Tag: character traits

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What’s the reason?

I’ve been thinking recently about motivations. Of characters, in particular. Before they can do something, say something, think something, there must be a reason why. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it, say it, or even think it. The reason gives the impetus for the motion.

*My* reason for such thoughts? I’ve been toying with the idea of writing crime / mystery. It’s always intrigued me, but my initial opinion is that I’d be absolutely hopeless at it. Not because I don’t like the genre – I do! – but because my only experience of criminal or mysterious activities has been vicarious; as in, through books, TV shows, movies. And I’m the first to admit a feeling of being overwhelmed at the thought of writing about something I haven’t experienced! Because although yes, I *do* have a good imagination, I think that to write crime / mystery well, there needs to be more than that. And I don’t know if I have that in me.

Do I think that I’m such an amazing person that I’ve never done a criminal act? Never participated in a cover up? Never had anything to feel guilty about? Of course not. But is the depth of my knowledge enough to write well about? I doubt it. And therein lies my problem. My dilemma. My conclusion that it’s all about the motivation.

Because when it comes down to it, I feel like I can’t identify with my criminal character. What’s their motivation for their crime? Is it greed? Selfishness? Pride? Can’t each of these be explained away to some degree, by an analysis of the character’s background / upbringing? And if they can, then are these acts really ‘criminal’ ones, or just the reasonable outcome of their past experiences? When does a ‘crime’ become a crime? Is an understanding of the criminal’s motivations enough to excuse their actions? To forgive? Or is that something else entirely – an action that occurs on the part of the victim or the observer?

Anyway, I just thought I’d share my thoughts with you this morning. And my *reason*? Well, because I can. If you feel like responding, dear reader, I’d be ecstatic – perhaps I’m not just typing words into a vaccuum like I so often think that I am. So yes, dear reader – what’s your reason for doing things?

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family anecdotes Random thoughts

Raising kids #2

So I posted yesterday my Number One parenting tip: rewards first. The second however, follows closely behind…

Tip #2: stuff costs money.

We know this. We all know it. You get what you pay for in life. Want a new car? Or a house? A holiday? A meal at a nice restaurant? You can have them all – but you need to pay for them. If you’re in the market for a car, and you like Toyota Landcruisers but only have $10K to spend, it’s far more likely that the car you end up buying looks more like Mr Bean’s than you’d like it too.

Likewise, my kids understand the value of things. They understand… because they can be quick learners when they have the incentive to be!

I mentioned yesterday that my kids earn points (and therefore money) by ticking off chores on the app Choremonster. This gives them money to spend.

It also gives them money to lose, on taxes.

Yes, you read that right. Taxes.

Stuff costs money. Including stuff that kids should be responsible for, themselves.

My kids know that they need to pick up after themselves; put things away where they should go.

They also are aware that, when people move house, for example, they pay someone to help them move.

This is what I have in my house.

Mr 6 can’t be bothered moving his bike from where he left it, back to where it should live? That’s fine. I’ll move it for him, and he’ll pay me for the privilege. Moving tax. Miss7 continually leaves her Wii remote on the lounge? Fine, but if it’s still there when I need to sit down, I’ll need to move it and she’ll pay a moving tax. Miss 10, towel on the floor? Fine again – but it incurs a moving tax if she expects me to do it for her.

It’s brilliant; I love it. The kids know that they need to be responsibile, otherwise they’ll end up paying for the privilege of being lazy. And it’s not a set sum. Wii remotes are generally only 20 cents, but moving a bike can be up to $5 (we have a large property). And it adds up! When Miss7 takes off her school uniform and leaves it all on the floor, then that can be 20c for the left shoe, 20c for the right shoe, 20c per sock, 20c for the shirt, 20c for the shorts – that’s $1.20 just for the uniform! Watch out if she’s left her homework folder, school bag, lunchbox etc on the floor as well!

They only do it once.

And taxes don’t just apply to moving things. I have a ‘lights tax’ (for when they leave their bedroom light on) and also a ‘laundering clean clothes tax’ (this one is mainly for Miss10, I must admit). I’ve told her that if she lets her clean school shirt falls off the hanger and onto the floor of her wardrobe, and she then assumes that because it’s on the floor then it’s dirty, and she puts in the laundry ready to be washed again, then that’s fine. I’m happy to wash her perfectly clean shirt, and she needs to be happy to pay me $3 for the privilege. She’s been more careful since she tried that one!

It also applies to food. If my kids want to leave their sandwich crusts, they can. But they can also help me pay for the loaf of bread that they’re choosing to waste. 5 cents per crust is our going rate. And that way, it’s their choice. They can eat their food, or they can pay to leave it. It’s fair, and it cuts out arguments.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, ‘that’s tough’. Yes, possibly so. But my kids are learning that Mummy won’t always be there for them. They’re learning that stuff costs, and things have value.

So many kids today don’t understand that, I’ve noticed. My kids do.

And the way I see it, they’re going to have to learn it one day! May as well be now.

So anyway, that’s my tip #2.

And here’s hoping that you have a lovely rest-of-the-day, dear reader!

Yours,

KRidwyn

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family anecdotes Random thoughts Technology

Things I learned in BatteryWorld

As most of my readers would know by now, I’m a mum with three young children. And as the type of person who always thinks long-term – well, when my eldest was just a few months old, I decided to go down the “rechargeable battery” journey.
So I splurged on a good quality recharger and a number of packets of green ‘Varta’ batteries, AA and AAA size.
Fast forward several years, and I’m still buying packets of rechargeable batteries whenever I see them on special while grocery shopping. I use them for everything; and now that we’ve finally joined the ranks of being Wii owners, we’re using batteries more than ever! Which is fine.
I was pretty stoked last week. I scored not one but two packets of 4 AA batteries (silver cases, not the green ones which I prefer) for only $4 each! I was a little bummed though, that when I got home and tried charging them, they wouldn’t charge. Hence my trip to BatteryWorld this week. And this is what I learned:
Varta batteries are made in both Germany and Malaysia. BatteryWorld don’t stock them anymore, because they couldn’t get the German-made ones.
The AA batteries I had bought last week should have held about a 1.2 charge. They were holding a charge of around 0.6 – which is pretty crappy, really. No wonder they weren’t charging!
I told the guy at the counter that when I charged a newly bought, silver cased Varta battery with one of my older, green cased Varta ones, they’d charge. When I tried charging two of the silver ones together, they wouldn’t.
His advice:
– charge batteries that you buy together, together. Don’t mix and match battery charging; as in, don’t charge batteries that you bought at different times, together, because they’ll have been manufactured in different places with different metals. They’ll have different levels of charge.
– When you charge batteries, they’ll both only charge to the lowest level of charge. So if you charge a good battery with a dud one, the good battery will only be charged to the level of the dud one. You weaken the good battery; and it’s very very very difficult to get the charge up again.

I also bought a new brand of batteries, on his recommendation. Eneloop. Write it down. Because not only were they bright, sparkly and multi-coloured (yes, I’m writing this with my tongue in my cheek here) but their 8 pack of AA batteries also had the BEST packaging I’ve ever seen on batteries (and no, I’m not being silly now – as as marketer, I was impressed with how customer-friendly their product packaging was) but what had me over-the-top impressed was the 2 D-size batteries I also tried to buy.

Because I didn’t end up buying D batteries. Instead, I bought D cases. Which fit AA-sized batteries.

Yes – that’s right. How incredibly AMAZING is this idea! You buy a D sized case, and slot a AA battery inside! When it runs out, just click it out and put a new AA sized battery in. How AWESOME!!!!!

So. I’m sold. Just thought I’d let you know!

 

Have a great day, dear readers!!!

— Ceridwyn

Categories
family anecdotes teaching Work

Sleeping in

Hubby likes to sleep in. Fair enough – he has an extremely intense job, and he needs his recovery time.

I’m an early bird. I’ve never really enjoyed staying in bed when I could be up and doing stuff. (I go to bed late too, but that’s probably an insomnia thing…) I’m always up and about by 6. Often by 5.30 – and regularly, much earlier.

Our kids seem  to follow my ‘early rising’ habits, which Hubby doesn’t particularly appreciate. But it was funny, the conversation the other morning.

Hubby: “You slept in until after 6.30 this morning, [Miss 8]. Well done!”

Miss 8: “Yes, I’m learning. I like sleeping in! I try to sleep in until 7 o’clock on weekdays, but Mummy won’t let me!”

(It was at this point that I choked on my toast. I laughed, hard, for a long time. We have to leave for school before 7.30 if we’re going to get there on time – and getting them ready by 7.30 only happens when they all are out of bed by 6am.)

It was really a very very very funny moment!

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Bloxham Marketing More about me Random thoughts University studies Work

Realities

I’ve blogged before about my TV watching habits. Well, on the recommendation of @joeyroo1, I watched Grimm last week. And again last night (taped from Wednesday night, when I was busy trying to get my bomb-site of a kitchen in some semblance of order). So. Grimm. Not bad, I must admit. Pretty witty in places too, which I wasn’t expecting! A lot darker than I’m used to, but I like the premise. Hopefully the storyline will get a little deeper though – the three episodes I’ve watched to date (this week’s was a double episode) have been rather similar, and I can see it getting old rather quickly, if it remains this repetitive. Not when you compare it to “Once Upon a Time”, which also started last week and which has quickly become my all-time favourite TV show. The script-writing is clever – to drag the ‘Snow White’ story into a second season, it would need to be! But even this show, with the introduction of Mulan and Lancelot in the second series, is becoming rather predictably far-fetched. I mean – how many extra characters do you need to add in here?!!

Be that as it may, I was thinking about Grimm as I fell asleep last night. And something occurred to me. They mentioned that “Marie”, the protagonist’s Aunt and ‘mentor’ in the area of ‘fighting evil creatures’ was a Librarian. Which makes sense, in that she needed to research the huge variety of evil creatures, in order to know how to kill them; and then pass this wealth of knowledge onto her nephew. And so yes, research and keeper of information, seems to go hand in hand with the occupation of Librarian. So far, so good. But you add her moonlighting (haha) as a sword-weilding killer of evil fantasy creatures, and then her character becomes enviable. I mean – who *wouldn’t* want to be that kind of a secret hero? That’s what all the comic books told us when we were kids, right? That to be good, and fight evil, and protect the innocent who were unfortunate enough to not have any super-powers… that’s what we’re all brought up on, right? So here she is, a little old Librarian, all the more pitiable because she’s little, and (apparently) frail, because she’s dying of cancer and keeps slipping into and out of comas at the most inconvenient of times, so that her nephew who is new to all this killing werewolves etc has to turn to  a ‘good’ werewolf for help, and then she calls on super-human strength to wield swords, daggers etc and overpower people trying to kill her, and kill them instead. I mean – how cool is that?!!

And it occurred to me that I – me – am studying to be a Librarian. Yes, now that my Application for Advanced Standing was approved just a few weeks back, now I have just two courses and my 100 hours Prac to do, and I’ll be fully qualified to stand behind the desk in a Library and help people. By day. And maybe be a superhero by night.

Hopefully I won’t end up frail and weak, dying of cancer. Maybe I’ll be a Librarian like Superman’s mum was, or along the lines of Batgirl?! Or maybe I’ll just getthe qualification and keep on keeping on with Bloxham Marketing, and be a SuperHero marketer?!! Whatever happens, I guess, remains to be seen. Which do *you* think I should opt for?

Image credited to IMDb at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1830617/

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Bloxham Marketing Life Random thoughts Technology Work

Full to the brim

That’s how my life feels right now. It’s just so jam-packed… and I love it! Okay – I’m up again, on my computer, posting at 5.52 am, after settling Mr 3 at 2.48am and again at 3.52am, and then deciding to just stay up because I’ve got so much to do anyway…

So the weekend before last, Hubby and I spent Saturday together. No kids. (Yes, this is actually rare enough that it rates a mention. Sad, really…!) and we visited IKEA. We’ve been married almost 18 years, and only now am I learning that his dislike of ‘clutter’ means that he dislikes bookshelves. He prefers furniture with doors – cupboards, wardrobes, buffets, etc etc). Rather a revelation for a wife who loves books (yes, @jobeaz, the physical variety! I haven’t really warmed to the whole idea of eBooks yet!) and who has lots and lots… and lots of them.

Never mind; I’m adaptable. So I started planning how to ‘de-clutter’ (without spending too much money, of course!) and this meant that yesterday was furniture-moving day. I re-worked the girl’s bedroom (Miss 7 got the shock of her life when she got home from school!), Mr 3’s bedroom, our bedroom, the dining room, and have started on the lounge room. This Saturday will see two large pieces of lounge room furniture moved to my in-laws, to make room for the new TV/entertainment unit (not yet purchased, but it’ll be coming from IKEA) and the new lounge (again, not yet ordered, but this will be from Fantastic Furniture because I really like their ‘storage’ lounges) – oh, and the orientation of the furniture in the lounge will also change 90%. So it’ll be (eventually) like a whole new house. (And maybe that’s why it’s been over 15 years since I visited IKEA!)

So that was yesterday. On the work front, I discovered last night that a tweet I sent got retweeted by three people.
https://twitter.com/BloxhamMkting/status/224774127473541120
One of these accounts has over 19,000 followers! And a reply tweet I got form another of these people (in South Africa, by the way) said that she loved my link; and that her friends were currently sharing it around on Facebook. So how COOL is social media!!!

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#blogjune Life Random thoughts

Challenges

What is it about challenges that makes us want to rise to them? Is it the thoughts of bettering ourselves? Is it that we have a measurable amount of achievement? Or is it, in a more public challenge, that we have an audience to try to impress?
Whatever the reason, I wondered if everyone is like me, once the challenge is over. Case in point: #blogjune. Here, on this blog, I attempted to post an entry on every day in June. For the most part, I was successful in meeting this challenge. In addition to blogging daily, I also wanted to try and blog before 10am. I wasn’t always successful at this, however I was pretty proud at how many times I *did* manage to!

And overall, in the whole #blogjune challenge, I think I only missed one day. And seeing as I caught that day up, on the following day, and I also posted an extra one on the “100 books meme” that inspired me, I feel as though I achieved in this challenge far better than I had hoped for. Especially when you compare it to last year’s #blogjune challenge, where I missed  about a dozen days, and decided to try and catch them all up, right at the end of the month!
However… that was then, this is now. The blogging challenge finished last Saturday. And, in this public arena, it is now obvious that I haven’t posted on here since then. So, what is it about the ‘challenge’, that makes us want to rise to it? Why could I blog daily every day for 30 days, and yet as soon as the challenge finished, find myself too busy to continue the habit? It’s a bit sad, really. (And thanks for the nudge, @joeyroo1, for even getting this one posted!)

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#blog12daysxmas #blog5daysAustenese #blogjune Random thoughts

Getting older, getting wiser?

Today is the last day of June. Today I’m finishing this #blogjune challenge, where I’ve tried diligently to blog every day. This was my second attempt at #blogjune, and I’m proud to say that I was a lot more consistent this year!

So, according to my calendar, I am one year older. I wonder however, whether or not it’s possible to measure if I am one year wiser?!

I certainly had a lot of new experiences this year. Since my last #blogjune, I have (in chronological-ish order):
– Studied an elective outside the LIS sphere. I didn’t like it.
– Added six new clients to my new “Bloxham Marketing” business.
– Started, and finished, gymnastics lessons for Miss 7.
– Started, and have continued with, swimming lessons for Miss 7.
– Used the #blog12daysxmas challenge to start blogging regularly again.
– Read so many Jane Austen novels that I initiated the #blog5daysAustenese challenge… and had four brave fellow bloggers join me in the journey!
– Presented a 3 hour digital marketing presentation live on LEQ TV.
– Plucked up enough courage to see if Mr 3 was autistic.
– Had my daughter’s eyes tested, and sure enough Miss 7 now wears glasses for reading.
– Supported a good friend who was doctoring in New Guinea. We’d meet each other daily, online, and hold each other accountable in our Christian walks.

– Scored a HD in INN530 Online Information Services, courtesy of the truly wonderful @katiedatwork (still can’t believe that one. SOOOOOOOOOO majorly STOKED!!!!!!)

So… older? Yes. That bit’s inevitable. Wiser? I’m not so sure. I certainly hope so, though! And here ends the #blogjune challenge for another year. I wonder what will happen between this one and the 2013 version? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

Thanks for sharing this journey with me, dear readers. Your support is far more of an encouragement than you could ever know. You guys rock!!!

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#blogjune More about me

cruisy…

So for my day 17 #blogjune last night, I posted a question. Thanks for the responses! Yes, it was tricky without context – I had deliberately given none, so as to not bias your answers. But here ’tis…

A couple of nights ago, Hubby and I were talking about our children, and their emerging personalities. I mentioned that Miss 4 was cruisy (in comparison to Miss 7 and Mr 3) and that she took after him. I think he got a little offended at my summation of his character, as he immediately retorted, “Cruisy?!! I’m not cruisy!!!”

I explained further. “In comparison to me, I mean. Compared to me, you’re cruisy.”

“Compared to you, Ceridwyn, Road Runner is cruisy!” was his immediate reply. At which I laughed uncontrollably, because although I knew that I was a pretty intense person when it came to doing stuff – a lot of stuff – in a short amount of time (hey – I’ve only got one life; I want to cram in as much as possible and live it to its fullest!) I didn’t think that I was so full-on that I made Road Runner look crusiy!

So, yes, my immediate thought was ‘hey – that’s cool! Yeh, I like that; that’s a pretty apt description of me!”

However… I’ve since related the story to some IRL friends. And they agreed with him; but unlike me, they weren’t laughing uncontrollably when they heard it. And that made me realise that Hubby hadn’t either. And that made me ask him, “Did you mean that as a compliment? Or was it actually an insult? Or an indictment on me?” His answer, “Ceridwyn, you over-think things!” wasn’t entirely satisfactory, and what was worse was knowing that it’d probably be the last answer I’d get from him on the topic. Hence my question to you all yesterday.

My IRL friends, although agreeing with Hubby, had not necessarily thought of it as a compliment – but rather, took it as a warning that I should probably stop “burning the candle at both ends”. Online responses tended to lean towards the ‘Yep; it’s a compliment”. I think I’d prefer to side with the latter. LOL!

So anyway, that’s my take on it. I’m an intense person who travels through her life at a million miles an hour. And that can be a good thing – but I need to remember than others choose to not do this, and that’s okay. Which is REALLY important to remember when I’m travelling through life with an autistic Mr 3!

CC Image courtesy mark_gilmour at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_gilmour/5473967864/

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#blogjune

Viewpoints – part 2

My post yesterday was about how Mr 3, my autistic son, sees the world differently. I shared a few examples – making a seesaw out of train tracks, playing both controls of a two-player playstation game, because his big sister was at school, and using the ‘word’ instead of the ‘picture’ to match cards in a Speech Therapy ‘game’.

I had a bit of response to this post – I apparently was nominated for ‘The Sunshine Award‘ (not that I know how this all works! But I’m extremely flattered, nonetheless! Thanks, butimbeautiful!); and on twitter I caused @jobeaz to *sniff* at what she thought was a ‘beautiful post’ and @gigglesigh to make the comment ‘different minds open your eyes to new things… new experiences’.

Her tweet made me stop and think. Yes, that’s so true. And I replied to this effect, hinting that I hadn’t always felt this way.

And then I thought that I’d like to explore this idea further in a blog post. So here ’tis.

I have always been a perfectionist. I’m smart, okay. Smart enough to realise that that last sentence sounds remarkably conceited, and I’ve just lost all but maybe two of my readers. But I’ll continue anyway, because I want to nut this out in my own head, and sometimes that’s easiest when I’m typing. So anyway…

Yes, I’m a perfectionist. I’m bossy. I know that I can get things done, and they’ll probably get done pretty well – if they get done *my* way. And Ghylene’s tweet made me realise that, you know what? I’m actually not entirely comfortable with “new things… new experiences”. I want things to be the best they can be, because I’m a perfectionist, and for that to happen, I need to be in control of it. Yes, I’m probably one of the biggest control freaks that you have ever met. Yes, I like ‘new things… new experiences’… but only on *my* terms.

So to *suddenly* (haha) have an autistic son has really thrown my world out-of-kilter. Suddenly I’m not in control – and, worse still, I’m aware of this fact. Suddenly I have a little body in my life who does things unexpectedly; and although the things that he does may often be those that society deems as ‘not appropriate’ (i.e. banshee screams accompanying tantrums where he loses any semblance of self-control) – reacting to these things as I would react to any other ‘normal’ child, by assuming that they are engaging in intentional misbehaviour, is also wrong. Because his reactions, although these may be ‘abnormal’ by   my / our / society’s standards? These reactions *are* normal for him. And that has been a difficult adjustment for my 37 year old brain to make.

A few months ago, when Mr 3 was officially diagnosed and I was on the biggest emotional roller coaster I’d ever been on, I was overwhelmed with the support I received from many, many, many, online friends. One such, sent me a link to a blog post written by another mum whose son had recently been diagnosed with autism. She wrote about how her life had substantially changed, overnight, without warning. She described it as planning a holiday to one country, (I think it was Greece?) but had ended up in another (Italy? from memory…). And how it took a huge amount of adjustment, but then she was able to reflect on the beauty that lay in the new path she’d found herself on.

I think that slowly, I’m starting to appreciate some aspects of my new path. It’s taking a while. I cry – like when Miss 7 identifies a storybook character as autistic – from the very first page – and she’s right (Wrong Way, a book about three duckings and their mother who tries to cope) – like when Mr 3 finally says ‘Bye, bye, Mummy”, in context, and gets it sounding almost recognisable, and I realise that he is just so darn far behind his peers because he’s almost 3 1/2 and children who’ve just turned 2 can speak more intelligibly – like right now, when I’m writing, thinking of my beautiful little boy and how I love him so much and want to protect him from all the crap that life can dish out…

Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. I’m a perfectionist, and a control freak, and I need to change all that. Hopefully,  prayerfully, day by day, I am…