I watched ‘Christopher Robin’ this week. You know, the Ewen McGregor one?
I had the time and not much energy and not enough headspace to get work done, and it was there.
I was hoping for some light entertainment, maybe a return to the fond memories of when I’d watch animated films with my children (The Tigger movie etc).
And boy, did I get all that – and more! I had not realised how analytical I’ve become… having two daughters in the field of art / animation / films has led to a lot more knowledge than I’d previously had, I guess. And I really LIKED this movie!
But what made it most enjoyable for me, I think, was the voice animations. They were just perfect!
So, a BIG thank you this week to
You made my week!
Have a fond memory-full week yourself, dear Reader!
I’m sitting on the bed in apartment 2B in a hotel in the township of Agnes Water. It’s 7.37am and I’ve just returned from a beach walk with Miss17, who drove for nearly 6 hours yesterday to get us here – part of the mission to get her to 100 hours as per our state’s requirements of learner drivers.
A bush turkey has just walked past the door. The books on the shelves are inspirational. Original copies, not pre-loved library ones, and classics. Good taste, I think, as I wonder if the titles are replicated in all apartments in the hotel… or if we just lucked in due to the apartment number.
There’s legit two bees on the room number plaque too, which is also pretty cool.
But the thing making me happiest right at the moment? That I can sit and write. It’s been a month of either busy-ness or lack of internet coverage, and the fact that this is the first I can actually update my blog with words rather than just photos is SO incredibly satisifying. I’ve missed it, dear Reader, and that also makes me smile.
So. I hope you’ve been well, as I have, and that you find things (a bookshelf, a room number plaque, a bird, time with one of your loved ones) to make you as happy today as I am.
It’s Saturday morning, and we’ve finished Week 4 of term. Nearly half-way there! And I feel like I’m starting to emerge from the ‘head-down-bum-up’ non-stop ‘doing the work’ that’s been my life this year.
Take a breath.
Look around.
Take a second breath – because I can.
It certainly has been a busy start to the year. The line between important and urgent, work and home has been blurred, and I’ve made more mistakes than I’d like to think about… but praise God for sustaining me to reach this morning, this day, this weekend!
A day in which to reconsider priorities, rather than just paddle, paddle, paddle furiously like that duck who seems to be swimming serenely but underneath the surface, the legs are flailing relentlessly.
And this is where I’m thinking I’ll start. This post, which came across my feed the other week, and had me thinking about the spectrum of ‘focus’ to ‘scattered mindset’:
You see, when there’s multiple things pulling at your attention, it’s easy to do the ‘fun’ thing. To mix the ‘important’ with the ‘urgent’ and focus on the wrong thing. To allow distractions to take over, to move you off course. Or maybe that’s just me?
So today, this morning? A reset. A chance to sit back and look. And think. And re-prioritise. Circle those 5 things and – more importantly – identify those 20 distractions.
Here’s hoping for quite a lot more clarity by the end of it! And for you too as well, dear Reader!
I love functional things. It comes from being an organiser, I guess. But as I age, I’ve discovered that I like also making time – and spending money – on things that make me happy, too.
I spent a few hours yesterday in at work, starting to set up my office. The furniture arrived Friday, so I was super-stoked about that! And knowing I wouldn’t get time during the coming work week, I unimpressed Hubby and went in to school… but as I was working out what should I go where, I also thought about my new revelation – making room in my life for things that make me feel happy, just because they do.
Hence my Flareon, gracing the corner of my desk:
And I also saw this cutie online. And it made me smile 🙂
For many years now, there’s been a small area in my backyard lawn which has grown a really cool plant. When you touch its dark green leaves, they curl up so you can see the purple undersides. How amazing is that! I have memories of my Mum showing it to my middle child when she was still in single digits (she’s the one who just graduated high school last year) and the two of them were leaning over it, heads bent together, stretching out their hands and gently stroking its leaves to watch it react.
Fast forward to a few evenings ago. I was walking barefoot across my lawn, playing with Kiya. Something I do extremely rarely, as there’s generally lots of twigs, leaves, and of course, the risk of snakes. But the lawn looked so inviting, and the grass so green and soft.
Until it wasn’t. Two steps was all it took before I was yelling in surprise and trying to work out how I’d stood on several bindiis in each foot when it’s not even bindii season.
Huh. That shy little plant, which curls its leaves when touched, has a MUCH darker side.
In fact, I’d venture the suggestion that it doesn’t so much curl its leaves because it’s shy, but removes its pretty face to expose its thorns! Because YOW!!! They hurt!!!
And to think that all of my dogs, year in year out, have been running across this foot-stabber, and I’d never known because I’d always worn boots!
So down I went. The several thorn wounds in each foot were throbbing, and I wasn’t careful enough getting them out and managed to prick my left thumb as well. But by the time I was thorn-free, I was also determined. No longer would this cute looking plant live in my garden. I was going to rip it out, then and there.
Easier said than done though. I often garden without gloves, and I didn’t want to waste a minute, so I started pulling at the first long stem I could find (imagine a clover plant structure… a little like a snowflake where the stems run along the ground and smaller stems branch out from there.) Now imagine that there are two thorns which jut out from the stem, approximately one centimetre apart. EVERY SINGLE centimetre!
Seriously! The only place this thing does NOT have thorns is on its roots!
But I was determined. By the time it was too dark to see, I’d pulled by about a third of the patch. By hand! I was quite proud.
In the kitchen that evening, I was relating the story to my middle child when she said, “do you mean the mimosa?”
I replied with, “I don’t know?!” as I’d never been told the name of the plant. Then, when I showed her how purple my left thumb had turned, and the cuts from thorn-skewering on my right hand, and mentioned that I could still feel the holes in my feet throbbing, she said, “I wonder if it’s poisonous?”
Huh. Turns out it is.
My feet holes were still a little ‘twingy’ the following morning, but my left thumb and thumb / index / middle finger of my right hand? Very noticeable the next day. Left thumb still purple! And when I went to get some more Mimosa out (using gloves this time, you’d be glad to hear) I had to stop because I COULDN’T GRIP AND TWIST WITH MY RIGHT HAND!!! The joints in both knuckles of my index finger would NOT move the way they needed to! Crazy or what?
They’ve calmed down now. Mostly. It’s three days later and all except the top joint on my index finger are back to normal. And that joint will hopefully regain its flexibility soon. But I now have a VERY healthy respect for that Mimosa’s defence mechanisms!
I told my mum the story yesterday. She laughed quite a bit. “Didn’t you know it had thorns?” she asked.
Well, no. I wouldn’t have let it remain alive in my backyard if I’d known!
I made the observation that she seemed to have known. “Of course!” she replied. “We used to have to weed it before and after school, back in the village,” she finished (she grew up in Malaya in the 1940s).
Huh. If only someone had told me.
So: lesson learned. Sometimes pretty things hide a defence system that is so overwhelmingly powerful it can take out your right hand for several days! Who knew?
Have a great week of learning yourself, dear Reader!
I was blessed, Monday just gone, to listen to a couple of AMAZING speakers at my new workplace’s staff retreat. Now I’m not one of those people who points her phone at, and takes photos of, a speaker’s screen… but this week, I did.
This one because it’s kinda funny (and true of not just Gen Alpha!):
But this one because it’s really indicative of how society is changing, and the trajectory of this change. It’s not difficult to predict what will be next, yes?
Anyway, these are some thoughts I’ve been pondering over the past week. How my generation influences others… and how they will influence others on turn. No wonder God says to “teach your children” (intentionally!) – Deuteronomy 11:19 and Proverbs 22:6 spring to mind – because it’s so important!
Without intentional teaching, things change unintentionally. And that may not necessarily be a good thing for society at large. Humankind is far more well known for its greed and selfishness than its compassion and altruism.
So: I wonder what this coming week will bring? And how I can go about being more intentional in it?
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!!!
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!
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?
