“It’s the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation.”
source: Australia Day

Today we celebrate Australia Day the 26th January 2010. On this day 222 years ago was the arrival of the First Fleet into Sydney Cove and is officially declared a public holiday in every State and Territory around Australia since 1994.

The Founding of Australia

The Founding of Australia 1788

Although Captain James Cook explored and claimed Botany Bay in 1770, it wasn’t until 1788 when the First Fleet arrived under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip that Australia was established as a penal colony.

Australia Day has been previously known as Foundation Day and has also been referred to as Invasion Day by some groups within Australian society. The controversy stems from the belief that it was the destruction of Indigenous culture by the British.

Whatever your beliefs are of this day, my wish is for you to enjoy it and celebrate as you see fit.

How to Celebrate Australia Day

As far as I can tell there are no hard and fast rules on how to celebrate this day. The main thing is to enjoy yourself whatever you do. Celebrating with friends and family is always cool and as we know, the more the merrier extends to this holiday. Participate in any way you can and feel proud to be an Australian.

Activities can include :-

Aussie Thongs

1. A day at the beach with the cricket bat or or volley ball.
2. Lots of beer
3. Attending official events and/or concerts
4. Holding a BBQ at home
5. Visit museums and learn about our history
6. Dress up in Aussie colours
7. Organise a competition for the best outfit
8. Watch the fireworks
9. Fly the Australian Flag at home or on your car
10. Make Lamingtons or Pavlova

Most of all, enjoy the day.

The Aussie BBQ

We enjoyed some Australia Day Burgers on the BBQ for dinner. I used the following recipe and they were delicious.

Ingredients:

• 500 g lean Beef mince
• 1/2 Onion — finely chopped
• 1 TSP chopped fresh garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh Parsley
• 1/2 cup HEINZ tomato ketchup
• 1 egg — lightly beaten
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
• salt and freshly ground black pepper — to taste
• 6 Hamburger buns—split and toasted ( 6 to 8 )
• your favourite burger ingredients—choose from:
• tomato — beetroot,
• pineapple, avocado, lettuce, Cheese,
• Bacon, onions
• and/or egg

Of course you may have celebrated in your own unique way. I’d love to know what you got up to and hope you had a Happy Australia Day!

It’s very late here now, but I could not go to bed without posting this. There was a list of the Top 100 Australian Blogs posted by Meg Tsiamis over at Dipping Into The Blogpond which is a blog with an Aussie focus, and I was thrilled to find out that I made that list! As far as I know, it is the first time I have made it and at number 81, it is a great start for me. The top three blogs are Problogger, Entrepreneurs Journey, and lifehack.org.

Meg uses three variables which are the Alexa ranking for Australia, the Alexa ranking for the US, and the Technorati ranking of a blog to determine the numbers. To learn more of how she does this, read it here.

Aside from this successful blog, Meg also facilitates the BUMPzee Australian Blogs Community and owns and runs dlook which is an Australian Online Business Directory, and from what I saw, there is also a dlook dating site if anyone is interested! Kudos to Meg for running such successful businesses.

Blogging is quite a community affair. I remember when I first started Buzzing with Ange and I used to wonder how to get people to read it. Twelve months later, I have made it into a Top 100 list. Not bad for a stay at home mother of two who has had quite a varied number of roles in her lifetime to date.

The social media has been a worthwhile area to be involved in with building a blogging community and learning how to drive traffic to my site. I must say that it has all been a very fun way of getting to know people too and the reasons why they blog.

Now it is really getting late here.

I will go to sleep smiling and grateful.

Dedicated to Success