I’m on leave, so this is a in-case-you-missed-it post. I asked right-hand chick Jo to highlight her favourite posts from the year. Here they are:

(PS. this pic above is one Jo took from her flat…she sits here to think each morning…)

1. I love this post: The best reason I’ve ever found for backing the f*ck off. Yeah! Basically because of the title . But also because it talks about pacing yourself, slowing down, ‘smelling the roses’, and focusing on making choices to do life well. “The clear message: just choose to start stressing less. Be gentle. Choose wellness.” Which is something I have on my radar. I’m determined to attempt to do life well. Also, I made some key decisions around the time of this post, and applied for my job with Sarah four days later (on my brother’s 30th birthday  – which is why I know the date).

2. I like spending time on my own, checking in with my inside people (I’ve never had such a fun way to describe it before). That’s why I love this post. The ocean is my favourite place to refuel. And while I’m refueling, I’m checking in on myself. My soul sorts through stuff when I create the space for it. I’ve LOVED Uge since I read this post (I think it’s been a year or so now). I recently met him and he was everything I expected him to be and more… GENUINE GOOD PERSON. Love him. Love this concept.

So I’m having a little break for a few days. Digesting Christmas lunch!

In my absence, a little rundown of posts you might’ve missed, especially if you’re new to this site. They’re the posts that attracted the most comments from everyone. I’m guessing that makes them the most controversial or annoying, not necessarily the most liked!

1. This one – healing auto immune disease: from someone who’s been there – continues to attract thoughts and ideas and share-ins. It’s my original rundown of how I manage my thyroid disease.

2. This post on why I don’t wear a bike helmet and this guide to hot bike helmets got many folk around the world passionately engaged in the topic.

3. This blog about the  secret to happiness was a hit.  Grethen Rubin shares her ONE, fail-safe tip (it’s incredibly simple).

4. And this guide to how to detox your beauty cupboard…makeup and beauty products that don’t contain toxins…I’m going to write more on this in the New Year…

Dearest Readers of this Blog,

A little note to say this: I’ve so appreciated all the care and engagement you’ve extended to me (virtually) over the year. I’ve loved the way we humans have found a new way to “have the chat over the back fence” our grandmothers used to have. Mostly, most of us just want to know we’re not alone. Really. And to know that we’re not getting life completely wrong.

The comments on this blog over the year have done that for me.

Also, a note to say this: Happy Christmas!

Christmas is a powerful time. I find it hard. Lots of water gets muddied cos we all arrive on the day trampling around with our old hurt as well as stress from the year – getting shitty that no one else is picking up the wrapping paper and so on. It can be a lonely time. Even if you have loved ones around you.

I’m just saying…in case you feel the same…and wouldn’t mind knowing others could also be heading off to the kitchen under the pretense of going to get more turkey but really to take a moment and to fight back a few overwhelmed tears.

Anyway. I do hope you all have a wonderful festive break. I’m filming 7pm Project tonight. Then I fly to Canberra tomorrow morning for a loud, shambolic romp with my family. With a wrestle after lunch on the familyroom floor. You, too??

Much love and light,

sx

PS If you’re feeling love for your Twitter followers, I just found this service - Gift a Follower – that allows you to by presents for your faves.

PPS The picture above is one of those DAGGY family pics you get done in malls that Dad got all excited about and had turned into Christmas cards. They didn’t have enough costumes for us, so I’m kind of kneeling down, wrapped in the Queen’s cloak. Very unimpressed. Very daggy. Very Christmas!!

Bike fans, there’s a new bike mag out and it’s called Treadlie. It’s very cute and is on sale now in newsagents.

It’s got a guide to building your own fixie, and features hot bike looks and other hot bike bits and pieces. Oh, and my beautiful single-speed gets its own spread. If you’re keen to enter the world of SS’s and fixies, here’s a good launch pad.

And if you subscribe now you go in the draw to win that very sweet Gazelle Toer below.

I wrote about giving this week. So, then, the very committed Julie Cowdroy, an activist and academic and ambassador for Opportunity International Australia and the Global Poverty Project alerted me to a post she’s just put up ABC’s The Drum about how to give goats for Christmas.

Or, more to the point, how to give a charity gift, instead of something consumerable. She kindly offered to provide a bit of a guide to the gifting charities she rates… handy for any of you out there who Just Can’t Face Buying Crap In A Mall this Christmas. Or Have Left Shopping To The Last Minute. Or who Want to Care More.

I’ve also posted her ABC piece below.

1. OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL AUSTRALIA
Buffaloan: $50
Help sustain the source of livelihood for a poor entrepreneur in India by investing in the buffaloan. For just $50, you can feed this valuable creature for a month, keeping a buffalo full, healthy and ready to produce the milk that provides a regular income for a number of the rural poor in India.

Peas on Earth: $96
This gift helps entrepreneurs in Indonesia plough through poverty, allowing them to start a small vegetable farm – be it cabbage or carrots, beans or broccoli. Once it’s harvest season, they can collect their crop and sell the fresh produce at their own market stall for a profit, using the money to provide the basics for their families. Makes you wonder about money not growing on trees…

This is worth a read: Jaclyn Friedman v Naomi Wolf, feminists debate the Assange rape allegations, on Democracy Now. The preamble transcript gives a good overview of the facts, if you’re a little in the dark still (and confirms no charges have been pressed, they’re allegations only).

Jaclyn Friedman argues the sexual assault allegations shouldn’t be dismissed just because they’re politically motivated, while Naomi Wolf says by going after Assange, the state is not embracing feminism, it’s “pimping” it. Friedmans says:

Rape is a very serious crime, and it’s also one of the most underreported crimes across the globe. And one of the reasons is because every time the issue comes up in the media, people come out of the woodwork to blame the victims and to minimize the crime. And unfortunately, when we see someone who is a progressive hero, like Assange is, those critics, those people who are doing that minimization and that victim blaming often come from the left, as well as the right. And we’ve seen that across the board. Unfortunately, with—Naomi Wolf has participated in that, as well as Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck—of course, plenty of people on the right are participating, as well.

Wolf rebukes by pointing out that there was consent from the two Swedish women. But also that the allegations will never get off the ground:

So, because I take rape seriously, because I’m aware that in 23 years, you know, in Sweden, which has been criticized by Amnesty International for disregarding rape, for letting rapists go free, because you have a better chance in Sweden, if you’re a rape victim, of, you know, dying in an accident or getting breast cancer than having a serious rape allegation prosecuted or getting any kind of legal hearing, according to Amnesty International’s report “Case Closed”—it’s because of that that I know that these charges are utterly, utterly atypically handled. In 23 years, I’ve never seen any man in any situation this ambiguous, involving this much consent, have any kind of legal process whatsoever.

I think they both miss a point. And it’s one a lot of people are scared to say. And that is that these charges ruin it for women with what I consider far more authentic and serious charges to lay. Rape cases can’t afford to be treated with rolls of eyes around the world. Sad. But true. It’s unfortunate this case has been knotted up in the broader political issues. Wolf’s argument speaks to this. But weirdly she doesn’t quite say it as such.

What do you think?