Tag: off topic tuesday

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Interiors Addict

Off-Topic Tuesday: Get a free skin cancer check with Spot Check Month

Skin cancer is a disease close to my heart as my mum, Patricia Bishop, sadly died from the disease when I was 3 years old. That’s why I wanted to give publicity to Spot Check Month and encourage you to get a free skin check. This is also why, 6 years after moving here from England, my skin is still as Pommy white as it ever was!

mum

Aussie media personalities Fifi Box, Emma Freedman, Hayden Quinn and Bondi Rescue lifeguards Greg Bishop, Tom Bunting and Brad Malyon, have teamed up for Invisible Zinc Spot Check Month – encouraging Australians to check their skin for bad spots this January. Launching with a nationwide competition, the month sees $150,000 worth of free skin cancer checks being offered at clinics around the country.

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Interiors Addict

Off-Topic Tuesday: Buy a bear for grown-ups and help sick kids

Meet Barnaby, the luxurious limited edition bear for grown-ups with a conscience! Barnaby is the brainchild of Melbourne’s Cameron Comer, director and owner of Comer & King Interiors.

Barnaby bear

Being surrounded by a treasure trove of the finest fabrics sourced from renowned international labels, it was the hesitation Cameron felt associated with discarding the offcuts that lead to the making of Barnaby. Inspired by the original Barnaby created in 1994 as a custom made ‘newborn’ gift, and a long association with the charity TLC for kids, Cameron wanted to do something that not only satisfied his design sensitivities but also make a positive difference for sick children.

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Renting

Off Topic Tuesday: stop putting pressure on yourself to do everything by a certain age

I used to be totally guilty of this so a Huffington Post article my girlfriends shared on Twitter this morning (20-something does NOT have to be 20-everything) really struck a chord with me. And I’m not even 20-something. I’m 32! But the crux of this article isn’t so much about being 20-something but about putting too much pressure on ourselves to do certain things by a certain time because we feel we should (and thinking we’re a failure when we don’t), and worrying too much about what other people think. I thoroughly recommend you read it.

When I was in my 20s I felt like I had to tick off absolutely everything by a certain age, and the younger I did it, the more of an achievement it would be. I  got my first newspaper reporter job at 17 (and agonised over the fact I decided not to go to university in order to take it), got engaged at 24, bought a house at 25, edited my first magazine at 26. That year I also split up with my then-fiance. And one of the biggest things I remember thinking was WHAT WILL EVERYONE THINK? I thought I’d be married and have had my first child by 28. It seemed a good age to have done that kind of thing. But at 26 I was single and selling my home. That hurt.

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Interiors Addict

Off Topic Tuesday: my wedding invitations

I just have to share my wedding invitations with you now they’ve all safely arrived to our guests here and overseas. I am so in love with them. I really can’t imagine anything better (other than a letterpress version, which I couldn’t afford). I worked with the ever patient Kate Reeves Robertson at The Story of Us to create my dream invites and the perfect start to our big day countdown.

Jen Bishop Invitation Scheme
The white on navy invitation (with polkadot reverse) is for the UK post-wedding lunch we’re having at the end of our honeymoon in November. We had to make it different to the white wedding invitation, as some people were sent both. We also had an insert card with a striped back, an RSVP postcard, a fuchsia envelope seal and a tag with our wedding website details on the reverse.

When I received my printed goods back from Kate, I almost shed a tear. You dream about getting married for years (I wasn’t one of those girls with a scrapbook and all, but I won’t lie and pretend I hadn’t imagine what my wedding stationery might look like, being a paper nerd). Putting them together in the right order, addressing the envelopes (Damian’s job), inserting the envelope liners and getting the right stamps for overseas and domestic mail was a much bigger job than imagined and saw our dining table become a production line for three solid nights. (Top tip: use post-its!) It was fun though, despite the sore necks.

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Interiors Addict

Off Topic Tuesday: wedding planning

I’m really bad at asking for help. Always have been. So when it comes to my wedding, and with all my bridesmaids overseas, it’s been a little tricky. I mean, you can’t ask non-wedding party friends to help. That’s just AWKWARD.

So I’m very grateful for friends who have offered their help (because that’s ok) and got all kinds of excited for me. And then there are the people, pretty much strangers, who have offered their help too, which is almost even more amazing. My future mother-in-law has been fantastic and one of the most excited people about our big day. Not having my own mum anymore and having no bridesmaids here to call on has left me feeling a little sad and lost at times, so I’m very grateful for her advice and enthusiasm.

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Off Topic Tuesday a day late: ugly self doubt

Whoops, it’s Wednesday. I forgot to post Off-Topic Tuesday yesterday and the alliteration has such a nice ring to it! Ah well, I’m here anyway!

Today’s off-topic post is about doubt and about worrying too much about what other people think about what you’re doing. At the weekend, I was asked to speak about blogging at the Kidspot Voices of 2013 masterclass. A real honour. One of the questions to the panel (with the fab Viv from Ish & Chi and Rebecca from Wee Birdy, moderated by the fabulous Pip from Meet Me At Mikes) was do you ever doubt yourself? Now, it may seem from my blog and even from meeting me in real life, that I’m a super confident person who knows their stuff. Let me let you into a little secret: I am as self-doubting as the next person. I worry about what people think about me and might be saying about me behind my back. ALL THE TIME. I live in constant fear of being found out. What for, I’m not sure!

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Off-Topic Tuesday: mobile phone etiquette

Does anyone else argue with their other half about the amount of time they spend on their phone? Or do your friends wind you up by being on Instagram when you’re trying to have a conversation over dinner? Trust me, I am well aware that I am the LAST person to pass comment on excessive social media use!

I’m a huge social media fan and, as a full-time blogger, using it is relevant and important to my job. A huge amount of my traffic comes via Facebook. In fact, for me, the line between work and play totally blurs with social media. I enjoy it all. I like to talk, across whatever medium, and with my close friends and family, as well and new and interesting strangers! I met my VERY good real life friends Emma (also known as my wife) and Naomi on Twitter, and we have been pretty much inseparable since meeting up two years ago. I digress, but these are all reasons I use to justify my use of social media being important.

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Interiors Addict

Off Topic Tuesday: Give Blood, Save Lives

Today’s OTT may seem like a cop out because I’m not actually allowed to give blood myself. That’s because I used to live in the UK. Remember Mad Cow Disease? Yeah, that. No jokes please!

In the absence of a screening test for vCJD (the human form of the disease) the Australian Red Cross Blood Service won’t let us Poms donate. It’s frustrating, as I used to regularly in the UK. So I thought perhaps sharing the message with thousands of you guys could be my way of helping the cause.

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Off-topic Tuesday: Donate life. Tell your family.

While I absolutely believe that organ donation is a personal choice, I also can’t help but think that once we leave this earth, it’s a little selfish not to give someone (or up to 10 people) a chance at life by making available organs we have no use for ourselves. Of course, some people choose not to donate for religious and cultural reasons, which I completely respect.

But for many, not registering to donate their organs after their death just means they forgot. And if you forget, and haven’t told your nearest and dearest, your family may, rightly or wrongly, at a very sad and stressful time, say no. This seems to be an awful waste. Death is never easy and always sad. But out of something so sad, to be able to offer someone fighting for life, who may have been on a transplant list for months or even years, the chance at a new life, is such an amazing and joyful thing to be able to do; a privilege in fact.

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