Day 1 - Blog 12 Days of Christmas: Expect Miracles

Back again for another round of #blog12daysxmas!  And I'm hoping some of the regulars are back again too as I love catching up with what they have been up to.

I'm following the daily mantra idea I used for #blogjune to prompt some deep (sometimes) thought.  Today's mantra is quite fitting - Expect miracles!

Today being Christmas is in itself a day born from a miracle.  Perhaps you may not be religious - I'm not a Christian as such but certainly was when I was younger and the miracle of Christmas is one that will not be forgotten.

I will always think of Christmas as a day to celebrate family!  And that's what my little family did today.  Even though gifts were involved - family was at the hub!

And I think you have to look at every day you get to spend with family (and really our friends are often part of our family) is a miracle!!

I hope you enjoyed your miracle today and continue to expect miracles - they may not be big but they are there and often happen everyday!!

On the first day of Christmas...

I watched Miss A unwrap her presents this morning, went for a walk along the beach, and relaxed watching trashy TV.

So here we are another year gone and back to #blog12daysxmas.  For those that haven't been here before, the rules are you have to do a blog post for 12 days from Christmas.  There are a few fellow #blog12daysxmas participants including Bun-toting Librarian and Librarian in the Mirror.  I'm sure there will be more and I'll post them on my posts as I come across them.

You can write a post about anything really.  Mine usually sway between librarianship and semi-personal things.  But this time it will most likely focus a fair bit on running and fitness - just because I'm in the phase at the moment.

Reflecting on the past year (and I'll probably do more of this in a New Year's Day post), the big things that stand out for me are:

• starting bootcamp
• losing over 10kg
• running two 10km fun runs

You can now understand how this blog may sway towards the fitness side of things during #blog12daysxmas

So what have been your big achievements for this year? 

It would be good if a few new faces joined in #blog12daysxmas.  Don't be shy - join in the fun!  There may even be blog challenges along the way!!  Bun-toting librarian often does a musical challenge.  And then there are the blog meme's that help on those days where you are suffering writers block.

Blog December Post 25/Blog 12DaysofChristmas Post 1 - Initiative

Today's Destiny Card is Initiative.

Initiative:

The ability to assess and initiate things independently.

The power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.

 

On the first of December I decided to take the initiative to challenge myself by blogging everyday of December.  I have noted some twitter friends of mine have taken the initiative to blog the 12 Days of Christmas - @jobeaz and @KRidwyn and I'm sure there are others on my twitter list that will join in - just look for #blog12daysxmas

 

I took part in #blog12daysxmas last year and found it an excellent initiative to force me to reflect on things - well at least for 12 days and that is what lead into #blogDecember for me this year - I wanted to see if I could go for more than 12 days.  So I am going to take the initiative and make my #blogDecember posts merge with #blog12daysxmas posts.

 

So on the first day of Christmas.... We took our guest, a very long time friend of my husbands, for a drive to Sawtell and Boambee (just South of Coffs Harbour and North of us at Urunga).  There are two great lookouts in these towns (suburbs of Coffs) that overlook the ocean and Sawtell has an ocean tidal pool.

 

 

(Photo above is the tidal pool at Sawtell)

 

From there we drove to the Coffs Harbour Jetty precient and went to the lookout there - it looks over the Jetty and Muttonbird Island.

 

(Photo above is looking over Coffs Harbour Jetty and Muttonbird Island)

We then went home and had a rather plain Christmas day lunch of toasted sandwiches and quickly drove 5 minutes up the road to Hungry Head beach for an afternoon swim.  We spent two hours splashing in the waves and it was a great way to finish Christmas day.

What I have found by having my husband's friend visit us, is that I'm getting to look at my backyard through fresh eyes and re-evaluating why we love living here.

As I sit here and hear the thunder roll off the mountains (and pray we will get some rain), I think how lucky I am to be living in this beautiful place.  Unfortunately we all have times where we get caught up in the stresses of work and economic pressure and forget to look around us and see what we have.

I have a beautiful family (who are all in good health) and we live in a beautiful place - what more could I ask for??!!  Merry Christmas everyone!!

(Photo above - me and my beautiful family)



 

Blog December Post 24 - Enthusiasm or lack of

Today's Destiny Card is Enthusiasm.

And today I unfortunately don't have the enthusiasm to blog.  There are absolutely no ideas coming to me about what to write.

All I can think of is that it is hot and we are going to go to the beach today - that's where my enthusiasm lays - at the beach.

I have always been enthusiastic about reading and libraries.  I finished reading Zoe's Muster by Barbara Hannay (great read by the way) and I'm looking at my other pile of books with little enthusiasm to start them.

And today, I can't even think about libraries with enthusiasm - I am on holidays and I need to let go because thinking about libraries leads me to think about work and I don't want to think about work these holidays.

I apologise for the lack of enthusiasm in this post but I suppose it is the holidays and it is Christmas eve and it is hot and I just want to go to the beach!!

Perhaps my enthusiasm for blogging and a great idea will pop into my head later!

Have a great day!

Blog December Post 23 - It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

Today's Destiny Card is Flexibility.

As a I have confessed, I do like routine, but this holiday's I have promised to remain flexible and go with the flow more often.

Last night we had the Urunga Carols.  Every year since moving down here, my daughter and I have gone along for the long haul of 4 hours of carols that lead up to the grand finale of fireworks.  This year we have the pleasure of hosting my husband long time friend.  It was great having a refreshing pair of eyes at the carols.  My husband friend continued to rave about what a great event the carols are and how it is great to see our community come together for it.  I must admit that there seemed to be a lot more people there then previous years.

The carols really make it sink in that Christmas is not far away.  The star in the big pine tree on Morgo St - that runs along the foreshore is another sign that Christmas is around the corner.  Of course, small child constantly reminds us of how many days until Santa comes!!

I'm particularly enjoying the lead up to Christmas this year because it is not raining.  The last four years I have felt cheated of a true summer.  And while many whinge about the heat and humidity - that is Christmas to me and we are certainly getting it this year!!

Today we will show my husband's friends some sights from our area and it is really great he is visiting at this time of the year because it is forcing all of us to get out and away from our normal routine and do something - as opposed to sitting in the house and whinging (not me) about the heat!!  I am embracing flexibility!!

So I apologise that my posts are going a bit soft at the moment but with the weather being so good and having a guest in the house - it does not allow for long moments of thoughts before posting.

However, I will share this - once again I read it on a FB/blog post this morning and thought it was a bit quirky - Since 1996, 31 Australians have died by watering a Christmas tree with the lights on.
Ref: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Blog December Post 22 - Where are the presents?

Today's Destiny Card is Gentleness and I have to say I was showed extreme gentleness when I went grocery shopping this morning amongst the last minute Christmas rush.  I came out the other side unscathed so I'm relieved.

I'm not going to focus this post on Gentleness but on something I read this morning.  It was on a blog post with a picture of a Christmas tree with nothing under it.  The comment mentioned the "virtual Christmas" with the author saying that their children had asked for digital music, ebooks, digital games etc so there was nothing to put under the tree.  Is this something that will be more familiar in the near future?

Growing up, our Christmas presents were put under the Christmas tree as soon as the tree was up.  And my brother and sister and I used to try to tear little corners off so that it wasn't noticable to our parents, but was enough to see what we were getting.  I don't think we were good at surprises, yet I don't think we ever managed to rip enough off to see what it was.

My husband grew up with a different tradition due to his German/Scottish parents.  They would open their gifts at Midnight on Christmas Eve.

Before child, we participated in this with his neices when we were invited to Christmas eve dinner.  I used to struggle to stay awake and I have no idea how the kids managed.

Once our child was old enough - think she was 5 years old - we tried it.  We let her go to sleep Christmas eve and then work her at midnight.  I remember that she was half asleep and displaying little excitement and we were all zombies (very tired) the next day.  Needless to say we have dropped that tradition and we put the presents out after she's gone to bed Christmas eve and she opens them Christmas morning.

At this stage the gifts are not "virtual."  Although, mine may be as I want books and I didn't want to go shopping for them so think I may be purchasing them online on Christmas day!!

However, it may well be that in coming years we find that our daughter will want things that are "virtual" and there will be nothing to put under the tree, except maybe for a gift card or two for online credit.

I apologise for the lateness of this post but we are expecting a guest today - a friend of my husband's whom he hasn't seen since before we met - so I've never met him.  They've been friends for ever and reconnected a few years back via phone calls.  I'm not sure how I feel with a someone who is a stranger to me staying with us but I suppose I'll just go with the flow.

And we are praying for no rain or storms this evening as the Urunga Carols are on and we will be heading down at 5pm and staying on till the fireworks at 9pm and then the traditional drive around town looking at the Christmas lights. 

While today we are melting away in the humidity, I can't help but feel that the Christmas weather of my childhood has returned - now all I have to do is convince my husband to allow me to watch the Boxing Day test match and all will be good!!

Blog December Post 11 - Back to work

I'm heading back to work today after an extended weekend - I  had Thursday and Friday off last week, and yesterday off this week as my parents were down from Qld.

Due to the connected nature of the world today, I incidently read work emails while on leave.  This has enlightened me to the fact that this week may turn into a particularly stressful week.

There is some library politics going on, I have a staff member on sick leave and there may be issues around their return to work, and I may have to do some IT stuff that I really don't have time to do.

I've seen a few comments on Twitter about how the days leading up to Christmas always end up stressing people out - well it looks like it will be true in my case.

That said the positives about the coming weeks are:

• I only have 9 working days left until I'm on leave for 2 and half weeks
• The work Secret Santa party is on this week
• The work Christmas party is on next week
• I will have a Monday to catch up on everything
• I will have half hour with the teachers from a local school to share information about their local library and how it can assist them with teaching and leisure
• I will have a last day of work before Christmas - which is always a lot of fun!!