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#blog12daysxmas #blogjune Blogging challenges Random thoughts

Blogging 12 Days xmas – Day 6

So I’m continuing my annual #12daysxmas blogging challenge this year, and my theme for 2017 is ‘gratitude’. Each day for 12 days, I’m explaining one thing that occurred in each month, that I’m grateful for. Today’s month? June 🙂

In June, I turned 43. I also – as I have for the past 7 years, attempted #blogJune. And succeeded! In spite of being busier than I had ever been in my entire life, I managed to make it through 30 straight days of blogging – without missing a day! Or, even, finding it too difficult!

I think, perhaps, that it was because I had not tied myself down to a theme, but just blogged about whatever was happening that day. And it seemed to work 🙂

So that was what I was grateful for in June 2017. How abut you, dear Reader?

KRidwyn

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#blog12daysxmas Blogging challenges teaching Work

Blogging 12 Days Xmas – Day 5

So I’m continuing my annual #12daysxmas blogging challenge this year, and my theme for 2017 is ‘gratitude’. Each day for 12 days, I’m explaining one thing that occurred in each month, that I’m grateful for. Today’s month? May 🙂

In May I was grateful to survive NAPLAN, the external testing which pretty much every student in Year 7 and Year 9 undergoes. Its a set of five tests over three days, with EXTREMELY strict procedures regarding the running of same. A particular administrative glitch made back in January meant that I needed to organise a workaround, which took hours longer than I had expected. Never mind. Surviving the week, sanity (mostly) intact? Was wonderful.

And knowing that the first time is always the hardest, that in future years I can tweak what happened to make it easier for me, makes me think that I really *can* do this job.

How about you dear reader? What things do you want to tweak next year to make things easier for you?

And have a great day!

KRidwyn

 

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#blog12daysxmas Blogging challenges Random thoughts

Blogging 12 days xmas – Day 4

So I’m continuing my annual #12daysxmas blogging challenge this year, and my theme for 2017 is ‘gratitude’. Each day for 12 days, I’m explaining one thing that occurred in each month, that I’m grateful for. Today’s month? April 🙂

In April, term one ended. I remember looking back and thinking wow! How on earth did I manage to survive that? It had been a huge term, yet God had been there every step of the way, and I had survived it. In hindsight, the difficulty had lain  in the fact that there was so much to learn that I hadn’t expected. It was such a surprise: the job which I had left only nine years ago, could have changed so much!

The rise of technology, and in particular teenagers having access to personal mobile phones, made the re-entry into the position of Head of Middle School a lot more difficult than I had expected. The amount of cyber-bullying that was occurring, and therefore also spilling over into the school environment, was not only incredible, it was so sad to see! So a steep learning curve was required, and now I have strategies to put in place to teach pre-teens and teens how to conduct themselves online, and how to cope / what to do when stuff happens that shouldn’t.

So April was very needed for the holidays, it was brilliant that I was able to stop, sort out some needed stuff, and get my head into gear for the NAPLAN tests coming up.

So dear Reader, have you ever had a holiday that you needed, after a period of intense work?

And have a great day!

KRidwyn

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#blog12daysxmas Blogging challenges family anecdotes

Blogging #12daysXmas – Day 2

So I’m continuing my annual #12daysxmas blogging challenge this year, and my theme for 2017 is ‘gratitude’. Each day for 12 days, I’m explaining one thing that occurred in each month, that I’m grateful for. Today’s month? February 🙂

In February, I was grateful that Miss 12 was invited to her first birthday party at her new school.

She was anxious about making friends, seeing as she had been in her last school for eight years. However, within two weeks of attending her new school, she received her first birthday party invitation. I was super happy about that!

How about you? Have you ever received an unexpected, welcome invitation?

And here’s wishing you a great Boxing Day, dear Reader!

KRidwyn

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#blog12daysxmas Blogging challenges teaching

Blogging #12daysXmas

Today marks the 7th year since I started this blog, on December 24, 2010. I remember being so nervous! I had decided to join @Fionawb in blogging the 12 days of Christmas, and I wasn’t sure exactly how it would go.

Now, seven years later, I can look back and be proud of the blogging that I have done. Sure, it hasn’t been easy sailing but it’s a commitment I’m pleased I made.

And I wonder where the next seven years will take me?

Having said that, I’ve decided to use ‘gratitude’ for my theme for this year. On each day for the next 12 days, I want to explain one thing that occurred in each month, that I’m grateful for. So, are you ready? Let’s go!

In January, I got my own office for the very first time. I guess, I’ve never had a job before where I’ve been important enough to have my own office. In my current position, I need one… so I was given one!

It’s so much fun!

To have my own space, that I could decorate and use the way I felt it needed to be used, was such an empowering feeling! As you already know, I’m a control freak, so this made it so much easier for me to do things I needed to do this year.

So. January: new office. And ecstatic about that!

How about you, dear Reader? Do you have something – besides today, being Christmas Day! – that made you ecstatic this year?

And here’s wishing you a Very Merry Christmas!

Yours,

KRidwyn

 

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#blog12daysxmas Blogging challenges family anecdotes momentous events Writing

Six years on

It’s the beginning of a New Year. An auspicious time to make new resolutions and new commitments; to gently blow the burgeoning flame of new hopes until they become habits… well, that’s the general idea, anyway.

This time of year also reminds me of the time I started blogging.

December 25, 2010.

It was for a blogging challenge started by @FiFYI -#blog12daysxmas – and I’d thought, “Well, why not?!”

And that was that.

Day 1. I’d decided to be literal and write a post a day on the Christmas carol ‘The 12 days of Christmas’.

Day 2. Two turtle doves and questions of ‘devotion’…

Day 3. And I’m stumped as to why we have mundane hens on the list. French ones, at that.

Day 4. My humble thoughts on the differences between blackbirds and crows, and how many blackbirds might comfortably fit into a pie…

Day 5. And I bet you thought that the ‘five gold rings’ meant jewellery, didn’t you!

Day 6. Six geese a-laying. That’s a lot of eggs between now and the end of the song. And a lot of ankle-biting, too!

Day 7. Swimming swans are given by the True Love to the singer… and several hundred years later, the family and I escape floodwaters and arrive home to relish the feeling of dry clothes and mud-free sheets 😀

Day 8. The singer is given eight maids a-milking, and I ruminate on what it is that defines a person.

Day 9. Nine ladies dancing – and a quick tally of what the singer now has at her house. It’s getting crowded in there!

Day 10, and I’m in awe of the sheer organisational ability of this ‘True Love’. Honestly, it’s incredible!

Day 11. In which bagpipes enter the cacophony, and I speculate on what the ‘True Love’ may actually have been devoted to… and

Day 12. The inevitable conclusion to the challenge; and one in which I find my opinions of the carol quite at variance to what I thought I would be thinking!

I always find it fun, going back and re-reading stuff I’d written years before. Remembering what it was like: Hubby and I stranded in our caravan at 1770 with three very young ones, no bread, little milk, and no spare petrol, in the middle of the craziest floods so far this century. Remembering how my opinions of the song changed dramatically, but my desire to blog, and my love for writing, deepened.

Well, that was a look back. Now it’s January 2nd, 2017, and it’s time to look ahead. Here’s hoping that the coming week is a brilliant one, for you and me both, dear reader!

Yours,

KRidwyn

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#blog12daysxmas #blog5daysAustenese Scribblings

Day 12 #blog12daysxmas

So this is a little embarrassing. But then again, it’s Maths and counting, and let’s face it, that’s NEVER been my strong point! Perhaps I could blame it on ‘blogging from my iPhone’, perhaps I could blame it on ‘I’ve been on holidays and I’m not checking as well as I should have been’ (actually, I haven’t really been checking at all…!) etc etc etc but the fact remains – I have two ‘Day 8’s” in this #blog12daysxmas challenge. Which is pretty silly. Yes, I *could* reorder the posts, as was suggested by a twitter friend this morning, but no, I won’t. Only cos I’m lazy. Plus I guess I should really own up to my faults and flaws. Keep myself humble etc – which is something that doesn’t happen much, or anywhere near as much as it should!

So yes. This is Day 12 of the #blog12daysxmas challenge, and I must say it seems to be getting easier each year. I am glad I do it. And I’m even more happy that I don’t do this challenge alone, but share it with good friends on twitter, who write about many and varied things and make my online life such a joy.

I probably should have done this at the start, but at the end will have to do. On most days this challenge, I’ve started with “On the xth day of Christmas, my family and me” – and each time, I’ve walked away after blogging, with the ’12 days of Christmas’ in my head. Which has been cool. But I just wanted to state (for Jo’s sake, although she hasn’t picked me up on it yet) that yes, I realise that the grammar I have been using has been entirely incorrect. That it should have been “my family and I”. But that wouldn’t have rhymed, so I chose to write it incorrectly. Sorry to all you grammar fanatics out there!

So. #blog12daysxmas is now finished. And that reminds me that this time last year, I was on the cusp of a different blogging challenge: #blog5daysAustenese – a challenge to write in the “stile” of Jane Austen for 5 days straight. I was joined by 4 others – @jobeaz, @Girlwithshoes, @kalgrl and @jzgarnett  – as brave as (or is that “as insane as?!”) me. I wonder if they’re up for it again this year? Or a different author’s style maybe? Either way, it’ll be good to continue this daily blogging bit, I think. Even if I can’t count past seven with any reliable certainty of accuracy!

Have a great day, dear readers!

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#blog12daysxmas

Day 10 #blog12daysxmas

On the tenth day of Christmas, my family & me…

– woke up late. Well, later than normal. And by that, I mean 5.58am instead of just-gone-5. “Yes!!!”
– read books, coloured in, stuck stickers, played violin, and explored new games on the Wii
– and I gardened, like I have been since turning off my computer mid-December. And by ‘gardening’, I mean what one of my IRL friends calls ‘extreme gardening’. As in, pulling out fencing, clearing scrub, digging out stumps, taking out saplings etc etc etc
Needless to say, I’m a little bit exhausted tonight. Add in the very late night courtesy my Once Upon A Time marathon, and I feel the very strong need to hit the hay. Soon!
So, dear readers, have a lovely Friday evening, and I shall see you tomorrow!

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Day 9 #blog12daysxmas

Yeah, yeah. It’s Day 10 today. Sorry. So yesterday, on the ninth day of Christmas, my family and me…

– cleaned the house in the morning. Because I hadn’t “cleaned” since returning from Hervey Bay on the 29th. Because I’m a grot. I don’t like cleaning. As soon as I win Lotto (Division One) then the first thing I’ll do (after paying off the mortgage, of course) is to employ a housecleaner. Or maybe a housekeeper. Full time. So I don’t have to cook either. Yeah, that’d be good.

– entertained. Miss almost-8 had a friend come visit. It went well. The kids played games, went swimming, ate lunch, and played on the Wii (this year’s birthday ‘presents’, for all three cherubs).

– and then everyone else did whatever while I watched the rest of my Christmas present. Season One of “Once Upon a Time”. Bonus features included. So it was almost 1am when I finally went to bed. But boy, what a great day. I so LOVE what the scriptwriters have done with fairytales. And hearing Robert Carlyle talking about twitter, and the directors talking about mashups, putting Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm squarely into the age of Web 2.0, is just mind-blowingly cool, in my opinion!

So yeah, that was my 9th day of Christmas. And I must admit, the tenth day is starting off pretty well, too…

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Day 8 #blog12daysxmas

So today’s New Year’s Day. A day for new beginnings, fresh starts, and clean slates. I absolutely LOVE that idea!
Like most of the planet, I’ll probably make some resolutions today. Start some new things, and hope that I can discipline myself to make them routine, and then habitual. Good things, things that’ll (eventually!) make me a “better person”. That ad springs to mind; the one where the girl says something like, “Now all I have to do is eat better, exercise more, and I’ll be perfectly healthy!” It’s a bit like that, isn’t it. We start the New Year with good intentions… and hope that we make it through to mid-February in keeping them!
Well, I’m also one of those people (yes, call me a coward if you like) who doesn’t share those resolutions. So don’t look to me for any ‘list’ of what I’m going to say that I’ll be doing this year. That’s a little too personal- a little too much accountability for me! But I tell you what; I’ll post them on December 31, 2013, with a report on how I did with the three of them over the course of the year. How’s that sound?
Anyway, I can hear my younger two cherubs stirring, and Miss 7’s up and about already, so I think that I’d better go start being ‘Mum’ again.

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My ‘New Year’s Day’ view this morning. Have a great day, dear readers – and Happy New Year!