A new semester starts today.
For 4 out of the 5 in my household, today marks the start at a new school too.
Exciting times!
(Feel free to guess the kidlets’ schools from their uniforms…) And have a ‘new’ week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
I wrote last week about my operation… well, kinda.
So I had surgery on the Tuesday, and had Wednesday and Thursday off work, and returned Friday – which also happened to be my birthday.
One of my incredibly wonderful colleagues decided she’d make me a cheesecake – both to cheer my up after the operation and for my birthday.
Made.
From scratch.
Using Oreos – SOOOOO scrumptious!!!
And all for me 😀
Wasn’t it pretty? And it tasted even better than it looked! I am so lucky!
Here’s wishing you a blessed week too, dear Reader!
My very first hairdryer was a gift from my husband. We’d been married several months and he decided I needed one. Sweet, really. He’d seen me depart for work each morning, hair wet, and thought this would improve my quality of life. And so I became the proud owner of a hairdryer.
[Just to clarify: I wasn’t anti-hairdryer before then. I’d just been oblivious to the whole ‘hair management product line’ before that time. Yes, I know – a bit of a sad indictment! But it is what it is…]
Fast forward to 2019. Miss11 is using the hairdryer (yes, the same one Hubby bought me!) and the back fan-guard breaks as she’s packing it away.
‘Oh well,’ I think. ‘It can’t be that important.’
The following day I reassess its importance as I’m using scissors to remove the hairdryer from its proximity to my scalp…
It takes several weeks, but I finally go to buy myself a new hairdryer. I’m intrigued by one which advertises a retractable cord, so I buy it:
And I fall in very-deep-like with it!
The retractable cord part it what makes me smile every day. Honestly, pulling out the cord sounds like pulling out the cord on one of those kids toys, which then speaks something funny at you while the cord goes in (I can’t remember ever having one as a kid, so this is my opportunity!) and the cord whips around crazily as it retracts, so that’s fun too 🙂
So there you go. A whole blog post about my new hair dryer. The one which Miss11 laughs at and says, “You really love that hair dryer! You tell us every time you’re going to use it!”
My poor kids. Sometimes I wonder exactly what kooky memories they’ll have of their childhood, with me as their mum…
Have a great week, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
Hubby and I were given two of these ‘Burlingbrown’ water bottles last year. I promptly fell in love, and to mark it always and forever as MINE and not his (or anyone else’s!) I taped purple stars around the outside, above the logo.
Then took it to work and promptly lost it.
Sigh.
A fortnight passed. Lucky Hubby didn’t mind too much when I appropriated his for my use…
Months passed. Still no water bottle with the pretty purple stars. Double sigh. I had abandoned hope.
Then just the other week: cue elation! I found where I’d left it: on a co-worker’s never-used desk!
And that’s my story for the week. Here’s wishing you a ‘found it again’-ful week yourself, dear Reader 🙂
– KRidwyn
I’ve been wanting to share this for a while now: my mystery portrait.
It hangs in my office at work, along with the two other artworks made by students and given me over the years.
The other two were hand-delivered, so I could thank my student personally.
Not so with this.
It was secretly left on my office desk in the first week back this year. The only clue was the handwritten note ‘Welcome back Mrs Bloxham’ on the back.
Now the content matter is amusing. It’s me, in a monster BookWeek costume from 2016. The only selfie I have on my Instagram profile.
What I find incredible? And so, so, so humbling? That a student would seek out a photo of me, and then spend hours and hours and HOURS of their time, during their holidays, drawing me! Because it is a FANTASTIC drawing!
Such a blessing. And I haven’t been able to find out which student blessed me yet, which adds to the mystery 🙂
So if it’s you, dear Reader, lurking on my blog, THANK YOU! And for my other blog Readers, here’s wishing you a pleasant mystery in your week too 🙂
– KRidwyn
Recently, my school held a fundraiser for the families who lost everything in the recent North Queensland floods. And seeing as blue and yellow are the colours of the most popular sports team of the region, the fundraiser was ‘wear blue-and-yellow’ day.
Now, I’m half Malay. I don’t do ‘yellow’ because it makes me look sickly green. So I went and bought blue stuff: some elbow-length satin gloves, a sparkly masquerade-style mask, and to top it off, a blue plastic hat shaped like the top half of a dinosaur head. I was set!
Then I was asked to attend a workshop that day. Sigh.
No gloves. No sparkly masquerade mask. And no dinosaur hat for me.
Double sigh.
Oh well. At least I get to share them on here with you!
Here’s wishing you a fun-filled week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
I’m so glad it’s a public holiday here in Australia today. I’ve done seven days straight of work, and another four start tomorrow, so I’m very happy indeed that today is a work-free day.
On the up-side though, the last two-and-a-bit days were spent looking at this view here:
2019 Student Leaders Retreat, preparing them for the year to come. It was a good (albeit long and exhausting!) weekend.
Here’s to a great week ahead, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
Holidays! A time of refreshing and renewal. A break from routine (and yeh, I needed *that* one like a kick in the head) and a needed period of not-regular-activity so that time with family and friends can happen.
Some routines should never be broken though. Eating and sleeping, hygiene, etc, these must all be maintained at some kind of a minimal standard. I think pretty much everyone would agree with me there. Sure, the work – school routines can go ‘out the window’ for holidays, but I wonder what other ‘important stuff’ we let slip without meaning to, or even realising.
I remember when I was a girl, reading ‘Little Women’ by Louisa May Alcott. The four daughters decided to take a break from their routines for a week, and see what would happen. Laziness, slothfulness, uncleanliness, and arguments resulted. By the end of the week, all four were keen to get back into their normal routine.
But the lesson wasn’t over. Day 1 of routine again, and the discovery was made that their pet bird had died. No food or water for a week had killed it. Tragedy had resulted because some things had been let go, which should never have been.
Relationships fall into this category. Does that mean that relationships are just routines? Like the apostle Paul I rush to say, “Perish the thought!” But that doesn’t mean that we can’t, out of necessity and convenience, consider them routines for the sake of this example. Because when these get neglected, tragedy strikes. They die.
So. These holidays, I have resolved to relax the ‘work’ standards and improve the ‘relationship’ ones. Let’s see how well I do…
And have a great week, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
I like my bed. My bedroom, my ensuite, my kitchen, my laundry, my lounge room, my garden. I miss them when I’m away.
Having said that though, I like not having to cook, and clean. I like the time away from ‘normal’, ‘everyday’ responsibilities, and the gratitude that I feel towards my home comforts when I’ve been away for long enough.
Take these past couple of months, for instance. I spent a week in Sydney/Canberra, on camp with my Year 7 and 8 cohorts. I returned late Friday night, spent Saturday washing and packing, then left very early Sunday morning for another week away, this time with family and friends camping on Fraser Island.
This last weekend was another work-related one: Friday afternoon through to Sunday evening down in Brisbane with six Middle Schoolers who were invited to the State finals from our regional Opti-MINDS challenge. Fast forward a few weekends and I’ll be away again, with Hubby this time, down the Gold Coast.
I enjoy my time away.
But I really, really, REALLY like my own bed. I think I mentioned that?
Have a great week, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
Phew! What a term! Glad it’s over.
and I’m ecstatic that this just so happens to be my view right now…
[and it’s only just now I remembered I hadn’t posted the photo yet… whoops!]
Have a wonderful week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn