blog for Our realm – but staff insists they are overworked as it is…We cannot risk having Our staff reduce adoration time or care of Our mousies, yet it ruffles Our fur to have Our proclamations and memos shuffled amid odd notes by the Molly or that absent German. Sigh. We shall read your comment loudly to staff. A paw wave for your support”
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RC, thank you. I highly value your approbation. Your staff however do a wonderful job/blog catering to all, and you may also consider that your proclamations and memos contribute a higher tone to the milieu 🙂
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And I do not understand why I keep clicking “follow” on multiple occasions and it WP doesn’t seem to notice and register it
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Who knows? Not me. Just like I don’t know why my reply to your comment disappeared 4 times before I finally hit reply… but I’m onto them, I saved as I was drafting, as I’ve been victim to its vagaries previously.
I appreciate your persistence though, it seems the follow has registered… at least for now 🙂
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I so agree with you, EllaDee. Blogging has opened me up to a global community, one that I would never have found otherwise. This fact becomes more evident when I visit my Zia. I’ll show her a number of posts and/or comments that I think she’ll enjoy. She is amazed when I tell her that you, for example, live in Oz, or, Sawsan in Jordan. It’s a brave, new World.
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Thank you. Wonderful that you share your blogging with your Zia, and even more so that you share you Zia with us. A good point: not only do we become familiar with our co-bloggers, we often get to know the cast of their lives… such as your Zia, and of course Max 🙂
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What a great post, I love the part where you described us all as ‘part of a powerful but subtle authentic collective’. I too love the sharing aspect of blogging, I am truly interested in what those of you existing in my little part of the blogosphere are posting about.
I am so pleased to read that you are existing more happily than ever before. I think we all reach a time in our lives where we can choose to embrace life and see the happiness in it, I have felt the same way in the last few years too. We are all surrounded by happy things if only we take the time to notice them.
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Thank you. You know the saying about doors opening & closing. I had 2 close: a work project (thankfully) ended & we moved neighbourhoods. Somehow my bearings went a little awry. But by opening the doors of early morning walks and blogging, I found an even better way to live, one that will well sustain me until we get the hell out of here 😉
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I find blogging to be such a personal growth experience, even though i don’t get to it as much as i would like, however your insight into the bigger community, beyond the confines of our understanding of normal boundaries is an extremely cool idea – love it!
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Thank you. I enjoy whatever insights you can manage 🙂 One of the things I like about blogging is when, where and how you do it is up to you. Unlike the office you don’t have to clock in every day, and if there’s a deadline, it’s self imposed. I have no schedule or agenda, other than sharing my every day life, or as Celi from The Kitchens Garden put it “sharing the tedium”, not that her life or blog is at all tedious, only the long winter months waiting for spring… but that’s what blogging is all about.
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It has been wonderful getting to know you, ED. Thanks for sharing with us. xx
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Thank you Celia, I feel the same about you, and this a good illustration of how flexible the blogging world is. We live suburbs apart rather than continents and even though we have shared interests we have different lifestyles, and without blogging I would never have been able to virtually share in your wonderful food, garden and outlook 🙂
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Your day off sounds like a perfect day, a day doing what you enjoy. I find the simple things in life that we do on impulse are often far more enjoyable than anything planned.
My intention when I started my blog was to record my retirement, a sort of diary with photographs. In a way, I guess in a way it was planned.
Through my blog though I have become far richer, I have made friends like yourself, from many parts of the globe, I have seen some wonderful photographs, I have learnt about how they are inspired, how they are saddened. I feel I have travelled to places that I haven’t. My vocabulary is also expanding with the many new words I have learnt.
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Thank you. It was a great day, and I’m wishing now I’d made it 2. I just felt so chilled, I had a little laughing moment at how good it felt.
I have learnt so many things in the last year. I eat better – so many people sharing lifestyles & food. I read better – my Goodreads list (which I learnt about also from WP) is looooong. I know less about ‘current affairs’ from a news media point of view and more about the real world. The more I write, the better I write, also thanks to Robin Cole’s tips. I stop and take time now, seeing my world from a bigger perspective.
All of that, and like you I get to see places and things I otherwise never would. And, I have a virtual community of 4 legged furry ones, amongst who are Jasp & Sal – even the busy G.O. stops to look at those blog posts 🙂
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What I love about your posts is how eloquent and heartfelt they always are. You’ve put into words a lot of the things I love about blogging, but haven’t managed to splutter out – and I think you’re spot-on. It’s expanded my horizons in all kinds of ways. Thanks, EllaDee.
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Thank you – it’s an even swap then… you’ve given me an appreciation of people & the urban environment I never had, and lots of new music and book references. My Goodreads list is now extensive 🙂 Also re music, have you heard of http://www.spotify.com/au/ ?
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You mean I’m wasting my life, not just my time? I must get crackin’
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The paste up was stating the obvious but often the obvious eludes us 🙂
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“Forest for the trees” kind of thing.
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I love that you had a day off and decided to write this post. I’m feeling so inspired after reading this. i totally agree that bloggers can become and extended part of the household. I find I sit here at my computer and laugh and cry and sometimes I think about powerful things I’ve read into the night. This post will be one of them “it’s only life that we’re wasting” will stay will me for a long time 😀
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Thank you for saying the post will stay with you – it will with me too. When I value something & I understand why I value it, I value it all the more.
The gist of the post had been rattling around in my head for a while. When I saw the paste up, it crystalised… I have to acknowledge how much of my inspiration comes from my neighbourhood.
Me too with the laughing & crying. When Celi from the Kitchens Garden regretfully had to tell us first Mary’s Cat, and then Thing 2 had gone AWOL, I sobbed. The G.O. just shook his head.
Laughing… well, as I read blog posts from time to time from my office desk, I have to laugh on the inside but occasionally there’s an escapee 😉 I’m thinking of your recent post with the snake skin bookmark etc, it just made my day…
Then, there’s the comments to this post… One of the aspects I wanted to include in the post was to say thank you to the community of bloggers I’ve found myself in… and I’m honoured by their responses.
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You are truly amazing 😉
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I would have said how eloquent but I’ve been beaten to it. Instead I’ll say your post validates the time we all spend on here, whether writing or commenting, but always sharing from around the world. I’ve not been sharing for a few days as I’ve been crook, but feeling better now. Looking forward to your second anniversary 🙂
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Thank you – from you it is high praise indeed 🙂 I agree, the time we spend is validated by the relationships and awareness created. I’m glad you are better. We all have times when we’re not online & sharing… but for many of us it becomes material for posts anyway… Similarly, we’ve been away for a few days 🙂
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I don’t do praise!! It was just a thought/observation. I like the idea that we share news and views of our own worlds that isn’t necessarily the one being pumped out by Those In Charge. I like the humour, sharing the pain (ie moaning about colds :D), the good things in our lives, the photos around the world, being able to co-exist with people from such different backgrounds and opinions without (usually) falling out. Which leads to a bigger question that I won’t bother asking on an upbeat post. Glad you got chance to get away. I’m expecting pix on Places. Or somewhere.
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🙂 Pix taken over the weekend will end up in posts on ED images/places ASAP – ETA pending annoying day job-life commitments 😉
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Haha… I’m highly unoriginal & cliched… “high praise indeed” is an expression… but I value your positive thoughts/observations in this instance & always 🙂
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I love what you have said here EllaDee, us bloggers are a new breed, and it is an interesting journey. I think you have brought up some new points and they are great. Well done.
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Thank you. I love seeing the world you see through a camera lens 🙂
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We may waste a lot of time blogging but we have also expanded our lives way beyond borders 🙂
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I never think of a minute spent on WordPress as wasted. It opened my eyes to a whole other life 🙂
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Late to the party, so I can only reiterate how I enjoyed your anniversary post – for the very reason of that shared experience of expansion and connectedness. It has been a revelation to me too, and reason for a little optimism. 🙂
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Thank you for the comment – there are no time limits – we all get caught up on extra-blogging life. The comments have been the best part of this post for me, reinforcing what I felt from the first blog posts I put up, to this day. Your captured it perfectly with the word ‘optimisim’… that’s one of the many gifts blogging bestowed upon me 🙂
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That’s a terrific sign and reminder. It’s funny how much my blog friends have become a part of my life even though we may never have shared a cup of coffee or hung out in the same physical space. It’s been a pleasure to stop by here and chat with you. 🙂
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Thank you 🙂 Over the course of the year, I realised I developed a core group just like with ‘real life’ friends… some of who have similar interests to me, and some of who are completely different, and I enjoy the variety their blogs bring into my life.
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Exactly. It’s funny how the ties develop slowly until you are actually anticipating the next post to hear what’s happening with them. 🙂
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