i know i was (am?) having a hiatus (i’m still feeling a bit rough to be honest, also: grumpy) but the site wasn’t supposed to totally freaking disappear!

after two days, i got in touch with my blog host, and it transpired they had changed some of their settings (why? why?) and made my blog go ‘way as a result.

so i had to go and change my settings with the company i bought dianeshipley.com from, where it was a dark world of ‘nameserver this’ and ‘DNS settings that’ and ‘this is not the email address you registered with’ and ‘please log in again’ until i nearly tore my hair out.

but i made it back!

and if you missed it, while the site was down i got another blasting in wrote another piece for the guardian: don’t bite the hand that feeds the inner you.

is there a good self-help book for dealing with criticism and blog disappearances, do you know?

i’m sorry, i know i owe emails left, right and centre but i’m busier than i’ve ever been, ever, at the moment, and now i’ve been hit with some sort of virus that’s making me sluggish and overheated: i literally cannot think. my brain has gone. also, the thought of food turns my stomach - that can’t be good. hopefully i can take this afternoon off and come back fighting tomorrow.

i’ll be back blogging when i can, but i don’t have any idea when that might be. i need to do loads of stuff for australia, reply to all those million emails… and what was that other thing? oh yes, work. and i have two days training and an interview next week, too. (not that i’m complaining!) it’s very nice to be needed and wanted and have things to do: having spent years lolling on sofas, i know. but still… pass the smelling salts, someone.

i’m going to let you in on a little secret: i’ve been hard at work on a lot of things lately, not all of them profitable, but top of the list is [drumroll please…] a whole new blog.

not as a replacement for this one, but as a more commercial venture (i.e. i’d like to make some money at it one day) and of a much less personal nature.

but still funny, weird and interesting, of course. (what do i mean, ’still’?)

if you’re curious, clicky here to find out more.

un-congratulations, you’re pregnant.

in work news (don’t yawn!), i have been sending out pitches like mad, dead keen on getting in lots of lovely lucrative and interesting writing to do. yes peeps, the sabbatical is officially OV-ER… send yer (lovely lucrative and interesting writing) work my way, and be quick about it!

and you can see my new, improved, pimped up and ready-to-rock work website (which i made myself, just like a proper person!) at:

www.dianeshipley.co.uk.

also, i’ve signed up for a photoshop course.

dorkily, i’m very excited about it. it’s a two-day introductory thingy, in february. which is good ‘cos i know not one thing about photoshop and i think i need to. fabbily, i got 40% off the price! (i don’t know how i qualified for that, it was all v. secretive, but somehow i did.)

i want to expand my “skills portfolio” by getting to grips with graphic design at least a little bit and then i’ll conquer stuff like CMS, CSS and HTML so i can take over the internet and be reech beyond compare do more.

finally, i got the BEST business cards from moo. after dilly-dallying with picture cards, i finally went for some text cards (i got aqua, black, pink and red) with ‘DIANE SHIPLEY. FREELANCE JOURNALIST’ on the front in a cool font, with a stripey print background. that sounds gaudy; but they’re just funky. and small! (cute). i love them and will be finding all kinds of excuses to give them to people.

i have other work-related news involving spreadsheets and the like, but even i have to draw the line somewhere…

i think it’s (past) time we had a fistula fundraising update, don’t you? (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, please click here).

the aim was to raise £150, enough for a fistula repair operation for one woman, by my birthday, january 27th. we haven’t made that total yet (and we may not make it, i have to be honest) but we have still done pretty well, and i’m really impressed that with minimal prodding, a group of us has already raised £72.50.

that’s enough for a preventative caesarean and a set of surgical instruments for fistula repair, or hospital transport for 14 women or food for 29 fistula patients for a week. in other words, it’s blooming fantastic!

however, this campaign can always use more cash and if you want to boost the total, you still have time. you can give your £2.50/$5 via paypal - my email is dianewhatdoyoudo@googlemail.com - or contact me if you’d prefer to send a cheque). if you can add a few pence/cents extra to cover paypal fees, i’ll love you for it, as so far i’ve been covering them from my own pocket.

you have until midnight (any time zone!) on the 27th when i’ll wrap things up for good. (i’ll send the donation sometime the following week if everything’s cleared).

as the 27th is my birthday (have i mentioned that?) i’d consider it a wonderful gift if you’d donate.

remember last year (oh so many moons ago) when i laid out my plans for 2008? (they included vegas and uni and australia and i’m not sure what else… is it coming back to you now?)

well, it’s all changed. i’ve just sent off my uni application (just NOW! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) but for a deferred place - i.e. i’d go in 2009, not 2008, if they let me in. (PLEASE let me in!)

vegas and the grand canyon is off the table for now, but i can always visit if i get into the study abroad programme for 2010 (please let me in!) australia is hopefully still on, just postponed til - well, we have some travel agents to see…

y’see, planning is all very well, but sometimes life has other ideas. and i’ve learned that it’s very nice to make plans, but no good if you don’t follow them up with actions, like eating well, resting enough, exercising and making sure you’re fit enough to follow through.

hopefully i’ve now struck the balance between wild optimism and hopeless despair: i hear there’s a place called REALITY? i’d like to spend some time there, making real plans that will actually happen.

having said that, everything is - of course - always and forever open to change. i’ll only really know what i’m going to do when i’m actually doing it.

and you’ll know right after that, when i blog about it. naturally.

hmm… i didn’t have the hugest response to my blogaversary faq request. am i too accessible already? too boring? self-obsessed? are you too uninquisitive? is there anybody out there?

those are my questions! now i will answer yours… i should say i am very grateful to the people who did leave/send in such intelligent questions… » more…

(have i mentioned it’s my blogaversary?! ok then.)

the observant among you will have noticed a significant sidebar change: the archives have all but disappeared! where did they go?

well, old boring posts were simply “let go”; sent off into cyberspace never to be seen again. but what one might, if one was being effusive, call my “best” blogging work has been collected together in a new home: posts from the past.

» more…