Category: new beginnings

Changes · gardening · Mount Warning · new beginnings

Welcome to my new WordPress address! :)

Joanne14 Comments
The self-proclaimed “King of the Garden” ~ The Kookaburra.

Welcome to the new address of Home Life Online!

When I began blogging at Home Life Online, the very first blog that I ever had, I didn’t know a lot about blogging at all, so every decision I made was based upon the advice of other people.

From all the accounts I read, it seemed that the way to go with blogging was to have a self-hosted website, which would allow me to have complete control over my website.

Well that was nearly three years ago now and during the last three years I have started up another three blogs, each with a different purpose all of its own, and each one being a free WordPress blog. You will find the links to my other three blogs right under the header at the top of this page.

In all honesty, I have yet to find the advantage of paying to host my own WordPress blog! And what is more, I find the free versions easier to navigate around!!

The overseer of all things “garden” ~ Miss Tibbs.

I’m absolutely sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I were a super-techie type, who knew website code and could decipher programming mumbo-jumbo, I would be singing the praises of the self-hosted website, but unfortunately I’m not techie, or code savvy at all.

For ages now, I’ve toyed with the idea of transferring all the content from my self-hosted website to a free WordPress blog, and today I have finally bitten the bullet. I’ve spent the afternoon signing up, importing, exporting, re-adding, colouring, contemplating, deciding…and finally…it’s all set!

And here it is ~ the new home for Home Life Online!

To make the transition a little easier, I’ve stayed with the same theme, same header, same background, and all the content has been transferred from the old site. It may sound really quite involved, but it wasn’t at all. Even an un-computer-savvy blogger like me could do it!

At my new blog, right here, I will continue along in just the same way as I always have. The kookaburras and the garden, the river and the ocean, in fact everything that has always been there, will now be over here!

Pretty in pink!

There are just two requests I have, with moving my online address ~ firstly, if you were subscribed at the old site, would you mind subscribing again here? You will find the subscription link just to your right, near the top of the column, under the heading “Keep in Touch”. I can’t transfer my subscribers, and would hate to find that I had lost (or misplaced!) anyone during the move. You know what it’s like when you’re moving….

And secondly, if you find that there are any glitches in the new system, could you please tell me about them in your comments? I’ve checked everything from my computer, and all seems well, but you never know about those unwanted gremlins….

Over the next month or two, I will be asking my ever-so computer techie friend if they can help me out with a few things that I would like to do with the old website, but until then, I will leave everything there as is. And you will all be the first to know when my new plans for the old site are up and running!

It will be a whole new revamp, in fact a full-scale renovation, and once I get the ball rolling, the old domain will be a blog no more, but I promise, you will hear about it!

In the meantime, just so as you know you are really at the right address, here is a photo of my beautiful view from my home, of the majestic Mount Warning. 🙂

Mount Warning
dad · father · happiness · inspiration · new · new beginnings · spiritual

……And The Four Blogs Lived Happily Ever After

Joanne8 Comments
My Dad, looking out across the ocean. I love this photo but couldn't include it on his history page as I ran out of room!

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” ~ Anne Frank

Today, I have some really exciting news. It’s actually an announcement and about one of the items on my “to do list”.

Only a history buff or a complete and utter genealogy nut will appreciate the full extent of my excitement, although I do hope that those who are lacking in interest of the topic will feel enthused by my happiness regardless.

Imagine the sound of a drum roll at this point please; this announcement is monumental!

Two days ago, www.jomottershead.com hit the internet airwaves, the blog I have dreamed of starting for years, where I can record my family history! I tried to call the blog Mottershead, (as that is my maiden name, so the beginning point of my history) but it was taken already, hence the name Jo Mottershead (that’s me!)

The theme I chose for the new blog is a free WordPress theme called “Chateâu” and I’m really happy with the look. No, more than happy, I’m ecstatic, tickled pink, couldn’t-have-wished-for-a-better-theme-if-it-was-made-to-order kind of happiness!

I would like to offer an invitation to everyone to visit my new website and please, don’t be shy about leaving a comment. All constructive criticism will be taken on board. It doesn’t hurt to have a proof reader, or multiple proof readers either.

I’ve already discovered also that I can link in to more personal stories from my family history website with stories I have written elsewhere. For example, while sorting through my parents old photos, (another item I’ve been tackling on my ‘to do list’) I have found photos taken of a shop my parents once owned. That is a story for my “Memoirs of my Life” site and can be linked in to the point of my father’s life story, where I can display the photos and tell about my parents buying the business, back in the 1970’s.

Last year I visited the grave (yes, I like graveyards, they’re full of history) of my Great-Uncle Albert and have written the story of that day at my “A Sense of Spirit” website, which can be linked into the post I write when I reach his story in my line of ancestry.

So my “Blog Family” is now complete. Each of my four blogs has its purpose  and can interact with one another, hopefully continuing to happily co-exist with each other for a long time to come, just as all good siblings should. 🙂

Australia · Changes · freedom · new beginnings

“Yours is the Earth and Everything that’s in it”

Joanne5 Comments
The SS New Australia

One of the most time consuming, although thoroughly enjoyable, items on my ‘to do’ list, is to sort through old photos I inherited from my parents. I have two brand new scrapbook style albums, which will become the new home for most of the photos, after they have all been scanned and labelled.

Another album I have to work on is a very old photographic record of my parents voyage in 1951, on the ship the “SS New Australia”, which brought them and their three young daughters from Southampton, England to Sydney, Australia, a journey taking them over one month, when they travelled across the world in search of a new and improved life.

In among a paper bag full of photos I discovered three restaurant menus, carefully saved and well preserved after all these years from their weeks on the “SS New Australia”.

On the back of one of the menus, printed Wednesday, December 6, 1950, I found a poem. As I read the poem, I couldn’t help but think what a thoughtful gesture it had been, giving these immigrants so much hope for their future lives, in particular with the line “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it”.

As they embarked on their new lives, they had the whole world in the palm of their hand!

Note~ After deciding to record these thoughts here today and researching how many others there were on the same voyage as my parents (over 1,500 people) I happened to notice the date when they arrived at their destination of Sydney, Australia.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge in the early 1950's

The “SS New Australia” sailed into Sydney Harbour on the March 19, 1951, exactly sixty-one years ago today. And just by coincidence, today is the eightieth anniversary of the opening of the “Sydney Harbour Bridge”!

~ ~ ~

“If” by Rudyard Kipling

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

And make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold On!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Rudyard Kipling ~ Photo scanned from my book "The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English"

Â