I have (madly) put my hat in the ring to take part in National Novel Writing Month. It has been a real challenge for me but an opportunity to get back into writing a longer manuscript. The idea is to knuckle down and produce a raw (little to no editing) 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of the month of November. With all of the end of year things to do with school and work and just not being able to find time to write (hence the severe lack of posts over the last month at least) I must admit now to the epic failure which is my NaNoWriMo effort... Banging out two half decent sessions of 1,000 words or more I have managed to rack up a grand total of 4,148 words (almost 10%). The word counter on the website informs me that it would take the next eleventh months (pretty much to the start of the next NaNoWriMo) before I would reach my required 50K.
From such an epic fail though I move swiftly on to last night and the amazingly fun night my wonderful and truly terrific wife and I put on for the local library team. We have had a bit of a rough and tough 2018 which only just now seems to be smoothing itself out. Certain members of the team I manage are having tough moments of their own so an end of year wind down was a exactly what was needed. We had at least half the team present with partners and kids and it was just such a fun night of eating and drinking and chatting away the night. Hopefully next year we can have even more members come along. I know that what ever we do it is bound to be great fun.
Waiting in the balance now is a children's event planned for work for tomorrow. I am hoping that the community gets behind their local author and their local library and that we get hoards and hoards of visitors for the day... The record we are aiming to beat... Just 128 visitors in 4 hours... This was set in late July last year (the first time we had this same children's author). Bring on the chaos and fingers crossed we break our record... If you are in the neighbourhood please drop by...
Friday, 30 November 2018
Saturday, 17 November 2018
Look out!! Christmas Time is Fast Approaching...
What a wonderful weekend... Starting on Friday I was lucky enough to have the day off and head over to the school my kids (Master 12, Miss 11 and Miss 8) attend with my amazing and truly wondrous wife to mass produce around 20 homemade pizzas. Friday Fresh is a great canteen incentive that Jervois Primary (like many schools around the world) do to make sure the kids are getting a heathy, home cooked meal, have full tummies and it is also an opportunity to utilise some of the goodies grown in the school garden... Win! Win! Winners all round!!
Our home made pizzas with a wholemeal flour and Greek yogurt base are simple to make, extra yummy and oh so amazingly filling. I think a good 90% of the kids and teaching staff order Friday Fresh when they know we are in the kitchen.
Following on from a busy and satisfying Friday day we had a great tea and then settled in to watch HUGO for Family Movie Night... I just love this chance to all sit around and enjoy a fun, often funny family movie. Sometimes it is a DVD we bought of something we missed at the cinema, sometimes a movie we have streamed and often it is something I have spotted at work (our local library has a great DVD collection for all ages, very eclectic with something for everyone and then some)... In this instance it was the latter, a film we have had in the teen section which often gets borrowed. When Master 12 suggested he was reading the book the movie HUGO is based on as a class novel I thought it was time for us to borrow the DVD too and see just how great a film it is. All I can say is we all loved it (or at least what we all say of it). Great cast, great story and great pace had all of us highly entertained.
Following this I had a pretty good shift at the library on Saturday morning and (drum roll please)... The Murray Bridge Community Christmas Pageant. In similar fashion to other years I nominated to walk with my daughter, Miss 11 and her cousin Miss M on the local Girl Guide float which had a truly Aussie theme of A Beach Christmas. A quick shout out to a local company Longs Sand and Metal who donated the pile of sand that some of the Guides used to build sandcastles on the back of the truck as part of the float. Also a quick mention of the massive show of talent of the two Guides who played Totem Tennis while said truck made its way down the main street (Bridge Street), turned at the roundabout, headed down the steep Seventh Street hill and then weaved its way down to the Murray River. Also finally a thanks to the truck driver (cheers Nick!) who didn't run me over as I walked beside the truck spending the who walk throwing pretend buckets of water (made from blue steamers and tinsel) at all the kids that wanted lollies and all the families I know. I am truly not sure who had more fun... The Adelaide and Murray Bridge pageants over now for another year it is a huge reminder that crazy Christmas time is just around the corner...
A Law/Crook catch up followed after with the addition of a good mate (let's just call him Batman)... The boys settled in with a delightful glass of scotch and a fun game of Gloom (and guess who won... I mean lost... I mean I don't know what I mean...) while the sisters caught up and the kids just did what our kids love to do. Love so much that whenever our families catch up it all seems to just go smoothly...
That brings us to today... A lazy morning followed by a trip to the docs (nothing too sinister, just a check over one of the kids for piece of mind)... Another shift at work and then a lazy afternoon/evening fending of Shmunday (Sunday blending into Monday)... Sadly I still have some ironing to do but nothing I can't handle... Cannot wait to see what next weekend has in store...
Our home made pizzas with a wholemeal flour and Greek yogurt base are simple to make, extra yummy and oh so amazingly filling. I think a good 90% of the kids and teaching staff order Friday Fresh when they know we are in the kitchen.
Following on from a busy and satisfying Friday day we had a great tea and then settled in to watch HUGO for Family Movie Night... I just love this chance to all sit around and enjoy a fun, often funny family movie. Sometimes it is a DVD we bought of something we missed at the cinema, sometimes a movie we have streamed and often it is something I have spotted at work (our local library has a great DVD collection for all ages, very eclectic with something for everyone and then some)... In this instance it was the latter, a film we have had in the teen section which often gets borrowed. When Master 12 suggested he was reading the book the movie HUGO is based on as a class novel I thought it was time for us to borrow the DVD too and see just how great a film it is. All I can say is we all loved it (or at least what we all say of it). Great cast, great story and great pace had all of us highly entertained.
Following this I had a pretty good shift at the library on Saturday morning and (drum roll please)... The Murray Bridge Community Christmas Pageant. In similar fashion to other years I nominated to walk with my daughter, Miss 11 and her cousin Miss M on the local Girl Guide float which had a truly Aussie theme of A Beach Christmas. A quick shout out to a local company Longs Sand and Metal who donated the pile of sand that some of the Guides used to build sandcastles on the back of the truck as part of the float. Also a quick mention of the massive show of talent of the two Guides who played Totem Tennis while said truck made its way down the main street (Bridge Street), turned at the roundabout, headed down the steep Seventh Street hill and then weaved its way down to the Murray River. Also finally a thanks to the truck driver (cheers Nick!) who didn't run me over as I walked beside the truck spending the who walk throwing pretend buckets of water (made from blue steamers and tinsel) at all the kids that wanted lollies and all the families I know. I am truly not sure who had more fun... The Adelaide and Murray Bridge pageants over now for another year it is a huge reminder that crazy Christmas time is just around the corner...
A Law/Crook catch up followed after with the addition of a good mate (let's just call him Batman)... The boys settled in with a delightful glass of scotch and a fun game of Gloom (and guess who won... I mean lost... I mean I don't know what I mean...) while the sisters caught up and the kids just did what our kids love to do. Love so much that whenever our families catch up it all seems to just go smoothly...
That brings us to today... A lazy morning followed by a trip to the docs (nothing too sinister, just a check over one of the kids for piece of mind)... Another shift at work and then a lazy afternoon/evening fending of Shmunday (Sunday blending into Monday)... Sadly I still have some ironing to do but nothing I can't handle... Cannot wait to see what next weekend has in store...