What have I been doing?

For archival purposes (I AM a librarian after all), here’s a few things I’ve been doing since I stopped blogging over at the old place.

In April there was Swancon. It was busy. I was tired. The lead up to the con and it’s after effects is probably the main reason my blogging went all to hell this year – there wasn’t much room for much else! I think it went fairly well overall, and while I never EVER want to do the madness that was committee/dealer/three kids at the con again (thank goodness for Terri and Shani is all I can say!), I am not saying “never again” like a sensible person As usual, it was great to catch up with friends and make new ones. Would love to consider Conflux later this year, so will see where we’re at by then!

We decided to sell up in WA and move to Tassie, where husband has mining interests. This has so far involved lots of cleaning and decluttering of the house as it went on the market – no offers yet, but relatively good interest in a fairly dead market. We’ve started selling furniture and getting rid of some stuff, and will continue to do so until we sell. Won’t be making the move until the sale, so could be here a while yet!

Bub and I took a flying (literally!) trip to Sydney for the Aurealis Awards in May. Mum flew down from Queensland (she went a few days early and spent time with her sisters, which was nice for her) and babysat for me while I went and enjoyed the awards. Was a little surreal to see so many people again only a few weeks after Swancon (was great to catch up with even more who WEREN’T at Swancon), and although it was madness flying over Saturday morning and coming back Sunday (thank goodness for Helen travelling over with me!), I’m really glad I went. Was a great show, and I got to bring back an award (it wasn’t mine, but still fun all the same!). The photo is of author (and emcee for the night) Garth Nix doing the unicorn salute. I wouldn’t take a picture of the much ruder zombie salute FableCroft had two nominations (in the YA short story category) but no wins in a TOUGH category – well worth checking out all the shortlists for some good reading! We’ve been lucky enough to make a bunch of shortlists actually, which I’m pretty chuffed about given last year was the first year FableCroft was publishing! We had spots on the Ditmar, Tin Duck and Chronos awards lists as well, which was lovely. Shaun Tan’s gorgeous cover for Australis Imaginarium took the gong for Best Artwork in the Victorian Chronos Awards just last weekend, and I was lucky enough to snag the Tin Duck for Best Fan Writer over Easter, and was part of the Snapshot team which won Best Achievement at the Ditmars! Very cool stuff.

I started judging the CBCA Book of the Year awards, as the WA judge – fortunately, they’re willing to keep me even after we move! The first box arrived a few weeks ago (while I was still finishing WA Premier’s judging, but I coped!) and the second box is due this week. WA Premier’s is all but in the bag, with the judging conference next month. Managing to read a bunch of other stuff in between finishing shortlists and boxes, which is nice!

I also judged the inaugural Rockingham City Council Short Story Competition (thanks to Mr Lee Battersby, who got me in there), although it was a big surprise to get more than 150 entries across three categories! Was a great piece of art for the stimulus and some really good stories. An interesting job!

We’ve all been relatively healthy so far this year, except for poor bub with a major bout of conjunctivitis and a shocking cold. He’s a chirpy little beast though and nothing seems to faze him much. On the other hand, we’ve had BOTH vehicles with big breakdowns – the bus was off the road for nearly three weeks after breaking down on the freeway the day after Swancon, and hubby’s Paj had a meltdown after it’s big Tassie trip. Fortunately both are under warranty and neither cost too much other than inconvenience. RAC was also worth it’s weight in gold thanks to the two tows required by the bus and free car rental for a few days while we were carless!

Hmm, what else. This past week as be the week of professional development. Had two days of it at school (although I only went to one, being part-time), then Friday was training to do the CAL Copyright Survey (should be VERY interesting in a school of over 100 staff!), and Saturday was the WA School Library Conference. I enjoyed this (I like PD, okay!) and it’s always nice to catch up with library colleagues from around the state. Took lots of photos for the journal (oh yes, another thing eating my time is editing the new WA School Library Association journal, just started this year) and had lots of lovely chats. Also enjoyed meeting John Marsden and doing a writing workshop with him (and giving him a copy of Worlds Next Door, which he admired very appropriately!). I went back to work yesterday and immediately used some of his activities and they went really well!

I haven’t been spending nearly as much time with friends as I would have liked in the past month or two – the house has been taking up a lot of time (we’ve had tilers, electricians, cleaners, agents and all that jazz, plus just the general decluttering etc takes TIME!) but had a lovely afternoon with Helen and the kids at the park on Sunday, and hopefully will start spending more time with people now that things seem to be under control. Before I leave. Boo.

Well, I’m sure there’s more that’s happened in the past couple of months, but that’s all that a quick run back of Facebook posts gleans me, so that’ll do Hopefully I manage to keep a little more up to date from this point on!