teaching Gill's Practical Bookkeeping

Life Hacks, politics, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

What I learned in 20 years of teaching…

5th Oct 202213th Oct 2022 gjef2871

One of my favourite poems is ‘you get proud by practising’ By Laura Hershey.

Those tiny actions that you repeat every day?

They change you.

Growing butterfly bush or ***buddleia*** in Australia is a wonderful option

Your tiny daily actions change your muscles and posture—ever seen the way a cellist or violinist holds their head at the dinner table?

They way you regularly think changes the way your mind works.

People who do systematic work become increasingly technical.

People who learn a style of deductive reasoning such as lawyers become increasingly bound by rules and logic.

Your speech and communication habits change your relationships.

Have you ever noticed how many psychologists have similar communication techniques or attitudes? Or how teachers adopt a particular metre when speaking to 5 year olds?

Have you ever been talked down to by someone when they should have been talking up to you?

Your tiny repeated actions don’t just change what you do everyday, they change fundamental aspects of how you are in the world. They change your identity and your internal processes.

So my advice, for anyone really is to pick something to learn.

Could be a language, could be a way of walking, could be a skill, could be a craft, could be a body of knowledge, could be a sport, could be just about anything:

But pick something, and work on it for 5 minutes on a regular basis.

In time, I almost guarantee you’ll be really proud of yourself and how far you’ve come.

And I’ll be proud of you, too.

Note: None of the links in this post are affiliate links, but they do build my blog.

F.I.R.E., Life Hacks, More experienced Investors, New To Finance, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Plenty of Honey in my Cupboard (Part 2 of 3)

1st Aug 202220th Jul 2022 gjef2871

How to get honey in the cupboard and things that are real honey instead of fake honey

Real honey: touch. Sit with your partner and massage his hands, feel happy about the physical touch time. Let your partner touch your back and your hands and spend time just talking and touching and hugging
Real honey: conversation. Spend time ringing and speaking to friends, past and present. Spend time speaking your heart and listening to them speak their heart. Listen.
Real honey: exercise. Spend time building your muscles, strength, balance, flexibility, and cardio ability.
Real honey: rest and sleep. You need to rest and sleep each night. Ask for vitality and calm productivity. At least one day per week should be at home pottering around and resting/cleaning etc.
Real honey: nature. Spending time outside in nature is physiologically good for us.
Real honey: creativity. Spending time doing creative stuff is real honey. This could include creative things which you can use to make money.
Real honey: mindfulness and inspiration. I like James Clear, Robin Sharma (the less egoic videos), Thich Nhaht Hanh, Brene Brown, Paula Pant, Andrew Hallam, Bill Gates and many more. I also like to meditate and be mindful.
Real honey: Kindness. When you do nice things for someone you feel good.
Real honey: virtue. Do things that are virtuous and you feel good. If in doubt, read an Old Fashioned Girl Louisa May Alcott or Tell me if the Lovers are Losers by Cynthia Voigt.
Real honey: savings. Having savings in the bank is real good honey. I don’t feel right if I don’t increase my savings by a little each week (increased by around $33 this week to a total of nearly $46k).
Real honey: satisfying food. Yes this includes animal products for me, also vegetables, fruits, vinegar, fermented foods, and sweet forbidden carbs.
Real honey: supplements. I take lots of supplements, and they help me feel healthy and safe.
Real honey: learning and teaching. This is the best.
Real honey: charity. Give to charity. Volunteer. It feels damn good to build up the community that supports you. And pay your taxes. We all like the Doctors to be paid, the sewer to run, the curbs to be maintained, and the poor people to have income.
Real honey: confront your demons and learn about hard stuff. A book on my current to-read list: http://www.katemanne.net/down-girl.html

Novels and Creative Writing, Uncategorised, Uncategorized

Dense living shoots, and The Tantrum

6th Jun 2022 gjef2871

Dense Living Shoots:

There once was a balcony aloe
It’s dish was surprisingly shallow
But it still made new shoots
And dense living roots,
There’s no need to leave your heart fallow

The Tantrum:

He screams, he cries,
He’ll thrash his little legs
And rub his eyes
The innocence of disarray
His behaviors I can not deny

Unless I look deep into the heart of things, and breathe.

There’s no training for his family
To deal with their son’s complex needs
Navigating systems that can’t cope
Half my role is give them hope

That a valuable life has nothing to do with living up to a pretend ideal of what passes for normality.

He drew an ‘H’ in the air today,
I could’ve cried ‘Hip Hip Hooray’
He’s learning how to train his mind
Now how to teach him to be kind

To get him through to the excellence, mastery, bravery, and vulnerability that I hope will make him a brilliant adult.

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By reading this blog, you agree that you read it under your own risk, and Gill’s Practical Bookkeeping is in no way responsible for any harm or prejudice to yourself, your business, or any fictional examples above.

I am not a financial advisor. I do not have an AFSL. I am a chick who likes to read, think, write, and has access to google. You should treat this blog with the same seriousness that you would treat anyone whose main qualification is access to google. This blog is for entertainment purposes only. It’s a little like watching The Good Place for nerds or artists.

Anything you take from this blog is your responsibility. Nothing in this blog, even if you are mentioned by name, address, and telephone number, pertains to your personal situation. Anything you agree with, or disagree with, you are welcome to comment on, but your opinions belong to you. You are responsible for your comments. If they are offensive, I will remove them.

Review, Uncategorised

Sweet Fat Attitude

7th Apr 202220th Jun 2022 gjef2871

You do not need
A better body, a purer spirit, or a Ph.D.
To be proud… You only need more practice.
You get proud by practicing.
Laura Hershey http://www.thenthdegree.com/proudpoem.asp

In the beginning, I couldn’t run 20 meters.

Oh Lord.

My kind fat ass wibbled and wobbled.

My knees protested.

My body creaked and groaned.

But I did it.

I did it.

20m.

Then (crazy old me) went back and did it again next week.

Only this time I did two lots of 20 meters.

They say men are attracted to jiggly bits. It’s true. And when I run, I jiggle enough for every woman in Australia.

A couple of weeks later, the Adonis I train with suggested we try running 10m and walking 10m.

We tried it.

We kept on trying it.

This week I ran approximately 200m.

That’s improvement x10.

Next week, we start trying to run around our oval 1.5 times.

One day, I’m going to be able to sprint 100m.

One day, I’m going to be able to jog 1km.

Who knows, in 10 years time, when my joints have strengthened and my tendons and ligaments have lengthened and my muscles are strong and feisty, I might get to 10km.

How’s that for 190kg?

I love my body. I love the things it can do for me. I love the way it feels when I run. I love my fat. I love my muscle. I love my lungs.

And I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could run 10km with a happy body?

Goals start with 20m. Goals start at the beginning. If I had sat around thinking ‘woe is me, I can’t run’ would I have run that first 20m? If I had sat around hating my body and hating my fat, would I have run that first 20m?

One of the tricks in life is to set audacious goals and work slowly towards them. Step by step. Bit by bit. Just a tiny bit. Just a fraction.

But keep moving forward. And love your lil self for being where you are and working on yourself (just a teeny tiny bit).

Tell me about something you’ve done a tiny bit of in the comments, that you’re working towards doing more of.

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F.I.R.E., Life Hacks, More experienced Investors, New To Finance, Review, Uncategorised

Three things I’ve learned from Paula Pant’s Afford Anything

3rd Mar 20226th Apr 2022 gjef2871

How do you take a philosophy, and a methodology of thinking, and turn it into a business?

Paula Pant has done it with Afford Anything.

She is a woman of colour, an entrepreneur, and a kick-ass lady. But her most important asset is that she likes to think, and she likes to learn.

www.affordanything.com

From Paula, I’ve learned

Small, repeated actions add up to big results. Listening to Afford Anything got me thinking about savings and investments. That got me searching for ways I can do that to fit my lifestyle. Paula says focus on the process rather than the outcome .

What I came up with is twice per month, once after my pay and once after my interest comes in, I make all the numbers in my savings accounts line up in a row. (Savings Account 1: $6222, Savings Account 2: $7222 etc). This has the effect of adding an extra $22.19 here, and an extra $7.54 there, which makes the total go up higher than it would by just adding $300 per month.

And my inner child loves seeing all the numbers add up in a row.

Relationships are more important than stuff. In this blog, Paula talks about how one of the best ways to heal trauma is to connect with other mammals and focus on building relationships.

That is one of the lessons of my life already. Friends, relationships, family, and caring about people has enriched my life inexpressibly. Having friends involves some simple repeated actions and being kind.

Something I do, is that my teacher buddies and I have coffee together during the school holidays. I initiate one text every school holidays, and if we’re free enough, we catch up.

And my social-self loves having stable, loving friendships.

Look at what other people are doing well, and do that. Paula speaks to people who are interesting and who also think. She’s a thinking person who talks to people who think. I love this so much.

My little brain just goes “Yaaaaaay” any time she has someone new on her podcast. I’ve bought so many books after listening to the people on her blog. Currently reading: Andrew Hallam, Millionaire Teacher because of listening to her show.

Something else she does really well is having a variety of reader cases (you can ask your questions) with regular guests, and completely new guests and ideas.

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