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Tagged: Family
Find what you love
I am still on a journey of discovery to try and “find what I love doing”, I am fairly content in my work, find it interesting and challenging, but I don’t feel I make a difference, at home I spend most of the time with my family – which is great – but very internal focused. I would like both work and home life to change over time to be more community centred and to feel that I am giving something back to the world and that I live in a more natural and sustainable way. My relatively poor health is currently the excuse I hide behind that stops me taking the risk associated with change.
I do however continue to be on the lookout for advise in this area and I recently cam across these two articles, one by Steve Jobs – You’ve got to find what you love and the other my Dave Pollard ‘Business’ Advice for Young Adults (and Their Parents & Teachers). Check them out if you ever think about your work or worry about how you are preparing your kids to help them make good choices about their future work choices.
Role change weekend
As I work from home I tend to make sure I do my share of the housework. My normal daily jobs include:
- tidying the bedrooms
- making the beds
- washing, drying and putting away the clothes
Well Debbie and I have been finding our respective daily tasks a bit of a grind, so on Friday we decided that we would swap jobs every weekend. So this weekend I have been:
- making all of the meals
- setting the table
- clearing the table, washing up, drying and putting away the pots
it’s been a great success, I have loved not having to do my jobs, and really enjoyed my new weekend jobs. By Sunday I had change the routine and made it a lot more organised and peaceful and had written up (stephie laminated for me) a crib sheet that tells me all of the kids favorite meals, vegetables, fruit, drinks etc, as with 4 kids I am always forgetting Hopefully a weeks break from them will mean I enjoy these tasks every weekend, as they say “a change is as good as a rest”.
More evidence that going paperless is a good idea!
I have thought for a long time that going paperless was a good strategy. Now I know why, Microsoft has posted 3 great videos that demonstrate the dangers of office stationary. They really are worth watching, preferably with the family as they are very funny. Another tip, make sure you watch them through a few times watching the background characters as well for best effect!
First up, the Elastic Band next the Paper Cut and finally the Bad Pen
Visit the web site for more information
100 things about me
- I was born in Lincoln in England in 1963
- I have one brother 2 1/2 years younger than me
- My Grandma claimed to be a medium, she was certainly very wise, and she told very convincing stories
- My Mum’s Grandad was Major of Lincoln
- I grew up with tremendous freedom roaming the countryside, building sites, abandoned airfields and gravel pits and reading
- My parents were amazing, I don’t ever remember being put under pressure, or ever feeling that I needed to work to gain their love and approval
- I grew up in a house with a huge garden and 50 tree orchard, the source of endless play
- I was a slow starter at school, I was 13 before I actually started to move up the sets, and never really found my feet academically until I was doing my first degree
- I suffered badly from acne as a boy and still suffer a bit now at 41, but I learned not to let that sort of thing bother me, and learned to be happy with myself
- I suffered very badly from Migraine and Hay-fever as a child and remember spending lots of days debilitated by one or the other
- When I was …
IT Conversations – Games in education
This is my first mini review of a talk from IT conversations, it is an interview by Moira Gunn with Dr. Henry Jenkins and explains how he thinks video games will revolutionise education. Dr. Jenkins is the director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-editor of Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition (Media in Transition). The talk is truly fascinating, and pretty scary when you think about the dramatic affects it will have on the capability and outlook that the kids of the future. Surprisingly this talk and others point out that the gamer generation will have different attitudes to work and will need to be managed differently, this talk by John Beck, a Senior Research Fellow at USC’s Annenberg Center of the Digital Future, is on that topic.
I particularly liked the description of the teacher, as more of a coach and leader, and the emphasis on experience as a tool for learning. In the games that bring history to life it is interesting how it will be possible to provide a real insight into what life was actually like for those experiencing key events from different …
Bank holiday weekend
It’s been a few months since I have been well enough to taking the kids out playing on the beach, so this bank holiday weekend has been pretty special. We have played ball games every day on our local beach and today we went into Blackpool early (never go into Blackpool late on a bank holiday unless you like the “party atmosphere” – ie drunken louts!). Anyway early on a sunny day is great fun. The girls spent an hour in the amusements and we had a good root round the shops and good fun on the beach.
Market day by the sea
I have mentioned before that I live in St Annes on the Sea, a small town that enjoys a micro-climate. Well it was forecast snow today, but for us it has been a lovely sunny day, which is lucky because it’s market day and what a market it was! Today we had a speciality continental market, very expensive but a visual delight!
St Annes on the Sea celebrates
Today in our little town we were celebrating the fact that after much campaigning we now have our own town council which gives us a more effective voice at the Borough Council, celebrations were mainly of a musical nature, and this picture is of one of the local bands. The town was buzzing, helped by the fact that its was a gloriously sunny day. We walked home along the beach playing football, which regular readers will know means that physically I am on pretty good form today.
As a small town we face many challenges and difficult decisions concerning for example striking a balance between development, especially Tourist development, and maintaining the spirit of “The garden by the sea”, which was how the town was known in Victorian times.
In recent years we have seen a lot of money spent on appropriate development, which has successful regenerated the town centre and this year we are hoping to see further investment in our promenade gardens and in our town centre park. This picture is of my mum and the kids in one of the beach side cafes.
Sharing and giving
On Saturday I started to pull up all of the strawberry plants that had rooted from runners last year. I ended up with several hundred plants in a big heap. I decided that it would be a good idea to give them away, but my wife thought no one would be interested. I took this as a bit of a challenge, I am one of those people who likes to think the best of others (which is an extension of having a positive outlook) my wife in contrast always expects things to go wrong and tends to distrust those she doesn’t know. Anyway I bagged the plants up – 15 plants to a bag – and to make the challenge more interesting decided to give the plants away but allow for donations.
My eldest daughter, Stephie, made a lovely sign and we put the 15 bags of plants in a big plastic container on the path outside the house. The sign read – Free Strawberries – and was nicely illustrated. Next to the container was a small wooden bowl which I put a little loose change in; to get things going. After three days all 15 bags have gone, we …