Archive for random

2011 – Thanks for coming:)

31/12/2011 Joh family, friends, gratitude, learn, love, random, relationships

I have lots to write but for now I’m just glad to put this year to bed. It’s been ‘interesting times’ as the curse goes. It’s turned out really well and I’m glad I put off worrying for another time, because now that I have a little time, I have no need.

I could list milestones and events that have rocked my world but not now.

This year has been special in so many ways. I have been blessed with new friends and aquaintances and a whole new cast of characters in my life. I treasure the people who have travelled a way with me as others have dropped by the wayside.

There is lot’s I want to plant here on my blog in 2012… I’ll wait and will enjoy sharing all the seeds and blossoms of my life then. I’m setting this blog post to publish in the last minute of this year. So farewell 2011… I know I’ve lacked appreciation at times but truly now I see that it was everything I asked for:).

 

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Venus Bay

06/11/2011 Joh gratitude, random

Went for a drive to Venus Bay today. I haven’t been there for a very long time and it is nothing like I remembered it. in fact I don’t think I’ve ever actually been there before because what I remember as Venus Bay is non existent at the place I went to. It’s not just about development but major landscape. I wonder where the place formerly labelled Venus Bay in my mind is?

There are many places like that between Inverloch and the Prom. I don’t go to the beaches often enough and either they change or I must have mislabeled them in my mind. I can never remember the Walkerville beach I like. There are two and they are quite different. I went to Shallow Inlet one day thinking it was something totally different and was really disappointed. Ah well. I like the name Venus Bay. It suggests beauty. When we looked in the real estate agent window there were lots of astro sounding street names like Jupiter St etc. Clearly the person who named the place was into astrology or at least astronomy.

Darin and I had a rare day without work or plans. We enjoyed the warm weather this weekend, although it was cooler there.

 

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RUOK Day

14/09/2011 Joh gratitude, health, love, random, relationships

Tomorrow is RUOK day. A good thing to contemplate. There has been some publicity from what I’ve read online. I am yet to watch Australian Story . It’s about Gavin Larkin, the instigator of RUOK day.  Perhaps I really should before writing this, but I haven’t had time.

When I first heard of this ‘day’ I took to it straight away. I fully believe that we need to talk to one another more. I am happy to promote talking to one another and asking ‘Are you ok?’ to all the people we come across. In the spirit of this day, it’s a good thing to do.

I have been blessed with a family that sits around the table talking, arguing sometimes but always discussing what happening in our lives. Whenever I have a really big issue in my life I find myself at my parents table chewing over the ins and outs of what’s going on for me. I understand now, not everyone has that luxury. We need our family of choice… friends, work mates, sport mates, extended family, family of choice, whoever you can find to share your life with.

I, like many of my readers possibly, have known people who have taken their own lives. I have never understood why, but I like to think they knew I cared. I am 100% sure their partners, friends, children and all the people they shared their lives with cared.

I read this post and I can relate to the first paragraphs so well. Sometimes we can’t talk to just anyone. Sometimes we need someone close, who knows us. I hope expressing how we feel, writing, talking, photographing, sharing in any way, helps.

I believe we all need to talk to someone at times. As a teacher I have often been surprised how just listening, without interupting, without advice, without judgement … has made a difference. I have been lucky in my life that I have known so many good listeners.

One of the many things I love about Darin is that he often asks ‘Are you Ok?’. When he sees the expressions on my face that I’m worried, I’m tense, I’m sad, I’m stressed or even unhappy looking, he asks. He doesn’t avoid the heat that may come. He asks. He notices my tones on the phone even. I love that about him.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is be kind to one another.

 

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Crownies

22/08/2011 Joh music, random

What Do I Do (Lanie Lane) from Lanie Lane on Vimeo.

I don’t watch a lot of TV but I have enjoyed Crownies. I usually watch it on iview because my life rarely fits into the TV guide. It’s on the ABC on Thursday nights I believe. The above song by Lanie Lane is the theme song. It’s interesting.

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Photo a Day

27/07/2011 Joh learn, random, work

I am not doing it very well at all. I am out of the habit. I think about the photo at night. I am using my phone as a camera so my photo’s are pretty ordinary. Anyway… I learnt something from the year 7 students this week. They were making slideshows for an assignment and I was very pleased to see them using their laptops for more than wordprocessors and google searching:).

One of the students had a pile of photos, old fashioned, printed ones. She was holding them up to her laptop camera and taking photo’s of the photo and they weren’t too bad. She was using picassa, so I downloaded it tonight and had a go. I will put that photo on my tumblr tonight, cause it was a photo. I think I need more practice though. I also imagine the light will make a difference. If I can get it handled it looked much quicker and easier than using a scanner. The quality probably isn’t as good, but for basic jobs it would do.

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Macarons, Friends and other Simple Pleasures

15/07/2011 Joh blogging, Business, food, friends, learn, random, reading

Yesterday Br John came for lunch. He was my mentor when I was a first year teacher 10 years ago. We haven’t caught up for probably 5 years. He has moved to another state and is a Principal there. I reckon he would be a good one because he is both human and organised. He communicates well and continues his learning. I always enjoy hanging out with him because he has interesting stories. He’s recently been travelling around Europe on a Marist brother adventure (there is probably a more serious, spiritual purpose). He had great food stories to tell me and as that is what I am most interested in right now, I enjoyed the tales of food.

I had my second attempt at making Macarons. Just before we left the shop a lovely lady came in for a visit from this business Cupcake Therapy. I am not really into cupcakes. Her sister had come in for lunch and told me they’d been to Paris to learn how to make Macarons. I was captivated. I contacted her on facebook and she brought some samples (rasberry with white chocolate filling). It is my current obsession. They are so pretty and delicious. A fortnight ago I made some for Cath for her birthday. I made about 3 batches and ended up with 6 mishapen things. I made chocolate ones because I am a fan of chocolate. I will experiment with different flavours once I get chocolate handled. The ones I made for lunch yesterday were better but don’t look anything like the amazing creations from ‘Cupcake Therapy’. Her facebook page is one of my favourites.

One of the things I really like about Macarons is that it’s delicious way to use egg white. I use the yolk to make mayonaisse and chocolate/lemon tart. I’ve never been a fan of pavlova or other egg white type dishes. Macaron’s are going to take a lot more practise. I have no clue with a piping bag. They tasted great and I don’t think I would ever create the kind of product with glaze and all the beauty of professional ones, but I would prefer them to look a bit more similar. When I do manage something near decent I will take a photo:) Which leads me to my next simple pleasure…

I have been inspired by Jen from Semantically Driven to start taking a photo a day. I haven’t really taken many photo’s lately. I take them of the kids, but I used to always take my camera with me and I enjoyed it. I am going to publish them on tumblr. I have also been watching a few You Tube photo a day clips and thinking that could make an interesting alternative to journalling for students who don’t like writing. I don’t like taking photos of myself… but teenagers seem to be comfortable with it. I will just take photos of random things that take my eye, still I think they will contain hidden memories.

We shopped today because we have a catering job to do tomorrow night. Two friends are engaged and we are catering for the celebration. I love shopping with Darin. We have a lot of fun and even amuse others. An older woman in the market couldn’t stop giggling when he asked me which box I wanted to carry and I said the lightest one. It really tickled her. I enjoyed being out in the sunshine today. We went to Morwell cause we had to go to a couple of places there. We ended up back here for all the things we forgot on the first trip:). I popped into the Art Gallery whilst I was there and looked in the window of the Contemporary Art Space. I felt quite uplifted by it. We went on a walk this afternoon and went ‘window shopping’ in all the homeware and electrical shops on the highway. We got great service cause we were the only people in the shops. We were approached by many sales people. I looked around at all the heavily discounted stuff and thought ‘What’s going to happen to all this stuff if no one comes back to buy it?’ Where have all the shoppers gone?

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Bike Riding in the Sunshine

26/06/2011 Joh family, random

Today we went on a long walk along Traralgon Creek with the kids in the sunshine. It was beautiful. I love Victory park on a sunny winter day. It is a great park and the creek was running well from all the rain we’ve had. The kids enjoyed riding over bridges and along the paths. We stopped and watched some kids in the skate park. There were some real littlies on scooters, they were very brave. I enjoy watching our kids improve thier confidence on their bikes. The weekend’s weather was very enjoyable. We had long walks/rides both Saturday and Sunday and it was great to be out in it.

I have my laptop back! I haven’t spent that much time over the weekend on it, but it is good to have it back. It was too sunny to be couped up inside this weekend – have to get my vitamin D whilst it’s there:).

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Long Weekend in Winter

13/06/2011 Joh family, home, random, reading

The weather has been great this weekend and we have managed to clean up the remaining leaves from the big tree at the front of our house that fills a number of green bins during autumn. We had the children this weekend and they have just left to return to their mums. It was great weather to be outside playing in the leaves. There was bike riding, play with skipping ropes,  a number of art works created, an assignment on Scotland, delicious meals and we watched ‘Toy Story 3′ and both the ‘Nanny McPhee’ DVDs. The short days are cosy.

In amongst all this activity I have been reading and cleaning the house. I continue to simplify and shed things I don’t want. This is a constant in my life. Each time I wonder where it all comes from. This time I have removed a massive pile of old cookbooks from my kitchen cupboard. I have rarely consulted them and they will enjoy a new home. I have a small book of recipes I have had an added to, since I was a child that can stay. I also tucked away Tom’s cocktail glasses out of view. They were on display on my kitchen shelves and as constant cocktail parties are no longer a part of our scene, I decided they were just collecting dust and cobwebs. Speaking of cobwebs, I think I have a spider colony cohabiting with us lately. I am clearing cobwebs on a daily basis it seems.

I have been reading some astrology books, some marketing/business books, a fantasy novel and a spiritual book, all in turns. I will review them all as I finish them. I have spent very little time this weekend on Darin’s laptop. I have my emails coming to my phone and my last two laptop holidays a month or so ago have forced me to customise my iPod Touch and N8 to manage anything important that I rely on a computer for. I had an attempt on Friday night to blog from my phone but it was just painful, so that is one thing I will continue to rely on a laptop for. I am journalling by handwriting in a notebook. I have lost a couple of weeks journalling that I hadn’t backed up. Perhaps I need to journal directly onto a hard drive to avoid this and also upload photos onto a hard drive. I have moved almost everything else I rely on, to online services now that I can access from any computer. I guess these three enforced breaks from my laptop have possibly forced me to make my technology work better for me.

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Laptop down again

05/06/2011 Joh random

My laptop is not working again. Darin’s laptop still has some of the customisation from the last bout of no laptop in April. Thank goodness he is a sharer:). This is the third time this year and it is no longer under warantee. I have never before had a laptop that has given me such trouble. It’s very inconvenient and I think I will get something different next time.

We’ve had a pretty lazy Sunday, which is rare and nice.

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Colder than Before

11/05/2011 Joh food, random, work

It’s really cold here. I think my weekend with Tom on Hamilton Island has made it seem even colder! I enjoyed looking at all the photos and clips his friends captured of the weekend on facebook. Good times!

After working through the summer in the kitchen I thought I would never wear anything long sleeved in a kitchen, EVER! Today I did. It’s not even winter yet. Our delicious food helped though. It all smells so much better and tastes every bit as good as it smells. This morning I was home doing a last minute book keep for the BAS return (due tomorrow) and as soon as I hit the arcade I could smell the food and knew I was heading in the right direction.

It has really taken me until today to come back to earth after the weekend. I have had early nights the past two nights but I feel quite good now and back into my routines.

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