post

5 Fantastic Posts From Fellow Health Activists

April 14, 2013 By

HAWMC_2012_slider_2-resized-600.jpg

For today’s prompt in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge, I can either promote some of my favourite health activists, or post links to some of my favourite posts written by fellow bloggers in this challenge. I have chosen to do the latter, even though it is so difficult to pick out just a few posts from among the multitude that have resonated with me. Through the other participants in the challenge, I have learned so much about health conditions that do not personally affect me directly.

Here, then, are five posts in the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge that have had a particular impact on me.

1) http://www.pixiecd.com/2013/04/group-therapy-for-ass-hat.html How could anyone not be drawn to a post written by someone who claims to be a former ass-hat? Here is someone who has gone through inordinate amounts of pain, and is facing it all head-on with a delightful combination of frankness and humour.

2) http://theperfectd.com/2013/04/02/hawmc-day-2-introductions/ This post, written by someone with Type 1 Diabetes as well as a hefty dose of courage, is truly educational. Most of us know, on an intellectual level, what diabetes is. But reading this post gives you a glimpse into what the life of a Type 1 Diabetic is really like.

3) http://positivityinpain.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/my-goals-for-fibro-fighterz-hawmc-day-5/ This blogger lives with Fibromyalgia, and has some pretty lofty and highly worthwhile goals. This post describes what some of those goals are. Hopefully they can become a reality.

4) http://www.conquerinspiteof.com/2013/04/thank-you-for-your-unsolicited-advice.html We all hear ridiculous myths about the things that affect us. In this post, someone with Lupus weighs in on Lupus-related myths – some of which I actually believed myself until reading this.

5) http://thatmword.com/post/47544602681/day-9-how-to-care-for-a-migraineur-101 When someone close to you is in the throes of a debilitating migraine, what do you do? Do you know how to take care of them? This post gives some great pointers.

There is another favourite, but I am going to share that with you tomorrow in the form of a guest post written by the blogger concerned. I’ll just give you one hint: it made me cry.

 

Filed Under: blogging, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

The Liebster Award

February 9, 2013 By

From time to time, I read blog posts in which the authors say that they write for themselves, and that they’re not too concerned with how other people view their writing. I may have even said something along those lines myself at some stage. But who am I kidding? I do write primarily for the psychological benefit it brings to me, but of course I care about what other people think. As a writer, I like to have an audience, and I want that audience to like me. I want them to be able to identify in some way with what I’m saying, and I want them to come back.

And so when I get evidence that people like my blog, that makes me happy. Like when not one, but two fellow bloggers bestow a Liebster Award upon me (I’ll explain in a bit). Or when a popular Canadian website aimed at women features me in a write-up about inspiring mom bloggers.

It is so cool – and such an honour – that in these busy times, there are people who not only read what I have to say, but take the time to tell others about my blog. I am immensely grateful to Sheelagh from SheKnows Canada for featuring me in her article, and I am grateful to Maya (Musings of a Marfan Mom) and Phaedra (Blisters and Black Toenails) for the Liebster Award.

The Liebster Award is a very neat thing that bloggers do for each other. When you receive the award, you acknowledge the person who gave it to you, and then pass it on to seven other bloggers that you love. It’s a way for bloggers to give each other a shout-out.

My nominees – in no particular order – are as follows:

1. Sweet B’s Blog: This blog is written by my friend Margie who is awesome. There’s no other way of putting it. She did not post very often last year, but that’s only because she was working towards a Bachelors degree while working full-time and raising two busy boys.

2. Blog By The Phoenix: Authored by another friend of mine who will remain unidentified to protect her privacy, there is a lot of bravery here. It’s a fairly new blog, and health concerns have limited my friend’s ability to post as often as she’d like, but it’s well worth a read.

3. Kloppenmum: Karyn lives in New Zealand, enjoys coffee by day and wine by night, and is an awesome mom. She offers some keen insights into the minds of children, and what we as parents can do to bring out the best in our kids.

4. Beautiful Side of Hectic: I met Cheryl at Blissdom Canada last year, and we spent a bit of time swapping special needs parenting war stories. Cheryl is the mom of two girls, one of whom has Cerebral Palsy. Her blog offers us glimpses into her life and also includes some giveaways.

5. Nolie’s Place: Nolie is a military wife (and I am SO grateful to her and her husband for what they do) and mom to two boys. She writes about whatever happens to be on her mind, and she ALSO hosts some awesome giveaways. I roomed with her at Blissdom Canada and had an absolutely delightful time.

6. Behindhersmile’s Blog: Michelle is a former co-worker, former carpool partner and definitely-not-former friend. She proactively tries to educate people about healthy eating, to encourage us to set a good example for our kids.

7. Olordyimforty!! SarahJeanne has three things in common with me. She is an autism mom, she runs to raise funds for autism, AND one of her kids was born on Christmas Day. Besides, how can you not love a blog that has exclamation points in its name?

The next thing I’m supposed to do as part of receiving the Liebster Award is tell you eleven random things about myself.

1. I have a Bachelors degree in psychology, and I’ve just started post-graduate studies in writing.

2. One day when I was about four, I pulled out all my hair and ate it. No-one knows why.

3. I’m afraid of spiders, ladders and the Bloor Viaduct (when the subway goes over it you look down and see very little between you and the river below).

4. I cannot use a can opener (unless it’s electric). My excuse is that I’m a left-handed person in a right-handed can-opener world.

5. Someday I want to take a trip up to the northernmost part of Canada to see the Northern Lights.

6. When I was working on a farm in Israel, I discovered that I am severely allergic to mangoes.

7. I started blogging because of my friend Tim, who recognized that I needed a place of my own to talk about the challenges of autism parenting. Tim, sadly, is no longer with us, but a piece of him will always be in this blog.

8. I was born in South Africa and have lived in several countries. I have been in Canada since August, 2000.

9. I was proposed to about five minutes after I became a Canadian citizen.

10. My first car was an ancient Renault that I named Clare De Lune. That car took me through my student days and well into my 20’s. I eventually sold it, and as far as I know it’s still on the road.

11. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I’ll always cave at the sight of cheesecake. Every. Single. Time.

There’s one more thing I have to do for the Liebster Award. Check back tomorrow for a question-and-answer session!

Filed Under: blogging, Liebster Award, Random Facts, She Knows Canada Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

Too Much Information?

November 4, 2012 By

Today’s prompt in the National Health Blog Post Month challenge invites participants to talk about disclosure. How do we decide what to share and what not to share in our posts?

This is a question I grapple with from time to time, as all bloggers should. As soon as you put any aspect of your life onto the Internet, you can say goodbye to privacy. Sometimes that really doesn’t matter. There’s no danger in me posting my race times and less-than-flattering photographs of myself in motion. Any Joe on the street can go online and look up my race times anyway. Since that information is publicly available, I may as well post it in my blog where I can brag about it a little.

I am equally open about my son’s autism and the challenges it presents to my family. This is where the question of disclosure becomes a little tricky, because I am being open about people other than myself. There are certain things that I will not discuss on the Internet, but in general I talk quite freely about the lives of my kids, and to a lesser extent, my husband. It is one thing for me to talk about myself, but my right to make that decision on behalf of my children is a bit of a gray area.

My blog serves multiple purposes. It’s a form of expression for my socially anxious, bad-at-verbal-conversation self. Writers as a breed tend to be a little neurotic and introverted, and I am no exception. This is how we communicate. Writing gives us a voice that we wouldn’t otherwise have.

Apart from fulfilling my own need for self-expression, my blog gives hope to other parents of special needs children who might be feeling a little lost and alone. From time to time, I get emails from readers telling me how my writing has made them feel less overwhelmed, and more able to cope. Those emails make everything truly worthwhile, because at the end of the day, what I want is to do my small part to make the world a better place for our kids, for the parents and siblings, for everybody.

At the same time, I hope to smash the stigmas surrounding autism, and the way I see it, the best way to do that is to be frank about it all. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and in talking about autism, I hope to give it a human face, to give people the message that although there are little kids with autism, they are first and foremost little kids.

There are aspects of my kids’ lives that I will never talk about on my blog. My basic rule is this: if I cannot talk about it in public, I cannot talk about it on my blog. I agonize over many of my posts, weighing the benefits of sharing information against the risk of anyone getting hurt. I have written entire posts and then deleted them without publishing them.

It’s a delicate balancing act sometimes, and I find that as long as I listen to my gut instinct, it’s OK.

How do you decide what information to share on your blog? Have you ever shared something and later regretted it?

(Photo credit: John “Pathfinder” Lester. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: blogging, Disclosure, Internet, National Health Blog Post Month, Privacy, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
post

Ten Running Questions

November 1, 2012 By

Several months ago, I became a part of the WEGO Health network – a group of people advocating for health, either for themselves or for a loved one. My health advocacy serves a treble purpose. First, I want to do my part for the autism community on behalf of my son George. Second, I want to share how running helps my physical and mental health. Third, I am tentatively starting to talk about my own mental health, sharing stories from my past, in hope of removing the stigma surrounding depression and other mental illnesses.

Recently the folks at WEGO Health announced that November is National Health Blog Posting Month, and they issued a challenge for bloggers to publish a post every day for the month of November. I am never one to shy away from a blogging challenge, so here I am! Some days I will go with the suggested prompt, other days I will just follow the lead of my writer’s instinct. I will even have a couple of guest posts along the way.

Some time ago, my friend Phaedra tagged me in a post on her own blog. Phaedra is the kind of runner other runners want to be like, and she coached me through a phenomenal running season, in which I clocked up no fewer than five personal bests. In her post, Phaedra gives the answers to ten questions, which she then passes on to fellow runners. Phaedra’s answers can be found here. My answers are below, and I invite all runners to post their own responses and leave a link in the comments below.

1. Best run ever? In August, I did the Midsummer Nights Run 15K. For some reason 15K has always been a challenging distance for me – far harder than the half-marathon, which is six kilometres longer. The Midsummer Nights Run is on a course that I have tackled a couple of times before, and I have never done well on it. I was dreading this race because I had such big mental issues with the course. This time, though, I found my zone early on in the race. I hit the runner’s equivalent of the “sweet spot” golfers are always on about. I well and truly conquered the course, beating my previous personal best by a whopping 13 minutes and with energy still in the tank.

2. Three words that describe your running? Determined, focused, stress-relieving.

3. Your go-to running outfit? In the summer, I wear one of two pairs of running shorts – the leg-hugging kind, so my thighs don’t chafe. I pair that with either my Energizer Night Race T-shirt or one of my Geneva Centre for Autism shirts. In the fall, I replace the shorts with a pair of longer lightweight tights, and in the winter I wear whatever will prevent bits of me from freezing off in the cold.

4. Quirky habit while running? When I turn onto my street at the end of a long run, I pretend to be an elite athlete from Kenya. I sprint down the final stretch and fantasize about having run the entire distance like that, and when I step over the line dividing the road from my driveway, I raise both arms in a victory salute and pretend I am breaking the tape at the finish line of a race. It will probably never happen for real, but a girl can dream, right?

5. Morning, midday, evening? In general, I am an early morning runner. In the winter, though, a lunchtime run in the crisp cold air can be a purely magical way to get a break from the chaos of the workday.

6. I won’t run outside when: there’s lightning. There are a lot of trees in my neighbourhood, and I would worry about being struck, because that would just be my luck. I also tend to avoid the wind. I don’t mind running in rain, snow and sleet, but I absolutely detest strong wind. For some reason, it makes me anxious and edgy, often to the point of a panic attack.

7. Worst injury and how I got over it: Almost three years ago, an appointment with a chiropractor went dreadfully wrong – a result of pure bad luck rather than any fault on the part of the chiropractor – and I ended up with a pinched nerve in my neck. My left arm was in absolute agony, and the fingers on my left hand were numb. I had to go to the emergency room twice, and for the next six weeks I cried myself to sleep while I was waiting for the Percocet to kick in. Physiotherapy ultimately sorted me out, and to this day, I have numb fingertips.

8. I felt like a most badass mother runner when: I spent virtually all of the Good Friday Ten-Miler neck and neck with an older but much fitter gentleman who issued a friendly challenge to me, and then near the end of the race, I tore away from him and beat him to the finish line.

9. My next race is: the Tannenbaum 10K at The Beach in Toronto, on December 2nd.

10. Potential running goal for 2013: I’d like to see if this old body can handle three half-marathons in a single year. I’d also love to break an hour in a 10K race and beat 2:15 in a half-marathon.

 

Filed Under: blogging, Challenges, National Health Blog Post Month, running, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , ,
post

Ten Pieces of Stuff About Blissdom

October 31, 2012 By

 

The Pantry Girls with Top Chef Carl Heinrich

Ten days after The Bliss, I am finally sitting down to write about it, and I find myself not knowing where to start. It is impossible to capture everything about an event like Blissdom in a single blog post. Should I talk about the ten best things I learned? A chronological account of the whole weekend? Selected highlights? Profiles of some of the people I met?

Initially, I was going to cheat and collect tweets about Blissdom from fellow delegates. Having just come off a half-marathon, Blissdom, and a three-day autism symposium all in the space of two weeks, I was tired, and I was tempted to write my Blissdom post using the words of other people. With full accreditation, of course.

In the end, I decided to keep it simple – and in my own words –  and talk about Ten Pieces of Stuff About Blissdom, in no particular order. Because putting these into any kind of meaningful sequence could make my brain explode.

1. If you’re planning to leave your kids and husband at home in order to have a relaxing Blissdom weekend, it’s not going to happen. The relaxing part, that is. When you have a gathering of a couple of hundred moms who don’t get out much, the socializing and wine drinking gets a little intense. You will have an awesome time, but you will not be relaxing.

2. There were microsessions on the Saturday morning that I absolutely loved. The microsessions are round table discussions with a small group of people, facilitated by an expert, and it’s an opportunity to really focus on the specifics that apply to you. It was such an honour to meet and talk to renowned Canadian writer Ann Douglas, and I learned a lot from her.

3. I collected many business cards, each representing a new contact. Said business cards are currently sitting in my purse, and I need to spend a bit of time going through them and getting in touch with everyone, so that those contacts stay active. The people I met were awesome, and there is potential to do great things with them in the future.

4. On the Friday morning, some of us were in the studio audience of the Marilyn Denis show, which is a popular Canadian daytime TV talk show. It was fun to be there, and it was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at what happens during these shows. Also, my co-workers got a kick out seeing me on TV during my three seconds of fame.

5. At blogging and social media conferences, there is free stuff. A lot of it. I really needed to allow extra space in my bag to bring home the books, the coffee mugs, the pillow, the samples of food, and so on.

6.The costume and karaoke party was a blast. I got into the spirit of things and dressed up as The Flash, but no amount of money would make me take part in the karaoke. It was fun to see other people take the stage, though. It was also fun to see the creative costumes that people were wearing. There was a Christmas tree, Facebook, Cher, Mitt Romney’s binders full of women, and much more. I was one of a posse of superheroes, but on that particular night, we all took a much-needed break from fighting crime and saving the world.

7. As a slightly neurotic person with social anxiety issues, I was not wild about the idea of sharing a room with people I did not know. But my roomies – Nolie and Jenn – were fantastic to spend time with. They were an essential part of my Blissdom experience and I am immensely grateful to them for putting up with me.

8.Due to the aforementioned neurosis and social anxiety, I tend to feel a little out of place when I’m among other people. I envy the ability of others to converse with ease with complete strangers, and I feel awkward as I stand in a quiet corner with my wine, desperately scanning the room for someone I might know. At Blissdom, I did not feel this way. I was among other writers, many of whom are just as introverted and socially anxious as me. I felt as if I was hanging out with my own kind. Ironically, being with fellow introverts helped draw me out of myself a little.

9. On the Friday night, I went out to dinner as part of a group that christened itself the Pantry Girls. Our dinner was prepared by the winner of Top Chef Canada, and it was outstanding. The food was good, the wine was good, and the company was a lot of fun. We were in an alcove area that appeared to function at least partially as a pantry, hence the name of our little group.

10. The whole weekend was capped off with a wine-tasting excursion in the Niagara region on the Sunday. I almost bailed – I had gone to bed at about two in the morning and woke up with a hangover for the second consecutive day. Was more wine really what I needed? In the end, my inner wine affectionado prevailed and I had a great day.

Now I am left with memories, a ton of people to contact, Blissdom swag. I am also left with the goal of losing some weight before next year’s Blissdom with the intention of being a slicker looking Flash!

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

Filed Under: Blissdom Canada, blogging, Conference, Social Media, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
post

Calling All Teens: Please Share Your Story

September 6, 2012 By

If you’re a parent of teens, how many times have you heard your kids say that you don’t understand them? If you’re a teen, how many times have you said those words yourself?

It may sound like a teenage cliché, but perhaps there is some truth to it. Teens and adults – particularly adults of my age, who are 20 or 30 years older than them – inhabit different worlds. I am concerned about things like job security, paying the bills and whether my kids are being bullied at school. When I was a teen I cared about fitting in and the fact that I didn’t have a boyfriend when everyone else did.

I have heard adults refer to the concerns of teens as “petty” in the grand scheme of things. I understand what they’re getting at – after all, from my perspective, not having a boyfriend pales in comparison to the idea of not having enough money to feed your kids. But to a teen, those concerns are very real and very valid. Why should they worry about the same stuff we do when we’re 40 or 50 years old? They are kids, discovering life, and navigating those years with the backdrop of the hormonal changes of adolescence can be very daunting.

Do I understand teens?

It would be so easy for me to say that I remember what it was like to be a teen, so yes, I understand. But the truth is, I understand what it was like to be a teen 30 years ago, in the 1980’s. The world and its challenges have changed so much since then. Are teens today concerned about the same things I was back then? Do they go through the same stuff and have the same difficulties?

Maybe. But I don’t really know.

So teens, here’s what I want to do. For a period of one week, I want to give my blog over to you. I invite you to submit guest posts about whatever you want to share. Do you have some aspirations for the future? Some fears about the future? Going through a rough patch in your life? Is there something you wish your parents and other adults knew about you?

Some guidelines:

  • There are no length restrictions on posts. It can be as short or as long as you like. I don’t believe in curtailing people’s self-expression.
  • I cannot accept posts that promote hatred based on race, gender, sexual preference, country of origin, or anything like that.
  • I will accept posts containing profanity as long as you’re swearing to make a point, instead of swearing just for the sake of it. Sometimes the only way to really get a point across is by emphatic use of the F word. I may replace some letters of profanities with special characters.
  • Anonymous submissions are welcome. I would like to know your real name, just to satisfy myself that you’re really a teen and not an adult looking to cause trouble. But if you want the post published under a pseudonym, I will totally respect that.
  • Photographs are encouraged. If you submit a picture, please be sure that it’s one you’re allowed to use. I don’t want to inadvertently breach copyright.
  • If you have a personal blog that you would like to link to, feel free to include that in your post.
  • Include a blurb about yourself. Your name (if you’re willing to share it), your age, your location, your interests – anything you want the world to know about you.

Posts can be submitted either as an attachment or in the body of an email, and sent to kirsten@runningforautism.com. They will be scheduled for the last week of October, and I will let you know when your post is going to run.

I look forward to hearing from you!

(Photo credit: Sheila Tostes. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: blogging, Challenges, Guest Posts, Teens, Understanding Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

Writing: Beyond The Challenges

June 1, 2012 By

2012 is shaping up to be a busy year. In the last five months, I have taken an emergency trip to South Africa, run three races, and had my website revamped. I have also participated in two consecutive month-long blogging challenges, ending yesterday.

Today I am publishing a post for the 62nd day in a row. While I have thoroughly enjoyed these opportunities to indulge my passion for writing, I am ready to change the pace for a brief period of time. Blogging every day in addition to holding down a full-time job, parenting two young kids, and training for a half-marathon – well, it can be tiring.

I’m not planning on fading away into the sunset (particularly today, since it’s raining and there will be no sunset). Instead, I am going to work on other parts of my website that I have not had the time to get to yet.

I will be putting together a blogroll (if you would like your blog to be included, send me an email). I will be creating resources pages for the autism and running communities, and once I have made up my mind about the rest of the racing season, I will be updating my list of races.

My actual blogging will take a backseat for the next week or two, but I have lined up some guest writers to take care of that. I am truly excited to bring you some great stories from different walks of life, starting on Monday.

Before I quietly slip out through the side door to get more coffee, I will leave you with some highlights of the last two months of blogging. The posts mentioned below are the ones that have attracted the most views.

Highlights of the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge in April:

In Week 1, I described a conversation I had with my younger son about his understanding of his brother’s autism.

In Week 2, I wrote a letter to my 16-year-old self offering some words of hard-earned wisdom – not that she would listen to an old fogie like me.

Do you ever get stressed out about little things that really don’t matter? In Week 3, I gave myself a bit of advice, the gist of which was to just chill out.

I ran my second race of the season in Week 4, and wrote about how I found the zone.

Highlights of the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon in May:

I keep hearing people talk about how kids with autism are incapable of affection or empathy. In Week 1 of the Blogathon, I decided to try and bust that myth.

In Week 2, my younger son lost his first tooth, in more ways than one. We had to get the tooth fairy to come, even though we didn’t have the actual tooth.

May was Mental Health Awareness Month, and during Week 3 of the Blogathon, there was a Mental Health Blog Party. I wrote about postpartum depression, in hopes that sharing my experiences would help someone.

In Week 4 I wrote about the most precious of gems: those little moments with my family that make me feel like the richest person in the world.

I was feeling introspective for much of Week 5, and wrote about how I made peace with a decision that parents all over the world wrestle with.

The blogging challenges are done – at least for now. But the writing continues, because I will never run out of words.

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, blogging, Challenges, Guest Posts, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, website, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
post

A New Look

May 23, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

When I first started this blog, I had no idea what I was doing. I had a vague notion that I wanted to write, but I didn’t know how to put a blog together. I had a bit of a dilemma: I wanted my blog to be visually appealing and inviting, but I have the design skills of a praying mantis – a dead praying mantis.

Fortunately, I had some templates to choose from. I experimented with a few of them, and settled on one that looked nice but was impossible to read. Small white text on a black background – what was I thinking?

People started emailing me telling me that I was ruining their eyes. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s failed eyesight, so I knew a change was necessary. I went back to the templates and picked out a new one. Black text, light background, bigger font – all-round easier to read. The new design looked a lot nicer too. It looked calmer somehow, less austere and cold.

When I launched the new design, everyone loved it. People thanked me for saving them from a trip to the optometrist. I myself was immensely proud of the new improved Running For Autism.

After about a year, though, something started to happen…

I started to realize that I was actually taking this blogging thing very seriously. I liked to write, and I wanted  to write. And I wanted a more professional, unique site on which to showcase my offerings.

Again, I have the design skills of a dead praying mantis. This might be a problem.

Just then, a fellow blogger launched her new site and I loved it. It looked clean and sleek, professional yet fun. I got in touch with the blogger and asked her who had designed her site.

That is how I got in touch with Courtney.

A few short months later, I have a new website that is so beautiful I could cry.

Courtney has been fantastic to work with. She has been fast and professional, receptive to my ideas and forthcoming with her own suggestions. When I had technical trouble with my domain name, she patiently put up with my frantic email harassment and helped me get sorted out. She has always been there to answer questions and calm my fraying nerves.

And look at the website she made me. I mean, look at it! I wouldn’t have been able to come up with this in a million years.

Now I begin the task of bullying harassing nagging sweetly asking my subscribers to move their subscriptions from my old site to my new one.

I am excited to launch this website, which heralds a new phase in my writing. I hope you will all stay with me for the ride!

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cecphotography/4747271873. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, blogging, Relaunch, website, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

Goodbye WEGO Health Challenge, Hello Blogathon

May 1, 2012 By

In April I participated in the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, in which I published a post every day for the month of April, based on health-related prompts.

I am now participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

When I first started Running For Autism a little over two years ago, my blogging was an airy-fairy kind of affair. My original intent was for this to primarily be a running blog, but it morphed very quickly into far more than that. Running is such an important part of who I am, and it is frequently difficult to squeeze it in with all of the other responsibilities I have, and I found impossible to write about it without adding the context of my life. For example, how could I write about running to raise funds for autism without trying to raise some awareness about the impact of autism on my life?

And so my subject matter started expanding to include posts about parenting and autism. As my wedding day approached and I started feeling the typical angst of a bride-to-be, my blog became a place for me to vent about my stress and toss around ideas for how to plan a wedding that both of my children could be fully involved in. At some point I started to try my hand at fiction in the Indie Ink writing challenges. A little while after that, I felt a little glimmer of bravery that allowed me to tentatively start discussing my struggles with depression.

Even as I cast my net of topics wider and grew my audience, I found it difficult to prioritize my blogging. I have a lot on my plate. I am a wife and mother. I have a child with autism. I have a full-time job outside of the home that involves two hours of commuting each day. I help my husband with his business and take care of making sure bills are paid and taxes are filed. I run. I have a commitment to write three articles a week for an ezine.

Inevitably, blogging took a back seat to all of this, and I was posting once or twice a week if I was lucky.

When WEGO Health sent me an email inviting me to participate in the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to see it through to completion. I mean, we were talking about a blog post every day for a month. In the end I signed up, spurred on by the fact that the challenge coincided with Autism Awareness Month. This seemed like a great opportunity not only to give my writing a boost, but to spread the word about autism and offer some hope and encouragement to parents feeling overwhelmed by a newly acquired diagnosis.

We have now reached the end of what turned out to be a very successful challenge. The prompts that were provided offered new ways for me to think about the health focuses that matter most to me – autism, mental health and running. I had to really dig deep and be honest with myself and with the world – or at least, the corner of the world that reads my blog. I had some moments of soul-searching, and I found myself addressing questions that I’ve never had the courage to ask before.

There were two days on which the prompts just couldn’t work for me. Try as I might, I could not get past the writer’s block. The challenge rules allowed two “get out of post free” days, but I was loathe to use them. Instead, I turned to the list of bonus prompts that were provided just for occasions like that. As a result, I published a post every day in April.

Through this challenge, I gained some new readers, and some great new blogs to follow. I read some incredible stories of courage and perseverance. So many aspects of health were covered in this challenge: diabetes, cancer, mental illness, special needs parenting, and so many others.

When you read so many stories of people fighting to survive, going to the ends of the earth for their children, and using their own painful experiences to help their fellow man, it really gives you renewed faith in the awesomeness of humankind.

Thank you to WEGO Health for putting this challenge out there. Thank you to my fellow bloggers for taking me on journeys that I could never have otherwise imagined. And thank you to everyone who reads my blog, who leaves comments or clicks the “like” button, or who shares my posts on Facebook or Twitter. It means a lot to me to know that my voice is being heard.

I am compiling a list of fellow bloggers who took the challenge, and when my new website is launched, they will be on the blogroll.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariareyesmcdavis/2890706354/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, blogging, Challenges, health, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, Indie Ink Writing Challenge, Inspiration, Mental Health, running, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
post

Painting Pictures With Words

April 30, 2012 By

I am participating in the Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, in which I publish a post every day for the month of April, based on health-related prompts.

April 30 – Word Cloud: Make a word cloud or tree with a list of words that come to mind when you think about your blog, health or interests. 

When I read this prompt, the first (OK, the only) thought in my head was, “Eh?” Although I have seen the term “word cloud” bandied about in various places on the Internet, I’ve never paid attention to what it might be. I was visualizing a mind-map kind of thing, and I was wondering how on earth I would come up with something like that. It seemed to be a highly visual concept, which would imply a kind of creativity completely alien to my way of thinking. While I think in pictures, I’m hopeless at actually creating them in any artistic sense. I can only paint pictures out of words.

When I Googled “word cloud” (because, you know, Google knows everything), I discovered that this is exactly what a word cloud is: a picture made out of words. All I had to do to make my picture was import a list of my blog tags into this online tool, select a few options, and click the button. It turned out to be lots of fun: I experimented with different shapes and colours, and finally settled on a picture that represents what my blog is all about.

When it comes down to it, Running For Autism is really about two things. Hope and love.

I think my word cloud is a perfect representation of that.

Filed Under: blogging, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, Hope, Love, Pictures, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
Next Page »