Week 02/2026: 15th birthday
Week of 5 January 2026
It came to my attention this week that my first post on this blog was on 5 January 2011, so this week was the 15th birthday of my blog!
I research and write my posts myself. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.
Happy 15th birthday, Stepping on the cracks!
This seems like a milestone that deserves some kind of recognition, even if it’s to say something like, imagine all the other things I could have done over the past 15 years if I hadn’t been writing on here!
Obviously it’s changed from the post-a-day blog called past-present-future that I started in 2011 on the Blogger platform to a more-or-less weekly blog, which is now in its third home and has its own domain name. (My own domain means I’m A Serious Blogger, right? And yes, I did a post for every day that year.)
There have been some years where I wasn’t posting consistently, but since at least 2020, I’ve been posting almost every week. The biggest gap I can find is a four-month gap in 2018. So I guess you can say this is a fairly big part of my life and tightly tied up in my identity.
To review or not?
I keep telling myself I’ll do a review and work out why I’m actually doing this, and whether I want to continue doing the same thing or changing it up a bit. It never seems like the right time, so I keep on chugging away with the same content and the same weekly updates.
It seems to work okay. I can share places I went to during the week, things I learned, art exhibitions or theatre shows I attended, or other things going on in the world around me. And when I say the world around me, I mean my immediate world, not the large scale horror that fills my timelines and makes me wonder if there’ll be any mountains still here to climb when I’m 80. (Life goal number 1.)
One the one hand it feels superficial to be writing about my little life when maybe I should have Opinions on the State of the World.
And I do, but where do I start? And why would anyone care about what I think, when there are much more informed people out there who understand the implications of what’s happening way better than I do. So much of what’s out there is speculation and fear, and why would I want to add to that? If you want to know what’s going on, and want analysis by the boatload, it’s not hard to find.
Or maybe I should be digging myself in and preparing for whatever comes first of climate collapse, civilisation collapse, World War III, or the world takeover by artificial intelligence. Not that preparing for any of these events would probably do a whole lot of good unless I had an actual underground bunker, a food, oxygen and water supply, and a whole lot of other things that only mega-billionaires can afford for themselves and their selected companions while the rest of us are left out here to fight over what’s left. If we don’t get burned, drowned or bombed first. Or killed by the next pandemic.
Breathe . . .
Well, that took an unexpected turn didn’t it?
Blogging in 2025
So if I’m not reviewing the blog, I at least want reflect on what’s changed in the blogosphere since 2011. (Apart from blogging is dead and no one reads blogs any more and only rusted-on die-hards like me still write them. Still here. Not going anywhere. And I know there are many like me out there, perfectly happy to carry on doing what they do. I sussed out some of the links from my old blog ans some of those people are still around. Hello!)
Back in the day, we were all on Twitter and we read each other’s blogs, left comments and had conversations. In my little part of the blogging world, most of the people I hung out with were bloggers writing about the dramas of living with kids. This was the era of so-called “Mummy Bloggers” and “Mom-preneurs”, slightly loaded terms that appeared to imply that people who were mothers trying to make a living and find connection while they were in the chaos of wrangling pre-school kids were somehow less entitled to be taking up space on the internet than anyone else. Mummy Bloggers would be snarked at for having sponsored posts, or giveaways, or for monetising their blogs in some way, all of which is perfectly normal online now.
It was a big movement though, and there were plenty of big names playing in the space with their particular angles. Vegetarianism, mental illness, living with disability, living in another country, crafting, and scrapbooking are some I remember off the top of my head.
I never cracked the big-time in the Mom-blogosphere. For starters, even though I wrote about my young human a lot, I don’t think I qualified. This blog doesn’t fit anywhere other than the category “personal blog” and that suits me just fine. I can write about whatever I want, whenever I want.
I went through a few different phases, trying different things out. A series of 30-day experiments was one. Taking part in challenges like Tassievore Eat Local, and Care Walk in Her Shoes. Some travel blogs. 19 (things) for 2019, 20 for 2020. 21 for 2021. 22 for 2022. Another one called 12 for 12, where you post 12 photos on the 12 day of every month.
In 2023 I started the current format, which is a post about something I did that week, which includes some photos and my habit tracker. I also write about something l learned, what I’m reading, watching and listening to, and a few other bits and pieces that have come and gone over the years.
Mostly, I like to write about things that have made me happy, major events in my life, things that have made me think, ideas I want to experiment with, and happenings in this little part of the world. I’ll admit it’s been harder to be consistent over the last year since I started uni again, but I managed it. And I’m not sure what part of me thought it would be a good idea to set up a writing blog to talk about my writing process and what I was learning throughout my uni course. It didn’t exactly take off but it does exist.
(I started that blog on Substack, which originally seemed to be set up for writers, but it’s morphed into some conglomerated social media thing that doesn’t really seem to know what it is or why it exists any more. But I’ve found some interesting writers and I do want to be more consistent with writing over there.)
And let’s not start on how neglected my photo blog and website are . . .
I mean, I have the photos for them. I just have done nothing with them apart from posting a few on this blog and Instagram. But I’ve not turned then into anything that screams “photo project”, which some of them are.
So that’s where it’s at.
I still don’t know why I blog, but I keep doing it anyway. I like to think that someone might occasionally learn something, or see something in a different way, or get inspired to try something for themselves after reading something I wrote.
And if you don’t, well that’s fine too. I’m just glad you take the time to read it, and I hope you like the photos.
Habit tracker
- Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
- 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 7/7
- Hip exercises (5 days): 7/5
- Walk (7 days): 7/7
- Carry a notebook with me when I walk (7 days): 4/7
- Thinking time (4 days): 6/4
- Mid-day journalling (7 days): 4/7
- 9.30 shutdown & dim lights (7 days): 7/7
- Evening routine (7 days): 7/7
Summary of the week
This week I learned
In Photoshop . . .
If you hit TAB all your toolbars and menus disappear.
On writing
I read a post from Rosie Dub on Substack and this line stood out to me: “I only discover what I’m writing about by writing about it.”
It’s kind of where I was heading with my post last week.
Always look behind you when you leave a restaurant
Gretchen Rubin said this in 2017. I’ve been fairly good at doing it since I heard it. This week I learned what happens when you don’t . . .
I know you may not want to hear this . . .
. . . but sometimes it’s easier to talk to people on the phone when I need to get a problem solved instead of going through what purports to be a real person on a web chat.
And finally
Apparently, the CEO of Microsoft asked people to stop using the word ‘slop’ for AI-generated content. ‘Microslop’, a word that has existed since the mid-2000s, is now trending.
This week I noticed
The giant sequoia in St Davids Park looks even worse than it did a couple of weeks ago, and the second one is showing signs of browning as well.
The agapanthus that I’ve been watching and photographing is flowering.
Four plovers near the main road. I assume a family.
Whether it’s the same family that was here in September with the babies that hatched on the lady’s house roof, I don’t know. But it was lovely to see them.
They were walking up my street a few days later.
What’s making me think?
From Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness on Bluesky: “As daily goals, ‘stop fascism’, ‘defeat evil’, and ‘save the world’ probably aren’t going to get you anywhere, and might leave you feeling overwhelmed and helpless, but ‘work towards building something good’ is always achievable, concrete, and useful.”
Cal Newport: “This is how I’m thinking about AI in 2026. Enough of the predictions. I’m done reacting to hypotheticals propped up by vibes. The impacts of the technologies that already exist are already more than enough to concern us for now…”
The discussion paper for the new Tasmanian Disability Inclusion Plan says that in previous consultations, people with disability have said the Tasmanian Government should be an employer that leads the way, including implementing mandatory ableism awareness training in government departments, preferably face-to-face led by people with disability.
How great would that be!
By the way, this plan is open for consultation until 10 March 2026. Anyone can make a submission. If you have any thoughts on what the plan should do, now’s your chance.
Reading
- The Longest Climb by Paul Pritchard
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Watching
- Resident Alien
- Sarah Millican Late Bloomer
- Doctor Who ‘The Macra Tarror’
Listening
- Shrek The Musical Soundtrack
- The Greatest Showman Soundtrack
About The Author
