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J is for ‘job’

The regular reader of this blog may remember that I started a new job this year.

Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

I have well over one hundred 11 to 14 year olds to be responsible for. That’s a lot of hormones!

It’s been fun. So far, I’ve laughed and cried, exulted and been furious, enjoyed every second and wanted to tear my hair out with frustration. And that’s just before Morning Tea each day! Just kidding.

It’s been a wild ride, and I’m loving it. As a Christian, I *do* feel ‘called’ to the position, and I also feel as though I’m making a difference in the lives of the majority of the children in my care. And that gives me such a feeling of satisfaction!

But it’s also been far busier than I’d expected. So much so, that my writing has fallen seriously by the wayside. I knew it would – but not quite to this extent. No matter. This #AtoZchallenge is helping me get back some writing mojo – and when April finishes, I have JUSTINE BROWNING AND THE MEDDLING MERMAN to complete. Hopefully by Mother’s Day, which is the challenge I’ve set myself.

But school starts back next week after the two week Easter break, so it’ll be interesting to see if things go to plan…

Anyway, have a great day, dear Reader, and hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with ‘K’ !

— KRidwyn

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E is for ’embrangle’

So it’s Day 5 of the #AtoZchallenge, where bloggers around the world publish daily during April, based on a consecutive letter of the alphabet, with Sundays off to make up the 26 days.

I’ve chosen ‘Word of the day’ for my 2017 theme, and Day 5 means the letter ‘E’.

There are so many ‘E’ words that I discovered recently: educe; effulge; embay; embrangle; emolliate; emplace; etiolate; evert; excoriate; excorticate; excurse; execrate; exscind; exsect; exsert; exsiccate; extirpate; extravasate.

I mean seriously – how cool are they! Just let me elaborate, elucidate and – maybe? – educate, and enchant…

educe: to draw forth or bring out; elicit; develop

effulge: to shine brilliantly; to send forth (beams of light)

embay: to enclose in or as in a bay; surround

embrangle: to confuse, entangle, perplex

emolliate: to soften. To render effeminate

emplace: to place or position

etiolate: to cause (a plant) to whiten by excluding light; to become blanched or whitened, as when grown without sunlight

evert: to turn outwards, or inside out

excoriate: to strip off or remove the skin from. To flay verbally; denounce; censure

excorticate: to remove the mark, husk, or outer covering from

excurse: to go on an excursion. To digress; wander

execrate: to detest utterly; abhor; abominate. To curse; imprecate evil upon. To utter curses

exscind: to cut out or off

exsect: to cut out

exsert: to thrust out

exsiccate: to dry or remove the moisture from, as a substance. To dry up, as moisture

extirpate: to remove utterly; destroy totally; exterminate; do away with. To pull up by the roots; root up (kinda reminds me of John Davis ‘manuscript’ Frain’s #AtoZchallenge this year!)

extravasate: to force out from the proper vessels, as blood, especially so as to diffuse through the surrounding tissues. [in Geology:  to pour out molten or liquid matter from the earth as lava from a vent, water from a geyser, etc]

So – did I manage it? Did I ’embrangle’ you, dear reader? Or did I effulge? Excurse? Or was it more of an ‘educing’ that I was doing?

And would you use any of these words in your conversations today?

🙂

Have an enchanting one, dear reader!
— KRidwyn

 

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Christianity

A is for ‘always’

So today is April 1st. For many, the day of prankster jokes and general mayhem. For some, the beginning of the April A to Z challenge.

I didn’t officially sign up this year. 2017 has been a hectic, whirlwind few months so far. But today also marks my first ‘real’ day of holidays since my new job started, so here I am, prepared – this morning, at least! – to return to blogging, and to take a second stab at this A to Z challenge which I managed to successfully conquer last year.

And here goes. Day 1 of 26, ‘Word of the Day’.

A – is for ‘Always’

An overused, cliched word. Important in concept, although an impotent tool when thrown at an opponent, in a bid to win the upper hand.

The defeatist, overwhelming, ‘stinky thinking’ a psych nurse once warned me about.

And yet…

also the promise God makes, that He is with us ALWAYS – to the very end of the age – in the very last recorded words of Jesus, before his ascension (Matthew, chapter 28, verse 20, if you’re interested).

So who am I to demonise a word if it’s good enough for my Lord to use?

ALWAYS. A word able to carry the weight of all Christendom’s hopes. Use it sparingly; it’s pretty powerful.

And see you Monday for ‘B’!

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Where I’ve been…

So my last post on this blog was over a month ago. It feels like longer.

I’d posted just prior to a weekend away with Hubby on Moreton Island. I was hoping it would be fantastic; it was. The snorkelling; the dolphin feeding; the quad-biking; the all-you-can-eat buffet meals; the amazing weather and luxurious accomodation; the 3.23am evacuation due to another hotel resident setting off a fire alarm because he attempted to cook food inside his kettle… it was all memorable.

And that marked the beginning of November.

November is the worst month of the year for music teachers, did you know? It’s end of the school year here in Australia, which means the usual end-of-year marking / reporting chaos. Add to that, the same end-of-year ‘let’s showcase what your children have learned to play on their instruments’ performance chaos, and – of course – all of the instrumental marking / reporting deadlines to co-ordinate. Don’t forget, there’s a class of graduating students who – naturally – get their own set of dedicated performances to prepare for etc. And then, just for fun and because It’s November and because the music teacher doesn’t have enough to do, let’s add in a Christmas carols event or several.

And then we all sit back and watch the poor music teacher’s head explode.

Because that’s – generally speaking – what happens.

Hence my taking a month hiatus from this blog. But this year, there was another reason as well; and this other reason meant that instead of just the month off, I needed an extra two weeks on top of that: I changed jobs.

Yay!

Yes, I am no longer the Music co-ordinator at St. Paul’s Lutheran Primary School. Instead, I have returned to the world of Prep to Year 12 education, with the role of Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

And boy! Am I stoked about that!

(Just in case you hadn’t picked up on that, from the excessive use of exclamation points in this blog post… sorry about that, by the way…)

Anyway, I’m back blogging again. Yes, the plan is to blog weekly, every Monday morning, my time.

And who knows, but that perhaps I shan’t need the month’s blog hiatus next November?!

See you next week!

KRidwyn

PS And have yourselves a very merry Christmas too! 😀

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Christianity family anecdotes Life More about me Random thoughts Writing

When stuff goes pear-shaped

I remember one of my godfathers once asked me to choose a present for myself. I was about 8, and we were in the local newsagent.

I looked for a long time, finally bringing him the thickest compendium of Garfield comics I could find, which he bought without hesitation. Afterward, he questioned my choice. “I was only able to choose one gift,” I explained, “so I wanted to make sure that the gift I chose would last me a long time.”

That’s me. I’m a thinker; a planner. I’m the person who always has to know what is going to happen, WAY ahead of schedule, so I can plan for it. That photo next to ‘control freak’ in the dictionary? That’s me.

Well, it used to be, anyway. I’m learning to relax a lot more. God working in me and all that, maybe?

Case in point: this blog.

Last week. No blog post.

Whoops! Monday morning came; Monday morning went; all 24 hours worth of Monday disappeared… and no new words appeared here.

And it was completely human error. Mine.

Thees last couple of weeks have been busy ones, you know? As in, three-cherubs-underfoot-EVERY-SINGLE-DAY-and-no-time-to-stop-and-think-and-realise-exactly-what-day-it-is-today kind of busy.

Hence Tuesday evening, when I went to watch the Monday TV show I’d taped the night before, I realised that I’d been a day behind. No TV show taped. And also, no blog post published. It wasn’t even written! It hadn’t even been thought about!!!

Cue panicked screaming, running around the house, arms flailing, et cetera – for a whole 20 seconds.

And then I thought, ‘You know what? These things happen. It’ll be okay.’

Decibel levels reduced to within nationally appropriate safety standards, my arms stopped flailing, my heartbeat slowed again, my mind ceased racing, and the cherubs whose presence had caused the upset to routine in the first place, chalked the episode up to yet-another-example-of-Mummy-being-crazy, sighed, and returned to watching old episodes of Pokemon I’d recorded for them. (Yes. Record their programs, not mine. Go figure.)

Stuff had gone pear-shaped, and little ol’ control-freak me was going to… be okay with that.

I’d realised that no amount of panicked screaming and arm-flailing was going to change the situation. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” seems appropriate to quote here, but actually, it was a tweet that same day that hit the nail on the head for me, instead.

Screen Shot 2016-08-14 at 4.06.24 PM

So often I allow stuff over which I have no control, to trip me up. Do you do the same? But although the idea of ‘stumbling over something that lies behind us’, is ludicrous… how often do we do it?

If we can’t change the past, then let it lie. Don’t dwell on it; forget about it inasmuch as it is able to be forgotten (obviously, consequences will out and all that).

But, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t want to be the person on her deathbed at the end of her life, saying ‘I regret spending all that time worrying’. Especially when it’s worry over things I can’t do anything at all about.

[Aside: It may be trite, but I believe that worry is simply an unsaid prayer.]

So my advice, when stuff goes pear-shaped? Do something about it, if you can. And if not, then don’t sweat it. In the long run, it’ll probably be small stuff anyway.

Well, that’s my take on it. Your thoughts?

And have a great week, dear reader!

-KRidwyn

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Random thoughts Writing

On support groups

I’m not a ‘social’ kind of girl. I used to be, back when I was 19, 20. But I haven’t been for quite some time now. Rather, I’m the stereotypical introvert – happiest in my own company, without the pressures of expectations, protocols, and others’ opinions weighing on me.

So as you can imagine, I’m not big on ‘support groups’. Meeting regularly with people is not something I particularly enjoy dong it. Church on a weekly basis fills my quota more than sufficiently.

And I’m also a member of my local Writer’s Group, and have blogged about them before.

But in the last several months, I’ve also found myself a couple of online places where writers meet over a virtual water-cooler. And I must admit, I’m surprising myself with how much I am enjoying the online support of people I’ve never met in real life but with whom, online, I frequently converse!

One of these places is lovingly referred to as ‘The Reef’. We follow the blog of Literary Guru and Agent Extraordinaire, Janet Reid of Fine Print Literary Management. [Edit: as of August 14, 2016, Her Sharkliness is now Agent-Wrangler Extraordinaire at New Leaf Literary.] We comment on her topics – or also on our own; we enter her Flash Fiction contests, some of us are exiled to Carkoon for misbehaviour: it’s a truly exceptional group of people and I’m incredibly inspired by their talents and honoured to be considered one of them.

A second, slightly more local group, is the friends who I race with every Wednesday evening, Brisbane time. The Writing Races are hosted by Australian Writers Marketplace Online and are run through Facebook. One captain helps racers keep track of time, but we race against ourselves. Whether its word count increases on current works in progress, or decreases through revision, editing or re-writing stages, it’s great fun to have the company for an hour, knowing that people all around the country are doing exactly what you’re doing at that point in time. The sense of camaraderie is palpable. And I love that.

There’s also my wonderful family, colleagues at work, the Celtic group that the three cherubs and I are part of – all in all, I’m glad God designed us to share our lives with each other. Community sure is one magnificent idea. And that from the introvert sitting in front of her computer right now, enjoying the opportunities that present right from this little blog of mine.

Because you, dear blog reader, are the ‘support group’ I get to thank right now. Here, in this space that WordPress kindly allowed me to create, I want to thank you for taking the time to read. To lurk. To comment. To think of me, and honour me with your presence, and your willingness to spend your time reading the externalisation of my thoughts. I appreciate it more than you know.

Thank you, dear reader. And have a marvellous day today!

— KRidwyn

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#blogjune wrap-up

I’m pinching myself. It’s July 4th already? Where on earth is this year getting itself to?

I have this funny feeling that it’s flying faster than normal because I’ve completed both #AprilAtoZ and #blogjune this year. And while I’m extremely happy that my tally for both was ‘KRidwyn 1, challenge zip’ – I’m also starting to recognise exactly how much time they are taking up! Not that I mind; I find externalising the more sane of my thoughts quite enjoyable. Hindsight, though, makes it easier to realise: if I spend my time blogging, then I’m not spending it doing the other activities which I could be doing. It all comes down to choices, really. Priorities.

And that was exactly why I found choosing 30 titles for my self-imposed #blogjune theme so difficult. What novels should I choose, over other novels? Why include A but not B, C, or D? (Just to clarify, A, B, C and D aren’t actually titles of books, but representations thereof. Although that sparks an idea. Perhaps I could write novels with these titles?! LOL… but I digress…) And therein lay my quandary. I had originally thought ‘Cool! Just post photos of the books on my bookshelves! That’ll be fast!’ But then when it came down to it: there are SO MANY more novels not on my bookshelves – for a myriad of reasons – which I love and wanted to include; in addition, how to cull the list to just thirty; and on top of that, to explain why I had included it… well, writing the blogposts took longer than I’d anticipated. That’s okay. Lesson learned. Perhaps.

And what about all those titles that I wanted to include but couldn’t? There were so many. Perhaps I could examine those next year? (But by then, I’ll have read twelve month’s more books…) Dilemma. Horns of, even. This will require more thought.

In the meantime, back we go to blogging weekly. Happy Independence Day, if that’s your thing – and have a brilliant week!

— KRidwyn

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Reflections on #blogJune

So what *is* this #blogJune thing? It’s a blogging challenge, started by @flexnib back in 2010, and basically you publish a daily blogpost, every day in June. Most bloggers hail from Australia and New Zealand, and many work in the Library sphere, but we’re not exclusive. Case in point: me 🙂 If you’d like to join us, the signup info is here.

So anyway, #blogJune starts in just a couple of days. This will be my sixth year participating!

In 2011, when my blog was just a shade over 6 months old, I was exceedingly proud of myself for publishing 30 blogposts in the 30 day period. No, not all got done on their respective days, and yes, I used quite a few ‘memes’ in there to get me through the 30, but all in all, it was a very satisfactory start to the whole ‘blogging’ thang. In spite of my cherubs deciding that the first week of June would be a perfect time to have vomiting bugs…

#blogJune 2012 was hugely emotional. My Mr3 had just been diagnosed with autism, and boy oh boy, that was a HUGE rollercoaster ride! Reading back on those posts now? Wow. Just wow.

Screen Shot 2016-05-25 at 8.41.31 pm

In 2013, I battled (more) vomiting bugs and assignments, work and really AWFUL movies and made it to the 30 post mark

2014 saw me only blog 5 posts due to illness and Uni assignments 🙁

And last year, renovating and parenting blogposts were the main topics featured – but there were a couple of Krav Maga ones in there too!

Just last month I blogged daily too, as a first-time participant of the #AtoZchallenge which occurs every April. I had planned on publishing a 26-part story, however it ended up being far too dark and intense to publish on my blog, so I’m keeping that one for a different audience. I wrote a series of ’26 lessons from God’s metaphors’ instead. Which still ended up being FAR more words than I had originally envisioned!

So I’ve decided that my #blogJune entries for 2016 will be photo-based. My thirty favourite books (or book series / collection). I wonder if any will surprise? How many you have read? What you thought of them, if you did?

Anyway, that will all start June 1. Stay tuned, dear reader!

And until then, keep well!

— KRidwyn

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And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Wow! What a month it’s been, huh?

FullSizeRenderTwenty-six posts, for the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Originally, I’d planned a 26-instalment story. But the draft version ended up far too violent to publish here, so at the last minute, I changed to ’26 metaphors for God’, inspired by a cross-stitch Mum made for me. Praise God for Mums, and for friends who make suggestions like “why don’t you use your Mum’s cross-stitch?”

But that being said, it was a huge month. And although I participated, I’m glad it’s over. It took a lot of time away from my ‘normal’ writing, so I’m quite a bit further behind than I wanted to be. And as for my Goodreads challenge, that’s looking like a TKO at this point. Because although I *have* been reading, it’s been on blogs, not books!

My favourite blogs this past month have been:

https://kdjames.com/ (A fascinating story over the month of April)

https://johndavisfrain.com/blog/ (26 stories, each 6 sentences long. Chilling stories.)

http://julieweathers.com/blog/ (American history? READ THIS!)

http://www.colindsmith.com/blog/ (100 word stories inspired by the songs of Paul McCartney. So clever!)

http://denapawling.blogspot.com.au/ (Military definitions from A to Z; enlightening to say the least)

https://alleysiande.com/ (stories, and beer. And dragons…)

https://wordwacker.me/ (clues in haiku for the word of the day)

http://katelarkindale.blogspot.com.au/ (New Zealand movies from A to Z with gorgeously written reviews)

and

http://romancespinners.blogspot.com.au/ (on writing, and writer’s life)

I thoroughly recommend, if you have the time, drop by and have a read.

And for any A to Z challenge participants stopping by, THANK YOU for your encouragement and support, and YAY!!! We did it!!!

(Heading off for a well-earned nap now…)

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26 lessons from God’s metaphors: #26

And we’ve made it to Z! The final ‘metaphor’ of God: King of Zion.

Each of these posts was inspired by a cross-stitch made by my Mum. The picture of the ‘z’ square shows: a crown of thorns (although in reality apparently the thorns were approximately 6 inches long!); the phrase ‘King of Zion’; and the verse Matthew 27:37. This verse reads:

Z

“A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

Now you’ll notice that the word ‘Zion’ isn’t included. In fact, the word ‘Zion’ isn’t part of this verse in Matthew at all, in any version.

Rather, the designer of this cross-stitch pattern used this verse to emphasize Jesus’ kingship. The bit about ‘Zion’ comes from Psalm 2:6: “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” And some translations use the word ‘Jerusalem’ instead of ‘Zion’ as well.

So what *is* Zion?

Well originally, it was a place. A fortress in fact, which David captured in 2 Samuel 5:7, and later built the royal palace there. His son, King Solomon, built the temple there too, and the word ‘Zion’ came to mean the whole temple area. Later in the Old Testament (as in, before Jesus’ birth) the word Zion is used to refer to the city of Jerusalem, the land of Judah, and even the nation of Israel as a whole.

In the New Testament (from the birth of Jesus onwards) the word Zion refers to God’s spiritual kingdom (See Hebrews 12:22 and 1 Peter 2:6).

So the Romans who were crucifying Jesus, and who then hung a sign above his head showing that his ‘crime’ was being ‘King of the Jews’, incensed the Jews watching the spectacle. John 19:19-22 records that the Chief Priests ask for the sign to be changed, from ‘Jesus, King of the Jews’ to ‘Jesus, who claimed to be King of the Jews’. Pilate (the Roman governor) refused.

And so Jesus, the King of the Israelite nation, was killed. His death was sought by the leaders of Israel; and sanctioned by the leader of the Gentiles (non-Jews).

And he died.

And yet, God had decided that He would install his King on Zion, on His holy mountain.

So Jesus didn’t stay dead. God raised him from death, thus conquering its hold on us, should we choose to believe in Him and follow Him.

Jesus, is now, and will remain forever, King of ‘Zion’: which is God’s spiritual kingdom.

And I’m a part of that kingdom, if I choose to be.

And I do!

So with that, we conclude the lessons for this month of April, and this, my first attempt at the annual #A-Zchallenge.

What a huge month it’s been!

Thank you to all those who’ve supported me along the way; your company and encouraging comments have truly made this journey a memorable one! I never would have realised how blessed this experience could be. Thank you!

So where to next? Well, back to my regularly scheduled once-a-week blog posts… for the month of May, at least. Who knows where after that; what with #blogJune an’ all…!

Anyway, time for me to stop rambling. Have a lovely day, dear reader – and thanks for stopping by!

May God richly bless you today 😀

— KRidwyn