New look! I hope you like… It’s probably temporary, but I have been ready for a change for a while.

This blog has become less about my expat experience and more about my regular life. While I still have a giggle over Australia vs the world at times, this is my home and I am less inclined to look at it as something weird and new.

I’d like to focus on more pictures of the pets, talking about what we’re doing and even more about mail because I’m looking to get into mail art, crafting, etc.

So, here’s to change…

I’m here! I’m still here!

Our hosting moved our sites over to new servers… and didn’t tell us. This lead to all sort of site and email difficulties. Knock on wood that they are all sorted now!

I am very, very happy to announce that So You Want to Write a Guest Post: An Author’s Guide to Promoting with Guest Blogging is available at Amazon.com Kindle Store!

It is also still available at Smashwords, but someone mentioned that people might be put off with the need to sign up there.

I can also sell direct with a PDF version, if anyone is interested.

2011 is the year!

I had a smack upside the head by the memory fairy a week or so back and realised that this is the year.

This year I get to become an Australian citizen.

Woot!

There are fees to be paid and paperwork to gather, so it’ll be a bit. Plus I have to study this book and sit a test, but I am so excited (and nervous!). What once seemed so long away is now… well, now! I probably won’t have news on it for a bit, but I am very excited to say it’ll be happening.

Yay!

I finally managed to sort out Akismet for this site, so commenting should be a lot easier. I still have to approve one comment before you can post freely, but I’ll be able to find your comments a lot faster now that I don’t have sixty spam comments to sort through every day. Woo!

Gasp! For me? I’m just so… *waves hand in face* An award for me? Tee hee.

Gettin’ funky with an UnderAchiever deemed me pretty cool enough to give the Versatile Blogger Award.

I’m pretty sure this is my first blog award here. Sweeeeeet.

Anywho, onto the blogging stuff. To be truly versatile, I must reveal seven super secret sexy secrets.

Oops. Used ‘secret’ twice. So it goes. On to the facts:

1. Before we got Brin, I would have told you I’m a cat person.
2. I’m a woman! Hear me… purr. I much prefer purring.
3. I make zines!
4. My last baking adventure landed me with a woeful lemon meringue pie that made an excellent lemon cake tart with meringue on top.
5. I’m currently planning my next two tattoos. *headbangingawesomeness*
6. I’ve decided I’m probably done piercing myself. Nose and ears are good.
7. I have the second rarest blood type in Australia (and must remember to donate again before the year long post-tattoo donating ban)

Next part! Fifteen new blogs… New to me, anyway. Well, I figure I’ll be a bit naughty and do this a bit differently. The first fifteen people to comment on this post get a comment from me! Want me to check out your blog? I’d love to! I’m always up for discovering new blogs, so have at it.

I know, this makes it a bit of a cop out, but I visit the same ol’s most days. So open my eyes, blogging world!

Join Borneo Tom McLaughlin, author of the travel journal Borneo Tom: Stories and Sketches of Love, Travel and Jungle Family in Tropical Asia as he virtually tours the blogosphere from MArch 2011 to February 2012 on his first tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Borneo Tom

Science teacher Tom McLaughlin battled a rare neurological disease to a stand still, packed up his life and moved to Malaysian Borneo from a Washington D.C. suburb.

Landing in Kuching, he quickly learned the Malay language and involved himself in projects which includes orangutan rehabilitation and research about the famed naturalist, Alfred Wallace, whose thunder was stolen by Charles Darwin.

The advent of cheap air travel to many destinations in Southeast Asia transported him to many adventures. From dancing naked in an earthquake in Sumatra, to getting lost in a warren of World War II Japanese caves to walking the rim of a volcano with poisonous gas, he has jumped with foolhardiness into everything wild and wonderful, all related in his book Borneo Tom.

Reuniting with his Peace Corps family of thirty five years ago, sharing adventures with one daughter, then reconciling with another after a divorce, marriage with full kampung ceremony and then taking both daughters on his honeymoon to Bali are a few of the highlights of his remarkable personal life. Oh, but we can’t forget? His vasectomy coupled with a wife diagnosed as barren has reproduced a son, Dzul Patrick, now a few months old.

Tom teaches at the Lodge International School in Kuching, Malaysian Borneo while writing about his adventures as a US expat living in Borneo.

You can find him at:

BorneoTom.com
On Twitter
On Facebook
On Kindle!

About Borneo Tom: In Story and Sketch: Love, Travel and Jungle Family in Tropical Asia

Join award winning science teacher Tom McLaughlin as he moves from America to Malaysian Borneo as he tracks orangutans, dances naked in an earthquake, swims with jellyfish AND MORE DANGEROUSLY…falls in love.

Walk with him through a cacophony of emotions including great joy when he finds the love of his life and marries in a village ceremony, reunites with one daughter after a divorce, travels with another and flies the entire family on his honeymoon in Bali. Oh, yes, did I forget? His vasectomy and his wife’s diagnosis of barrenness produces a son, Dzul Patrick, now a few months old.

Each stand alone chapter is humorously sketched by Water Front Niki, a familiar face to all who visit Kuching. Niki’s sensitive portraits of the national bird, the Hornbill, decorates living rooms world wide.

**Proceeds from the book go for items that support the Matang Wildlife Center that rehabs orangutans and other amazing wildlife.**

Read an Exerpt!

I was drawn by the uniqueness of this book once I received it. There are cartoon sketches for each and every story in this book. The black-and-white sketches are wonderfully, and sometimes comically, done. They correlated well with each story they represented.

There are sixty separate stories, or essays, in this book which are arranged in chronological order. Tom’s essays are informative, cheeky, humorous and, sometimes, eye-opening.

–Literary R&R