Tag: being organised

Categories
Life momentous events teaching

47/52 And it’s clearing out time…

New job next year: I’m back to Nambour Christian College… which was the school that I moved to the Coast for in the first place! Head of Library position, replacing an amazingly talented man who’s retiring.

So, for the first time since 2016, I find myself on Christmas holidays with one job finished and the other not yet started. It’s a weird feeling. I’ve ALWAYS done work over the Christmas break. But I can’t right now. There’s nothing to do for CCPS and I can’t start anything at NCC! So I guess by default that means it’s “clearing out of stuff” time.

And check out my inbox! I can’t remember the last time it was at less than 20. And yes now I’m down to just 13!!! I wonder if I can get it to zero by New Year’s?

Wish me luck! Have have a lucky week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
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
Categories
family anecdotes momentous events

39/52 And a different milestone…

Last week I wrote about Miss 16 and her final term of High School. This week we shift to the youngest cherub in my household: Master 15 and the fact he’s not at school next week.

He’s at Work Experience.

This has been a ‘thing’ in Queensland schools for as long as I can remember. During Year 10, the kids all take a week off school and head to a place of business for a week.

Back in 1989 when I was in Year 10 (wow, that even SOUNDS like a century ago; it doesn’t just feel it!) I spent the week with my Violin Teacher. We travelled in her car to all the schools she taught strings at, and I met all her students and helped teach them violin. Considering I’d been teaching my own violin students for over a year by that stage, Work Experience wasn’t as daunting a week as it could have been.

Fast forward to this century though, and my own cherubs. in 2020, Miss 19 was set to spend the week at a Bird Sanctuary… but then Covid put paid to that idea. In 2022, Miss 16 spent the week scanning books in my Library. And Master 15? He’ll spend the coming week at the local Neighbours’ Aid Community Stores, learning how to sort and price and all things Op Shop.

I’m super-hoping that it goes well! If you can, spare a thought and a prayer for us!

And have an amazing week yourself, dear Reader šŸ™‚

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Random thoughts teaching Work

28/52 On the return to Term 3

Phew! What a week itā€™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 Mumā€¦ but instead, to go car shopping. Weā€™d visited a quite rusty Suzuki Jimny, locally, before heading down to Brisbane to look at a 2020 version ā€“ 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 (thatā€™s right, I have a 0.9FTE teaching job as well)
  • the collection of Mumā€™s car on Wednesday
  • Miss 16ā€™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, Iā€™m playing violin at church, then spending the afternoon with my parents and godfathers who are visiting from NZ.

Phew! againā€¦

Hope itā€™s been a productive week for you, too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Random thoughts Work

27/52 On habit creation

So June ended, and with it, the challenge to publish a daily blogpost for #blogJune.

And it took a number of days before I stopped thinking ā€˜oh! I havenā€™t posted yetā€¦ and thisā€™d make a good post!ā€™ soā€¦ I guess that means Iā€™d created myself a daily blogging habit?!

But itā€™s definitely July now, the first Sunday of, so itā€™s time to resume my Sunday blogging schedule. And today marks 27 of the 52 posts I had set myself back in January šŸ™‚

So keeping with the topic of ā€˜habits help you to get things doneā€™ I just wanted to post this photo right here:

Thatā€™s right. For a mere $25K you could own your own barrel organ. How cool is THAT?!! (Ooh! Iā€™ve never seen one of these intact before, as Nemoā€™s teacher would have said)

Seriously though: itā€™s incredible to think of the dedication that the creation of this instrument must have taken. Not only the mechanics of making the instrument actually work, but also the incredible craftsmanship in the painstaking attention to detail in the instrumentā€™s decorations! A true work of art.

And such incredible-ness can ONLY happen through habit-creation. The dedication of doing small amounts consistently, day by day by day by day by day.

Without this, the instrument wouldnā€™t exist.

And this day by day process is not just for weeks, nor months, but YEARS.

Inspirational dedication, that. An aspirational habit.

And with that thought, Iā€™m off to go be productive for the rest of my day.

Have a great week, dear Reader, and Iā€™ll see you next Sunday!

– KRidwyn

 

Categories
#blogjune

#BlogJune Day 23

Today was sunny, without too much wind.

It was Sunday. Church day. Meet my friends and worship God together day.

I bought a roast chicken for lunch with the kids; it was delicious.

I watched a movie and crotcheted, then Hubby and I walked Kiya together.

I was able to clear up a GoCard issue (very needed) and now I”m heading for an early night, in preparation for a big week ahead.

It’s good to be able to count blessings, isn’t it?

Have a blessed day yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
#blogjune

#BlogJune Day 21

Todayā€™s been big. Master15 had his Athletics Carnival, necessitating a 90 minute drive each way, and now Iā€™m waiting outside a fitting room in one of our local shopping centres while Miss16 finds clothing suitable for a week of ā€˜Uni experienceā€™ next week. Weā€™re going to start the ā€˜formal wearā€™ hunt today too, I think.

Phew! Bring on the weekend, I say!

Hope youā€™re having a great end-of-week too, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Reading

21/52 On being ahead of schedule

I’ve been a fan of the annual “Goodreads reading challenge” for years. Anything which pits me against me is good. Pitting me against others? Not so interested. But an app which challenges me to read, and keeps me accountable? Totally a fan. The fact that others can see where I’m up to is just added incentive.

And as a contol freak (and probably unrepentant over-achiever) I have to be ahead. It helps to be ready for any eventuality, yes? And finishing MURTAGH by Christopher Paolini yesterday keeps me on the ‘six books ahead of schedule’ margin which is my comfort zone. After all, there’s the mountain of marking assessment which I’ll be buried under for the next few weeks, to consider! Plus: it was a really good book… much much MUCH darker than anything I’ve read for simply ages, but so well written, it was hard to put down šŸ™‚

Anyway, this is something I’m proud of this week. What makes you happy, dear Reader?

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Life Review

7/52 On transparency

Today’s the 18th of February. In less than a month, we’ll be heading to the poll booths to get ourselves the next four years’ worth of local politicians.

So the other week, I thought I’d look into who’s running. In my region, Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, both our Mayor and our Deputy Mayor (who was also my divisional councillor, just for interest) have decided to not run again… meaning I’ll have two newbies in these roles.

I headed off to Google to find out who’s been nominated. My first hit seemed to be the go: three mayoral candidates with a bit of a blurb on each. Impressive… until I realised that according to sunshinecoastnews.com, there’s six candidates for mayor, not three!Ā Ā Jason O’Pray; Wayne Parcell; Ashley Robinson, Michael Burgess, Rosanna Natoli, and Min Swan (apparently listed in the order they appear on the Electoral Commission of Queensland website). I guess the original article made sense when I re-looked at the title “meet the latest candidates”… I’m guessing they’d already had an initial article with the other three hopefuls.

And in my own division, there’s three choices: Kristy Taylor-Rose; Jenny Broderick; and Stan Nowrocki.

Trying to find informaion on each of these nine people though, proved problematic. Surely there’d be a news article where each candidate was linked to their own page, which detailed (or even just outlined!) who they were and what they stood for? But nope.

So I tried Facebook. Nothing. Even a request to the Sunshine Coast Council’s offical Facebook page only produced this:

Hmm. So off to the ECQ website. Several clicks later, I can see that no, the list order must have changed since the 13th of February, when sunshinecoastnews.com published its article. No matter. There’s still 6 mayoral candidates, and 3 candidates for divisional councillor. Links to their websites though? Nope.

So I’ve decided that I’ll do it. I have my own website, yes? And an interest in getting this information out so people can actually be informed about who it is they might vote for? Well, here it is. For my division, as least. And they’re in alphabetical order (I’m a librarian, remember!)

Sunshine Coast Division One Councillor candidates:

Jenny Broderick

Stan Nowrocki (LinkedIn was the closest site I could find)

Kristy Taylor-Rose (again, no dedicated website; this one’s a news article and this is LinkedIn)

 

Sunshine Coast Mayoral Candidates:

Michael Burgess

Rosanna Natoli

Jason O’Pray

Wayne Parcell (this site takes a while to load…)

Ashley Robinson

Min Swan

Something I noticed about the mayoral candidates: numbers of them say they’re interested in transparency. So I’m guessing that when they inherit the Facebook page, the policy of ‘giving residents the information they’d like’ will change? Hmmm.

Enjoy, dear Reader! And feel free to share / comment etc as you see fit…

  • KRidwyn

 

Categories
momentous events Random thoughts

5/52 On clutter…

This Facebook meme made me laugh the other day, so I shared it so my friends and family could laugh too. ā€œWouldnā€™t it be funny / cool / amazing to cross things off my own To Do list!ā€ I thought to myself. ā€œVery cheekyā€¦ but how freeing!ā€

And then I scrolled on, and life continued.

My thoughts kept returning to that idea though. Of how cool it would be to have that freedom.

And then yesterday, making space on a bookshelf by working out what books Iā€™d probably never read again and deciding to donate them, it hit me.

Why not? Why shouldnā€™t I do that?

Most items on my To Do list are just ones that I wrote there anyway! So will the world end if I remove them without doing them? Or am I, in fact, just decluttering my life of self-imposed obligations, expectations and deadlines?

I’m a fan of the TV series Space Invaders.

In it, de-cluttering guru Peter Walsh calls ‘cluttter’ anything which gets between what my life looks like now, and what I want my life to look like (a bad paraphrase, but that’s how full my mind is right now).

Now those books I’d collected, with the idea of reading them or re-reading them at some point – the hard, physical objects collecting dust on my shelf – were clutter.

But who’s to say that clutter is just physical? Can’t mental items – thoughts, expectations and obligations which sit there, collecting dust on the shelves of my brain – be just as much ‘clutter’ as physical clutter?

So: “Crossing things off my to do list. I didnā€™t do them. I just donā€™t want them on my list any more…” I’m giving myself permission to do this. Those self-imposed expectations of ‘I want to do THIS by THIS DATE’? I’m deciding that – for me at least – itā€™s okay to let these things go. Maybe if they’re not helping me, they’re hurting me? I’m certainly feeling more free, just even thinking about it!

May you have a ‘freeing’ week yourself, dear Reader šŸ™‚

[And if you’d like someone else’s permission to free yourself of self-imposed obligations and expectations, here it is: have mine!]

See you Sunday šŸ™‚

  • KRidwyn