Category: Random thoughts

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Random thoughts

17/52

This traffic light is my friend. Since the local council decided the road needed… something (not too sure what they’re doing behind the barriers,) this timered traffic light and I spend time together almost every morning.

It adds a good fifteen minutes to my routine, which I don’t particularly like. Nor do I like that they’ve forecasted this one-lane-only setup to last until October. That’s another SIX MONTHS, people! It’s already been almost three!

Enough to make me think of quitting the gym-  but I enjoy it too much, so I’ve decided I’ll just suck it up and deal with the hassle.

This morning though, as I passed the queued traffic, waiting on the other side, the first car waiting was the police, doing their rounds. Suddenly my once-a-day visit to my local roadworks didn’t seem so bad. It’s voluntary, at least!

How about you, dear Reader? Had any cases of ‘seeing another perspective’ recently?

And, as always, have a fantastic week!

– KRidwyn

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places to visit Random thoughts

16/52

And… I’m back into my routine again!

Oh routine, how I love you!

How about you, dear Reader? Any routines you miss when they’re absent?

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts teaching Work

13/52

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

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family anecdotes Random thoughts

10/52

Kids grow up. So slowly you don’t notice when you’re with them

Minute by minute, hour by hour, day after day. But then you lift your head out of the trenches and realise that years have flown. Suddenly it’s not sleepovers, it’s Youth Group; it’s not The Wiggles, it’s Beyoncé. And you sigh and ask ‘what next’?

I had one of those moments recently. I knew one cherub had switched from Minecraft to Ark, but the change several months ago didn’t impact me until she told me one evening, “What I really want to do is teach you how to play Ark on the (Nintendo) Switch.”

Huh. Hold me back.

This game, from what I could tell, seemed like Minecraft with dinosaurs, with a dash of the breeding from DragonMania thrown in. Not really interested… especially when my Nintendo Switch time had to that moment involved learning Splatoon – badly – and playing Zelda, death of the Wild – also so badly my children loved watching to laugh at me about how slow I was to do anything. (And how many times Leaf died, but that’s another story.)

So I sighed, and said ‘okay’ and watched her face come to life.

And it hit me. THIS was her passion. At the moment, it’s this game. And she wanted to share it with me. Instant transportation back to her younger years when she’d bring me a dandelion flower or a lizard she’d caught. The same light in her eyes, the same grin; the same joy flooding through me because I am so incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful daughter who loves me and wants to do stuff with me.

So Ark? Yeah. Not the biggest fan – but now I want to play it when she asks, so I can play it with her. Because she’s an absolute angel and I love her to pieces.

And that – doing stuff you’re not really interested in because the benefits so clearly outweigh any other objection? – that’s my thought for the week.

Have a blessed week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts teaching

4/52

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

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More about me Random thoughts

3/52

So I finally decided: the iPhone X(R). The first night, I fully charged it before switching to flight mode (with one brother in New York and the other in London, if I don’t use flight mode each night, I sleep with the risk of Viber pings waking me). But I didn’t leave it charging. The following morning, it was on 99%! If I’d left my 6S off charge for that long (6 hours-ish) it’d be as dead as a doornail.

But the new phone is taking a while to get used to. Lucky I have Master9 on my lock screen to keep me cheerful as I navigate this similar-yet-different phone ownership experience…

Have a cheerful week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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my novel-in-progress Random thoughts Writing

1/52

I’ve decided, instead of New Year’s resolutions for 2019, to try implementing two pieces of advice I’ve been given in the past several years.

The first was from a nurse helping me through depression following the birth of child number 2. Her piece of advice (among many others, most of which I use regularly) was to have realistic expectations – for myself, as well as for others. That’s a tricky one for me – but one I’m going to try to remember in 2019.

The second was a few years ago, from New York literary agent extraordinaire, Janet Reid. She wrote a blogpost responding to a question I’d sent her; the gist of her answer was for me ‘to focus’. Again, something which is going to require more than a little training, for those of you who know me IRL… but something that’s worthwhile, I think.

So in 2019 I plan to ‘focus’ on my writing. The novel-in-progress, that is, not my blog. Hence the plan to post photos each week. Starting with this:

 

The view from one of my early-morning writing spots. Peaceful. Quiet.

Amazing, hey!

Anyway, here’s wishing you a wonderful week, dear Reader 🙂

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts

And 2019 will be…

The year of the photo.  Because I’m pretty  bad at them, and I figure if I’m taking one each week for this blog, I’ll have incentive to improve?

And to start, on this final afternoon of 2018 while I’m waiting for Hubby to return from helping our neighbour so we can keep watching Season 5 of ‘The 100’… I’m posting a photo of my front garden as it currently looks. It’s the part of the property I’ve been working on these last few months. It’s getting there, if I do say so myself. You should have seen it before I started! Although you couldn’t have, because I didn’t take a photo of it… and here we are, back at the main topic again. Cool, huh?

So here’s the photo:

And have a great week, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts

Decisions, decisions…

I need a new phone. This 6S I’m currently typing on works well… as long as there’s a charging cord and a power source handy. And I don’t let the gbattery drop less than 80%. And the charging cord is the specific one I bought just two weeks ago.

I love having a working phone. It’s the conditions on its ability to remain working that are getting to be more of a nuisance than I’m prepared to deal with. Two battery changes and two new charging cords in the past three months? And that constant feeling of anxiety because heaven forbid I not be contactable…

Nope. I’m done. Meaning a new phone for me… hence the dilemma. Which one?

I was really happy with my 6S, bought two years ago. Up until one drop too many and the battery problems started. And I was also happy with the 4S I owned before that. So should I ‘Apple’ again? Or try Android? I’m going to have to think about this for a bit.

What would you suggest?

And have a fantastic day, dear Reader! (‘day’ because I’m blogging again tomorrow. Seeing as it’s December 25, tomorrow marks the commencement of #blog12daysXmas. So I’ll see you then!)

– KRidwyn

Update: Ummm… yes, well. That ‘joining in with #blog12daysxmas’ didn’t seem to work too well. Oh well. Oops!

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Life Random thoughts teaching Work

Out the window…

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