Happy Easter Monday!
I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend.

Firstly thank you for all your kind words of encouragement on my post on Friday. I am only half way through emailing people back but I’ll get there.
I thought I better do a follow up post & let you all know where I’m at…

Blogging for me is a funny thing. As well as the obvious “social” aspect of it, I also personally find it a wonderful release when I treat this (a bit) like I would an actual diary & write how I’m truly feeling. For example in the past there have been many times that I’ve been stewing on something for ages, yet as soon as I write it down on  “paper” (aka the screen) it releases it somehow and my mind can move on. I no longer feel as stressed about whatever the issue is.
Whether other people read/comment etc. is fairly irrelevant – the release still happens.
It’s great.

And that exact same thing happened on Friday… as soon as I finished writing all about my concerns and pressed that big orange “publish” button, it all just vanished.
*Poof * the anxiety disappeared.

Now some could argue that I could do all that with a pen & paper and just journal my thoughts.
Which is true – I certainly could!
But then I asked myself – would I?
Really and truly Kat: Why do you blog these things instead of journalling them privately?
Good question yes?

So I decided that while it often challenges me, can make me feel judged or like everybody knows my thoughts, or vulnerable; I find true value in being “real” and keeping a public diary.
The value being…
Accountability for myself….
Personal growth – because it helps me grow & move on past the yucky bits that I might not want to accept about myself…
And the hope that it normalises some issues that we all deal with but often people aren’t brave enough to talk about. – For example I know for a fact that my being so open about my depression & anxiety helped a number of people have the strength to do something about theirs.
That is enough of a benefit for me if nothing else…

Over the course of my short blogging life I have found that the posts I find the hardest to write, and want the fewest people to read possible, are always the ones that have the most hits statistically.
Which leads me to believe that they must be the ones that are most widely read.
There is something in that.

So to cut a long story short(er) I decided that I want to keep on blogging publically.
(go on… cheer & go yay – you know you want to 😉 ha ha )

Which then forced me to think and clarify more specificially what my actual concerns are…

***

 I do still have some concerns with Pinterest. However – I need to be more clear with you what these are…

Firstly let me just say that I don’t mind at all people pinning my images. Because
a) I understand the spirit of Pinterest and I think the idea of a virtual pinboard is wonderful. It’s fun. It’s useful. It brings my blog lots of traffic. I’m sure I’ve made sales from it. It’s so darn inspirational!! etc….
b) I also understand that anything I put on my blog is then out in the public domain and by doing so I can’t be “precious” about people using my photos or find inspiration from my ideas. It’s just the way it is
– it drives me a bit crazy when people have a “want my cake & eat it to” mentality to blogging – so yes ok, I’ve caught myself having a little precious moment about my photos and I’m going to move on…
c) Following on from that – I agree with one of my commenter’s Anne in regards to the use of the code available on pinterest which means people can’t pin straight from your blog:
Nothing put over the internet is ever safe from theft. Period. You can’t stop people taking your photos if they really want them. If they can’t pin it, they’ll right click & save it. If they can’t right click and save it then they’ll just screen capture it.
So I would much rather people pin my photos so that the traffic then is directed back to me. Also it means I can actually see how many & who has pinned it etc.. And I’m nosy, so I like that.

My main concern with Pinterest is actually believe it or not all about my own safety about what I am pinning.
Yes that’s right – I just don’t want to be sued for pinning someone else’s images and getting their nose out of joint! As unlikely as it could be for that to happen, I’d just rather not take the risk.
There’s a pretty easy solution to that really.
– Unfortunately I don’t like it much because it means I’m going to have to delete all my pins & start all over again only with photos I have permission to pin. Gah!
But I’m ok with that.
I will sleep easier knowing that I won’t be sued for “finding inspiration” from someone’s images.
I will just go back to the system I had for bookmarking photos before Pinterest came along…

I don’t particularly like the implications of having pictures of my children pinned either, but I’m going to get over there. As we’ve just established photos are no longer sacred whenever they’re uploaded to the internet, so whatever…. It’s just a reminder to me to exercise caution at the point of upload really…

And likewise I’ve decided not to stop putting photos of my children on my blog.
I have thought long and hard about it and reality is that in this day in age we just can’t stop information about us being put on the internet.
(Unless we never leave the house & live in a plastic bubble that is.)
CCTV is everywhere. Mobile phones with camera’s and video’s are everywhere. And this can all be uploaded onto the internet without our permission….

For example I have lots of friends who have Facebook accounts and do not ask my permission before uploading photos of my children!!!
Lets not go into that etiquette in detail today shall we, but…
Which is the bigger risk to my children’s security; having photos of my children put out there on my blog where nobody really knows any information about our location (other than we live in Perth & live by the beach… which only narrows it down to about a 100km stretch and half a million people)  OR photos shared by friends on Facebook which in my opinion people “percieve” as safer forum so more information on the whole is shared and usually read more by local friends of friends?! *Ahem; people that are nearby with more actual ability to turn all crazy on us if they should so desire…
Not to mention which format gives me more control about what photos I’m making available for what is essentially public viewing?!!
Just sayin…

So yes – basically I can’t help what photos of my children are available on the internet, therefore it’s silly to get worked up about it. Instead I’m going to concentrate on teaching my children to embrace technology while keeping themselves & their information safe in this rapidly changing technological world…

I also reread (or actually read as the case may be) some of the Terms & Conditions of the social media that I use. Thankfully some of the things that I was most uneasy about weren’t there anymore (or where never there in the first place) and that made me a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

Wow – another long wordy post with no photos – sorry!!
The main point is:
Blogging will continue as normal 🙂

But it was good to readdress these issues. After all, things on here to change to rapidly and my thoughts need to evolve as technology does.

So on that note, I’ve decided that it is time to run another series on etiquette. We did one on Blog Etiquette last year, but what about “social media etiquette” on the whole?
And what about a series on “keeping ourselves safe online”?

Anybody interested?
If you would like to guest post & write a post on either of those topics then email me I’d love to hear from you.

Well done if you’ve actually made it this far!
As I’ve spent a large portion of the weekend sewing, I promise some more sewing posts filled with scrummy picture soon! 🙂

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  1. Good on you Kat! Do what you need to do to put your mind at ease.
    I dont share the same feelings, for example I think Pinterest is fantastic and I have over 1000 pins ands no fear about pinning. I don’t mind people pinning from my blog and i have no concerns putting photos of my children on my blog. I know that I have not put anything incriminating or distasteful up so I have no problems with my childrens faces on pinterest. In fact I pinned some of the pictures that Tim took.
    Having said all of that, we all feel differently about these things and it’s whatever makes you comfortable. Good on you!

  2. Glad you worked that through!

    I need to teach my dad some blogging etiquette when he gets back from India, his is DIRE, but at least it’s really only on my blog lol

  3. I have come to the same conclusion as you about blogging. I’ve tried pen & paper diaries and i never keep them up whereas knowing someone may actually read what I write makes me keep going with blog posts.

    I’ve deleted Facebook and Pinterest accounts. Although my reasoning for doing this at first, was concerns about inadvertantly getting into trouble, it is now more to do with having fewer things to waste time on.

    I haven’t got issues about posting photos of small children as there aren’t any in my family at present I think I would post photos as long as the parents of the children were happy for me to do so.

    I only talk in general about my work as I have to be very careful about confidentially – I can’t aford to get struck off the nursing register!

  4. Yay! (Of course I cheered!)

    You have articulated what lots of us think but don’t put down in words properly. Thank you. And I for one will continue to enjoy all yours posts, the sewing, the angst, the joys and the humour.

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