Wise Words on Wednesday 5 - Sshh! Secrets!

Today, 28 January is Data Privacy Day, an international effort to promote awareness about respecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust. While I am surprised to hear that such a day is celebrated, I am not surprised that it exists given the breaches of online security and data theft which one hears about daily. I only need to look in my Junk email folder each morning to see the number of scams overnight that have invaded my privacy. There seems to be a lot of bogus emails at the moment which offer 'unbelievable' prizes in exchange for your email address and other personal details! Beware! There are many sites which give good advice about protecting your personal data. You can search yourself and you will find a myriad of links to follow. Today I read a few and all it did was scare me witless. It is obvious that hackers and cyber criminals are far more cunning, more intelligent and more daring than I could ever be!

The last thing I want to be is paranoid , mistrustful and suspicious, but on the other hand, I also do not want to be vulnerable, defenceless and taken advantage of. What Data Privacy Day has alerted me to do is to remember always that I decide what information I reveal about myself, when, why and to whom. ....And protect oneself but not live in fear....

Our world is utterly saturated with fear. We fear being attacked by religious extremists, both foreign and domestic. We fear the loss of political rights, a loss of privacy, or a loss of freedom. We fear being injured, robbed or attacked, being judged by others, or neglected, or left unloved. Brendan Myers (Philosopher)

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Gourd Art

Last week, I rediscovered a few gourds "drying" in our garage... In fact, I was searching for them after doing a doll making workshop where we transformed gourds into doll bodies, with the addition of polymer clay and apoxie sculpt. I have researched a little to identify the gourds I have - they seem closest to the water jug shape gourds. The gourds we used in the workshop were Chinese bottle gourds. my gourd doll - a flower child /hippy fiddler? Workshop dolls - Christmas sprite by Jane Lambert , and my doll Flower doll also completed in the workshop by Lee Hennequin Balloon seller - gourd art doll by tutor, Janice Laurent Working with gourds made me very curious about the history and cultivation of gourds. A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae or the fruit of the two genera of "calabash tree" . The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some witho...

Countdown to Christmas 15 - Diamonds Forever!

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Countdown to Christmas 20 - Fruitcake song!

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Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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