Day 8: Poor but positive.

Today marks 1 week of the sharing experiment, and to celebrate we have a new url -share stories.net. Please use and share!

In these 7 days some wonderful things have happened:

First of all at the time of writing this 163 of you have liked the facebook page Share Stories. That puts a smile on my face just writing it. But even better than just liking the page, I have had advice, interesting thoughts, offers and pep talks and it has been a lot of fun communicating with you all — please keep it up (especially those of you I don’t know so well or haven’t seen for a long time).

Then to make things even better the HuffPost in Australia published my story about the experiment. A big thank you to to Hilary Simmons and the boyfriend for whipping it into shape, and a big thank you to everyone who liked it, shared it or tweeted it. The editor is happy to look at a second instalment but it’s not guaranteed so all of your social media support is awesome and again I thank you!

But despite such an amazing week I got a bit down yesterday. This town can do that to you. It’s exhausting and expensive, and I have been on more trains in the last week than in the last year. I’ve even been writing on the tube (I would send you a photo but I look so terrible I can’t bring myself to).

But today I feel better. For one it’s my Aunts birthday (and if any of you have noticed the lady who likes everything I put up? Well that is my Aunt, and she is the best) secondly I am house-sitting in a beautiful bedsit in London. The home of an interior decorator and declutterer (and her old and cantankerous cat) I am here for a week. There is a deck out the back with an apple tree brimming with apples. The end of the block backs onto the railway line so if you squint your eyes you can almost fool yourself you are in the country. It’s pretty wonderful — except for the fact that there is no shower. Yep that is right no shower. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not really a bath person. The idea of sitting still (and naked) for any length of time for no reason is confusing to me. But I have promised myself I will try and embrace it. Any tips for enjoying baths please send them through. Apparently no kindles?

And in another beautiful coincidence today I signed up for Olio a brand new app (just 8 weeks old) where you can share your excess food. Being a Mex head (that’s liking Mexican food. Not to be confused with meth head) I requested some spice packets figuring that it would be an adventure to go and collect them. Well it turns out it was a short adventure. The lady with the Mexican lived literally up the hill from the new place I’m staying and she is one of the founders! She told me they have had over 400 transactions in just 8 weeks which is awesome for eliminating food waste. They are also working with shops, people who keep chickens, and with people who have allotments or backyards where they have too much of one vegetable and want to swap it or give it away. The lady I am hosue-sitting for left me organic pumpkins, corn and avocado so Mexican is going to be awesome — I’ll post the pics!

Now it’s time to talk about Fiverr. I am going to try and be really restrained here, but if you were watching me type this you would probably see steam coming out of my ears. I am going to do a full review of Fiverr when I calm down but for the moment I am not so happy with it. I have a loved writing peoples bios (and very happy to do them for you all) but for $4 (because Fiverr takes %20) it doesn’t quite seem like I’m ever gonna make headway.

So I have a new solution. Da da daaaaa!!!!! Introducing the Share Stories Shop! Here you can commission me to write your bios £10 / $20AUD for 150 words and £15/ $30AUD For 250. I hope you still think it’s a bargain. I have also put examples of my style (thanks for the tip Gabrielle). It doesn’t look amazing yet but I’ll keep working on it and I will be adding some fun products over the next few days — so keep an eye out (especially if you have a sweet tooth).

So tonight I will sleep in a stranger’s bed, and tomorrow I will eat a stranger’s food. But if there is anything that I am finding out about in the sharing economy it is that a stranger is just one conversation away from being an acquaintance / an opportunity and if you are really lucky a friend.