Feed for New Site

I have made an error with redirecting my feeds so if you are dazed and confused about where I've gone, this is the new feed address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedburner/VKAO

The new address is : http:www.johblogs.com

And if you've not seen me all month, go here to catch up.

Massage Reflections

Tonight I had my last massage for 2007. It was lovely. This morning in the staff room, many teachers were complaining of sore backs and shoulders from long hours hunched over the computer, writing reports. I went to the chiropractor last night. Two other teachers had been there before me. I feel great, even though I had a pretty busy and demanding day.

I was chatting to the masseur tonight about the many courses I have done in my life. I love learning new things and she does too. She was commenting on how people sometimes think you are crazy to be learning all the time or doing more courses. I have usually done some kind of study at most times of my life. Even when I am not formally attending a school, I have been focused on learning some new skill or practising something new.

Blogging would be in that category. I don't know everything there is to know about blogging, but I know enough to do it to the level I want to, with ease. I expect to learn more over time, yet at a more gradual pace now. One of my friends commented to me last night, after checking out my blog that I must put a lot of time into it. I have in the past, yet I don't really now. I would spend around half an hour on a post usually. Occasionally I spend a couple of hours when I want to rearrange or shuffle things about, or have something I really want to write properly about.

What's the connection between massaging, blogging and learning? Well I realised today that I do all that learning to make the things I want to do quicker and easier. Short term pain, long term gain. I think you are crazy if you don't try to make your life easier and more effective! Learning is the fastest route I know of.

I'm a rssHugger

I've hugged many a tree, yet now I will find the joys of hugging a rss? This morning I read, Cerebral Mum and thought I'd join her in this new place. The benefits for bloggers are to gather more readers to your blog and for readers it's another way to find quality blogs.

Last night I completed my first draft of my reports so I can now imagine trawling through blogs to find some great reading for the holidays. This is the most exciting time for me. I love the last week of school. So much promise for holidays ahead. Celebrating the year with the kids. Life is good.

7 Weird/Random Facts About Me

I've been tagged by the incredibly flexible (splits at 35!) Tiff from Three Ring Circus
Here are the instructions:
Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here we go; 7 random and/or weird facts about me:

1. There are 16 years between my sister and I. I am the eldest (41) and she is the youngest (26). We are the only girls in my family and 4 boys in between. Yep, I had totally given up on ever having a sister!

2. It took me 13 years to complete my BA. I had two kids, two businesses and a lot of stops and starts, but I did it!! I finished it in 1994.

3. A high percentage of my friends are the same star sign as me. My closest friend, Rhonda is actually born the same day as me. Most of my boyfriends have been Gemini's or Leos. I am quite interested in astrology.

4. I spent a year carefully cutting and placing tiles on a board to make a mosaic table, that was over 12 months ago and I still haven't put the grout in it. Do you think I celebrated too soon?

5. I love accents, French, Irish and Scottish especially. One of my favourite songs right now "I'll Kill Her" by Soko and I love Camille. I'm sure it's all about the accents. My daughter and I once listened to a door to door salesperson for ages and when she left we both admitted it was because of her English accent.

6. I frequently forget my students names at this time of the year. I know them well and I hate it, but I have these mental blocks and they laugh about it now and can see the blank look on my face. These are kids I know and love. Very frustrating.

7. When I was in primary school I knocked on the priest's door and asked what the relic was under the alter in our church. He had no idea! I think I annoyed him.

I want to know about the weirdnesses/random facts of the following bloggers*:
Bare Bones Gardening
Simply Living
Scribblings
Kelly Marie - Letting Loose
Midlife - A Journey
You Can't Coach That
My Life Starts at Forty Two

* I won't be offended if you pass.

Links to Great Online Posts

I've read some really inspiring and uplifting blog posts this week that I'd like to share. It's a good place for me to store them too I might add, I'm fairly confident I'll want to reread them.


Christine Kane: 9 Irresistible Reasons to Go Complaint-Free Starting Right Now
Christine Kane's blog is usually a great read and one of my favourites. Going complaint free seems like a very positive way to make a major change in your life. It sounds simple but I'll let you know how I go!


Ruth Ostrow: Seek Your Own Fez House
This is just the kind of inspiring story I love. It involves renovating and exotic locations and throwing caution to the wind.


Craig Harper: The Choices We Make When We Choose Nothing
Another great reminder from Craig Harper about being proactive in our lives. He makes me laugh, even when I intensely dislike the truth he is telling.


Duncan's TVAdland: Dove Boy Meets Amy
I love these Dove Self-Esteem fund clips and this latest one is simple, yet beautiful.

Staying Nice!

A quick post this morning before I head off to thank Tiffany from Three Ring Circus for the Nice Bloggers Award.

I appreciate it and would like to pass it on to Angus from Angus Made. Since he began his blog he has been actively commenting around the place and always has positive things to say. It's great to have a young blogger sharing his view of the world.

Random Facts About Me

I have been tagged by Kim @ Laketrees for:
10 Random Facts
The Rules of this tag:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List ten (10) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eleven people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. These eleven persons would have to tag 12 people.
5. You could also tag back, if desperate !
6. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.

I'm not experienced at the Meme, so bear with me. I like randomness though. So here goes.

1. My daughter has the same middle name as me, so has my friend, Rhonda.
2. The last film I saw was 'Becoming Jane' - nice movie (if you like romantic unhappy endings)
3. I had noodles for dinner.
4. I've had 20+ jobs in my life.
5. My car is black.
6. I come from a family of 6 kids.
7. I barrack for Richmond no matter how much I dislike football
8. Every school holidays I find more stuff to take to the Op shop.
9. I started teaching at 35 and love it.
10. I am listening to Tori Amos right now.

Now the really tricky bit. I can't tag 11 people. I will tag the following people one one condition: They feel free to pass, no offence taken, if they choose. I'm not sure if that is the correct etiquette, but I wanted to say that.
So these are the chosen ones that I would love to learn more about minus the ones I have read many memes about and suspect they could be over them:

Semantically Driven
Cerebral Mum
Duchess and the Duke
Sultana Blog

as well as anyone else who would like to play.

Thanks

Floyd Craig has given me an award. As I am not familiar with his blog, I have checked it out today and there was much there to read and learn. I enjoyed my time there. I particularly loved in his profile under occupation, he has written, retired not retarded. That made me laugh. I hope it hasn't been inspired by disrespect.

It was a really pleasant surprise.

My Blog is 2 today

So can we expect temper tantrums and wobbly walking and cute talking? Maybe! I don't know. I don't think it relates well to human development. Bad metaphor. My blog is a libran.
In case you didn't notice I have removed lots of pointless and fruitless advertising today. I have also reduced my tags to a little over a hundred. Not quite as reduced as I'd hoped, but still an improvement.
Right now I don't know what to expect from anything. Exciting hey! Scary too. I think I am getting a little stir crazy, home alone. Tomorrow I am going to visit my brother and his family and take his kids out for a movie, or some junk food, or what ever it is little kids like these days. I love kids. They are fun and in the moment, just what I need. Yes, I am not a great Auntie, I'm doing this for me.
I am feeling much restored after spending the day mostly in bed. My mum brought me magazines, soup and bread. She's a treasure. I am probably the only Victorian who doesn't know who won the 'Grand Final' - I wonder how long that will last.

Tag Dag

I am spending a day in bed with my laptop. Romantic hey! I need to have a semi rest day. I will be making some changes to my blog so I apologise if it is annoying in any way. My last post was my 400th and I have 277 tags. Ridiculous! I thought so too! So I am going to fix this.

Ahhh...The weekend....nice

The 'Nice Blogger Awards' I would like to give to a blog I have only recently discovered. I really like Cellobella's 'SultanaBlog'. There are plenty of other blogger's that are nice, yet so many of them have already had this award, awarded!

My son's Myspace life has become busy as he was listed in the new ABC TV show 'Summer Heights High', character Ja'mie's top friends. He cracks me up with his ironic humour, both my son and Ja'mie, who is also actually a he. Speaking of son's, I notice that Meg's son wrote a post on Blogpond about Christian Indoctrination last weekend, and was still receiving comments, yesterday. Interesting.

12 Must Read Books for Teens

I said earlier that I would create my own list of 12 books to read before you turn 12. I can't do it. I have given it a lot of thought and as I teacher I am constantly referring students to books. Mind you, my students are generally between the ages of 12- 16. I have to know a young person before I could suggest a book for them. I have read a lot of books for young adults. There is such an amazing variety. So I am going to pass on this list. I have mentioned many books that I love for young people. There are 46 blog posts on this blog about young adult reading. This however is only for the last 35 months that I've been blogging. I've read heaps before I started blogging. It's just too hard.

My Shakey Reading Memories
I can't really remember what I read before I turned 12 with any accuracy, but I know Enid Blyton was big for me. I also read a whole series about a nurse called Sue Barton. It was responsible for me thinking I was going to be a nurse when I grew up. In reality I hate the sight of blood though. I loved 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and lots of fairy tales. Some of my favourites were 'The Princess and the Pea' and 'Rapunzel'. Milly Molly Mandy, Pollyanna, Anne of Green Gables were some others I loved. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and lots of school readers I can recall. I remember wishing there were books written by Australians about Australians because the books I read had the seasons and landscape all wrong. I would love to hear from others what they read around these times. I was born in 1965.

Ooops!

My last post has now become an embarrassment to me for several reasons. Firstly because it's ridiculous to believe that the Mars could look as big as the Moon. Secondly because there are some silly mistakes in it such as the use of 'cultivate' instead of 'culminate'. Thirdly because today I received an apology email from the person who originally sent me the email saying she was sorry but she had fallen for a hoax. Well me too!
I could make excuses and say it was the sleepless night before and the shooting star that caused me to be a little dazed, yet I'm not big on making or accepting excuses, I'd rather admit I'd made a mistake and grab the learning experience.
I could have deleted the post, and possibly should have, yet I often say I live to make others laugh, so the laugh is on me today.

Do you like the new look?

Let's get the shoulds out of the way.
Yes, I should be correcting so I can have my reports done on time. They are due Friday and it's a long weekend here. Queen's Birthday weekend is always really meant to be correct and write reports weekend. I usually don't though. I have a really tidy home.

Heating
It's warm too cause I have just upgrading from the wood fire heating to a reverse cycle air conditioner. It's lovely to breath without creating a fog inside. It's awesome to flick a switch and not have to bring heavy loads of wood in and then spend the time it takes getting the fire to start. I don't miss the fire at all, but if ever I do, it's still there in the corner.

Flitting around the Internet
So I have updated the template of my blog, thanks to joining Bumpzee and receiving a lovely visitor to my site from snokky who has Life in the Country and a wonderful template that I decided I could do with. I haven't finished the renovations yet, a bit like my house! I am searching my backups for this particular photo to put on the header.

Social Networking
Bumpzee is a social networking site and I have realised lately that I haven't been participating very much in any online communities. I thought I'd see what it was like before I outright reject it and go back to the solitude I like. So here's to a new online experiment for me.

The Australian Index

It's great to read blog posts from Australia. The Australian Index is a great resource and has organised blogs from Australians in a great way so you can find blogs to read according to your interests. It's a great place to browse and they regularly update and select posts of interest. It is becoming one of my favourite surfing places.

Stalker by Hazel Edwards

I was amazed to read on the blurb of this book that Hazel Edwards has written 131 books. That is a lot of books. I am sure I have probably read some of them, I just don't remember them. Hazel's Wikipedia entry says she has written 161. That is very productive. She also attended Traralgon High School for a part of her education according to Wikipedia.

Stalker was a light read. It gives an insight into the way radio works. It's about a young volunteer radio announcer who receives a lot of unwelcome attention that ends in a conviction for the stalker. It's an interesting topic in view of the information many put on the Internet now. How easy would it be for someone to collect enough information about a person to intimidate them?

I recently showed an Internet safety video to my students. The year 7's took it more to heart than the year 9's, who seemed to think they knew all there was to know about this sort of thing.

I saw 'Everyone Knows Your Name' on YouTube today. Whilst I don't want people to live in fear of the Internet, I guess it's important for all of us to think before we post, for lots of reasons. A good reminder.

Watch the Secret - Now - For Free

I'm not sure how this has come about, but if you have a spare hour and a half, perhaps longer because I imagine it will take some time to stream/download, or whatever it does online, watch this. "The Secret" for free.
The blog it is on, is also worth a look:It's Not About Your Stuff
I have added it to my bloglines feed. She recommends good stuff and it looks quite informative and interesting.

Upcoming Anniversary with Creamaid

Confusing title I suppose. I am in a hurry, still packing for holidays. I also quit smoking on Friday so I am feeling quite vague and very different. I have smoked for a long time and it is quite a challenge to stop. I am quite determined though and whilst I have tried many times before I feel armed with all the info I need to do it this time.
I will have been blogging for one year on 29th. I will be away though, so thought I would recognise it now. I have enjoyed it and I have written quite a number of posts in that time. This will be number 187!
I love cream and so when I noticed this social networking, word of mouth networking program called creamaid, I had to try it. I am not sure what it is about yet, but have put embed in and will check it out further when I return from my weekend away and can read, write and hopefully comprehend.
It's kind of fitting for me to be putting something I only vaguely understand on my blog to celebrate a year of doing just that.

Trips to Melbourne

I haven't posted for nearly a week. It's been a busy six days since my last post. We had to rush to Melbourne last Thursday for a last minute health issue. All is well now though, so that is good. Today I went on the museum trip to the city with the school. I went to IMAX for the first time! It was a HUGE screen. I will put some photo's up of the trip later when I am not so tired and can find my camera.

Whilst waiting we visited Dandenong and I must recommend to anyone who can access it, the Op shop in the main street that sells books only. It is towards the end of the strip heading for Melbourne. It gets books from the surrounding libraries and there were heaps of books in great condition, very cheaply priced. I could have spent more time there. There was also a great Lebanese bakery that had a great feel and yummy food in the same stretch of shops though more toward the Gippsland end of Dandenong.

If you regularly read my blog, you will notice a new look and tags. I would love to go back and tag all my previous posts but think it may be too time consuming. It would be interesting just to see what I mainly write about! I will possibly play around with it more. Blogger has introduced more options, so naturally I can't resist.

Today I left my book at home by mistake, but whilst going through my back pack found another book and read it all today. It was No Worries by Bill Condon. I enjoyed it. It was quite insightful and I was moved by the plight of the young male protagonist. It was an honour book for the Childrens Book Council Australia, book of the year awards for older readers.

Dave’s State of the Blogosphere

Dave’s State of the Blogosphere
I find this article on "Darren Rowse: Problogger", quite staggering. 2 blogs created per second. It seems humans have a lot to say out loud.
I guess with the amount of posting online, it also makes it seem quite amazing to find a random blog you like reading. I feel like it is still quite anonymous due to the vast amount of voices out there. The chances of other people finding your blog and reading it seem less than the chance of someone overhearing you telling your secrets to your best friend.
I still can't quite feel free enough to tell anything online that I wouldn't want the world to know. I notice that the teenagers I work with don't seem to have any such reservations on their 'myspaces'.