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Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge #9

Welcome to Week 9 of my Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge.  Corvids are birds belonging to the Corvidae family, encompassing ravens, crows, magpies, jays and nutcrackers.  So peruse your corvid photo, poetry, music and story archives and join the challenge.

You can participate in the Corvid-2020 Weekly Challenge by creating a pingback to this post (my pingback approval settings are set up for manual approval, so it may take a little while for your pingback to appear) and/or by leaving a hyperlink to your submission in the comments.   Tag your post Corvid-2020 or C20WC.  I really do hope you will join in. Read more

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Waiting Or Anticipating?

A black hat perspective.  Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

After a buoyant few days, I’ve stopped to think.  It is necessary, albeit depressing, but it helps me get things weirdly acceptable in my head.  I still haven’t heard anything definitive about how much of the new corona virus, Australia, is prepared to live with.   Some apparently.  However, no-one in authority is yet prepared to be upfront about the costs of this suppression strategy.  It is one thing to be reassured that there will be a (net?) benefit, but without being specific about what is being traded off — who and what is to be sacrificed — how can the community have ownership of any virus-related actions and outcomes? Read more

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Framing Reality – Looking Below the Surface

This post contains images that may offend my mum some readers.  Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to distinguish between reality and fakery, especially in the online world.  How many of us can say, hand on heart, that we are completely honest about our online persona?  I present myself as an environmentally conscious person, nature lover, mother and artist.  My blog is called Reflections of an Untidy Mind, but some of my devoted readers, have been kind enough to comment that my mind does not appear as untidy as I make out.  Maybe I’m just using the old reverse psychology trick to make myself look good?  (That’s a rhetorical question, folks.) Read more

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Chip Off The Old Block

I come from a long line of procrastinators.  It is kind of genetic.  There is always a tension about what constitutes over-sharing and yet it is apparently important to speak up about mental health issues, despite the discrimination this induces.  I’ve always had problems concentrating and getting started.  Organisation is not my forté.  I’m not sure whether anyone noticed.  Girls are good at hiding that stuff.  Plus I was kind of smart and I had compensation strategies that got me by.  I got through my first degree somehow (burning the midnight oil and eating a lot of chocolate).  I got a job in the government and worked my way through some of the ranks (burning the midnight oil and eating a lot of chocolate).

I was the Taskforce queen.  I could pull it out of a hat when deadlines were tight (it takes a lot of adrenaline to get my mind out of first gear).  Routine jobs?  Tedious and stressful (probably because they involved organisational skills that I did not possess).  I live in nuance, and that is often an uncomfortable place to be for a policy adviser.  (I do have some sympathy for our former prime minister who was constantly being criticised because he couldn’t give a simple answer.)  It is hard to sum up complex policy considerations in three talking points.  Still I managed, because you know, hard work.  It is the solution to everything, right?  At least that is what I thought.

Trigger warning.  This post contains material that may distress some readers. Read more

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All Sunshine and No Rain Makes A Desert

The delightful Pauline from Living in Paradise has invited me to take part in a 3-day Quote Challenge.  I’ve made it to Day 3.  Yay!  You can see my Day 1 quote post here and my Day 2 quote post here.  Instead of a final quote, I am going to finish off with a proverb.  You know what it is already, because I have used it as the title of this post:

“All sunshine and no rain makes a desert.”
From an Arab Proverb

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On the Road Again

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge  – I’d Rather Be…  On the Road Again

A few years ago, I suffered from a serious depressive episode – you know, the kind where you just want to run away.  I’m not ashamed that even though I was nearly 50 years old at the time, I still needed my mum.  So I packed my bags and headed out on the road for the 1,500 kilometre trip north to mum’s.   Read more

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Book Review: My Everest: Thirty Years of San Diego Hiking (With Dogs!) by Martha Kennedy (2017)

Everestpic

I have just read the most wonderful, life-affirming book – My Everest:  Thirty Years of San Diego Hiking (With Dogs!) by Martha Kennedy.  You might think a story about 30 years of hiking the same trails might be a little boring.  Not so.  This is a grand love story; a tribute to the enduring relationship between one woman and her wilderness, encompassing the creatures of the Chaparral that watched over and befriended her, and the dogs – her faithful companions – who were always by her side.  Read more