– Tell us a little about your family…

I have taken the scenic mothering route.  I fell pregnant at 20 with my eldest daughter, her father left me as soon as he found out that I was pregnant.  I met my first husband when just 2 months pregnant with Dominique.  He was very supportive and even attended antenatal classes with me, but he was also very young (21).  We dated and got engaged.  Not being one to learn from my mistakes I fell pregnant outside the sanctuary of marriage yet again.  Our wedding date moved forward and Heath was born in 1991.  Suddenly my young husband who had a yearning to travel,  found a wife and 2 children were more than he could cope with, he left when Heath was 6 weeks old.  For a long long time I was a single mother.  I met my husband Clifford (online) in 2004 and we were married the following year.  Cliff did not have children and really wanted a family,  Fjord was born in 2007 and Acacia in 2010.  Life is very different now, instead of having to go straight back to work leaving a 6 week old baby at home, I am now a stay at home mum.   Each of my children are unique and wonderful but I am a better mother now with the benefit of a little more wisdom, more experience and less stress.  

-What do you do when not blogging?

-What made you decide to blog?

I love writing but often went long stretches without writing anything more than a grocery list.  A friend suggested blogging and once I figured out what that was I was sold.  I do some creative writing and love doing those posts most.  I like to share positive and negative experiences with products and services.  Blogging also serves as a journal, I can remind myself how to make a duvet cover or where we stayed on a particular holiday.  It’s also useful when I loose the hard copy of a recipe.  

-What was your concept behind your blog?

With my first blog Sula 1968 I was so clueless that I didn’t even realize that would be the name of my blog when setting it up.  I then migrated to my own domain Skimming Stones for a few reasons which people who are more web smart than me advised.  My brother Paul from Print Wild set it up and hosts it for me.  I’m far too fragmented to have a concept, I write what I want when I feel like it for multiple reasons. 

-Did you find yourself nervous at prospect of letting people into your life in this way?

Nah, I’ve never been too bothered about sharing.  Many years ago I was in an abusive relationship which ended in a court case over the breach of a family violence interdict.  I realised then that it is so important to share as there are many going through what we are going through and feeling so alone.  That said I will never write the details if I have a row with someone, that is bad taste and they don’t get to air their side.  I did learn one hard lesson about the dangers of the internet.  I once posted about my son choosing to have his face painted as a butterfly instead of a more boyish thing, with that post I had a high resolution picture just of his face.  One morning after that I noticed that my blog stats for the previous evening were more than double the usual number of hits.  I clicked on the link where most traffic had come from and was horrified to see a post on a paedophile network with a link to my blog post and the comment “check out the lovely high res image of this cutie”.  I was totally freaked out, I deleted that post and any which showed my children too clearly, I then converted all the pictures to low resolutuion.   We really need to be aware that there are some very bad people out there. 

-Do you ever worry that your kids will be like “mom why are you exposing my life?”

-Does your family read your blog?

-What do you think about the blogging culture in South Africa?

To be honest I’m still learning about the blogging culture in SA, I read some amazing blogs, the ones which read too much like adverts are a bit of a bore.

-What do you think makes for a “good blog”

A number of things make for a good blog, firstly good writing.  I particularly enjoy the posts which I can identify with or learn from (crafts and recipes), I love humour. 

-How do you personally measure success in the blogging world