I’m getting ideas for new furniture in my library. A colleague has these, and they’re comfier than they look! What do you think?
Hubby also finally collected his new car – 3 weeks after he was expecting to! I think he likes it – and the doggos in the back are pretty darn cute too!
And with my brother in the country, it was family pic day today.
Yes, Kiya is one of the family!
Have an amazing, photo-worthy week yourself, dear Reader!
KRidwyn
I’m getting idea for new furniture in my library. A colleague has these, and they’re comfier than they look! What do you think?
Hubby also finally collected his new car – 3 weeks after he was expecting to! I think he likes it – and the doggos in the back are pretty darn cute too!
And with my brother in the country, it was family pic day today.
Yes, Kiya is one of the family!
Have an amazing, photo-worthy week yourself, dear Reader!
KRidwyn
For many years now, there’s been a small area in my backyard lawn which has grown a really cool plant. When you touch its dark green leaves, they curl up so you can see the purple undersides. How amazing is that! I have memories of my Mum showing it to my middle child when she was still in single digits (she’s the one who just graduated high school last year) and the two of them were leaning over it, heads bent together, stretching out their hands and gently stroking its leaves to watch it react.
Fast forward to a few evenings ago. I was walking barefoot across my lawn, playing with Kiya. Something I do extremely rarely, as there’s generally lots of twigs, leaves, and of course, the risk of snakes. But the lawn looked so inviting, and the grass so green and soft.
Until it wasn’t. Two steps was all it took before I was yelling in surprise and trying to work out how I’d stood on several bindiis in each foot when it’s not even bindii season.
Huh. That shy little plant, which curls its leaves when touched, has a MUCH darker side.
In fact, I’d venture the suggestion that it doesn’t so much curl its leaves because it’s shy, but removes its pretty face to expose its thorns! Because YOW!!! They hurt!!!
And to think that all of my dogs, year in year out, have been running across this foot-stabber, and I’d never known because I’d always worn boots!
So down I went. The several thorn wounds in each foot were throbbing, and I wasn’t careful enough getting them out and managed to prick my left thumb as well. But by the time I was thorn-free, I was also determined. No longer would this cute looking plant live in my garden. I was going to rip it out, then and there.
Easier said than done though. I often garden without gloves, and I didn’t want to waste a minute, so I started pulling at the first long stem I could find (imagine a clover plant structure… a little like a snowflake where the stems run along the ground and smaller stems branch out from there.) Now imagine that there are two thorns which jut out from the stem, approximately one centimetre apart. EVERY SINGLE centimetre!
Seriously! The only place this thing does NOT have thorns is on its roots!
But I was determined. By the time it was too dark to see, I’d pulled by about a third of the patch. By hand! I was quite proud.
In the kitchen that evening, I was relating the story to my middle child when she said, “do you mean the mimosa?”
I replied with, “I don’t know?!” as I’d never been told the name of the plant. Then, when I showed her how purple my left thumb had turned, and the cuts from thorn-skewering on my right hand, and mentioned that I could still feel the holes in my feet throbbing, she said, “I wonder if it’s poisonous?”
Huh. Turns out it is.
My feet holes were still a little ‘twingy’ the following morning, but my left thumb and thumb / index / middle finger of my right hand? Very noticeable the next day. Left thumb still purple! And when I went to get some more Mimosa out (using gloves this time, you’d be glad to hear) I had to stop because I COULDN’T GRIP AND TWIST WITH MY RIGHT HAND!!! The joints in both knuckles of my index finger would NOT move the way they needed to! Crazy or what?
They’ve calmed down now. Mostly. It’s three days later and all except the top joint on my index finger are back to normal. And that joint will hopefully regain its flexibility soon. But I now have a VERY healthy respect for that Mimosa’s defence mechanisms!
I told my mum the story yesterday. She laughed quite a bit. “Didn’t you know it had thorns?” she asked.
Well, no. I wouldn’t have let it remain alive in my backyard if I’d known!
I made the observation that she seemed to have known. “Of course!” she replied. “We used to have to weed it before and after school, back in the village,” she finished (she grew up in Malaya in the 1940s).
Huh. If only someone had told me.
So: lesson learned. Sometimes pretty things hide a defence system that is so overwhelmingly powerful it can take out your right hand for several days! Who knew?
Have a great week of learning yourself, dear Reader!
It sounds like the start of a riddle, doesn’t it? “What do dogs and libraries have in common?” And I must admit to not being witty enough to solve this one, sorry… my blogpost title just refers to these as the two main themes of this last week’s photos!
You see, my girl Kiya turned 2 on Wednesday. This was her on the beach the day before:
And then on her birthday itself (photo taken by Miss17, on whose birthday Kiya was born!) Check out that tongue and the ear curled back 🙂
It was also the week that I started, officially, back at school. New year, new job – Head of Library at Nambour Christian College! So I’ve been thinking all things ‘library’ this week, as I’m out and about, both online and IRL. Proof from my camera roll:
I’ve been back on Pinterest and saving inspirational pins like this:
And from Facebook, an idea that will mean I can keep a ‘live’ plant in my office without potentially killing it:
And for the library floor itself, check out these plants I saw when in Cooroy Pharmacy on Monday afternoon. Don’t you think they’d look good spread out around the library floor, near shelving or book displays?
Anyway, that’s been my week. And today it’s Bloxham Birthday Party day, to celebrate Hubby and both daughters… it’s our eldest’s last day of being a teenager today… now is that a milestone or what!
Have a wonderful week, dear Reader 🙂
KRidwyn
So this week’s been a pretty huge one. Miss 16 is no longer a school student, and my Dad’s dementia is moving apace. So I’ve been – in amomgst the emotional rollercoaster – reflecting on ‘what is sucess’ and ‘what is worth’ in equal measure.
Who defines success? Are the kids who walk across the stage to receive Speech Night awards any more ‘worthy’ than those who remain seated and applaud them?
And is the elderly person who remembers past events better than recent ones, less ‘worth’ spending time with than one with whom you can share your news with, and never need to repeat it?
I have no answers, just questions.
I’m glad the God I believe in knows, though! And I’m glad it’s a Sunday today, so I get to go be with others who worship Him too, and can help me out a little more in this crazy thing called ‘life’ 🙂
Have a happy Sunday yourself, dear Reader!
The last time I holidayed with Hubby and all three of my children was pre-Covid. September 2019. My eldest was in Year 9; she’s now just 3 months away from turning 20.
But a family holiday on K’gari is what we’ve all just enjoyed over this past week. And it was amazing! The memories. Seeing my Miss19 repeating “I remember this” and “This has changed so much”… and now sharing the driving load! Wild.
Leaving Kiya at Mum’s though… that was hard. She didn’t look happy to see us drive off 🙁
And it was pretty great to be able to catch up on some reading. I particularly liked this little gem of wisdom:
The bit about tortuous Latin lessons showing how questions anticipate answers: one way to ask anticipates a ‘yes’ and the other anticipates a ‘no’. This was quite interesting, I thought! (The book less so, all things being equal…)
Well, that’s it from me for the week. I hope it was a wonderful one for you as well, dear Reader!
It’s been a doozy of a week. So this resonated with me a lot:
As did this:
Self-care is important, people!
Please, be kind to yourself today and this week, okay?
– KRidwyn
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 occurred 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
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!
“Second star to the right then straight on til morning”
These instructions, given by Peter Pan to Wendy Darling, are the directions to Neverland. And my Miss16 was given the challenge of animating them. “What would be seen by the children (Peter, Wendy and her younger brothers, Michael and John) as – with the help of Tinkerbell the fairy, of course – they fly there from London?”
And this was what she created. By herself, by hand. No AI here, folks!
Enjoy 🙂
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– KRidwyn
Yesterday was a red letter day. I finally succeeeded at something I’d been unable to do: finish dessert at The Pancake Manor.
Eating there is a pleasure I share with my Mum. Not sure why, but whenever we’re in Brisbane for the day we make a point of eating a meal there. And although I ensure my stomach is growling prior to entry, I’d never yet made it through a meal AND dessert due to the huge meal sizes.
So yesterday, Brisbane bound with Miss16, the challenge again was to consume the entire dessert. And we did it!
(Admittedly, we shared one dessert between us, and both of us were wise enough to only order the ‘entree’ sized meal… but we did it!)
And it was DELICIOUS!!! and so decadent 🙂 🙂 🙂
In case you’re intereseted, I had the Chicken crepe (chicken and mushroom filling on a bed of mashed potatoes) and Mum the seafood crepe, and our dessert was the Macadamia Madness. And even now, writing about it, I can feel my tastebuds watering behind the smile playing around my lips.
It was truly a memorable day!
Here’s hoping yours is as well, dear Reader 🙂
[Also, sorry for the shocking photo quality. But we all know how badly I take photos…]