Category: momentous events

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#blogjune family anecdotes momentous events Random thoughts

#BlogJune Day 25

Yesterday was a red letter day. I finally succeeeded at something I’d been unable to do: finish dessert at The Pancake Manor.

Eating there is a pleasure I share with my Mum. Not sure why, but whenever we’re in Brisbane for the day we make a point of eating a meal there. And although I ensure my stomach is growling prior to entry, I’d never yet made it through a meal AND dessert due to the huge meal sizes.

So yesterday, Brisbane bound with Miss16, the challenge again was to consume the entire dessert. And we did it!

(Admittedly, we shared one dessert between us, and both of us were wise enough to only order the ‘entree’ sized meal… but we did it!)

And it was DELICIOUS!!! and so decadent 🙂 🙂 🙂

In case you’re intereseted, I had the Chicken crepe (chicken and mushroom filling on a bed of mashed potatoes) and Mum the seafood crepe, and our dessert was the Macadamia Madness. And even now, writing about it, I can feel my tastebuds watering behind the smile playing around my lips.

It was truly a memorable day!

Here’s hoping yours is as well, dear Reader 🙂

  • KRidwyn

[Also, sorry for the shocking photo quality. But we all know how badly I take photos…]

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#blogjune family anecdotes momentous events Random thoughts

#BlogJune Day 13

I missed a day! Sad 🙁

but a friend I hadn’t heard from in simply ages replied to a tweet and also commented on here (hi Snail!) so: happy!

Reason for missed day: my Mum had had a car accident on the 11th (hence the cryptic post because I was too emotional to write coherently) and – although she’s okay and in fact, better than okay, she’s remarkably good praise God! – I spent hours (literally) on the phone with the insurance company and that chewed up good blogpost-writing time. Sigh.

I *had* intended to post this photo (taken yesterday, when I discovered its existence!) as I found it so amusing:

I guess I’ve reached the age whereupon (ha! Check out that old word!) I receive birthday cards from politicians by virtue of not dying yet. Ummm… not sure how that makes me feel, really, but… okay?!

Have a ‘not dying’ day yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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#blogjune momentous events

#BlogJune Day 7

Today was a huge day. I turned 50. It was also momentous for my kelpie pup.

1) I did something I never thought I’d do, and bought dog clothing. She’s been cold at night… even Hubby mentioned that she’s not built like our (now passed away) German Shepherds! And

2) I bought her a new toy. And I swear her eyes widened when she first saw it. It’s bigger than she is! Check it out on her bed:

 

anyway, I hope momentous things (good ones only, of course) happen to you today, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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#blogjune Blogging challenges momentous events Random thoughts Writing

BlogJune #1

Better late than never, amiright? Truth be told, it wasn’t until the early hours of June 2 that I decided I was going to do the #blogJune challenge again this year. And 2024’s theme? Daily photo.

So apologies for being several hours late, but here was June the first’s:

Hope your day was similarly festive, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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momentous events Random thoughts

15/52 On milestones

Today marks my 15th weekly blogpost. I’m pretty stoked with myself for that, because I’m not as successful as I’d like to be with creating intentional habits. But every Sunday I wake up and think ‘it’s blogpost day today’ and, so far this year, I’ve liked that thought 🙂

It’s both scary and humbling though. Externalising my thoughts, to be read by whomever wants to… but also realising that my thoughts are – quite likely – not particularly interesting enough for others to read!

Still, it’s a commitment I decided I’d make to myself, back in January, and – so far! – I’ve kept that commitment. Hopefully I’ll continue to. I’ve made it to 15 weeks! That’s more than a quarter of the year, after all 🙂

And milestones, after all, are best celebrated. Who knows when (or if?) we’ll get another one?

I’m counting down to another milestone, too. 50 laps around the sun, coming up on Friday 7th June.

50!

To tell the truth, I never actually thought I’d live this long. When I was a kid, I couldn’t see myself getting past 26. Living past the year 2000 seemed just too incedible to even believe.

Yet here we are, 24 years past that, and I’m going quite strong still, it would seem. (Well, my back’s feeling decidedly weak at the moment, but that’s probably a direct result of the burning of Hubby’s hedge annihilation pruning earlier in the week, and the cubic metre of crusher dust I’ve shifted [one metre down, one to go… note to self – get less in future!] in the last two days…)

So, that’s what I’ve been ruminating on this past week. Milestones, and how I’m blessed to have them. And I think I’d like to need to remember that!

How about you, dear Reader? What are your thoughts on milestones?

  • KRidwyn
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Life momentous events

10/52 On yodelling

I would imagine that yodelling is difficult. I’ve never seriously tried it, but to change pitch that quickly and accurately seems confounding to me. And yet people do it. And learn it. And now I can proudly say I know one of them!

Yesterday, I took my Mum to watch the Matthew Flinders Anglican College performance of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was astoundingly good. And I’ve been directing musicals since 1996, and been in them since the mid-1980s, so I’ve had quite a lot of experience.

Honestly, I haven’t seen that level of well-nurtured talent since my time in the music department at John Paul College in the mid-1990s. And JPC used to book out the Queensland Performing Arts Centre for its production week, so that’s saying something!

Seriously though, the levels to which these students were guided was simply incredible. There are some definite future stars at that school. And one of them is only in Year 8, and not even yet a teenager!

Which brings me back to yodelling. You see, she was one of the principals (all the others were Years 10 – 12, from what I can gather) and was cast as Augustus Gloop. [If you remember the story: he was the sausage-loving 9 year old boy from either Germany or Bavaria – depending on the version – who was the first to find a Golden Ticket. He was also the first child to depart from the tour of the Chocolate factory when he fell into the chocolate river and was sucked up the tube, precipitating the first introduction of the Oompa-Loompas.]

And in the Hal Leonard Australia version which I saw yesterday, Augustus and his Mum yodel. Quickly! (I mean, of course quickly. Who’s ever heard of a slow yodel?) And they yodelled brilliantly!

I don’t think yodelling is something you can do half-hearthedly. It’s probably like abseiling or bungee-jumping – you have to commit. And commit they did. It was brilliant!

As was the whole production, honestly. The staff at Matthew Flinders should be proud of themselves, with the amazing standard of singing, acting, dancing, instrument-playing, lighting and follow-spotting, stage-crew movements – even the email prior to explain car-parking! The whole kit and kaboodle was extrememly impressive. And I’m hard to impress.

So well done, students and staff. An achievement you can all be justifiably proud of.

And I doubt I’ll try my hand (or voice) at yodelling anytime soon! I’ll leave that to those with more talent…

Have an inspirational week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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momentous events Random thoughts

5/52 On clutter…

This Facebook meme made me laugh the other day, so I shared it so my friends and family could laugh too. “Wouldn’t it be funny / cool / amazing to cross things off my own To Do list!” I thought to myself. “Very cheeky… but how freeing!”

And then I scrolled on, and life continued.

My thoughts kept returning to that idea though. Of how cool it would be to have that freedom.

And then yesterday, making space on a bookshelf by working out what books I’d probably never read again and deciding to donate them, it hit me.

Why not? Why shouldn’t I do that?

Most items on my To Do list are just ones that I wrote there anyway! So will the world end if I remove them without doing them? Or am I, in fact, just decluttering my life of self-imposed obligations, expectations and deadlines?

I’m a fan of the TV series Space Invaders.

In it, de-cluttering guru Peter Walsh calls ‘cluttter’ anything which gets between what my life looks like now, and what I want my life to look like (a bad paraphrase, but that’s how full my mind is right now).

Now those books I’d collected, with the idea of reading them or re-reading them at some point – the hard, physical objects collecting dust on my shelf – were clutter.

But who’s to say that clutter is just physical? Can’t mental items – thoughts, expectations and obligations which sit there, collecting dust on the shelves of my brain – be just as much ‘clutter’ as physical clutter?

So: “Crossing things off my to do list. I didn’t do them. I just don’t want them on my list any more…” I’m giving myself permission to do this. Those self-imposed expectations of ‘I want to do THIS by THIS DATE’? I’m deciding that – for me at least – it’s okay to let these things go. Maybe if they’re not helping me, they’re hurting me? I’m certainly feeling more free, just even thinking about it!

May you have a ‘freeing’ week yourself, dear Reader 🙂

[And if you’d like someone else’s permission to free yourself of self-imposed obligations and expectations, here it is: have mine!]

See you Sunday 🙂

  • KRidwyn

 

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momentous events

and how!

Busy is an understatement!

On the flip side though, there’s this:

Isn’t she a beauty?!

See you next month, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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momentous events

Happy birthday, me!

Today I want to thank some people. I want to thank my brilliant Mum, Rehanah, for bringing me safely into this world 49 years ago, and to my parents for nurturing and guiding me since then.
To Ian, for saying some special words and then staying with me since then, 27 years ago, and also to my amazing three cherubs, as you all make each day a delight.
Thank you to my extended family, all my friends, and my colleagues, as without each and every one of you my life would be the poorer. Thank you all for the amazing human beings you are, and for making the journey I’m making through this life the wonder that it is. I truly appreciate you all!
And here’s to another trip around the Sun for us all 🙂 🙂 🙂
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momentous events More about me my novel-in-progress

Hamster wheel spinning time!

So… I did it!

Not quite on the 16th, admittedly, but on the 25th. And that was pretty much all because I was directing a production of The Velveteen Rabbit, whose opening night was the 16th. Yeh, I didn’t particularly time that one very well, did I…

Still, the querying started on the 25th, and I’ve averaged 2-3 queries per day since then. So I’m happy with that. Some fairly immediate form rejections, which is sad but par for the course, I know.

And I’m enjoying learning LOTS. Last time I queried (years ago now) it was *way* too early. Now I’m feeling a lot more ready, but I’ve revised my query letter twice, my biography about five times, and I’m not even going to mention the numbers of times I’ve reworded my answers to the ‘target audience’ and ‘similar works’ questions! Hence the spinning hamster wheel. Am I doing this right? Should I be writing this? Or this? Or even… this?

I’m quite liking the Query Manager / Query Tracker side of things though. It’s a very impressive site! And researching agents and agencies is also fun. I’m constantly wondering ‘who will I be lucky enough to end up working with’?

So that’s my “Ceridwyn is now an #amquerying writer” story. It took a while to actually happen, but it’s happening now! Praise God 🙂

And speaking of God, have brilliant Easter weekends, dear Readers!

Yours,

KRidwyn