Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Monday, 29 December 2014

to review 2014

This week at My Home Truths we are sharing our favourites post from 2014. I thought I would take this opportunity to do a bit of a recap of my year by sharing my top 5 posts of the year. These posts happened to be 5 highlighting events of the year as well as my most popular posts of the year. So in no particular order really here goes.

5. Sharing my secret
A few weeks ago I confessed that I had a secret and last time I linked up with Kirsty I revealed that secret and a slight weight lifted off my shoulders. I was super excited about the positive feedback and encouragement I got from my blogging friends and if you commented then I truly thank you for your support. I think reality hasn't set in just yet and it will be some time before it does, but I am nervous and anxious and excited about times ahead all at the same time! (if you don't know what I am talking about then you'll have to click the link above to find out!)


4. Trip to Vietnam
Without a doubt an absolute highlight of my year was my trip to Vietnam during the September school holidays. Not only did I met some truly awesome people, I also ate something I never thought that I would, and just got totally absorbed by the whole country. They are truly lovely and amazing people who live very simple lives with such gusto! I still feel like I have so many stories and photos to share with you from that trip! The trip was also a precursor for what I want to next year and it certainly confirmed my decisions!
This made me smile and feel like a Queen in Vietnam!

3. ProBlogger
Again another highlight of the year in a very overwhelming kind of way! Prior to January 2013 blogging was something I never really gave a second thought to, let alone knew there was a whole conference attended by 100's of people dedicated to the cause! It really was a nerve racking, eye opening, overwhelming, awesome experience.
Laney Galligan's photo.
Janet from Middle Aged Mama, Marleisa from This is Who I am.. and I catching up over lunch at ProBlogger!

2. A to Z Challenge
I was crazy enough to sign up for the A to Z Challenge in April, where every day for the month (with the exception of Sunday) you blogged about something to do with the corresponding letter of the alphabet. A lot of people chose a theme in an attempt to make it "easier". I chose to blog about me and my life as a teacher. The link will take you to my wrap up post at the end of the challenge. So if you are new around here and want to know more about little ol' me, that's bound to answer pretty much all of your questions!
 
 
1. Remembering Kathy
This was both one of the hardest posts I've ever written and also my most read post of all time. On the anniversary of her passing I shared my recollections of the days prior and post losing my beautiful sister Kathy to cancer back in 2006.


2014 has been another year where goals seemed to go unmet and it would be easy for me to be a bit doom and gloom about all of that, but the beauty of blogging is that you do have a record of all that you have done so it's been good to look back and see what has happened and what I have achieved. I am not sad to see the end of this year though, I am definitely ready to move on to bigger and better things and excited about what 2015 has is store for me! I look forward to sharing the journey with you!

Linking up this 2014 wrap up with Kirsty from My Home Truths and Alicia from One Mother Hen.

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

for my first book review.

In case you missed it, I am doing a reading challenge this year. I have joined with many other reading lovers to complete the 2014 Australian Women Writers Challenge, where we read, review and promote stories written by Australian Authors.

My goal is 6 books for the year and so I am so excited that I have finished my first one as I am such a slow reader!

Book number one was actually given to me as a Christmas present from my sister, she chose it after I told her I like to read real life stories and country romance novels. Well this book ticked both those boxes.


The year was 1959 and Mary Groves was just fourteen years old when her parents uprooted their family from Melbourne and moved to Mataranka; a small, isolated town in the Northern Territory, to run the Post Office and General Store.

This autobiography follows Mary's journey from Melbourne to Mataranka and beyond. She was just 17 when the handsome horse-breaker, drover and rodeo rider Joe Groves wanders into the store and catches her attention. Despite him being 15 years her senior, their relationship develops and not everyone is happy about it.

We travel through the relationship with Mary and Joe as they bunny hop their way around the Top End working on, managing and sometimes owning cattle station after cattle station. We see the birth of their 4 children and follow the trials and tribulations that come with being in such a remote part of Australia in the 1960's and 1970's, often living in little more than a caravan, as they pursue their dream property and dream home.

The stories she recalls are set in a time in Australian history that I think many people would know little about. A time of such change and development for our white society, but more so for our Aboriginal people and Mary treats these changes with, what I think, is a great deal of respect.

Whilst I did not find this to be a book that 'you can't put down' I did find Mary's stories interesting, her life intriguing and it kept me turning the pages ready for the next yarn til the very end.Anyone with an interest in Australian history, the Outback and rural life in general will find this story appealing.

Linking my review to Essentially Jess for IBOT but also to the Australian Women Writers page.