Category: Random thoughts

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49/52 on Maths and hammocks

Okay, okay. My Maths skills are woeful. If there are 52 weeks a year and this is the second-last week then *surely* this should be 51 not 49. Sigh. Mathematics? Not my strong point. I guess I got mixed up doing #blogJune or something? Oh well. I can always try again next year.

Speaking of trying things again… this is my view while blogging today:

It’s been years (maybe even a decade?) since I last relaxed in a hammock. And this one – a Christmas 2024 present that I’m getting to use early!) is absolutely perfect! I forgot how much I enjoy having my feet up at pretty much the same height as my head. Now to watch my heat-swollen feet reduce, or something?

Since Hubby and I lashed out on a Stockman Rover back in August, I figured we’d better get lots of use out of it. So the kids are at home (have I mentioned how AMAZING it is to have 2 out of 3 graduated from high school already?!) and we’re HipCamping for the weekend… because we can! Hence the $41 Bunnings hammock. So far, my favourite Christmas present!

Speaking of Christmas, it’s this coming Wednesday, so my next post will be after all the celebrating.

Here’s praying you might have a day full of love and laughter, surrounded by your nearest and dearest, dear Reader. God bless you!!!

KRidwyn

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Random thoughts Reading teaching Work

48/52 Nearly there!

Today marks the 48th of these weekly posts. How cool is that! I must admit, I’m quite proud of myself for keeping this going 🙂

This past week has been all about the catch-ups. I’ve caught up with my inbox (I’m now down to one email in my inbox, and I’m keeping that one; the reason for which will be a post for another day) and also caught up with my bestie and with other friends and colleagues and past colleagues and… and… and the list goes on. I made it into my new workspace briefly, I drank coffee, and didn’t sleep (surprise surprise) and I also visited my old workplace, took Master15 to both doctor and optometrist, managed some Christmas shopping, read “The Book Haters Book Club” and finally finished Season 2 of Arcane. Today after church was more Christmas shopping with Hubby, then we watched Gladiator 2.

Phew! No wonder I’m pretty tired! Looking ahead to next week: there’s fewer things on, for which I’m grateful 🙂

Here’s praying your week is a not-so-busy-one too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn

 

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Life Random thoughts Reading Review

45/52 on my Goodreads challenge for the 2024

This year, I decided to try a different style with my Goodreads challenge. Ever since I started, the ‘target number’ I chose was based on a specific number of books per week. So in 2015 it was one book a week (ie 52 books) which I obliterated by reading 73, then I upped it to two books per week (104 total) in 2016, for which I managed the exact 104, right on the lead up to midnight on December 31, from memory!

For the next three years in a row, I aimed for three books per week. 156 books! Okay, sure, I only achieved that goal in 2019, reading 168 books, but still! It was a pretty good goal. And reading 81 in 2017 and then 126 in 2018 is not really to be sniffed at either, when I think about it…

I must have been pretty impressed with myself because the following year I upped it again. 2020, the year of ‘four books per week’, for a total of 208. Which I achieved, reading 210… but I’m pretty sure I added that year’s shortlisted BookWeek books into that record… which included 12 picture books!

The following year, 2021, I set the challenge back to three books per week (156 total) and even though I made it, reading 157… the following two years I stepped it back again to just two books per week (104 total) and achieved it again, each year, reading 115 and 114, respectively.

Fastforward to this year. 2024, the year of one book per week again. There were a few reasons for this: not the least of which was that I was back in the classroom, teaching, instead of in the library as librarian, and the planning / reporting / marking workload would leave significantly less time for reading. And also, I wanted to ensure that every book I recorded was a worthwhile, 250+ pager, rather than the picture book or Bible book, just to bulk out my Goodreads challenge record (I try to read my Bible each year, which in itself contains 66 books… but I don’t record these in my challenge as this is a recurring thing for me!).

Currently, I’m on 46 read out of 52. And in the main, I’m happy with that. The most recent is ‘The Space Between Worlds’ by Micaiah Johnson – a book I co-read with my bothers, so we could chat about it. Quite interesting Sci-Fi, and what made it more interesting was to pull it apart with my brothers and work out what we liked / didn’t like, and why. That one before it? Passive income? Don’t bother. It’s really short (I didn’t realise that when I downloaded it) and it’s pretty general in nature. Still, it was a book I read, which is why it’s in there. And the other 13 in the image continue the ‘reverse chronological order’ thing 🙂

The book I’m partway through right at the moment? (again!) is ‘The Brothers Hawthorne’ by Jennifer Lynn Marnes… because my local library contacted me on Friday to tell me that the fifth and final book in the series is sitting there, ready for me to collect… which I’m planning to do, tomorrow! So reading Book 4 this weekend seems the most sensible course of action 🙂 Even though I only read it, 10 books ago…

Anyway, that’s my reading so far this year. How’s yours going this year, dear Reader?

  • KRidwyn

 

 

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Random thoughts Work

43/52 Christmas decorations and my exhaustion levels

This came across my feed today, and I screenshotted it. It’s something I could probably handle, given my current exhaustion levels:

How about you? How are you coping, this close to Christmas / end of year / silly season?

Here’s hoping you can have a week full of ‘coping’ yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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Random thoughts teaching

42/52 Recent funny stuff

I watched ‘The Union’ with Hubby yesterday. Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry. It had exactly the right amount of humour for an action flick, I thought.

And then last night Miss 16 and I watched the Season 6 Grimm episode ‘Blind Love’ and we laughed ourselves silly. It was SO good! (And teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream to my Year 8 English last term made it all the more relevant…)

So today, I thought I’d share some screenshots I’ve taken from my social media feeds recently. Things I’d saved because they amuse me. Hopefully you’ll get a smile out of them too?

I’m thinking I could so use one of these walkers when the time comes! And:

Not I throw punches (very often) but the timing of this phrase is very clever! And thirdly: I wonder if I could make one of these for my next online video call:

So was I successful? Did you smile? And if so, at which one?

And just to round this post off: back to Shakespeare. This final screenshot is not so much ‘funny’ as ‘clever’ and ‘I want one’. Does it remind anyone else of the bard’s play Julius Caesar? Not that he made it into fighting stance before being cut down, but for some reason it reminds me of this, nonetheless…

Anyway, here’s hoping you can manage a smile sometime this week, dear Reader – and maybe even more than one?

God bless,

KRidwyn

 

 

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Life Random thoughts Review teaching Work

41/52 Huh! Catching up… and aliens because sure, why not…

So we *do* have a new government. And Miss 16 has completed three of her four external exams, with her final this coming Wednesday, and Master 15 has recovered from his very successful Work Experience week, and I’m marking the Year 10 English (real) exams, ready for them to start Year 11 work next week.

Phew!

Oh, did I also mention I’m finishing four Halloween ‘inflatable alien’-but-without-the-inflatable-bit costumes for my year 1 Innovate class?

Long story.

“Innovate” is what my school calls the amalgamation of the two curriculae ‘Digital Technologies’ and ‘Design and Technologies’ and in 2025, it’s taught from Prep through to Year 10. And yours truly is the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 teacher. The Year 1 class is studying ‘wearable costumes’ and – rather than just deisgning them – I thought it’d be fun to help the children actually *make* them.

The idea quickly paled though, when I was absent the lesson where the children decided on their costumes… and the relief teacher let some of them choose ‘inflatable aliens’. As in, this type:

Now, inflating a costume is something I’ve never done before. So that was never going to happen. Sewing though: I’m not great, but it’s do-able. So that’s what is currently happening. Four of them. And the kids are stuffing them with foam and adding eyes to the heads and enjoying the process.

Here’s hoping it’s all going to get done before this Thursday! Wish me luck!

  • KRidwyn
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Random thoughts teaching Work

36/52 On what affects our reputation the most

What we do is who we are, I think.

I teach school students… but I am not just a teacher. In my hours spent not in front of my students or with my colleagues, or planning or assessing, in my hours interacting with family and friends, who am I?

I am the person who thinks a certain way, who values particular things, and from these thoughts and beliefs, makes decisions and acts (or refrains from acting) on and in the world around me.

What I do reflects what I value; what I think.

The thinking comes first.

I think, therefore I am.

Our thoughts are pre-eminent. And yet: how often do we acknowledge them? When they are so influential on what we do and who we’ll become in the future?

I saw this the other day, and it’s left me quite reflective:

Here’s hoping my thoughts on the matter (Ha! See what I did there?) are of some value to you today, dear Reader 🙂

– KRidwyn

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momentous events Random thoughts

30/52 Surprised and Inspired!

I watched the musical Gigi yesterday afternoon with my eldest daughter, something we hadn’t done in years.

After the expected discussion regarding morality and her appreciation that society is no longer like that, she asked if Leslie Caron was still alive. I doubted she would be, but picked up my phone to check… and was SO surprised not only to realise that yes, she was in fact, alive and well at 93 years old, but also, still working (well, she played ‘Pauline’ in “Written on the Water” in 2020)!

How incredible is that! SO impressive.

So inspirational.

And on that note, I need to go and better myself, or something 😛

Have an inspirational week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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Random thoughts

29/52 Things I’m grateful for :)

New starts. The fact that I awoke this morning with a wealth of opportunities to enjoy and spend my time on.

The warmth of the sun on my back in spite of the chill in my toes (within  of just socks but also ugg boots – have I mentioned before how much I don’t enjoy the cold?) and the fact that our house was warmed by a fire last night.

I’m listening to my daughters (aged 19 and 16) voluntarily spending time together, talking and playing with Kiya now we’re home after church.

My house is not clean. The list of ‘stuff I should be doing’ is huge. But I am happy. Even with the hedge clippings that my eldest daughter shook off her clothing, yesterday, in the sunroom, which still litter the floor near my feet.

These clippings mean the mock orange hedge beneath my bedroom windows is now looking amazing, and through my daughter’s – and not my – efforts. They’re glossy green, meaning the plants are healthy and have enough water in spite of the lack of rainfall here in this part of Queensland. Again, through no effort of mine. That’s a God thing.

My part to play in all this? Enjoyment. That’s it. (And pick up the leaves in the sunroom.)

What an amazing blessing that is!

Have an amazing week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts teaching Work

28/52 On the return to Term 3

Phew! What a week it’s been!

Yesterday morning, I drove Kiya, with Mum and her dog Trav, down to Brisbane for an appointment. It occurred to me that last Saturday morning (7 days earlier) I had also collected Mum… but instead, to go car shopping. We’d visited a quite rusty Suzuki Jimny, locally, before heading down to Brisbane to look at a 2020 version – which sold en route. We then pulled into Suzuki at Nundah, and ended up buying a brand new Ignis, before stopping at CostCo on the way back up the Coast.

This week was

  • the return to school (that’s right, I have a 0.9FTE teaching job as well)
  • the collection of Mum’s car on Wednesday
  • Miss 16’s trip to QldTransport to have her photo taken for her Learners
  • the (hopefully successful) migration of this website from one host to another
  • Miss 19 job-hunting and speaking with prospective employers, and finally
  • yet another big trip yesterday.

Today, I’m playing violin at church, then spending the afternoon with my parents and godfathers who are visiting from NZ.

Phew! again…

Hope it’s been a productive week for you, too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn