Bringing Bonnie to the Blogosphere

One of the many things I am grateful to my fiancé for is his support—especially my writing. As a writer, I am often afflicted with self-doubt, writers block, and downright hatred for the craft. Though he may not always enjoy what I write—I am mostly a romance writer, he is always encouraging me to paraphrase the queen of romance, Nora Roberts,” Put your bum in the chair and write.””

With so much time on my hands, while looking for work, he has been encouraging me to blog. As a prolific blogger and blog reader himself he appreciates the influence, inspiration, or entertainment those in the blogosphere possess with their words—not to mention writing—any kind of writing, is an excellent way to exercise the writing muscles.

Cynic that I am my response was, “But my life is boring, and no one will want to read what write in a blog.” I dabbled in blogging before, LiveJournal, MySpace, and Blogger and whether it was poor time management on my part or lack of interest left these word prints to drift alone and forgotten in the blogosphere. I am willing to try again, and Jonathan has graciously allowed me to use Mosen Consulting as the platform to launch myself. Here I go.

I thought my first post would be an introductory one. Most of you know me as the fiancé of one of the most famous personalities in the blindness community, the voice behind the Bonnie Bulletin on the weekly radio show The Mosen Explosion, the occasional Twitter convo, and those who can remember that far back member of The Seeing Eye’s public relations team. But there is so much more than that.

I would love to say I am six foot tall, slender, blonde and blue eyed and all of that is true minus the height part. Subtract a foot throw   in some hated nasal skin pigmentation aka freckles and that is me.

Southern Belle by birth world citizen by choice I am a “Steel Magnolia” and often a force to be reckoned with.  I was born in Atlanta Georgia, home of the Braves and Coca cola the youngest of two girls and called this city home until age 13 when my father took early retirement and moved the family to our farm in Tennessee. I have always had a vision impairment of unknown origin. I was born blind in my left eye and had limited sight in my right. It was the seventies and I was fortunate to bee part of the mainstream education in the DeKalb County public schools. At age eight, I lost all the sight in my right eye due to detached retinas. Surgeries were unsuccessful due to haemorrhaging and I was left almost totally blind. People often ask ”wasn’t this tragic”:  and my answer I don’t really remember. Having spent most of my professional career in the blindness field I think going blind as a child is less traumatic than as an adult, but hey that can be a blog post right. At 13 I went to the school for the blind in Tennessee and absolutely hated it. Ah another future blog topic. I returned to public school and graduated in the top 100 of my class.  I attended Middle Tennessee State University where I majored in sociology, English, with minors in psychology and equine science. Like most 18year olds I had no clue what I wanted to do, so I did the next best thing prolonging reality by attending graduate school at the University of Kentucky earning a master’s degree in rehabilitation counselling.

For the past 18 years, I have worked in rehabilitation counselling in the blindness field, public relations at the oldest dog guide school in the world and lived in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now New Zealand. Yes, I have a Gypsy soul—thanks to my father’s love of travel and adventure and have no problem pulling up weeds and putting down roots. I love horses grew up with them and currently am a partner in a moderately successful racing stable. I love music, reading, current events, history and have a rather unusual interest in the history of nursery rhymes—that would have been my thesis if I had continued my English studies and not in a field where I actually did find employment.

New Zealand welcomed me with open arms in November and like countless migrants before me I have been spending my time adjusting to a new culture, upside down seasons, cars coming at me from a different direction, and  spending an unusual amount of time exploring Wellington’s café culture with my black Lab Seeing Eye dog, Lizzie.

 Wow! Just in this introductory post, I found several topics to expand on in future blog entries. I love hearing from readers so do not be shy, and if you have ideas for posts. I would love to hear them.  

10 Comments on “Bringing Bonnie to the Blogosphere

  1. Bonnie – a well written, frank, informative and thoughtful first post on the site. I look forward to many more.

  2. I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was
    great. I don’t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!

  3. Wow, this piece of writing is pleasant, my sister is analyzing
    these things, therefore I am going to let know her.

  4. Hi would you mind stating which blog platform you’re working with?

    I’m going to start my own blog in the near
    future but I’m having a difficult time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.
    The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m
    looking for something unique. P.S
    Sorry for getting off-topic but I had to ask!

  5. Hmm it appears like your site ate my first comment
    (it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
    I as well am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing.
    Do you have any tips for rookie blog writers? I’d really appreciate it.

  6. Hi Bonnie and welcome love to read more about your new start in NZ. hope that you settle in your new country and enjoy all it has to offer you.

  7. hi bonnie. nice to have met you. how did you meet Jonathon. and I am from south Australia, Australia. live with my parents. 49. and have two brothers, one sister, four nephews, 3 necies. a huge star trek fan. and also. I enjoy technology. have a Toshiba laptop, with jaws 15. running windows 7. and reinstalled windows 7 and jaws a few times. so know how to install, configure software. looking to do web design online course, or maybe computer systems. I did a diploma of web site development, in 2013, from htttp://wsi.tafensw.edu.au, and now I lived in Devonport, Tasmania, for about 8 years, and yes, did go on the spirit of Tasmania. which goes between meloburne and Devonport, which is in the north west of tas. and yes, went to Hobart a few times, went to the markets, cafes, etc. one of Jehovah’s witness. htttp://www.jw.org. and we have a convension once a year, so it was at the entertainment centre. and so. three hour drive, and stay at a caravan park, or apartments. and then go out for some nice food to a restaurant, café, pub. so about 3000 people. and so good business for those three days. we have a international convetion, at doclands stadium, in October. it can normally seat 55,000, for sporting events like the afl football, rugby league, soccer. but there will be 75,000 from over 200 countries coming. and other events , so all the hotels, motels, apartments, and caravan parks full. so. love listening to talking books, and listening to the pelican brief at the moment. from htttp://www.visionaustralia.org. I also exercise on the treadmill, a endure 318, three to four times a week, 60 minutes at a time. and get a good work out. have a panosonic portable stereo which plays usb, and I have all my music on a 32 gb flash drive. love my 80s and 90s dance music and 70s disco. so. it does have ipod doc, fm radio, a cd-player. had a jvc old stereo, but only cds, an mp3 , and so kept stratching, dying, or not burning. so was looking some thing with a usb. and found it great sound, 6 or 10 inch plush speakers, 2, and so is on a chiar , very light weight, weighs about 1 kg. and so is in the garage. the treadmill, I have a stick, and so if I go too far back, it pulls out and stops. so I do not fall off, that happened to me one day, so, just started it off again, and set the time, speed, incline. and can take up to 170 kg. so that’s my introduction. ps: and like listening to podcasts about different technologies and have learnt about facebook, twitter, linked in, insta gram, pintarious, and also android, apple devices. marvin.

  8. hi. you have moved around a lot. I have Laurence moon beedle barnets syndrome, and one of the affects is vision loss or blindness. I have rp. but have a positive attitude. and I share my hope with the future with people , when I go preaching as one of Jehovah’s witnesses, and I use a cane. have a nice day. hope it is not too windy or cold in wellington. chat soon. marvin.

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    There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content.
    Please let me know. Many thanks