Category: Life

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Life Random thoughts teaching Writing

Sucking out the marrow

I’ve only got one life, and I intend to live it! I want, like Henry David Thoreau famously said, to “suck out all the marrow of life” – to get every last drop out that I can. Selfish? Perhaps. But that’s how I feel.

So I started a brand-new job this year, working full time for the first time since 2007, and still being a wife, a mum to three, a housekeeper, ‘chief cook and bottle-washer’ – and don’t forget the endless piles of laundry that just never seem to wash themselves…

It’s been tough.

Four months before starting the new job, Hubby convinced me to take out an 18-month gym membership, and so I didn’t want to neglect that either – waste of money, an’ all that.

Plus, as a Christian, I believe it’s important to have a ‘quiet time’ at the beginning of each day, where I can still my thoughts, read God’s Word, and spend some time talking to (with?) him.

But it’s been hard trying to fit everything in!

At the beginning, I tried keeping my ‘normal’ schedule – which included staying up in the evening to welcome Hubby home after his night meetings. But combining that with early morning gym sessions meant that I *really* wasn’t getting enough sleep, so I had to can that idea, and head to bed as early as I could each night.

Now, my routine has settled down fairly well, and it’s one that I’m pretty happy with.

I regularly wake up at 4:08 AM, and I’m in the car heading to the gym before 4:15 AM. I pray as I drive to and from; and read my Bible in between sets or while I’m on the treadmill. I leave the gym at 5:15, and drive to my morning ‘happy place’ where I sit, breathe, watch the view, and write. By the time I get home at 6AM, I have been able to ‘tick off’ exercise, some writing, and my quiet time.

And that morning routine leaves the rest of my day to spend with the people in my family, or at my job, where I can give of myself non-stop, knowing the ‘bases are covered’ so to speak.

It’s pretty exhausting.

But I love how, at the beginning of each day, I can spend time with my God, spend time with myself, and feel relaxed and replenished and happy.

Right now, for example, I’m writing in my ‘happy place’. A hundred metres ahead of me, a kingfisher just dived into the creek, chasing his breakfast. The ripples fan out over the reflection of the clouds from the sky above.

A mullet leaps elsewhere in the creek. He gets incredible height on the jump – close to a metre above the water, by my reckoning.

It’s going to be another warm day.

This is the way I choose to live my life. Yes, it’s busy – but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every minute is precious; and I don’t want to waste even one of them.

How about you, dear Reader? Do you have a routine you love?

And here’s praying that you have a brilliant week this week!

– KRidwyn

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family anecdotes Life momentous events places to visit Uncategorized

Of beachworms and psychology

Fraser Island, in Queensland. One of my favouritest spots in the world.

Hubby and I have visited dozens of times, and explored pretty much everywhere, however we’ve never managed to get past Ngkala Rocks, and so have missed out on the view from the northernmost tip of the largest sand island in the world.

Not so on our most recent holiday. There with close friends, we made it past Ngkala Rocks, and kept on driving.

And made it! Photo below as proof!


On the return journey, we stopped to catch some beachworms for bait. Miss12, who’d been snarky all day because she’d wanted to go south to Eli Creek, instead of north to Sandy Cape, was surprised to see the length of the first worm Hubby caught – 80cm, at least.

She and I were sitting in the car, with everyone else outside, when I thought I’d try a psychological trick.

“I reckon you’d be good at that,” says I. “You’re good at catching lizards – catching beachworms is kinda the same thing.”

Cogs whirred. The arguments poured out ‘they’ll bite me instead of the pipi’ ‘it’s cold’ ‘I don’t want to get my feet wet’ but meanwhile we watched Hubby catching more – all a similar size. The focus of the arguments changed. ‘There’s no point now; there’s not much time left’ ‘I don’t have a pipi’ and then I let loose with the clincher.

“I’ve only ever caught maybe one or two beachworms in my life. I’m not very good at it. Oh well.”

I know my kid well. There was nothing for it but Miss12 was out of the car and into it. She even let me teach her how to get a pipi out of its shell!

Close on an hour later, the beachworm hunters returned; Miss12’s face wreathed with smiles.

Clever Mummy, says I. Perfect day indeed.

Have a great week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Life

Happiness…

Is seeing your kid smile at how well she performed during last weekend’s Eisteddfod – piano section.

Two x daughters; two x performances each.

That’s four smiles.

(Kinda makes all the nagging and the expense worthwhile.)

Have a great week, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Life teaching Uncategorized Work

Heavily weighted

So it’s Saturday morning and I’m only now finding the time to write the blogpost I meant to post on Monday just gone 🙁

It’s been a huge week. Mr8 caught a cold last weekend, so I considered taking parental leave on Monday – but reconsidered when I discovered that the Principal, Head of Senior School and Head of Primary were all going to be away, so I’d be the only Exec member on campus! Cue Hubby taking a day off to be with our son, and my attempting to not let the school burn down in everyone’s absence! But I managed, as did everyone else, and Tuesday dawned without incident.

One of Tuesday’s tasks was to prepare my students for the inaugural ‘Onesie Wednesday’ fundraiser, the following day – and as it was the first of its kind, we made it a secret event, in that only the Middle Schoolers themselves, and their teachers, were aware of it. The day started as usual, but at the beginning of recess, everyone changed into Onesies. Frogs and Tiggers, unicorns and minions, animals and even Pikachu appeared on campus, to the surprise of everyone else and to the delight of those of us ‘in the know’.

Great fun was had by all, then we changed back at Lunchtime and the day continued as usual. Then at 3pm I had car park duty; 3.15pm the first ever session of Chess Academy to start, and 3.30pm was my first Parent-Teacher interview timeslot… my evening finished at gone 8pm.

Needless to say, I was quite happy to not be at the gym at 4.45am Thursday!

Instead, my bestie came around for some much needed sanity time Thursday afternoon, because Friday was not only Athletics Carnival all day at school, but also the beginning of Eisteddfod last night. 

Miss12 performed a Jazz piece on Piano, earning herself a Highly Commended. And this morning she’s performed again, with Miss9 waiting on the sidelines to perform in her two categories this afternoon.

It’s been huge. A heavy load – kinda like how I’m explaining to Miss13 at the moment, to ‘weight’ her right hand when playing Piano, so the melody sings out above the chorded left hand bass notes.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, let me tell you!

Have a great rest-of-the-week, everyone!

– KRidwyn

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#blogjune Blogging challenges Life

A day late…

So I have data again; which is AWESOME! I can blog again, and not just use up the final remaining minutes I have left of my phone data!

This brings up a different issue however: blogging at my keyboard.

Specifically, typing at said keyboard.

Specifically, typing.

You see, I was rushing to work last week, and slammed the sliding door of my house too quickly – slicing the tip off the middle finger of my right hand.

I know, right? Ouchies much!

The most annoying thing: I type. A LOT! And I can’t use that finger because any pressure on the finger tip continues the ouchie-feeling for longer than I want it to.

Solution: type with all other fingers. Boy, are my ring finger and pinky getting a workout!

Sigh.

Oh – and I’m a day late at blogging June for Day 13. Whoops…

Here’s hoping you had a great day yesterday, dear Reader!

— KRidwyn

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#blogjune Life momentous events

New traditions

Happy birthday to me,

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday dear Ceridwyn,

Happy birthday to me!
I started a new ‘tradition’ this morning. I was all snuggled up in bed, and all three of my cherubs visited me for birthday snuggles, hugs, kisses and tickles. (Tickles with the younger two, of course: Miss12 is too refined for *that* sort of thing.) If I can get the same treatment next year, that’ll be a family tradition for sure!

Then a cooked breakfast from Hubby, followed by chocolate. As all good birthday breakfasts are.

Winning so far today!

Wishing you a great day too, dear Reader 🙂

– KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Life my novel-in-progress Scribblings Writing

… and the new word is: FOCUS

Hello again, dear Reader 🙂

If you’ve visited recently, you’d have noticed that my last 26 posts were alphabetical, in order to meet the requirements of the #AtoZchallenge, where bloggers post daily using sequential letters of the alphabet, every day in April except Sundays.

Well, I failed that challenge in my time zone. I was fine up until ‘p’, but then school holidays finished and work got crazy-busy… and it wasn’t until late last night I realised that today was May 1st. And the challenge deadline was over!

Hence a massive amount of blog posting this morning. Q through to Z, and before April finished worldwide. So I *can* kinda still say that ‘I made it’… but not really.

Oh well.

My new thought is: focus. It’s what I need to do. I gave myself a deadline of Mother’s Day to finish Book 5 in my children’s adventure fantasy series – and I believe that’s less than two weeks away. 13 days, 21 chapters. I can do this…

If I focus!

So it’s back to weekly blogposts, and hopefully this time next Monday I’ll be closer to finishing JUSTINE BROWNING AND THE MEDDLING MERMAN than I am right now 🙂

See you next week, dear Reader! And have a lovely one until then!

— KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Christianity Life Random thoughts

S is for ‘scamper’

I love this word. I smile every time I see it. In my mind’s eye, I picture a child of 5 or 6, enthusiasm exuding from every pore, beaming widely as they run about exploring, delighting in their discoveries and keen to squeeze as much as possible into every single moment.

I remember that age… I think. I remember the excitement, the feeling of life extending forever, the knowledge of my own invincibility, convinced I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.

Where did that feeling go?

And why?

I’m reminded of that verse in the gospels, where Jesus said, “Unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Honestly, I can’t actually remember the last time *I* felt that excited. That eager to squeeze the joy out of every single moment.

I should probably try that again…

Here’s to a ‘scamper’-ing day today! And have a ‘scamper’-ing one for yourself too, dear reader!

— KRidwyn

[PS That Bible verse was Matthew 18:3, by the way…]

Categories
Life momentous events Random thoughts teaching Work

I’m still smiling…

So the first day of school came, and went, and I’m still smiling. No, not everything went to plan, but that’s okay. Tomorrow’s a new day.

And yes, I’m planning on being smiling at the end of tomorrow as well 🙂

Have a great week, dear reader!

— KRidwyn

Categories
Blogging challenges Life momentous events teaching Work Writing

Where I’ve been…

So my last post on this blog was over a month ago. It feels like longer.

I’d posted just prior to a weekend away with Hubby on Moreton Island. I was hoping it would be fantastic; it was. The snorkelling; the dolphin feeding; the quad-biking; the all-you-can-eat buffet meals; the amazing weather and luxurious accomodation; the 3.23am evacuation due to another hotel resident setting off a fire alarm because he attempted to cook food inside his kettle… it was all memorable.

And that marked the beginning of November.

November is the worst month of the year for music teachers, did you know? It’s end of the school year here in Australia, which means the usual end-of-year marking / reporting chaos. Add to that, the same end-of-year ‘let’s showcase what your children have learned to play on their instruments’ performance chaos, and – of course – all of the instrumental marking / reporting deadlines to co-ordinate. Don’t forget, there’s a class of graduating students who – naturally – get their own set of dedicated performances to prepare for etc. And then, just for fun and because It’s November and because the music teacher doesn’t have enough to do, let’s add in a Christmas carols event or several.

And then we all sit back and watch the poor music teacher’s head explode.

Because that’s – generally speaking – what happens.

Hence my taking a month hiatus from this blog. But this year, there was another reason as well; and this other reason meant that instead of just the month off, I needed an extra two weeks on top of that: I changed jobs.

Yay!

Yes, I am no longer the Music co-ordinator at St. Paul’s Lutheran Primary School. Instead, I have returned to the world of Prep to Year 12 education, with the role of Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

And boy! Am I stoked about that!

(Just in case you hadn’t picked up on that, from the excessive use of exclamation points in this blog post… sorry about that, by the way…)

Anyway, I’m back blogging again. Yes, the plan is to blog weekly, every Monday morning, my time.

And who knows, but that perhaps I shan’t need the month’s blog hiatus next November?!

See you next week!

KRidwyn

PS And have yourselves a very merry Christmas too! 😀