This planned life

Last week I spent Tuesday in Canberra and went to the Reading Room at the National Library for the afternoon. It is an amazing room and the minute you walk in you feel inspired to work and create.

I made a plan for my ‘book’ and was surprised by the ideas that popped into my head. My characters now have a back story and I have figured out lots of storylines for them.

I am a planner. I make plans for everything but the two areas I do no planning in are studying and writing. They fit in around procrastinating of which I am an expert.

A couple of weeks ago my first exercise for semester two came in and I needed to create a PowerPoint presentation. I had never done this before and to stop my panicking about it I sat down and planned what I wanted each slide to say. It worked and when it came time to create the presentation it all came together beautifully.

My goal for this week is to create writing and study plans and promise myself I will stick to them.

Are you a planner? Do you stick to the plans you make?

I haven’t read anything other than Twitter and wherever the tweets lead me this week. I did, however, bring home four books from the library. Time to log off Twitter and read a book!

Time to set some more goals

I have been inspired by the fabulous women I have been following on Twitter and have gone through stories I had written over the years and found some which can be used in my ‘book’.

Last week we bumped into some friends and over coffee talked about my dream of writing. I came home that day and wrote up some of the conversation we had. It turned into nearly a chapter! Wow, if I can do that after one coffee I need to do a JK Rowling and write in the cafes around town.

Everyone is talking about the Olympics and all the athletes who compete have their dream, set their goals and go for it. I have my dream and am working on setting myself small step-by-step goals and will go for it.

Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty is the only book I have read in a while as I have been doing a lot of 'research' on Twitter.

Successful antique shopping

Our eldest daughter has just come home from her first overseas trip. She went to New Zealand on a Contiki tour and had a ball. She now has the travel bug and is saving for Europe. We are so proud of her. She has a job she loves, is doing her degree part-time and is happy. Her sister is planning on joining her at uni next year and has one term left at school before the HSC takes over her life for a few months. We are getting used to life without the kids around.

As they are pretty much independent of us now we do have more time to do the things we love and after years of looking at antique dining tables and sideboards we went shopping on the weekend and finally made a decision. Last year we found some gorgeous dining chairs and now we have the table to match. What I love about the sideboard is that it is a 1920s bookcase but perfect for what we need. If I could find the camera I would take a photo.

I am currently reading The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty.

Hello Twitter

The last few days have been quite productive. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to improve my social media skills. I tried Facebook a few years ago but it wasn't for me although I did enjoy playing scrabble. I do write comments on blog posts I like but needed to do more, it was time to join Twitter. After a glass of wine and some chocolate I sat down and created my account. I found lots of my favourite authors and bloggers and followed them. Some of them even followed me!

I now have to figure out what to tweet about. Any ideas?

I have just finished reading The House on Willow Street by Cathy Kelly. Can't wait for her next one.

Meeting a new family member

I have been enjoying my time off from CIT and catching up with other stuff that got left behind while I was studying.

I have also been back to Perth to visit family and friends and meet my great niece! We celebrated her one month birthday while we were there and I am in love! This little bundle of joy is precious and I was not ready for the emotion I felt when I first held her. We left Perth sixteen years ago and I have not seen a lot of my nieces over that time. To see my niece with her baby was amazing. I am so proud of her. My sister is a grandmother and that too is weird. I know I will not see a lot of my great niece but I have started writing stories about her family in NSW to give to her.

Are you away from your closest family members? How do you keep in touch?

I have just finished the new book by Nora Roberts The Last Boyfriend. This was the second book in the Inn Boonsboro series. The first one I mentioned a few posts ago but couldn't remember the name of was The Next Always.

End of semester one

It is done! All my assignments are in and semester one is over! What have I learned?

I learned that I didn't need to agonise over my homework and assignments - just get it done. As the last few weeks flew by I did get better at that as I was running out of time and energy. There is nothing like a deadline to get you going.

I learned which areas of Library and Information Services interest me and where I want to pursue extra work.

I learned that you are never too old to take on something new. I did feel like the 'granny' on campus but I wasn't the oldest one there.

I made some lovely new friends and we supported each other through the last mad weeks of getting assignments done.

I enrolled to continue on in semester two - what was I thinking?

Not much reading has been happening. I did read Stella Makes Good by Lisa Heidke and loved it. Hopefully I will have more time and energy to read before semester two starts! I have a pile of books by Australian women to read and can't wait to get into them.

Has anyone else just finished a semester of study? How did you go?

Assignments, assignments!

Four weeks to go until all my assignments need to be in! Over a coffee with some of my classmates we all 'pinky promised' we would call each other for support if we felt like throwing in the towel. We have been doing well and need to keep going.

I have just finished reading Diane Blacklock's The Right Time and thoroughly enjoyed it. I now have her new one on my pile to read. On Monday I went to an author talk with Diane, Ber Carroll and Liane Moriarty. They were all lovely women and spoke about their journey into writing and publishing novels and were inspirational. I came home and looked at my 'book' but need to finish this course before I can revisit and spend some time on it.