Life happens – New Mon, who dis? #2024Edition

It’s been a hot minute since I updated this page, and some pretty significant changes have been made since then!

Gypsy is still the boss, but she is way more chill about it. Harper Lee is still the boss’ annoyingly chipper assistant. She is no less chill. Sylvie still doesn’t care who is the boss, and makes sure everyone knows it. Lula is still the boss’s boss. She likes to observe her new assistants, Digit and Dowry, two budgies who provide entertainment on demand. Peggy and Duckie are still kicking on, and have been joined by Izzy the Isa Brown and Andromeda (Andy) the silver lace sussex.

My husband and I bought a house, and suddenly had to do all the maintenance ourselves instead of just calling someone who then makes it happen (not a fan).

I finally got diagnosed with ADHD after years of doctors telling me it was all in my head (except, it literally is) and that I just needed to go for more walks (insert the biggest eye roll in the history of eye rolls here). I can’t wait to tackle uni with this new understanding of my spicy brain and how it needs me to be kinder to myself sometimes.

But now, the MOST important bit…

I became a mum! Not once, but twice, and all at once (because why do anything by halves when you can overachieve?). My twin girls were born prematurely at 31 weeks in 2024. Now, they’re healthy, happy 4 month/10 week olds, and are already in training for their future Book Goblin careers (officially petitioning to change the professional title of Teacher Librarian to Book Goblin). They came after grief changed my life forever in late 2023 and put life on hold for 7 months. Their entry and the 44 days we spent in NICU and SCN restarted my life, and they have spurned my re-entry into university after a year and my temporary exit from the workforce for the first time in over a decade. Since I last studied my perspectives have shifted, and my understanding of myself has twisted, turned, and finally clicked into place like a puzzle piece that has finally been placed into the right spot after 26 years of trying to fit with the wrong pieces.

I can’t wait to see how this impacts my learning experience.

TLDR: new Mon, who dis?

About me – 2020

Welcome to the musings and learning of a Teacher Librarian in training!

If you’re here, you’re interested in learning something about me, so let’s get straight to the important bits:

I have a menagerie of wonderful animals, and they are all rescues. Gypsy (5 years old) is a cattle X collie who loves tug-of-war. She’s the boss.

Harper Lee (4 years old) is a cattle X kelpie who would love to chase a mockingbird if she ever saw one. She has more energy and excitement than a small child in a lolly shop with a handful of cash and no parent in sight. She’s the boss’ annoyingly chipper assistant.

Sylvie is a snowshoe cat who is a wild as her namesake (Plath). Her favourite past times include eating, chasing the other animals, sleeping, climbing the blinds (or curtains – she’s not fussy), siting on top of the shower, eating, and kneading. At 5 o’clock in the morning. Every morning. She doesn’t care who’s the boss.

Lula is a tabby cat (4 [something] years old) who plays fetch, rides in the basket on my bike to the pub for breakfast, follows me around the house, and flops on her back for a belly rub. She’s the boss’s boss.

Peggy, Duckie and Audrey are three Lavender Arucana X hens who like to wander, and Brutus (who replaced the previous roosters Caesar and Augustus) is the young rooster who keeps them safe on their daily street-wide journeys.

And now, the less-important details…

Three years and 2 months ago I packed up my life and moved 600+km north, by myself, to a tiny country town where I knew the name of one stranger, for a semester’s worth of work. Now, my fiance has moved up with me, and I’m still living and working in this tiny town, at a tiny central school, within sneezing distance of a gorgeous, meandering gem of a river. Back home in north-west Sydney, I was never considered (nor did I consider myself) a “city” girl. But here, I see horses being ridden down the street and I’m left agape every time.

Horses.

Down the street.

Wild.

But here, far from the blinking traffic lights and blaring horns of suburbia, I have been challenged and provided with opportunity upon opportunity to grow – and grow some more. I started off teaching English with three terms of experience (if you can call it that) under my belt. Now, I teach junior English, History, Geography, CAFS… AND I am our resident Teacher Librarian.

So here I am. A Teacher Librarian, with an all-consuming passion for literature, in training. I’m a long way from home with an even longer way to go on this journey. Join me on this extraordinary, marvelous ride.

Monica.