Carnival of Australia
Welcome to the April 9th, 2008 edition of The Carnival of Australia. 
Given the fact that LighteningOnline is the host of a weekly Smiley Saturday meme, I thought it would be appropriate that I award my own little “smiley comment” to each of the posts submitted to the carnival this week. You’ll find my comments in pink because PINK makes me smile. I hope you enjoy reading my comments and also enjoy browsing this top collection of posts.
Family
Carole Fogarty presents April Give-Away: 7 Steps To Sanity Mentoring Program: posted at The Healthy Living Lounge saying “If you are struggling with work life balance, feel the joy has been sucked right out of your life and know you’ve had enough, then you will be thrilled to know, our April monthly holistic living give-way is Jennifer Jefferies, 7 steps to sanity on-line mentoring program. You’ll love it.”
How can I not smile over a post that mentions ME!!!! (and the fact that I WON something) 
Carole writes some great articles and hosts some great giveaways. This one sounds fabulous so go over, have a read and enter to win this lovely on-line mentoring program.
PlanningQueen presents 10 things I want my kids to know now…. posted at Planning with Kids saying “With so much to teach kids, what are the core values lessons that you would like your kids to know about life now?”
This is a FABULOUS list and I found myself nodding my head as a I read each one.
Colin Campbell presents Pet of the Day - Higgins the Pig posted at Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe saying “Choosing or inheriting a pet is a long term commitment.”
Colin’s posts regularly bring a smile to my face and I have to agree with him here - a pig for a pet is rather a large commitment. Who needs a pig? Why not have a teenage boy simply move in? 
Me? I’m more interested in “useful” pets. We have chooks for their eggs and cats to keep away mice and snakes. Oh, and when we can keep them alive - fish for the lovely tranquility they bring to a home. Still, the thought of a pig for a pet did give me a giggle. It would make my $100 a week grocery challenge rather challenging though!!!
Craig Harper presents The Sixty One Year-Old Skater Dude posted at Craig Harper - Motivational Speaker saying “”I love to skate and I hate it how people stop doing fun stuff because they’ve reached a certain age. Old people bore me. There seems to be the list of ’socially acceptable’ activities for anyone over fifty and let’s just say that nothing on the list really appeals to me!”
Craig, you can’t be over 50 can you???? This is a fantastically inspiring post and reminds me of my grandparents. They’re in their mid-eighties and still going flat out. Okay, not quite at the skateboarding level of flat out - but living life to the full all the same. That really makes me smile!
Lin Burress presents A Child’s Ten Commandments For Parents posted at Telling It Like It Is.
Parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world and it’s wonderful that experienced parents are willing to take the time to share their thoughts on the subject.
Food
Gillian Polack presents Happiness for bloggers posted at Food History saying “What makes food bloggers and readers of food blogs happy? Fridge magnets, of course!”
Now there’s nothing like a giveaway to make people smile. There’s a blogger after my own heart! I LOVE hosting giveaways.
Business
D Robinson presents The Bub Hub: An Internet Success Story saying “Brad and Hilary Lauder have refused to sacrifice their honesty and integrity in the process of growing their website to the point where the Bub Hub consistently ranks as the number one parenting site in Australia.”
What a wonderful and positive success story. The line “the Lauders have refused to sacrifice their honesty and integrity in the process of growing their website” really made me smile. It’s nice to think that people can reach success without clambering over others or resorting to underhanded techniques in order to get there.
Gavin R. Putland presents How to dodge stamp duty posted at The world according to GRP.
This one is not as “dodgy” as it might first sound. You’ll find some interesting and helpful advice for purchasing real estate (such as your own home) here. Anything that helps another person to get something like their own home makes me smile.
Megan Bayliss presents The talk doctors of Edge Hill posted at imaginif saying “Imaginif has a new corporate blog (be sure to change your links now). We have opted to run our old static web pages through a wordpress theme (Revolution) so that now our entire site is a corporate blog. We love it, can do all the changes ourselves and can now easily demonstrate the magic of blogging and social networking conversations to our pre Web 2.0 colleagues. Which picture should we use as our header though??????? Help us pick a corporate brand that sums up the talk doctor’s business and personalities.”
How can seeing a photo of these lovely ladies do anything BUT bring a smile to your face? I couldn’t choose. I like the first one for the smiles but can also see the merit and fun in the second one.
Suzie Cheel presents Taking The Abundance Highway To New Heights posted at The Abundance Highway saying “I have been having many conversations with myself, friends and colleagues and on this blog about where I am heading. Also a single focus or multiple topics?”
There’s nothing like having Problogger drop by and comment on a post to make your day just a little brighter!!!
Current Affairs
Shan Siddiqi presents Australia: The Next Big Thing saying “Why Australia will emerge as a major economic power in the future, from the perspective of a World Citizen who was born in Pakistan, currently resides in the US, and plans to move to Australia later this year.”
Quote from the article: “Most quality-of-life studies put Australia near the top of the world” Do we rate Australia as one of the best places in the world to live???? You BET we do!!!!
ITAKEOFFTHEMASK presents Mastering Life Transitions is the Key to Happiness and Success saying “You’ve reached a career dead-end, how do you make a job transition? Your heart was broken into a million pieces, how do you survive the days ahead? You’re migrating into another country, how do you face the challenges before you? How do you survive the transition? Surviving difficult life transitions is one of the most important things we need to know if we desire to live a full and meaningful life. We may not have noticed it, but transition follows us the moment we were born ’til the moment we die. First, we make the transition from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood. Then we make the transition from single life to married life, from an active career into retirement.. In between are many other difficult transitions challenging us, sometimes ripping our very hearts apart that we know not how on earth we’re ever going to survive.”
Change CAN be hard but this post offers some wonderful advice for embracing change and the promise that it can bring. I particularly like this final sentence, “For in every death is a new birth, in every ending a beginning waiting to be unleashed.” Where there is hope, there is always a reason to smile.
Alex Garcia presents Population increases across Australia posted at Life in Brisbane - Queensland - Australia saying “Just a short update on the latest population increases”.
Interesting. I had no idea Australia’s population was growing so fast. I know around here there have been plenty of babies….I guess that counts! Ooh, and babies make me smile. I’m doing my “bit”. I’ve had my “one for the country”. 
Travel
Kathie Thomas presents Rain at last! posted at Much About Melbourne.
It’s nice to hear of drought ridden areas getting decent rainfalls. Rain always brings lots of smiles around here (my husband is a farmer for those who are not regular visitors here at Lightening Online). Hopefully our turn for some rain is coming soon….
Technology
Swollen Pickles presents WordPress Tip: Style and layout pages by category posted at Swollen Pickles.
I love the way people around the net solve their problems by creating (and learning) something new. It really is a great place to be if you want to learn and grow (which I do - although creating or tweaking wordpress themes is a tad above me right now ).
Duncan Macleod presents Inside Wordpress 2.5 posted at Pacific Highlander saying “Reflections on Wordpress 2.5, a week after upgrading the blogging software on twelve blogs. There are a few concerns, but overall the upgrade is proving helpful.”
From what I’ve read, Wordpress 2.5 hasn’t been making everyone smile. BUT, this is a nice overview of the changes and 12 blogs!!!!! Gotta give him a smiley for that effort!!! Or should we have him committed????
Other
Jen presents Savouring the season(s) posted at Semantically driven.
I’m with you Jen. I LOVE that I live in a place where we experience different seasons. And that beautiful picture of an Autumn tree really made me smile.
Lin Burress presents Child Sexual Abuse - Facts VS. Myths posted at Telling It Like It Is.
There’s not a lot to smile about when it comes to child sexual abuse. Knowing there are people out there working hard to protect our children and assist victims in overcoming the effects of their childhood abuse does make me smile though. Thanks Lin.
Karen (miscmum) presents Tears for fears posted at Miscellaneous Adventures of an Aussie Mum saying “A snippet of life taken from the sadness of a 2 year old and his love of Thomas the Tank Engine”.
Life through the eyes of a child always brings a smile to my face. What a lovely and poignant moment, even if there was a touch of sadness involved. The caring heart of a child is reason in itself to smile. We can learn a lot from them can’t we?
And that, my dear friends, wraps up another Carnival of Australia. Thank you to all who submitted and I hope you’ve all found something to smile about in reading these posts. For those reading this who have never submitted an article to a Carnival, you might be interested in reading my post on Blog Carnivals.
The next edition of Carnival of Australia is scheduled for April 23, 2008 and being hosted by our own Aussie Bloggers.
Similar Posts:
- Mom’s Blogging Carnival
- Smiley Saturday - Birthday Edition
- Let the Zucchini Lovefest Begin
- Happy Father’s Day!
- Mid-week Netball Carnival
17 comments:
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Way to go Lightening. I LOVE how you have smiled at each post and pinked up each bloggers day.
Thanks for hosting. Next fortnight is the Carnival’s first birthday so get your posts in everyone.
[…] Carnival of Australia is up over at Lightening’s place. Check it out and remember to leave a comment of thanks to […]
Thanks Lightening. I made a booboo submitting that post under technology though.
Thanks Megan.
Sorry Jen - I should have picked up on that. I read and re-read a number of times. I’ve fixed it now.
Thanks for including my post, I am so glad I raised the topic- besides getting fame, it seems there are lots of bloggers wondering. I am planning to keep thinking out loud.
Great Carnival, just the way I believe a carnival should be done. I was going to write a comment earlier on the post you had about carnivals at you Blogworld but never got around to it, so maybe this will start some discussion.
This carnival is an example of how I believe a carnival should look and be, not what most carnival are: just link farms.
Congratulations! You have actually read the posts and included your own comments, I just love the pink I would be curious to know if you selected the posts, rather than as most carnivals do, just drop in what you get from using Blog Carnivals instacarnival. There are carnivals out here that seem to accept anything which I believe lowers the value of a carnival.
I know I started the Abundant Thinking Carnival after doing Wendy’s 10 Days to a better blog course. She suggested just finding carnivals in your niche, there wasn’t much on abundance or LOA , so I started Abundant Thinking, was great for a few months, then I was getting 40 plus entries , maybe 10 worthwhile,and sometimes that was pushing it. I was also looking for entries that were different, added color,light and movement. Then I joined forces with Carole Fogarty and we decided, so we thought to simplify it and focus and specific areas, the first ones were okay and then the standard dropped to the extent that last month I closed it
you can read about that at http://www.abundancehighway.com/the-carnival-is-over/
I remember when I first started Colin Campbell ( who by the way always presents a high quality carnival) saying carnivals were a lot of work! I took that with a grain of salt, now I would agree with him. I also closed the carnival as it no longer was fun and wasn’t bringing joy to me, so I doubt that it would inspire my readers.
Some people put anything everywhere just to get links and I have discovered recently that you can pay $97 a month and the guy who runs it drops anything and everything in- I was getting at least 1 or more a week from him that had nothing to do with LOA or abundance. Some people do it for the 20 odd link back they get each week. It was through someone I know who writes great articles on blogging tactics that I discovered this. I was finding at least 2 posts a week coming in, so I emailed him to ask if he had read the guidelines?
I then realized why I was getting so many off topic entries.
Would be interested in others views, as I know I no longer read carnivals that are just lists.
I have also taken to submitting to carnivals that have maybe only 10 posts, yes I may not get selected, that’s okay as I know the standard has been high.
Do carnivals bring you more traffic? Carole found after a month or so of submitting to many carnivals, that no it didn’t.
Lightening, hope this answers some of the questions you posed at http://www.lighteningsblogworld.com/2008/03/31/blog-carnivals/. off to leave a comment over there to link back here.
Have a deliciously abundant day
Suzie
Great work Lightening. Very enjoyable Carnival.
great blog, very pretty and intresting themes
Suzie - I think you raise some good points and it would be good to continue this discussion on my blogworld post. Perhaps I’ll write a follow up piece more focused on hosting carnivals. With this particular carnival I copied and pasted all of the articles. I didn’t even know about instacarnival until I’d almost finished this post.
I hosted another carnival a while ago which must have used instacarnival and the person running it sent me a copy of all the code to use. I found I didn’t have time to read all the posts with that one. With this one Megan has all the individual submissions forwarded to the host as they come in, so you have more time to read the posts and comment etc. It’s been interesting the way different people run their carnivals. Perhaps I should try a one off carnival using the website so I can learn the options from “behind the scenes” so to speak. As for whether I included every post submitted. No, I didn’t. I deleted 3 or 4 for various reasons. This particular carnival has a fairly broad category range whereas I can see the merit with some carnivals needing to be more exclusive in what they do and don’t include.
I have left a comment on your other blog ,linking back here I think
Looks like you have learnt the ropes well.:):)
I think you have done brilliantly with this one and this is the best way to do it. I think a one off carnival would be difficult.
I agree with you about the Aussie Carnival, mostly great content, but I pleased to hear you hadn’t posted everything , just because it had been submitted.
Keep smiling
Suzie
Hey Lightening.
Great carnival. Thanks for including me.
Can’t wait to read all of these.
What a great carnival. I loved your comments on each post.
Thank you Craig and Gillian and thanks for stopping by and taking time to comment.
Such a well presented carnival, Lightening. I generally don’t read carnival posts unless the blogger has actually taken the time to comment or highlight each post - otherwise its just a collection of links. This is how Carnivals should be run, but I imagine it was a big job putting it together!
And I keep forgetting to submit my posts - I’m going to try hard to remember for the next one!!
[…] pink flash of Lightening Online hostessed the last Carnival of Australia and did a beauty of a job. Have you visited her Carnival post yet? **Megan is pointing her finger at […]
[…] to Lightening on three counts: Including my post in the Australian Blog carnival this week. I also responded to a question Lightening has asked about Blog Carnival […]
It has taken me some time to get through this carnival, but I thought it was an exceptional one. Your presentation was inviting and encouraged me to investigate many posts that I may not have usually looked at. As a consequence I have another 3 RSS feeds from the this carnival. Thanks Lightening for taking the time to put it together.
Thanks Guera and Planning Queen. I’m glad you enjoyed it.