Tag: blogging

Posted in Life

The streak

Posted on by Sharon

I’m not talking about the Ray Stevens song here – I thought I’d better preface that in case you think I’ve taken up running through the grocery store with no clothes on.

This is a different kind of streak, a streak that requires memory, persistence and consistency. You have to remember to do the thing that develops into a streak every day. You have to build it into your – in my case morning – routine, so that you don’t lose your streak through forgetting.

At first it’s easy – the stakes are low; it doesn’t matter if you don’t do it when you have a streak of just one or two, or even ten or twelve. But when it starts getting over 50, there’s a tingle of motivation to keep going. You play around with it, testing yourself out to see how much you really do care, to see how serious you are about it.

You start to brag to other people you know who have their own streaks – or who at least challenge themselves on a daily basis. I’m on 150 now. I’m now on 200. I’m closing in on 280! You feel a weird sense of pride, tinged with a fear that it might end. You ask your husband for hints, you read the blog to pick up what others have said about it, you try a different starting point each day.

You also need to get it right – your streak is over if you make too many errors – and so you proceed cautiously, being more careful, taking more time. My morning routine was such that I was having to get up half an hour earlier, just to get it done. Or getting to work later!

I make it to 300! I don’t post about it on social media of course, that would be weird, but I do feel pretty good. Close to a year’s worth of luck and determination, and new approaches, and risk, and remembering.

But then, Thursday, August 15 dawns. I’m not well, I rush, I get to the last attempt, feeling oddly confident. I couldn’t possibly be wrong.

I sit there open mouthed when it turns out I am.

My streak ends at 303.

303 days of getting Wordle right – and then, in an instant, my streak is gone!

I had wanted to get to a year … and I came so close!

And the thing that hurt just as much as losing my streak?

There was no acknowledgement of my 303 days of success. Just a ‘thanks for playing! You’re out of guesses.’

Brutal.

Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

Friday Feels Returns

Posted on by Sharon

I missed last week’s Friday Feels post. The reason is one of the things that made me happy – read on to find out more.

Friday Feels is a (seemingly) regular blog post I started writing about three months ago. Debbie, my sister, writes the occasional Fridays Feels post and I thought I’d copy her lead.

There are three questions each week, mostly the same, and then an F-word. I think I’m supposed to write only brief responses to each question, but struggle to do that. Someone famous once apologised for writing a long letter “because they didn’t have time to write a short one”. Even though I could take the whole day to write a blog post, I try not to. Especially on days like today where it’s warm – 27C – and the pool is calling!

The three questions I answer each week are:


1. What made me happy this week?

2. What’s been challenging about the week?

3. What’s caught my attention on social media this week?

Rather than a F-word this week, I’ve decided to write about a C-word instead.

First, the questions.

  1. Cancer – that’s a C-word. And it’s related to what made me happy this week. On Friday last week, rather than writing a blog post, I met with my medical oncologist for my FINAL oncology appointment. I’ve had annual check ups with my breast surgeon, my radio oncologist and my medical oncologist since 2019 and last Friday was the last appointment. Five years of low-down terror in the back of my mind … and now it’s all done. I have to admit to being much more emotional than I imagined, and spent some time in a quiet corner of a hospital corridor pulling myself together. But I’m happy that my appointments are done and that the five years is now officially over and closed off in my mind.
  2. COVID – that’s a C-word and it’s related to what’s been challenging about this week. Tim didn’t feel too well last Friday and did a COVID test. Negative. Big relief. Saturday he felt even worse. Mid-afternoon I found him in bed shivering even though it was a really hot day. I took his temperature – 41.5C. That’s a bit warm. I had thought he didn’t want to do gardening with Chase and I, but apparently he was ill. Sunday he did a test. Positive. He tested positive as recently as yesterday. He’s slowly getting better. I’ve been working from home all week and because of the design of our house we’ve been able to keep away from each other and so he hasn’t passed it to me. But it’s been a big week.

    Another reason it’s been a challenging week is because my uncle – Mum’s brother – passed away on Wednesday evening. He was a great storyteller and had a wealth of them to share – from years in the Navy to his more recent travels. He was also a great reader and that made discussions always interesting. He’d share books and recommend others and wasn’t shy about telling you why a book was unreadable! Wifedom, for instance, was not one of his favourites! Mum has lived around the corner from him for the last four years and minutes after she’d ring him to invite him round for morning tea, he’d be at the front door, zooming up the steep hill fearlessly on his mobility scooter. One thing we always chuckled about, was that even though they were both in their 80s, she’s still such a big sister! He was a well-read, well-travelled man, but oh golly … when his big sister said to do something, he’d do it! It seems that’s one thing that never changes in family relationships. You’ll be missed, Uncle Roy.
  3. Characters – that’s a C-word. Have you heard of Paloma Diamond? I hadn’t either till just last week – possibly because I don’t have TikTok. But she popped up on my Instagram feed last week and she’s become a bit of regular for me now. The actor behind the character, Julian Sewell, has amassed a huge following – and I’m just jumping on board. Also, if you’re into period drama, check out his ‘Aunt Ingrid and Evelyn’ characters.
Screenshot from Julian Sewell’s Instagram account

Link to Julian Sewell’s Instagram, just in case you’re interested.

Well, that’s it from me for another week. I’m pretty pleased with myself for not mentioning the other C-word.

Christmas!

Apparently it’s only 30-something days away. Who’s getting excited?

Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

Friday Feels

Posted on by Sharon

As it’s Friday, it’s time for another Friday Feels post. When I started writing these posts I wasn’t planning on doing more than one, and now I find I’ve written a post every Friday for the past nine weeks.

I answer roughly the same questions each week and it’s always interesting to read back over my responses (mostly so that I don’t repeat myself) but also to refresh myself on what’s been happening in the/my world.

The three questions each week are:

  1. What’s made me happy this week?
  2. What’s caused me some discomfort?
  3. What have I re-started doing that I haven’t done in ages?

My F-word for this week is fazed, which I’ve sneakily used somewhere in this post.

  1. What made me happy this week was my friend Airdre coming to visit. The last time we tried to organise a catch-up her grandson thoughtfully gave her his cold and so she wasn’t able to make it, but today, despite a lingering cough, she arrived for a chat and a laugh and a delicious lunch at a local cafe (3 Little Pigs – we can both highly recommend the zucchini fritters). Airdre and I co-edited the recently published Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness: A guide for practitioners in higher education (available now online). If you’ve read it, we’d love a review. A kind one, of course!

    We talked about writing and editing and reviewing and about how being direct is much maligned and how we both don’t do small talk and the importance of acknowledging the good bits in a piece of work and tense and tone and voice. Airdre and I have another connection – not just our writing one. I discovered earlier this year that the house Airdre used to live in, in northern NSW, was the very same house that my great-grandparents had lived in 90 years before. I wrote about it here. So a lovely morning with Airdre has made me happy this week.

  2. What caused me some discomfort this week was the result in the US election. I won’t say any more about it, but it discomforted me. You could say, it fazed me.

  3. What I’ve re-started doing that I haven’t done in ages, is digital drawing. In mid-2022 I started drawing using Procreate, an iPad app. It’s a very powerful tool and I found some great tutorials to follow along with as I learnt how to use the program and started to develop my skills. Back then I was in the retirement phase of my life and had loads of time to learn. Since moving on from retirement – back to full-time work – I have had way less time to do any drawing and I realised recently that I miss it. I came across more tutorials through the week and have decided to give them a go and see what I can learn and create. I need to emphasise that I have never been someone who draws and I have zero skills. But I enjoy learning and trying new things and so I gave it a go.
One of my ‘drawings’ from mid-2022 – drawn using Procreate


That’s it from me for another week. Next Friday I have my final oncology appointment. It’s the final thing in my cancer ‘journey’ (hate that term but can’t think of another one) and I am very much looking forward to that particular journey being well and truly over! I will probably pass on the Friday Feels post next week – just know my Friday will feel pretty darn good!!

Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

Friday Feels

Posted on by Sharon

It’s November.

I know. I don’t know where the year has gone either. One minute you’re waking up on New Year’s Day and then next minute it’s November.

It’s one of the good things about writing blog posts – or keeping a diary; you can go back and see that the year hasn’t whizzed by in a flash, and that you have actually done things throughout the year, and March did happen, as did a whole pile of other things. The same could be said of your life though, which is one reason for cramming a lot in: there’s lots to ruminate over, reflect on and remember, and when you do that, you feel the length of months and years and time spreads out, expands, slows down a tad.

But that’s enough philosophising for now. Onto the regular three Friday questions and an F-word.

The questions are:

  1. What made me happy this week?
  2. What town did I most enjoy this week?
  3. Who came back to Australia this week?

And my F-word? Future

But first to the questions.

  1. What made me happy this week? I was at the International terminal earlier in the week, and it was so lovely to watch the interactions between those arriving and those who were anxiously waiting for them. The grandfather beaming at the sight of his tiny granddaughter; the mother weeping at the sight of her grown son; the sons, daughters, grandchildren, second cousins twice removed who each had a bunch of flowers and excitedly presented them to the family patriach as he tried to embrace every crying member of his family at once; the pregnant, exhausted mother, her trolley piled high with bags and car seats, watching carefully as her eldest pushed the soon-to-be middle child in a stroller, looking for a familiar face in the crowd to relieve her of some of her burdens; the young couple meeting, perhaps for the first time (he had a bunch of flowers in what could have been a pre-arranged signal), posing for photos at all points of the arrivals hall. It really was a Love Actually moment, and that made me happy.

    2. What town did I most enjoy this week? Weird question Sharon! I know, but it was a lovely day on Sunday and we went to Kyneton and decided to wander along Piper Street. Kyneton is a strange town in a way. It seems to have three distinct shopping areas, with Piper Street being the most interesting. The buildings are old, the shops are diverse, the cafes are interesting, and the people are lovely. I was told at least four times that the dress I was wearing was some variation of “lovely”. (Just for context, I think it’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever owned.) We had a lovely lunch at Home Grown on Piper – Tim said it was the best Reuben he’s ever had. And then we wandered, and bought things, and chatted with people in shops, and spent ages and $$ in The Stockroom. It was really delightful.

    3. Who came back to Australia this week? Very specific question Sharon! I know, but apart from all the other people who came (back) to Australia this week, the one I know best is Mum. She’s been away for about 6 weeks, cruising on rivers in Portugal, visiting Salamanca in Spain, spending some time in London, a little village near Colchester, and catching up with family in the west country (think Bristol, Cheddar, Bath). I hope when I’m 86 I’ll still be travelling the world like that.
Mum arriving back in Australia


My F-word for the week? Future. More specifically, THE future. I’ve just finished reading Tim Winton’s latest release, titled Juice, and it’s a sobering look at the future. It’s not a happy book it has to be said, but it sure does make you think. This is a book set far into the future – Winton said in an interview that it’s about 300 years into the future – and it’s a warning that if we don’t do something now, we’ll be leaving future generations in a world of pain.

One bit really got me: The main character – I don’t think we know his name – is telling stories of his early years, when he was 16 years old. His world is full of ash and heat so unbearable they have to cover themselves completely and live way underground in the summers. Think a Mad Max kind of landscape. He meets some people who show him images and videos from our time – from now, our present, what they call “the Dirty World”. He says, “We believed that the world was the way it was. That it did what it did. In the way it always would. Because that’s how things were. This idea that our travails were the result of others’ actions had never occured to me. … To be told that my trials were not random accidents but deliberate acts undertaken with the knowledge of their consquences? … It was infuriating to the point of derangement.”

Deliberate acts – the burning of coal and gas to generate juice so that the oligarchs maintain their power.

Now that’s a sobering thought.

If you’re into apocalytic fiction that has more than a tinge of reality, then this is a fabulous read. I finished it very early one morning through the week and cried myself back to sleep.

That’s it for me for another Friday. I’ll see you next week.

Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Photography, Writing

Friday already?

Posted on by Sharon

I work in a very progressive company that has a 4-day work week, and I usually have Fridays as my day off. Not this week though – I had a meeting on Wednesday and so took that as my day off instead. It meant I had to work today and I didn’t get a chance to write my usual 3 questions and an F-word Friday post this morning.

It’s 6:30pm, and as I’ve just finished work, I figured now is as good a time as any to respond to the usual three questions.

The three questions, which are generally the same every week are:

  1. What made me happy this week?
  2. What have I been working on this week?
  3. What caught my attention on social media this week?

My F-word for the week is ‘flowers’.

  1. What made me happy? I had the absolute delight of meeting with two people I’d never met before to talk about teaching and student engagement this week. I had quite forgotten how passionate I am about teaching and how excited I get when I have the opportunity to talk about it with others who are just as passionate. In my current line of work there’s very little call – well, none really – to talk about teaching and so when the opportunity arose to share some knowledge and insights with others, I jumped at it. In preparation for the meeting I found old hard drives full of files (some from well over a decade ago) to re-orient myself with the sorts of things I (and a small but brilliant team of colleagues) used to do around Orientation and Engagement. It brought back all kinds of happy memories!

    The conversation was fabulous and energising and while I don’t ever want to work in a university again, I can see the appeal of working to support others in their teaching endeavours.

  2. What have I been working on this week? Lots of editing and reviewing and formatting of policy documents. That probably doesn’t sound as interesting as it is, but I like editing much more than writing, so when someone else puts words on the page, I am more than happy to clean them up.

  3. What caught my attention on social media this week? Scrolling through Instagram can suck hours from a day, but I do enjoy it when I come across something that’s a little bit unqiue and makes me smile. One such ‘reel’ did just that this week – James McNicholas (@jmcnik on Instagram) does dramatic monologues of songs. It’s an interesting way of re-interpreting them and I reckon it takes a fair bit of skill. One of my favourites is his dramatic monologue of Blue (Eiffel 65) – mostly because I like his hat – but here he is doing MmmBop.
It took me way too many hours to re-find this!


My F-word? Flowers.

Now that Spring is well and truly upon us, I’m looking forward to finding some flowers to photograph. Maybe I’ll do that over the weekend and have something to show you next Friday.

Enjoy your weekend!

    Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

    Three questions and an F-word continues

    Posted on by Sharon

    Hello. For the past two weeks I’ve written a post using the prompt above on a Friday morning. I didn’t write a post this morning because I was writing an ethics application instead. But the ethics application is done now, and I figured I might as well write a post as it’s still Friday.

    I have written these posts on a Friday because it’s part of an occasional series my sister does called Friday Feels, and I thought I’d get in on the action.

    The three questions – just to remind those who haven’t been joining in – are:

    1. What made me happy this week?
    2. What made me laugh out loud this week?
    3. What did I do this week that I haven’t done in a long time?
    4. And then I choose an F-word.

    My cousin Jen asked on Facebook if I’d thought about incorporating the F-word into my responses. As it turns out, I had, but I had resisted the urge to do just that.

    No resisting today though folks. I’ll choose an F-word first, and then respond accordingly (or not!).

    Frivolous/frivolity.

    1. What made me happy this week was not the frivolity that comes with your elderly (am I allowed to say that??) mother taking a tumble and ending up flat on the floor with blood pouring from her nose. There simply wasn’t any frivolity in that incident. What made me happy, however, was that she wasn’t otherwise hurt and the next morning was not feeling stiff or sore and did not have a black eye as we imagined she might. She was able to lift her (heavy) suitcase out of the car and wheel it all the way to the check-in counter (I didn’t help her because she’s an independent woman travelling independently – to the UK and beyond), smell all the perfume as she went through duty free, and then lay back in her comfy seat all the way to London. Fabulous. I aspire to that level of frivolity when I’m her age. Just not the falling over bit.
    2. What made me laugh out loud? Social media is a lot of things, but frivolous isn’t the first word that pops into my mind when I think about it. But some time ago I came across an account that is completely frivolous and I’m all for it. I am thoroughly enjoying Ben Fensome’s adaptation of the BBC’s 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy). You can find Ben’s adaptation on Instagram – his handle is @somebenfen. He plays all the parts and is amazing at playing the wet and ungainly Mr Collins and then smouldering as Mr Darcy. The episode I watched at lunch time had me laughing out loud. Pure frivolous delight!
    3. What did I do this week that I haven’t done in a long time? I went out. At night. To a show. A circus show. It was fabulous. And not at all frivolous. Second year students at NICA, the National Institute of Circus Arts, had developed a show titled Fall with Me and we decided to head along to opening night. What a treat! There were no clowns, and no bears chained up doing tricks. But there were a lot of very talented, strong, disciplined students who put their all into a very entertaining show. It was a testament to the type of education that embodies collaboration, care for each other, team work and dedication. They supported each other and worked brilliantly together. I left thinking that I need to get out and see more shows, and that there is a form of education left in the world that isn’t run by robots. And that made me happy.

    What else?

    My book is out!! I have held it in my hands. And it feels fabulous to have something that took a year to develop, now available for others to read and cogitate over and use as fodder for their own teaching practice. I’m seriously quite chuffed that it’s out in the world. The book is called Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness and even though it’s directed at those in higher ed, I reckon it’s a good read for all teachers.

    Here’s a photo of my co-editor and friend Airdre, holding her copy.

    That’s my Friday Feels for another week. I give myself an F for failing to incorporate my F-word more fully, and Jen, I hope you can forgive me.

    Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

    Friday’s 3 questions and an F word

    Posted on by Sharon

    It’s Friday again. Not sure how that happened, but here we are.

    Last week I wrote my first ever 3 questions and an F word post and because no one read it (apart from my sister) I thought I’d send another post into the void.

    The premise is, that you respond to three questions and then choose a word beginning with F and write about that. The three questions are:

    1. What made you happy this week?
    2. What made you sad this week?
    3. What are your plans for the weekend? (I think. I can’t actually remember, so I made that up.)

    What made me happy

    Work. Yeah, I know, strange answer, but there you go.

    I’ve been working on a project about perinatal mental health screening, specifically in Indigenous communities in Victoria. The Department of Health are updating the screening guidelines and basically wanted to know what would make the screening process more culturally safe. So they asked me to ask some midwives, maternal and child health nurses and others of that ilk, as well as Aboriginal parents how the screening process could be improved.

    On Friday last week, I went to a playgroup to talk with some parents. One little fella, 14 months old, toddled up to me and put his head on my knee as I introduced the project to the mums. He then reached his arms up and so I picked him up for a lovely cuddle. He came back later for another one.

    Now, I’m not a hugger but cuddling babies is a very different kettle of fish. I highly recommend it.

    And then this week, I finished the report the Department said I had to write, because apparently, just talking to people wasn’t enough. I finished it – wait for it – one whole week early! Some big days of writing and editing, but the draft is in and now I’m waiting for the feedback.

    So work was good this week.

    What made me (really) sad

    I was scrolling through Instagram last night and one of the posts I stopped to read made me really sad. Disturbed. Concerned for where we’re headed as a society.

    Tarang Chawla is a Melbourne man whose sister Nikita was murdered by her boyfriend in 2015. Tarang speaks out strongly about men’s violence towards women – you might have seen him on TV or follow him on Instagram like I do.

    Last night as I was scrolling, I saw this post.

    Source: Tarang Chawla’s post on Instagram

    I swiped to read the other slides and was horrified by what I read. You might have seen this story on the nightly news or online. Apart from giving voice to the horrendous violence of this act, Tarang’s wider point is about media reporting.

    Source: Tarang Chawla’s Intagram post

    I won’t include the next slide in Tarang’s post, but the Australian media reporting of Kristina Joksimovic’s murder is deeply disturbing.

    Tarang makes the point that women’s lives have become clicks. More clicks = more revenue.

    Source: Tarang Chawla’s Intagram post

    What views are being shaped by the grotesque reporting of Kristina Joksimovic’s murder?

    Whose views are being shaped?

    There were other reports I read on women’s murders this week, and on the dehumanising treatment of women – see the MFW Facebook page if you want to read more – and they all made me sad. Not only because of the treatment of women, but also because of how this treatment is being reported in our ‘news’ media, and how our views are being shaped by this reporting.

    I was going to apologise for bringing the mood down, but I won’t. This is happening, we consume this reporting. What’s it doing to us?

    Plans for the weekend

    Mum arrives tonight for a weekend visit, and I had thought we might go to the Kyneton Daffodil and Arts Festival.

    I just checked the forecast though and tommorrow’s high of just 8C and up to 8mm of rain isn’t inspiring me to get outside.

    So we’ll see.

    What I’m really trying to say is that we have no plans.

    Sometimes those weekends are the best.

    [Breaking: I just this minute received a text message reminding me of a dental appointment tomorrow morning. I’ve already put it off once, so I’m thinking I should get my big girls pants on and just go.]

    F-word

    Fancy.

    Yep, that’s my f-word for the week.

    We’ve had some more painting done inside and the place feels fancy.

    And looks fabulous.

    Love this colour: Bean Counter (Dulux)

    So that’s it. My 3 questions and an F-word.

    Thanks for reading Deb!

    Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Photography, Portraits, Writing

    3 questions and an F word

    Posted on by Sharon

    As regular readers know, I have an older sister. Not much older, just over a year, but older is older, right? Deb, my slightly older sister, is a blogger over at Deb’s World and the other day she wrote a post, which led me to writing one in the same format. It felt strange and strangely uncomfortable because it isn’t the kind of writing I generally do, but I did it anyway, because … well, because boundary pushing is sometimes a good thing to do.

    So here I am, about to start writing another post copying another format she sometimes uses – the 3 questions and an F word of the title of this post.

    The three questions are:

    1. What’s made you happy (I’m not sure if that’s ever, or this week, but I’ll work that out as I write).
    2. What’s made you sad (ditto)
    3. What’s made a difference (again, I could go back to her post and check out what this is supposed to mean, or I could do what I’m going to do and that is make up my own mind about it. It’s my blog after all!)
    4. The fourth thing is to find an F word that has some meaning to me (possibly mis-remembering this bit of the prompt … but, my blog and all that).

    Deb has all the details on her most recent post: Friday Feels: 3 questions and an F word. Not sure what the Friday Feels bit is about, but it’s Friday, so I’ll go with that.

    So, what’s made me happy?

    Family. My eldest son came to stay and we drove a few hours to spend a few days with my mother and sister and it was fabulous to be together. We laughed, and we cried, and we watched my granddaughter’s footy grandfinal on the telly and heard her mother yelling from Tasmania. One of the best bits was getting my photography studio properly sorted and getting to try out the new lighting set up on my son (who did all the sorting).

    In this shot we used the beauty dish as the lighting source.

    And what’s made me sad?

    Goodbyes. Not, I hasten to add, that I’ve had to say any permanent goodbyes of late, but there’s always a twinge of sadness when we have to say ‘see ya’.

    What’s made a difference?

    Wallpaper and paint. We bought a house just over a year ago and have been taking our time in working out how we want it to look. We had the loungeroom painted earlier in the year. Clouded Sky. That’s the name of the paint colour. A few months ago, we added some wallpaper to the family room, and yesterday we had the little sitting room painted. Bean Counter. That’s the name of the paint colour. It’s made such a difference!

    An F-word

    Face-mask. I had never used a face-mask before the weekend, but Deb said we needed a ‘glow up’ and so bought us both one to apply. It was slimy and cold and felt disgusting for the fifteen minutes it was on my face. I was distinctly uncomfortable and I think Deb was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t the relaxing experience she had imagined it would be.

    After peeling the slimy wet thing from my face and gingerly rubbing the leftover gloop in with my fingertips, I have to admit that my face was glowing. It has continued to glow in the days since. So much so, that I’m considering doing it again sometime in the next 60 years.

    So there you have it: 3 questions and an f-word. And no mention of my newly published book Enacting a pedagogy of kindness, available now from the Routledge site (as well as loads of other sites that sell good books). I did well not to mention that, didn’t I?

    Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Writing

    An A-Z of goings on

    Posted on by Sharon

    My sister posted on her blog today a post titled Taking Stock Checkup #3. In it, she used one word prompts to get her thinking about what’s been on her radar for the past few weeks/months. It’s the same words each time she posts (this is her third post using this format this year) although I’m not sure if they’re her words or someone else’s.

    No matter.

    As I’m having a day off today, I thought I might use the same prompts, just to see how it feels.

    Appreciating: My latest book, Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness: A guide for practitioners in Higher Education has just been published. I’m appreciating a few things:

    • my friend, Airdre Grant, who invited me to co-edit the book
    • the work of each contributor in telling stories of how they enact kindness in their practice
    • how good it feels to have it out in the world (although I reckon it’ll feel even better when I get my hands on a physical copy)
    • how hard it is to promote an academic text (I keep asking myself who wants to read it … I think every academic/teacher should because it’s a great book!)

    Bingeing: I am currently bingeing the Happy Wall website. I am obsessed with wallpaper at the moment and spend way too long looking for one that’s ‘just right’. Loads of great designs, too few walls.

    Cooking: Porridge for breakfast.

    Doing: (Barely) promoting my book, searching through wallpaper designs, eating porridge.

    Excited: Next month, on October 3, I will be attending a book launch at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. They will be launching The story of Melbourne’s lanes: Essential but unplanned. The reason I’m particularly excited by the launch of this book is because they have chosen one of my images to be on the cover!

    Feeling: Appreciative.

    Going: To see Jesus Christ Superstar with my sister as a birthday treat next year.

    Hoping: That Jesus Christ Superstar will be just as good as it was the first time we saw it in the early/mid 1970s (with Marcia Hines, Jon English, and Trevor White).

    Important: Appreciating the good things is important. Particularly when the good things are simple things like cooking porridge.

    Joining: I will be joining others from U3A Hawthorn at the Laneways book launch on October 3.

    Kudos: To the paralympians.

    Loving: Using my newly set-up photography studio. It’s fabulous to have light modifiers on the wall; somewhere to hang backdrops; and to have the lights set up so that I can get creative quickly and easily.

    Managing: To get work done with all the distractions of book publication, the other book’s upcoming launch, my photo studio set up, wallpaper sites to trawl through …

    Need: To choose paint colours.

    Observing: The delivery man out the front at the moment. His truck won’t start and it’s interesting to watch him try to identify the problem.

    Preparing: For yet another severe weather event. I don’t know what this one will be, but I guess I’ll find out when it hits.

    Quirky: A word I used to search for homewares last week. Didn’t find anything I liked.

    Reading: Tea leaves.

    Smiling: Because, you know, my book … porridge … photo studio

    Thriving: My garden is thriving because Spring is here. I can see buds on the weeping something tree outside my window, and blossoms on the trees that line the street.

    Uncomfortable: At the idea of promoting my book.

    Visiting: Soon I will be visiting my youngest son and his family. For the first time in 10 years I’ll have a child and grandchildren living in the same state as me and that means frequent visiting.

    Wearing: Too many visits to my youngest son and his family might get wearing – for them at least. Not for me!

    Xploring: Ideas … photographically.

    Yes: Please.

    Zero: No more words.

    Posted in Life

    Threads and connections

    Posted on by Sharon

    This won’t be of any interest to others, but I’m going to blog about it anyway so that I remember this feeling of having my mind just slightly blown.

    There are two threads to this story, and I’ll start with the more recent one. The two threads lead to a connection.

    In July 2021, while I was working at Deakin University, a new staff member joined our team. I was instantly drawn to her – she was warm and down to earth and just the right person for the role we had.

    Airdre, for that is her name, joined our team remotely – we were still in the throes of COVID lockdowns – from Lismore in northern NSW. We finally met in person in Melbourne in December 2021, a month after I’d been made redundant and days after Airdre finished her 6-month contract.

    We got on like the proverbial house on fire.

    In early January 2023, my mother and I visited Airdre in her beautiful home in Lismore, on our way north to Queensland.

    Since then, Airdre has moved to Melbourne and we’ve co-authored a book together, titled Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness to be published later this year (I thought a little plug wouldn’t go astray).

    That was thread one. Thread two is a tiny bit more convoluted. Bear with me.

    Some members of the family have been engaged in a photography challenge that’s been going for a few years now. We have a weekly theme, take photos that align (tangentially in some cases) with the theme, post them to our Facebook group and then we catch up over Zoom for a chat each Sunday night. The active members of the group are spread across three states of Australia, with others joining sporadically from other states and the UK.

    Our theme last week was ‘flat’. I had taken a photo a few years ago of Pittaway St, in Kangaroo Flat (near Bendigo) and so posted that image. It’s not often I see a street sign with my name on it and I remember being quite chuffed at its existence.

    I had done a search some time ago for the Pittaway of Kangaroo Flat the street was named after and had discovered a William Pittaway, convict, sentenced to 14 years in Van Diemen’s Land for sacrilege (he stole some church silverware and was caught pawning it). He obviously moved to Victoria after he’d served his sentence, as many Van Diemonians (as they were called) did, and his wife and children joined him here to live out their lives peacefully.

    Turns out he’s not related to us.

    Well, not that we know of.

    Anyway …

    On Sunday night, after our weekly family catch-up, I thought I’d find him again so that I could be sure about the story.

    I didn’t find the same information, but went down a rabbit hole and came across cemetery lists of Pittaways around the country. One of them was Alice Pittaway (nee Duroux) who is buried in Lismore. I knew that Alice was my great-grandmother and that she had died aged 47 in 1933. She’d gone out one morning to water the garden, had felt unwell, gone inside and had died before medical attention could be summoned.

    I dug out Alice’s obituary and noticed the address of the house she’d lived in. I did a search on Google Maps, but there was no such street in Lismore, so I rang Mum and asked to her confirm the details. Mum is into family history and I knew she’d know.

    She did. She also told me that my aunt, Lyn (Dad’s youngest sister) had visited the house in Lismore in 2013. This morning, Mum sent me one of the photos Lyn had sent her.

    Standing on the stairs was Colin, Lyn’s husband … and on the verandah … was Airdre!

    Airdre, my friend and colleague, the one I’d visited in Lismore, had lived for 20 years in the same house my great-grandmother (and my great-grandfather and my grandfather and his brothers and sisters) had lived in all those years before.

    Two different threads … leading to a one slightly mind-blowing connection.

    I sent the photo to Airdre this morning, and she was suitably (and appropriately) confused. How did I have a photo of her from 2013 when I only met her in 2021? Who was the man on the stairs? What?

    What??

    I’m glad I wasn’t the only one whose mind was blown.