Tag: Children

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Blogging challenges Life teaching Technology Work

#28/52 On the return to Term 3

Phew! What a week it’s been!

Yesterday morning, I drove Kiya, with Mum and her dog Trav, down to Brisbane for an appointment. It occured to me that last Saturday morning (7 days earlier) I had also collected Mum… but instead, to go car shopping. We’d visited a quite rusty Suzuki Jimny, locally, before heading down to Brisbane to look at a 2020 version – 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 (that’s right, I have a 0.9FTE teaching job as well)
  • the collection of Mum’s car on Wednesday
  • Miss 16’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, I’m playing violin at church, then spending the afternoon with my parents and godfathers who are visiting from NZ.

Phew! again…

Hope it’s been a productive week for you, too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
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#blogjune

#BlogJune Day 21

Today’s been big. Master15 had his Athletics Carnival, necessitating a 90 minute drive each way, and now I’m waiting outside a fitting room in one of our local shopping centres while Miss16 finds clothing suitable for a week of ‘Uni experience’ next week. We’re going to start the ‘formal wear’ hunt today too, I think.

Phew! Bring on the weekend, I say!

Hope you’re having a great end-of-week too, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

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Random thoughts

19/52 On colour theory

Take the colour blue. Then add the colours black and white. (Yes, yes, okay. The ‘shades’ black and white. I know.)

Now use them to make the colour red.

Impossible? Nope. Not according to colour theory.

If you’d asked me 3 years ago what ‘colour theory’ was I would have looked at you blankly. I’d never heard of such a thing.

Enter Miss now-16 and her older sister, both dedicated artists for these same three years (well, longer, actually).

And now I know – well, to be honest, I still can’t define ‘colour theory’ exactly… but I know – it exists because it’s the reason why blue and black and white can make red.

So this image in my Facebook feed, although super-cool, is no longer the ‘what? how?! that’s not possible’ reaction that it used to be.

Screenshot

(If you zoom in, you’ll realise that there’s no ‘red’ in this picture. There’s only blue, black, and white. Crazy, hey?!)

Apparently it has to do with the way the brain perceives colours. Place black beside blue, then contrast it with white beside blue, and HEY PRESTO! Red!

Phenomenally cool.

And even more awesome is that my daughters are still happy to teach me stuff 🙂

Have a family-filled week yourself, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
family anecdotes

18/52 Thoughts on parenting and creativity

It’s been a week. Hard to really get a grasp on just how much has happened in the past 7 days, however as I said to a friend just yesterday: priorities. Get these right, then everything else falls into place.

When I consider my own responsibilities, my first priority is to my three kidlets. (Hence the ‘parenting’ in the title, btw). They didn’t choose to be born, so I’ll try my darnedest to ensure they have the best life I can give them. Now absolutely, there’s times – many, many, MANY times – when we don’t see eye to eye, but again, I’m the parent and I need to shoulder what needs to be shouldered to ensure that our relationships are as good as they can be.

The way I see it, that means taking an interest. Miss19 in our roadtrip last year wanted to talk ‘The Owl House‘ for 12 hours straight? Sign me up. She convinced me to watch it and was so glad to be able to share her passion with me. And really, who could pass up a conversation about King that cute little Titan?!

Then ‘The Owl House’ finished and interest morphed into ‘Arcane‘ and – via Schnee – Studio Ghibli.

Recently, it’s become ‘Purple Hyacinth‘ with Miss16 – check out this artwork! –

 

and (of course) Fortnite with Master15.

I regret nothing. For realz. Both my daughters want to work in the Art sphere – you know, the one being taken over by AI? – but I don’t care. I’m going to support them and their choices and their decisions no matter what. Because I’m their Mum. And because this post I shared on Fb the other day is *really* how I feel:

Screenshot

Have a great week, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
family anecdotes teaching Work

3/52 Final day before the chaos

Yes, that’s right. The 2024 school year starts back tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful holiday… not the least of it due to family gaming time.

Decades ago now, Hubby was an addicted gamer, to the extent that I was a ‘computer widow’. Since I couldn’t beat him, I joined him, and once multiplayer games became a thing (yes, I did mention ‘decades’, didn’t I) we had some pretty amazing sessions, some of which bordered on the truly epic.

Fast forward to sometime in 2021, I introduced our son to Caesar II and the Age of Empires franchise. Fast forward again to the 2023 / 2024 summer holidays: we had our own Mum-Dad-two-teenagers slaughterfest on AoEIV (Anniversary Edition) where it was me getting slaughtered, Hubby barely hanging on, and our daughter (who’d only just started playing two days earlier) just narrowly being beaten by our reigning champion son. Hours and hours and hours of fun was had! And humbling experiences too, I must admit, for me, as well as Hubby…

Seeing my little computer villagers building castles got me inspired to also spend some time re-reading one of my favourite trilogies: The Heaven Tree series, written by Edith Pargeter (who also wrote as Ellis Peters, of the Bather Cadfael series). The protagonist is a master mason who dedicates his life (literally… he gets killed as soon as its done) to building of a castle on the English border with Wales. It’s a magnificent story, and the writing style is sublime 🙂

And then, to bring it all ‘into the real world’ as it were, this showed up in my Facebook feed:

What a simply stunning piece of architecture! Isn’t it inspiring that someone had the courage to design such magnificence – let alone the bravery of the people who built it (and maybe even, who lived there!)

Anyway, I just wanted to share these thoughts with you, some reflection time, just prior to heading into the chaos of this school year.

Happy first week back of school, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Life More about me Random thoughts teaching

On ‘schooling’

So my two school-aged kids are at the same school again, for the first time since June 2021. It’s Brisbane School of Distance Education, and they’ve completed the first week of Term 4.

And so far, it seems to be going well! Miss15 started last term, so it wasn’t ‘all new’ for her, but my taller-than-me-now Master14 has been at it for a week… and he seems to be tracking okay 🙂

Such a relief. This parenting gig is harder than it first looks… and wow but that pregnancy bit does NOT look comfortable!

I’m always second-guessing myself. Should I “let” Miss18 have a gap semester or a gap year – or just figure it out for herself? Will the benefits of Distance Education outweigh the issues for the other two, or have I just made yet another foolish decision? Will they be able to support Master14 with his autism, more effectively than at a regular school? After all – that’s why I’ve moved him…?

And when on earth does it all get easier?

Still. BSDE schooling *seems* to be going okay, at this moment in time, so here’s hoping that this will continue… Wish me all the best, dear Reader!

Til we meet again 🙂

  • KRidwyn
Categories
my novel-in-progress Reading Work Writing

Happy New Year!

Yes, I know, it’s been 7 days already. But hey; I’ve been having a good holiday, okay?

Speaking of holidays, it’s been more of a ‘hiatus’ from this blog, hasn’t it (insert sheepish expression here). What a lovely word that is too, by the way. According to my Apple dictionary:

Hiatus, as in a ‘physical gap’, or ‘to gape’. Well, there certainly is a gaping hole in the timeline of posts on this blog! But as much as I’d like there not to be, I can’t change the past, so here’s hoping 2023 fares better for blogposts. Once a month even, perhaps?

Looking ahead, I’m also looking forward to querying again, probably around mid-March. It’s been years since dipping my toes in the querying waters, so I’m apprehensive. Well… downright terrified, truth be told. But now I’ve posted this – even if only on a sporadic blog such as this! – my brain is telling me it’s a commitment I’ll be unwilling to break. I hope…

On the reading front, I’ve challenged myself to anther 104 books this year. I absolutely LOVE that Goodreads has their ‘Reading Challenge’ function, where I can track my reading year by year. I recorded just over 110 in 2022, which I was pretty happy with. In 2023, I’m planning on the majority of those being YA, followed by MG and a smattering of adult and also non-fiction in there. Not only because those are my faves, in order, but also that’s where I’m at with the Library collection I’m trying to forge my way through at work. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned how BRILLIANT my job is, yes? Teacher Librarian for a K – 12 private school, where I get to spend the school’s money on books I know the kids will love? What can be better than that? (Well, writing full time perhaps, but that’s a scary thought right there…)

Anyway, here’s hoping all this reading I’ll be doing will help the writing some. And between the writing, the reading and the job, plus a newly-graduated daughter to help negotiate the big wide world of work and university, and two younger children completing Year 11 and Year 9 in 2023… this year’s ending will probably come around quicker than even I’m expecting! I wonder what my life will look like by then?

Well, that’s it from me, dear Reader. Have a great January and “see” you in a month!

– KRidwyn

Categories
family anecdotes

Gym buddies…

Hubby started gym first, several years ago now. Initially, it was a ‘lose weight’ thing – but then the endorphins kicked in and he quickly transformed into a gym junkie.

It took a couple of years listening to his convincing and cajoling for me to try it before I joined too… but for me, it was the early-morning kid-free time that I got hooked on. I took time off when redundancy meant uncertainty, July 2019 – but then rejoined several weeks ago when I was blessed with permanent work again.

And now Master almost-12 has joined me. He’s done three sessions now, and is happy to continue. In spite of the 4.45am leaving home time! So that’s pretty impressive.

Not only that, but Miss15 is clamouring to go, and Miss almost-13 is making some noises along a similar vein too. Sigh for the loss of kid-free time… but as they’re quickly getting older, I’m going to enjoy these last few years while I still have them.

So I collected two more membership application forms this morning, and the gym owner mentioned setting aside an hour for just my family on a daily basis! I’m pretty sure he was joking…

Anyway, we’ll see how that all pans out. Have a energetic day yourself, dear Reader 🙂

– KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune teaching Work

#blogJune day9

The first 5 weeks of this current school term was hard – but what I love about my workplace is that everyone pulls together. As in, Day 2 of ‘online learning’ we received a special delivery of hand-made and hand-decorated cookies made by the children of a school family.

And the school contributed $5 per person for whatever they wanted from a coffee/food van they organised to have on-site on a weekly basis…

Just fantastic!

But it was good when the students returned. I missed them!

I hope your day is a surprising one too, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
family anecdotes

45 / 52

Remember that ‘snake toy’ made by the people who brought us the Rubik’s cube? Well, Mr10 found his old one when cleaning his bedroom a few weeks ago.

Intrigued by the shapes he was creating, Miss11 grabbed my old black-and-white (1980s vintage) one and had a go herself. As the only leftie in our house, it always gives me great pleasure to watch her figuring out the ‘backwards’ way to do things!

Have a discovery-full week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn