Category: Life

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Life Technology

My flickr account – waiting, waiting, waiting…

I’m not a great photographer. If I take a half-decent photo, it’s generally a fluke. Plus, as regular readers of my blog would know, I’m not too keen on plastering pictures of my kids all over the web – and let’s face it, they’re the ones I spend most of my time with!

This would be the main reason why my flickr account doesn’t get a whole lot of use. Which is something that I’d like to change. But I’m waiting for multiple accounts to be enabled in ifttt, and then I’m planning on automating my flickr posts – which hopefully will encourage me to take more photos in the first place!

Be that as it may, I’m pretty proud of a photo I took recently. A storm had just gone through, and the colours of the sunset over the Glasshouse Mountains were just stunning. The view looking out over my front gate. Heavenly, no?

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Life Random thoughts Technology University studies

Big Bang. Times two.

For the past few weeks now, I’ve looked forward to Monday nights. As a “Big Bang Theory” enthusiast, the idea of new episodes each week has been exciting. In fact, I’m so hooked on BBT that I’ve even blogged about it for work!

I started my Masters in IT in July 2010. The majority of my classes have been on a Tuesday  evening, and since I teach violin Tuesday evenings, I have been unable to (virtually) attend classes, and so instead I generally listen to the podcasts, later in the week. This semester however, my INN530 unit has been on a Monday. And it took me until after I had missed three classes, to realise that I had a clash between the two. (Whoops!!! Sorry, Kate! “Confession via blog?” That must be akin to “Death by misadventure”?!!)

So – last Monday, I was DETERMINED that I would not be distracted by the latest BBT, and that I would DEFINITELY attend class. Especially seeing as this lecture was the biggie for me. Coding. And I’ve never written any code in my life! So I teed up Hubby to feed, bathe, and put the kids to bed, bought a headset, and went. And I’m so glad (cough) I did. Kate, in her usual incredible manner, simplified the basics for dummies like me, to such an extent  that I – almost! – managed to keep up with her pace. And I was also able to keep my brain from exploding until after I had left BlackBoard Collaborate.

So. Ceridwyn the coder? I hardly think so! Rather, I think that learning to code at the ripe old age of 37 is going to do my head in. Oh well. At least I’m going to go down trying…!

CC Image courtesy calixto at http://www.flickr.com/photos/calixto/6005872093/

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family anecdotes Life

Innocent pleasures

There was a time, a week or so ago, when it stopped raining long enough for the kids and I to venture outside. We have a pretty tiny house, so having a large backyard is wonderful. Especially when it’s dry enough to enjoy it!

Being weary (as is my seemingly permanent state) I decided on this day to pull out the hammock dear Hubby bought me for a not-so-distant birthday. So I hung it up and jumped in, ready to laze – and then Miss 4 piped up with a “Jump on the trampoline with me, Mummy!”

I had just gotten comfortable, so said ‘no’ (Yes, I know. Yet one more example of how much of a #badmummy I am…!) but suggested that she place a ball on the trampoline and jump with that. Unfortunately though, she must have inherited some of my laziness (or is catching it via osmosis? You be the judge!) so rather than get off the trampoline to fetch the ball, she decided to use one of her boots as a jumping companion instead. And added one of her brother’s boots for good measure.

‘Twas very cute. See for yourself! (And yes, I know. The orientation’s wrong. D’Oh!)

[flickr video=6997116357 secret=1209f5a162 w=320 h=240]

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Life Random thoughts

I will it, therefore I will be…?

*sneeze* I refuse to succumb to Miss 7’s cold. I refuse to succumb to Miss 7’s cold. I refuse to succumb to Miss7’s cold. *sneeze, sneeze*. Oh. Bumma. I don’t feel so great. *sneeze, sneeze* Who’s got the tissues?!!! *sneeze*
So much for willpower.
*sneeze*

20120318-063455.jpg
Lucky my (now newly refilled) tissue box sits on the head of my bed…!

Categories
family anecdotes Life momentous events

Mr almost-3

My little boy has his last day of being 2 today. He’ll be Mr 3 as of tomorrow. Which is great – but also rather sad. I can’t believe it was really THAT long ago that he was delivered (C-section. Elective. Long story short, Miss 7’s was 33 1/2 hours and Miss 4’s was 10 and I’d discovered, respectively, that a) epidurals in the wrong place don’t help a great deal, and b) water births ain’t as easy as you’d like ’em to be) but I guess it must have been, because he’s about to be 3. No longer a baby, no longer a toddler, now well and truly a little boy, on his way to becoming a big boy, a youth, then a man. And if you’re thinking ‘Yeah, but that’s ages away’ – look how fast these last few years have gone! Heck, Miss 4 will be in PREP in less than a year – and it doesn’t feel all that long ago that I was holding her tiny body in my arms on the balcony at Selangor hospital (Nambour), and introducing her to the gorgeous world outside that hospital room. Now that’s all swallowed up in the busyness of mid-March, 2012, and life don’t seem to be slowing’ down any!

Well, best go. I’ve got a cake to make…

 

CC Image courtesy nojhan at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nojhan/1571935892/

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Bloxham Marketing GoodOldTalk Life Technology University studies Work

Code? What code?!

If you’re a regular reader of hmmm… you may remember I’ve written before about GoodOldTalk.com – a social network for Seniors – that I launched back in August 2009. I still run it, with my mum. We were fortunate enough to obtain the services of the brilliant Sean Bannister and Mindy Chaplin to create the site for us, and at their recommendation, used the Drupal content management system. All well and good – since its inception, I’ve grown familiar with how to run the administration of it all.

Fast-forward to July of 2010, and witness my entrance to the world of post-grad studies. A Masters in IT, majoring in Library and Information Science, to be precise. And one of the main pieces of assessment for one of my first units? Keep a WordPress blog. Happy to! Since GoodOldTalk. I’d kinda become familiar with blog-keeping. WordPress was unfamiliar, but the concepts were easily transferrable. And by the end of the unit, I could see enough value in the idea of a personal blog that I didn’t need too much convincing when @fionawb issued a #blog12daysxmas challenge – and that became the impetus for starting hmmm…

Fast-forward again, this time to February of 2011. Jobless, I pitch the Principal of St Paul’s Lutheran, Caboolture, to pay me to run his marketing. He agrees, and suddenly I’m a self-employed marketing consultant. With administrative rights to the St Paul’s website. Which is based on Joomla! (If I had my way, there would be no exclamation mark at the end of that sentence…!) Again, the skills are transferrable. Which was good. Adding St James Lutheran, Hervey Bay, as a client in September of that year – and Caloundra Christian College just two weeks ago – both of whom have websites based on Joomla! – is also rather helpful, as it has meant that I’m not being pushed too far out of my comfort zone.

But what I love about this Masters I’m studying is that it really challenges me. As in, REALLY challenges me. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve received 7’s and 6’s (that marketing elective I did, Sem II last year, I’m counting as a major aberration. I was seriously NOT happy with the outcome of swapping across to the Business faculty for that elective!!!) – and  I’m also pretty chuffed that because I was among QUT’s top 15% of students, I was invited to become a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. I know I’ve worked my butt off, and (with the exception of one assignment to date) I’ve immensely proud of the work I’ve submitted.

But I’m nervous about this semester. On the suggestion (demand?! ultimatum?!) of Hubby, I’m only studying one unit. INN530, with @katiedatwork. Which I’m pretty excited about… but… one of the 50% assignments is a coding one. In HTML5 – with maybe a bit of CSS thrown in for good measure. And I’m scared. I’ve skimmed the Wikipedia entries on both topics, and I’ve gone ahead and checked out an online tutorial on HTML5 coding, and I’m feeling WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my depth. Really. And truly, And very, very, very scarily!!!

So… wish me luck! This semester’s going to be a biggie!!!

CC Image courtesy Jesper Rønn-Jensen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesper/355128797/

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Bloxham Marketing family anecdotes Life More about me Random thoughts Technology Work

Been busy…

So I’ve found the time to blog for Bloxham Marketing today – which has meant that I’ve had less time to write a post here, on my personal blog. Because I’m trying, in-between helping Miss 4 make a rocket ship (see left)

and supervising Mr 2 on my iPad (see right), to organise Mr 2’s entry into  the Early Childhood Developmental entree at Tullawong Primary College. So I’m going to cheat a little, and paste that entry below.

* * *

Image-based promotion

Posted on March 12, 2012 | Leave a comment | Edit

Over the past two weeks, St Paul’s has had a poster campaign running at Morayfield Shopping Centre. We used the same posters that we had up over the Christmas period last year – and I’d like to credit the record number of enrolments the school received, to these posters. Well… it may not have been to these exclusively, but nevertheless…!

And last week, I was inspired by @connectyou‘s post on the new Covers for the Facebook Page Timelines – to be rolled out on the 30 March, but which are able to be ‘published’ beforehand. So yesterday, I got busy. Evidenced by three cover photos. Check them out!

Caloundra Christian College:

St James Lutheran College:

And last but not least… St Paul’s Lutheran Primary School:

So – what do you think?

* * *

And now all I need to do is create Cover photos for the Bloxham Marketing page – and for my personal one too, of course!

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Bloxham Marketing family anecdotes Life More about me teaching Technology Work

Flattened.

Squashed. Like a bug that’s been steamrolled. That’s how I’m feeling after this week. I mean, I knew it was going to be a biggie, going into it, but didn’t really expect to be feeling like this at its conclusion…

Monday was work day. Head down, bum up, get-a-heap-of-things-done day, because the rest of the week would be drive-around-like-crazy day. It didn’t help that I had negative-gig left in my data quota due to a mix-up with Telstra this time last month. But, I had to get it done, so done it got.

Tuesday morning I spent at St Paul’s, getting stuff done on campus – stuff which would have been nigh-on impossible to do remotely, then it was pick-up-the-kids-from-care-and-drive-up-to-Minyama for my last (sob) Speech Therapy session with Suzanne at Sunshine Coast Speech Therapists. Lovely lady. Truly lovely. And even though that nodule on my right vocal cord isn’t gone yet, at least now I have some techniques to speak properly without exacerbating it – and hopefully it will go over time. Then I taught that evening.

Wednesday morning was meant to be playgroup-before-podiatirist, but Miss 4 and Mr 2 weren’t going to cope too well with that, so we ended up just visiting our neighbour in the morning, then heading out to collect Miss 7 early form school and driving down to Brisbane for her Podiatry appointment, then driving back to Caboolture for her swimming lesson, before driving to Morayfield for a *fun* time grocery shopping, then finally back up the Coast to home.

Thursday was diagnosis day. Miss 4 got dropped off at my mum’s at Currimundi while Mr 2 came to Nambour (Selangor Hospital) with me. Autism diagnosis confirmed, he then spent the afternoon back at my mum’s villa while I visited Tullawong Primary College, Medicare, the Family Assisstance Office, CentreLink, and finally Telstra (Yay! Got the internet working on my iPhone again!) before collecting the kids and heading home exhausted…

And Friday, I relief taught a very full-on Prep class. And Miss 4 managed to lose one sandal at care. One half of her favourite (and only!) pair of sandals. And Hubby fell victim to an unfortunate accident – our HUGE German Shepherd pup tripped him up badly in their morning run – which not only meant that a) he spent the majority of the day visiting doctors (X-ray of right wrist revealed just tissue damage thank God!) and dentists (teeth shaken about and chipped, but little other damage) and b) being laughed at because he’s limping and looks a sight – and his dog did it to him, but also that he’s completely out of action when it comes to helping with the kids because they don’t understand that they can’t jump on him anymore – plus he has zero use of his right hand / wrist anyway.

And Saturday morning was family-time. Half-great; half-tragic. I guess it’s no wonder that I spent most of Saturday afternoon yawning, if not dozing / less-than-conscious. Which is why I’m blogging now, at 3.07am Sunday morning. Nuff said?!

Phew! And it looks as though this coming week will be almost as full on…!!!

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family anecdotes Life More about me Random thoughts

Silly me.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’d know that a week or so ago, I swapped my kids rooms around – Mr 2 is now in the girls’ old room, and vice versa. This was because his room was slightly larger (and therefore more suited to a two-child room), plus the fact that this bedroom shares a wall with the main bedroom meant that his rolling into the wall would wake us both up.

Silly me. Now we get to listen to Misses 7 and 4 talking at 5am. Which I guess is okay. But what I didn’t particularly find okay last night (or should that be ‘this morning’) was the fact that one of them had knocked their alarm clock, and set it to go off at 12.54am. Which, being directly behind my pillow, woke me up. And it was loud enough to keep me from ignoring it, and returning to my dream – but not loud enough to wake up anyone else.

Very annoying. Silly me. Perhaps I should change them back? Either that, or earn another $100K per year, so I can afford to build an extension.

Anyone got a spare $100K they no longer want? LOL

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Life Random thoughts

One thing after another…

Miss 7 was diagnosed around 18 months ago with Hyper-elasticity-something-something-something. Basically, she has (expensive) orthotics in her (expensive) shoes, wears (expensive) night splints every night, and has exercises that she *should* be doing every day.

Late last year, I was diagnosed with a nodule on my right vocal cord. Yesterday, I had my final speech therapy session.

Tomorrow is Mr 2’s appointment for a possible (or should that be ‘probable’) autism diagnosis.

Is it just me, or does it also seem to you, dear readers, as though it’s just one thing after another…?!