Categories
Life Technology

My flickr account – waiting, waiting, waiting…

I’m not a great photographer. If I take a half-decent photo, it’s generally a fluke. Plus, as regular readers of my blog would know, I’m not too keen on plastering pictures of my kids all over the web – and let’s face it, they’re the ones I spend most of my time with!

This would be the main reason why my flickr account doesn’t get a whole lot of use. Which is something that I’d like to change. But I’m waiting for multiple accounts to be enabled in ifttt, and then I’m planning on automating my flickr posts – which hopefully will encourage me to take more photos in the first place!

Be that as it may, I’m pretty proud of a photo I took recently. A storm had just gone through, and the colours of the sunset over the Glasshouse Mountains were just stunning. The view looking out over my front gate. Heavenly, no?

Categories
Life Random thoughts Technology University studies

Big Bang. Times two.

For the past few weeks now, I’ve looked forward to Monday nights. As a “Big Bang Theory” enthusiast, the idea of new episodes each week has been exciting. In fact, I’m so hooked on BBT that I’ve even blogged about it for work!

I started my Masters in IT in July 2010. The majority of my classes have been on a Tuesday  evening, and since I teach violin Tuesday evenings, I have been unable to (virtually) attend classes, and so instead I generally listen to the podcasts, later in the week. This semester however, my INN530 unit has been on a Monday. And it took me until after I had missed three classes, to realise that I had a clash between the two. (Whoops!!! Sorry, Kate! “Confession via blog?” That must be akin to “Death by misadventure”?!!)

So – last Monday, I was DETERMINED that I would not be distracted by the latest BBT, and that I would DEFINITELY attend class. Especially seeing as this lecture was the biggie for me. Coding. And I’ve never written any code in my life! So I teed up Hubby to feed, bathe, and put the kids to bed, bought a headset, and went. And I’m so glad (cough) I did. Kate, in her usual incredible manner, simplified the basics for dummies like me, to such an extent  that I – almost! – managed to keep up with her pace. And I was also able to keep my brain from exploding until after I had left BlackBoard Collaborate.

So. Ceridwyn the coder? I hardly think so! Rather, I think that learning to code at the ripe old age of 37 is going to do my head in. Oh well. At least I’m going to go down trying…!

CC Image courtesy calixto at http://www.flickr.com/photos/calixto/6005872093/

Categories
family anecdotes Life

Innocent pleasures

There was a time, a week or so ago, when it stopped raining long enough for the kids and I to venture outside. We have a pretty tiny house, so having a large backyard is wonderful. Especially when it’s dry enough to enjoy it!

Being weary (as is my seemingly permanent state) I decided on this day to pull out the hammock dear Hubby bought me for a not-so-distant birthday. So I hung it up and jumped in, ready to laze – and then Miss 4 piped up with a “Jump on the trampoline with me, Mummy!”

I had just gotten comfortable, so said ‘no’ (Yes, I know. Yet one more example of how much of a #badmummy I am…!) but suggested that she place a ball on the trampoline and jump with that. Unfortunately though, she must have inherited some of my laziness (or is catching it via osmosis? You be the judge!) so rather than get off the trampoline to fetch the ball, she decided to use one of her boots as a jumping companion instead. And added one of her brother’s boots for good measure.

‘Twas very cute. See for yourself! (And yes, I know. The orientation’s wrong. D’Oh!)

[flickr video=6997116357 secret=1209f5a162 w=320 h=240]

Categories
Bloxham Marketing Random thoughts Technology Work

Working differently, working smarter…

I was working on my iPad early this morning, then I was called away to attend to my children. Upon returning to the iPad, my first thought was that for some strange reason, it hadn’t put itself to sleep. Then I got closer and realized that it wasn’t that I could still see the keyboard on the screen, but that the screen was black and I could see the reflection of my fingerprint smudges. LOL!
So I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my iPad this morning. I use it a lot, and couldn’t live without it’s calendar – and I absolutely adore the iPad version of HootSuite, but I want to use it more. Currently, I’m using my MacBook for around 90% of my workload, I’d say, and I’m still using it in meetings / presentations etc etc. but it’s cumbersome, and I now have an iPad, so I want to do things differently. Work smarter, not harder (Well, I can’t fit any more into my life, so I need to work smarter anyway!) and this change might work for me.
So, I’ll keep on thinking about it… And let you know what I come up with!
(and yes, I’m guessing that for this move, from Mac to iPad, to be more successful, I will also need to figure out the problem with my Pages not syncing between the two, so that I can transfer my word processing over to the cloud rather than relying so heavily on my Word for Mac…)

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Categories
Life Random thoughts

I will it, therefore I will be…?

*sneeze* I refuse to succumb to Miss 7’s cold. I refuse to succumb to Miss 7’s cold. I refuse to succumb to Miss7’s cold. *sneeze, sneeze*. Oh. Bumma. I don’t feel so great. *sneeze, sneeze* Who’s got the tissues?!!! *sneeze*
So much for willpower.
*sneeze*

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Lucky my (now newly refilled) tissue box sits on the head of my bed…!

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Uncategorized

One hour later…

And we’re back at home. Miss 7, wrestling in the lounge with Hubby who is unexpectedly back home from surfing, announces excitedly, “Mummy! Daddy! Look!!! The butterfly’s hatched!!!”
And she was right.

What a gorgeous creature!

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Categories
Uncategorized

Saturday mornings…

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Mr 3, Miss 4 are watching Miss 7. She’s racing a skier – at least, it’s a person going down a snowy slope, but it might be a snowboarder, not a skier, I’m not too sure! – in the PS2 game “SnowDream” at Beerwah Library. We’ve chosen our books, DVD’s, CD’s and toys and Miss 7 has picked up some extra readers for the week, and now it’s play time. Before we came, the kids had Dora the Explorer and Diego to entertain them at home while I skyped, working on the proposal for an assignment due later this semester. Later, we’ll be making some lasagne together – one for tonight plus some smaller ones that we’ll freeze, and just hanging out doing what the kids want to do.
I love Saturdays. Especially when they’re like this.

Categories
Bloxham Marketing Work

Blogging for work

You may or may not know, I have another (current) WordPress blog, over at www.bloxhammarketing.wordpress.com – current because I also have other, inactive WordPress blogs. But let’s not get in to that here.

I started blogging for Bloxham Marketing in November of last year, thinking that ‘If I want to grow my business, why not do a bit of the “practicing what I’m preaching” kind of thing.’

Initially, my entries were similar to these here on hmmm… – as in, they reflected on the happenings of my work day. What campaigns I was working on, what successes I’d had with getting free advertising, etc etc. Which was all well and good, but I didn’t really feel as though it was working as well as I’d liked.

So I started reading other marketing blogs. Lots of them. And using a Bloxham Marketing twitter account, separate to my @KRidwyn account, to follow a ‘marketing’ crowd rather than a friends / Library / education / tech crowd. And what I found surprised me. There are marketers out there who are FULL ON!!! I thought I was pretty intense, but they take the idea of ‘marketing’ to a whole new level. And I don’t want to be like that. They seem so insincere, so money-focussed, so self-promotionary (I know. That’s probably not even a word.) But there’s no real substance there. No relationship to build (even though that may be, exactly what they’re pushing!) because they’re just so in-your-face about sell-sell-sell. Yuk.

Some of the ideas though, I liked. I liked the idea that I could use my blog to help others. My clients, for a start, could learn more about the techniques behind what I do, through the topics I could write about. “If I’m suggesting that they get blogs, and update them regularly, then perhaps I could help them to do this successfully by giving them hints / tips etc on my blog,” was what I was thinking. And this gradually developed.

I also like the idea of series-writing. Where my readers could get a more in-depth look at a topic because I could expound my ideas over several posts, rather than cramming all my advice into one entry. This concept also gives me posts to tweet about – and to continue to tweet about in the months ahead, as the content won’t date too much.

So I think I’ve found a happy medium. At times, I’ll series-write. At the moment, I’m part-way through a series on “How to Create a Headache-free Yearbook“. I’ve also written a series reviewing ifttt.com; “Website Design“; “Enhancing the High School Library“; and “Planning for Successful Blog-Writing“. I’ve interspersed these with one-offs, such as “6 Lessons The Big Bang Theory can teach us about Blogging” and “Why I’ve left Pinterest“. I’ve also, on occasion, written reflective pieces on what was happening in my work day – announcing my upcoming presentation at LEQ’s Digital Marketing PD; tweeting the #iPadexplore mini-conference; and creating CoverPhotos for Facebook Page timelines, to name a few. And I’m happy with aiming for three posts a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) whereas my aim here on hmmm… is for daily entries.

So, that’s it. Ceridwyn at work. Just thought I’d share.

Oh – and happy birthday, Mr 3!

Categories
family anecdotes Life momentous events

Mr almost-3

My little boy has his last day of being 2 today. He’ll be Mr 3 as of tomorrow. Which is great – but also rather sad. I can’t believe it was really THAT long ago that he was delivered (C-section. Elective. Long story short, Miss 7’s was 33 1/2 hours and Miss 4’s was 10 and I’d discovered, respectively, that a) epidurals in the wrong place don’t help a great deal, and b) water births ain’t as easy as you’d like ’em to be) but I guess it must have been, because he’s about to be 3. No longer a baby, no longer a toddler, now well and truly a little boy, on his way to becoming a big boy, a youth, then a man. And if you’re thinking ‘Yeah, but that’s ages away’ – look how fast these last few years have gone! Heck, Miss 4 will be in PREP in less than a year – and it doesn’t feel all that long ago that I was holding her tiny body in my arms on the balcony at Selangor hospital (Nambour), and introducing her to the gorgeous world outside that hospital room. Now that’s all swallowed up in the busyness of mid-March, 2012, and life don’t seem to be slowing’ down any!

Well, best go. I’ve got a cake to make…

 

CC Image courtesy nojhan at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nojhan/1571935892/

Categories
Bloxham Marketing GoodOldTalk Life Technology University studies Work

Code? What code?!

If you’re a regular reader of hmmm… you may remember I’ve written before about GoodOldTalk.com – a social network for Seniors – that I launched back in August 2009. I still run it, with my mum. We were fortunate enough to obtain the services of the brilliant Sean Bannister and Mindy Chaplin to create the site for us, and at their recommendation, used the Drupal content management system. All well and good – since its inception, I’ve grown familiar with how to run the administration of it all.

Fast-forward to July of 2010, and witness my entrance to the world of post-grad studies. A Masters in IT, majoring in Library and Information Science, to be precise. And one of the main pieces of assessment for one of my first units? Keep a WordPress blog. Happy to! Since GoodOldTalk. I’d kinda become familiar with blog-keeping. WordPress was unfamiliar, but the concepts were easily transferrable. And by the end of the unit, I could see enough value in the idea of a personal blog that I didn’t need too much convincing when @fionawb issued a #blog12daysxmas challenge – and that became the impetus for starting hmmm…

Fast-forward again, this time to February of 2011. Jobless, I pitch the Principal of St Paul’s Lutheran, Caboolture, to pay me to run his marketing. He agrees, and suddenly I’m a self-employed marketing consultant. With administrative rights to the St Paul’s website. Which is based on Joomla! (If I had my way, there would be no exclamation mark at the end of that sentence…!) Again, the skills are transferrable. Which was good. Adding St James Lutheran, Hervey Bay, as a client in September of that year – and Caloundra Christian College just two weeks ago – both of whom have websites based on Joomla! – is also rather helpful, as it has meant that I’m not being pushed too far out of my comfort zone.

But what I love about this Masters I’m studying is that it really challenges me. As in, REALLY challenges me. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve received 7’s and 6’s (that marketing elective I did, Sem II last year, I’m counting as a major aberration. I was seriously NOT happy with the outcome of swapping across to the Business faculty for that elective!!!) – and  I’m also pretty chuffed that because I was among QUT’s top 15% of students, I was invited to become a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. I know I’ve worked my butt off, and (with the exception of one assignment to date) I’ve immensely proud of the work I’ve submitted.

But I’m nervous about this semester. On the suggestion (demand?! ultimatum?!) of Hubby, I’m only studying one unit. INN530, with @katiedatwork. Which I’m pretty excited about… but… one of the 50% assignments is a coding one. In HTML5 – with maybe a bit of CSS thrown in for good measure. And I’m scared. I’ve skimmed the Wikipedia entries on both topics, and I’ve gone ahead and checked out an online tutorial on HTML5 coding, and I’m feeling WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my depth. Really. And truly, And very, very, very scarily!!!

So… wish me luck! This semester’s going to be a biggie!!!

CC Image courtesy Jesper Rønn-Jensen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesper/355128797/