Happiness is…

I am so truly, incredibly, utterly blessed. I’ve scored a job working in the same school where my daughters go. I get to teach them both Music. I get to look through the windows of their classrooms as I walk around the school. I get to see them at break times, while they’re eating; while they’re playing with their friends. I get to liaise with their teachers about the day-to-day things. And they get to see me as a teacher, which in some respects is a more confortable skin for me than the ‘mother’ skin is.

It’s pretty darn cool, let me tell you!!!

Hump day happenings

So yesterday was Wednesday. Hump day. The day of the inaugural ‘HumpDay Happenings’ with the awesome Jenny Venier, over at BloxhamMarketing.com

Why not head over and check it out?!!!

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/

You know you love your job when…

Yesterday, Hubby commented that, “What if we had won Gold Lotto on Saturday? We wouldn’t have to go back to work this week.” He then added, that we could just laze around at home, go to the beach, going shopping, or do whatever we wanted to.

It made me stop and think for a minute . And then I realised something awesome. That even if I *had* won Gold Lotto, that I still would spend my time doing exactly what I’m doing right now. That I, strangely enough, I *want* to work at my job. Because I love my job. No, really. I truly am, in love with, my job!

Yes, I realise just how wacky that sounds. I mean, who would *want* to work, if they didn’t have to?!!

But I love it. The infinite variety. The challenge, after challenge, after challenge. The exhilaration of doing an excellent job, and having that job appreciated by those who know how hard it was. The conviction of knowing that I am doing something that few others do. And that I love it. And that my clients pay me for it.

Wow. That understanding is so liberating!

That’s said, it’s a huge responsibility as well. When I stuff up, the only person to blame is the person who looks back at me from the mirror. And that can be humiliating. That’s a failure is a part of life, and one which I hope I learn from. Only time will tell, I guess!

CC image courtesy 401K at http://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355347769/

The calm before the storm…

Today is the *last* day of the working week. Ha! I can’t recall when the last weekend that I didn’t work. Months ago? Years, more like.  I think, prior to conceiving the idea for GoodOldTalk.com – back when Mr 3 was 9 weeks old – I had some weekends where I wasn’t in front of the computer screen. I would have been busy with young children though. Is that just work of a different kind? Anyway, straying off topic here…

I love my job. Which is why I don’t keep regular hours. I often send emails between the hours of 9pm and midnight, or will blog in the early hours of the morning (I’m currently writing this at 3.54am) because that’s when it’s quiet and I can get stuff done. And if a kid wakes me in the middle of the night, as Mr 3 did just an hour or so ago, I’ll generally just stay up and work. And that’s okay with me. Truly. Being self-employed, if I don’t put in the hours and get the work done, I’ll lose my client’s respect – and then their business. Which is not good. So I work, and am happy to do so.

When it gets tricky though, is managing when I’m offered relief teaching. Since teaching means good money, and we need that, I only pass up these opportunities when I’m ill, or one of my children is. So missing a good 8 working hours out of a day while I teach means that I inevitably have to catch up that time elsewhere. And that’s where my organisation, of necessity, goes into overdrive.

Take next week, for example. I’ll be the St Paul’s Prep C teacher Monday through Thursday. I’ve also organised a branding photo event next Monday for the school – so the brilliant Greg Parsons will be shooting some additions to the St Paul’s library of branding photos. And normally I would assist in this event – but I can’t, because I’ll be in the classroom. I’ll also be in the classroom on Tuesday when I would normally be updating websites, on Wednesday during my Skype appointment with Hervey Bay, and on Thursday when I’d be interviewing sources for my weekly news stories that I submit on Fridays. See my problem? I need to re-schedule all my marketing activities for non-school hours… and not forget my mum / wife duties too (swimming lessons, shopping, cooking, washing clothes, helping with homework etc etc etc).

Sometimes life can be tricky to sort out. Lucky I’ve got this weekend to prepare it all! (Oh – and I apologise in advance. I doubt very much that I’ll be posting anything over the next several days!)

CC Image courtesy CC Chapman at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/480188435/

 

Code? What code?!

If you’re a regular reader of hmmm… you may remember I’ve written before about GoodOldTalk.com – a social network for Seniors – that I launched back in August 2009. I still run it, with my mum. We were fortunate enough to obtain the services of the brilliant Sean Bannister and Mindy Chaplin to create the site for us, and at their recommendation, used the Drupal content management system. All well and good – since its inception, I’ve grown familiar with how to run the administration of it all.

Fast-forward to July of 2010, and witness my entrance to the world of post-grad studies. A Masters in IT, majoring in Library and Information Science, to be precise. And one of the main pieces of assessment for one of my first units? Keep a WordPress blog. Happy to! Since GoodOldTalk. I’d kinda become familiar with blog-keeping. WordPress was unfamiliar, but the concepts were easily transferrable. And by the end of the unit, I could see enough value in the idea of a personal blog that I didn’t need too much convincing when @fionawb issued a #blog12daysxmas challenge – and that became the impetus for starting hmmm…

Fast-forward again, this time to February of 2011. Jobless, I pitch the Principal of St Paul’s Lutheran, Caboolture, to pay me to run his marketing. He agrees, and suddenly I’m a self-employed marketing consultant. With administrative rights to the St Paul’s website. Which is based on Joomla! (If I had my way, there would be no exclamation mark at the end of that sentence…!) Again, the skills are transferrable. Which was good. Adding St James Lutheran, Hervey Bay, as a client in September of that year – and Caloundra Christian College just two weeks ago – both of whom have websites based on Joomla! – is also rather helpful, as it has meant that I’m not being pushed too far out of my comfort zone.

But what I love about this Masters I’m studying is that it really challenges me. As in, REALLY challenges me. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve received 7’s and 6’s (that marketing elective I did, Sem II last year, I’m counting as a major aberration. I was seriously NOT happy with the outcome of swapping across to the Business faculty for that elective!!!) – and  I’m also pretty chuffed that because I was among QUT’s top 15% of students, I was invited to become a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. I know I’ve worked my butt off, and (with the exception of one assignment to date) I’ve immensely proud of the work I’ve submitted.

But I’m nervous about this semester. On the suggestion (demand?! ultimatum?!) of Hubby, I’m only studying one unit. INN530, with @katiedatwork. Which I’m pretty excited about… but… one of the 50% assignments is a coding one. In HTML5 – with maybe a bit of CSS thrown in for good measure. And I’m scared. I’ve skimmed the Wikipedia entries on both topics, and I’ve gone ahead and checked out an online tutorial on HTML5 coding, and I’m feeling WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my depth. Really. And truly, And very, very, very scarily!!!

So… wish me luck! This semester’s going to be a biggie!!!

CC Image courtesy Jesper Rønn-Jensen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesper/355128797/

Flattened.

Squashed. Like a bug that’s been steamrolled. That’s how I’m feeling after this week. I mean, I knew it was going to be a biggie, going into it, but didn’t really expect to be feeling like this at its conclusion…

Monday was work day. Head down, bum up, get-a-heap-of-things-done day, because the rest of the week would be drive-around-like-crazy day. It didn’t help that I had negative-gig left in my data quota due to a mix-up with Telstra this time last month. But, I had to get it done, so done it got.

Tuesday morning I spent at St Paul’s, getting stuff done on campus – stuff which would have been nigh-on impossible to do remotely, then it was pick-up-the-kids-from-care-and-drive-up-to-Minyama for my last (sob) Speech Therapy session with Suzanne at Sunshine Coast Speech Therapists. Lovely lady. Truly lovely. And even though that nodule on my right vocal cord isn’t gone yet, at least now I have some techniques to speak properly without exacerbating it – and hopefully it will go over time. Then I taught that evening.

Wednesday morning was meant to be playgroup-before-podiatirist, but Miss 4 and Mr 2 weren’t going to cope too well with that, so we ended up just visiting our neighbour in the morning, then heading out to collect Miss 7 early form school and driving down to Brisbane for her Podiatry appointment, then driving back to Caboolture for her swimming lesson, before driving to Morayfield for a *fun* time grocery shopping, then finally back up the Coast to home.

Thursday was diagnosis day. Miss 4 got dropped off at my mum’s at Currimundi while Mr 2 came to Nambour (Selangor Hospital) with me. Autism diagnosis confirmed, he then spent the afternoon back at my mum’s villa while I visited Tullawong Primary College, Medicare, the Family Assisstance Office, CentreLink, and finally Telstra (Yay! Got the internet working on my iPhone again!) before collecting the kids and heading home exhausted…

And Friday, I relief taught a very full-on Prep class. And Miss 4 managed to lose one sandal at care. One half of her favourite (and only!) pair of sandals. And Hubby fell victim to an unfortunate accident – our HUGE German Shepherd pup tripped him up badly in their morning run – which not only meant that a) he spent the majority of the day visiting doctors (X-ray of right wrist revealed just tissue damage thank God!) and dentists (teeth shaken about and chipped, but little other damage) and b) being laughed at because he’s limping and looks a sight – and his dog did it to him, but also that he’s completely out of action when it comes to helping with the kids because they don’t understand that they can’t jump on him anymore – plus he has zero use of his right hand / wrist anyway.

And Saturday morning was family-time. Half-great; half-tragic. I guess it’s no wonder that I spent most of Saturday afternoon yawning, if not dozing / less-than-conscious. Which is why I’m blogging now, at 3.07am Sunday morning. Nuff said?!

Phew! And it looks as though this coming week will be almost as full on…!!!

From the archives… my thoughts on ‘folksonomies’

Again, another interesting piece from my first-ever blog…

Is ‘the author’ a dying breed? Just one of the disadvantages of folksonomies.

BY CERIDWYN, ON AUGUST 13TH, 2010

Imagine you’ve just spent the last few years of your life writing a novel. You’ve researched it; poured out your thoughts, ideas, and plans; agonised over characters, settings and  plot devices. Finally, after countless hours of Herculean effort, it’s finished. YOUR work. YOUR  effort. YOUR blood, sweat, and tears.

Should you have the right to feel some sort of ownership of that novel? Or those words? Phrases? Characters? Ideas? In my opinion, I yell out a resounding ‘YES!!’ (Of course I would, I’m an aspiring novelist.) However, there are many that wouldn’t.

Put a photo on flickr, and anyone can ‘tag’ it. Okay, that’s normal practice. Maybe, if the photographer hadn’t wanted their photo tagged, they shouldn’t have put it there. But they did, so they should accept the ‘standard practice’ on these types of sites. But what then, when it comes to something other than a photo? When it comes to something like that novel you’ve worked just so darn hard to create? Is it then fair that others can ‘tag’ this? Your work? I guess it’s all well and good if the tags are suitably reflective of the main ideas espoused: ‘historical novel’; ‘character-based’ etc etc. But what if it gets tagged ‘a piece of crap’?! How would you then feel? Because this is indeed a possibility – once ‘out there’, on the net, you have relinquished all control over your work. Completely. It’s enough to make you, the author, want to quit.

And another disadvantage? Finding your novel again! Say this piece of work that you had sweated over was ‘Les Miserables’ (which makes you, of course, Victor Hugo). Say hundreds of years have passed; hard copies of your novel have fallen into disrepair or worse. The only copies that exist, dwell in whatever the future’s version of ‘online’ is. But unfortunately, they’re impossible to find, because everyone has ‘tagged’ your work with classifications that are personal to them.

This system called ‘folksonomy’? I don’t agree with it. I can’t change it; and I know that I have to live with it; but I don’t like it. I’m with Daniel Pink on this one… “On the great library shelf in the sky, Melvil Dewey cannot be amused.”

Excited!

I love the anticipation of a journey!

Source: bing.com via Heidi on Pinterest

Not knowing where it will lead, or where it will take you in the process… as an optimist, the thought of where I could end up always makes me smile with the possibilities!

Tomorrow and Friday I’ll be at my first Lutheran Education Queensland (LEQ) conference. Possibly my first of many! (At the next one, on the 28th of February, I’m actually the presenter! It’s called ‘Harnessing the Power of Digital Marketing’, and I’m the ‘Professional Digital Marketing consultant’ that they’ve got addressing the LEQ Principals and Business Managers. Cool or what?!!)

So I feel as though I’m taking my first steps into a journey I’m very much looking forward to taking.

Wish me luck, dear readers!

Exhaustion plus.

Source: flickr.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Ever had one of those weekends when you finally get there and just ‘stop’?! Where your week has been just SOOOOOO busy that you haven’t had time to just sit? And you haven’t really noticed if you’ve eaten, or slept? Well, that’s been my week this week.

Starting last Saturday, I woke up sick. As in, the non-stop dry cough kind. Sunday, this became a back-ache so bad I could hardly move, and spent the day flat on my back. This is extremely unusual for me, a person who is often told that she ‘never stops’. I was actually really quite worried, because I knew how huge the coming week was, and I just didn’t know how I’d survive it all if I couldn’t even walk! But God is good, and I was able to stand by Sunday night, and walk again by Monday morning. Thankfully! But the upshot of a day in bed was that I read ‘People of Heaven’ by Beverly Harper, which was rather reminiscent of Bryce Courtenay’s writings about Peekay and Tandia. An interesting story, but I’m not sure whether the author should have included so much history ‘tacked on’ in places, without being directly relevant to the plot. Nevertheless, a good way to spend a day in which you can hardly move.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur of work, podiatry appointments, childcare, swimming lessons, driving, and non-stop rain. On Wednesday afternoon, I pulled Miss 7 out of school early, planning to buy school shoes at Athlete’s Foot, Morayfield… only to discover that their store had closed, and the closest was at Caloundra. So the kids played with my iPhone camera while we waited in line at BUPA, to get some of the huge amounts of money back from the Podiatry appointment. And be yet more disappointed, because our Health Cover didn’t do much covering. And yet again, it was a day of poor health choices food-wise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday was Australia Day. A day of not ‘having’ to go anywhere. When asked that morning, I had told Hubby that I wanted to spend the day hanging pictures, now that I had finally bought myself a Wall Stud Finder. Instead, seeing as the rain had stopped, we took the kids to a crowded Kings Beach Pool, ate a fish-and-chips lunch, then took a lovely long drive. Mr 2 immediately fell asleep, and the girls played with home-made ‘helicopters’ made out of sandals and sunnies. Quite cute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rain returned that night, so on Friday morning I changed my plans and spent the day at home. It was splendiferous. Hubby and Miss 7 eventually made it to school, but not before being caught in the parking lot that was the Bruce Highway southbound, at Caboolture. And I caught up on work. Housework. Laundry. Dishes. Hanging those pictures. Filing. Blogging for Bloxham Marketing. Oh – and playing with iBooks Author, now that I’d upgraded to the Lion OS and lamented my touchpad now going backwards.

So. That was my week. Huge. And now I get to stop. Hooray!!!!!