The A to Z blogging challenge - my reflections

A big thank you to all of the hosts of this challenge: 


Arlee Bird's Tossing It Out
Jeffrey Beesler's World of the Scribe
Alex J. Cavanaugh Alex J. Cavanaugh
Jen Daiker's Unedited 
Candace Ganger's The Misadventures in Candyland
Karen J Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain Talli Roland
Stephen Tremp's Breakthrough Blogs 


and also to Elizabeth Mueller for the badge she made for participants in the challenge. It is so gorgeous! 

I enjoyed participating in the challenge. It was great to have some extra visitors to my blog and I enjoyed visiting other blogs. My approach to the challenge changed halfway through. I started off making an alphabet card each day. I did enjoy doing that but after a while it started to feel a bit cumbersome. I pushed myself to keep going for a while but then decided to change my approach. I then chose words for each letter and wrote about them for the rest of the challenge, like many others did. I think too I really wanted to write a bit more each day after visiting other blogs and reading all the different posts. 


I missed a few days and combined them with later days but I made it to the end! 
What I particularly liked about the challenge was visiting other blogs and seeing the different approaches to the challenge. I haven't had as much time to do this as I would like so I'm going to keep visiting in May. I have come across a few blogs that I will definitely keep following. I really liked how some people had a theme such as books, recipes, education ideas, movies, songs, etc as well as the letters A to Z. Well, I have almost a year now to contemplate my own approach for next year. And in the meantime I may finish off those alphabet cards at a more leisurely pace. 

April 28th-30th, 2011 - X, Y and Z.

X is for xylophone

Y is for yes 

Z is for zipper 

We come to the end of the A-Z challenge. It has been fun. Even if I didn't carry through with my original plans. I have enjoyed thinking about what to post for each letter and have visited many very interesting blogs. Thank you to all those who have taken the time to stop by here. :) 

I feel like I've lost a bit of momentum at the end of the month. I have been thinking quite a lot about what to write about, especially for the X post. I have particularly enjoyed reading other people's X posts as I have learnt quite a few new words. I chose xylophone but wasn't sure what I was going to say so I did a bit of internet research. I learnt the difference between a xylophone and a glockenspiel. I also found a wonderful site (actually there were a few) outlining how to make a xylophone. I particularly like Building and Playing a Water Bottle Xylophone by Phil & Sarah Tulga. Their site also includes lots of great ideas for teaching and learning activities, particularly around music and maths. 


I chose yes as the Y word because it is such a great word. Just as it is important to be able to say no, saying yes is a great thing to be able to do too. See my poem Saying No for more about this. 


And for Z, zipper. Quite by accident I discovered an excellent way to make little paper zippers a while ago using my decorative scissors. I'm sure I'll find some way to use that idea sometime. Simple, yet effective. It needs some more work but here's the general idea. 

The April garden update

Rescues and survival against the odds

Preparing to write this post about the happenings in my garden for the month of April and I realised the title I chose has six words. The post can double as my six word Saturday offering! 

The main news on the garden front this month is the survival and thriving of the seedlings I bought from Bunnings last month. The marigolds, parsley, rainbow silverbeet and the basil are all doing exceptionally well. 

The Afro parsley was quite yellow when bought but is now very green and thriving! 

The basil was also very yellow and is starting to look healthier and beginning to grow. 

The silverbeet seedlings settled in very well. 

I love the colour of the marigolds! 

Some plants have been struggling to survive and have been feasted on by various creatures (snails and cabbage moth caterpillars I believe). The rocket seems to be growing quite well now after being eaten a lot! The basil I planted from seed which was looking very good last month, sadly didn't make it. I went to check the garden one morning and thought something looked different then suddenly I realised the basil was completely gone. There were two capsicum plants too which took a long while to grow and were being eaten. One didn't survive and the other now seems to be growing well. 

The rocket - starting to do okay

There are a few things growing in the garden which I didn't plant. There must have been some seeds left over from previous seasons. The Italian parsley which was a Bunnings rescue last year seems to want to take over the garden bed again. There are a couple of other plants which I am not sure what they are. Any ideas or information greatly appreciated. 

Italian parsley - taking over! 

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April 27th, 2011 - W

W is for Wii. 

We got a Wii for Christmas a few years ago. It still gets quite a bit of use. This week it, as well as us, has gotten quite a workout. I was in the supermarket looking for batteries a few weeks ago. I noticed a promotion from Energizer where upon spending $15 or more on batteries it was possible to send off for a free Wii game. I bought some Energizer rechargeable batteries and sent off for the free game. There was a choice of a few games. I chose 'Just Dance'. It arrived about a week ago. We've been having lots of fun. It is quite a workout. I have woken up with sore arms. Must remember the warm up, which is available on the disk. The kids tell me it's not Singstar but I think singing at the same time improves my score! 

My favourite song to dance to - 'Fame' by Irene Cara. I loved dancing to that song every Sunday afternoon as a child! It's still great fun! 

April 26th, 2011 - V

V is for vegetables. 

I want to eat more. 

I want to grow more. 

At times my diet can be somewhat lacking in vegetables. It would be great if I ate more. Growing my own is contributing to me eating more than I used to so continuing that would be a good thing. Over the next few weeks I will seek out some different ways of cooking/using vegetables to increase my intake. Recently I was given a couple of beetroots from the local Community Garden. I had no idea what to do with them. I have never eaten beetroot before apart from out of a tin. I was given some advice and I used Google to investigate my options a little more. I ended up roasting them (individually wrapped in alfoil with a tablespoon of water and cooked in moderate oven for about 50 minutes) and then I chopped them with my Tupperware Quick Chef food processor and adding some yoghurt. They made a delicious dip and I was surprised how easy it was. I'm even thinking of growing my own beetroot now that I've discovered how yummy they are. Plus I am told they are very good for you. Bonus! 

April 25th, 2011 - U

U is for understand. 

One of my favourite quotes: 

'We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand'

- C. Day Lewis.

Sunday Scribblings - April 24th 2011

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings this week: Shine. 


Everything you do is good. 


'Everything you do is good' 
Your words reverberate 
Plant themselves inside of me 
A mirror cradled between us 
Swivels quick and clever 
'Everything you do is good' 
Bounces between us 
Reflections encourage us both 
to SHINE 

April 23rd, 2011 - T

T is for tendrils. 
I chose tendrils for the 'T' post mainly because I think it is a really cool word! 
Last year for Mother's Day my daughter gave me some snow pea seedlings she bought from the local Farmer's Market. I was just at the beginning of my gardening adventures then and the gift definitely gave them a big boost. The seedlings grew very well and produced heaps of snow peas. The only problem I had was some damage on a couple of particularly windy nights. Generally though my first attempts at growing snow peas were very successful. I look forward to repeating the experience this year. 
I wrote this poem last year around the time I was driving the kids a little crazy telling them how much I loved the word 'tendrils'. 
Tendrils 
On Mother's Day with smiling anticipation and travelling on tenderness toddler snow peas arrive with love toddler snow peas holding gifts to share deep knowledge of growth tiny tendrils reaching out rich promises of possibilities and thoughts the tendrils of my own tiny pieces of me reaching out twirling and curling wrapping around significance tendrils with offers of stability as growth continues on 

April 22nd, 2011 - S

S is for small stones. 
"A small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment" - Fiona RobynI have been writing a small stone each day this year on my other blog, pausing to pick up small stones. I started by participating in the river of stones project in January and have kept going. One of the side effects of doing this type of writing has been an increased awareness and sense of connection to my own world. I plan to keep going for quite a while. For more information about this project as well as the opportunity to join in with lots of other people writing small stones in July go to www.ariverofstones.blogspot.com. 

April 21st, 2011 - R

R is for radishes. 
I picked these from the garden this afternoon. All four were planted as seeds a few weeks ago. I like to plant some radishes when I plant other seeds. They grow so quick, providing some quick home gardening results, while waiting for other plants to grow. Amazing the different sizes of these ones.