The Final Days of July

Welcome to the final days of my #JournalinginJuly posts. Throughout July I’ve joined Sue at Sizzling Towards 60 and Beyond, and other bloggers, for a month of writing daily journal prompts. I’ve linked up my weekly posts each Saturday throughout July and I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s thoughts, as they worked through the prompts.

So without further ado – here are my responses for the final few days of #JournalinginJuly

28. A Daydream 💭

Sunday 28 July

💭💭💭💭💭💭💭💭💭💭

I might look like I’m doing nothing, but in my head I’m very busy!

💭🗯💭🗯💭🗯💭🗯💭🗯💭🗯

That’s exactly the way I think of daydreaming! How about you?

29. Freestyle writing

Monday 29 July

I shared a fun quote for my Musings on a Monday today and it made me think back to a time when I was working in the minimum security Correctional Centre.

So I thought I’d share this story from my days in prison for today’s freestyle writing prompt.

Apparently I was considered quite scary and intimidating when I worked in the gaol system. Can you believe that?

For those of you who don’t know me then I am small, petite, quiet but not a pushover, not rough, I rarely swear, and I’m usually very easy going. I smile a lot, I’m caring, excitable and enthusiastic.

But for some reason I was seen as intimidating by inmates (who don’t intimidate easily I’ll add), and even some Prison Officers found me to be a bit scary. Maybe my attitude of telling it like it was, my professional demeanour, my no-nonsense approach and my fast paced walking put people off. I’ve also been told I exuded confidence which can be seen as intimidating to some people. I’ll have you know it was all mainly an act!!

My daughters, when I told them, (they were teenagers at the time), thought this was hilarious and love telling the story of me being in jail and scaring the inmates!!!

Anyway – so that’s the story behind this quote 🙂

The funny thing is, that just after posting the quote on Instagram and Twitter, for my regular Monday quote I have going on, I happened to run into the Governor (aka General Manager) who was at my gaol when I was made redundant.

Now I haven’t seen him since I finished over two and a half years ago, I rarely, if ever, see people I worked with outside of my home town and today of all days, I run into him??? How bizarre!

It was lovely to see him and meet two of his daughters and granddaughters. He gave me a big hug and asked how I was coping and we chatted for a few minutes about the old days – it just took me back in time and the coincidence just blew me away! These days I don’t think of my old workplace very often so to have this blast from the past, on the day I posted this quote and the memory, made me smile 🙂

30. My best friend

Tuesday 30 July

This is hard as I don’t consider I have one best friend – I have lots of friends!

My husband is one of my oldest friends, my daughters, now they are grown up are also my friends, and I have lots of blogging friends. My sister is my oldest friend having been there from the beginning, along with my mother 🙂

Let me tell you about a very special friend – Ros

I first met Ros when two of my daughters started a new school when we moved to the country from the city. The eldest daughter was fine and happy to leave me as soon as she got to school but the other one was nervous as she had been expecting to start a different school in our old area. She never did like change very much.

As I was leaving the school on the first day, I decided to pop into the library so I could hide watch my daughter to make sure she was OK (she was quite upset). Ros was the school librarian and little did I know then, that we would go on to have a fabulous friendship spanning decades and included holidays, working and celebrating major birthdays together.

Ros and Bob had 3 boys, a few years older than our 3 daughters and she was always a great sensible sounding board during those tough times.

Ros and I worked together in the gaol system and I ended up being her manager but we were more friends than anything. We travelled away to Union meetings together, work functions and I can honestly say we have never had a cross word. I always think of her as being the wind beneath my wings.

After Ros retired we stayed in contact and went on lots of cycling trips together and in November 2016 we went to the South Island of New Zealand to cycle the Otago Rail Trail. We all had so much fun that in November 2017 we went to the North Island and did more cycling and travelling together. We see each other most weeks for coffee and a chat.

Ros is 10 years older than me, almost to the day, so when we were planning our major birthdays of 50 and 60, we decided to share the celebrations. We hired out the local cinema/cafe and had a fabulous night with all our friends. Our theme was 110 as 50+60=110 and it was the best birthday ever!

We maintain our friendship with regular catchups. We all love to travel, ride on rail trails and have similar views on things. Ros is fun, easy going, clever, and honest. I consider Ros to be one of my best friends!

31. How has this challenge changed me?

Wednesday 31 July

I have thoroughly enjoyed this challenge and the main reason, is that I’ve written daily. I’ve enjoyed the process of writing and answering the day’s prompt and I’ve become more organised as a result.

I’ve had to be more reflective in my thinking and make myself stop, think and then write.

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Being Sue’s co-host meant I was responsible and involved, not just a bystander, which made me take it more seriously and I became better at creating posts, scheduling them, making pins and headers and thinking more about the processing side of writing. I hope that makes sense?

I also liked responding to the prompts and sharing personal stories and then reading the responses from others. It was like we were all involved in something special.

I must say I enjoyed seeing the spike in my stats for the month too 🙂 Not sure if it was this involvement but I’d like to think it was a contributing factor!

It’s been a great month and I hope you’ve enjoyed being a part of it with me.

In case you missed my posts for #JournalinginJuly, here they are:

Journal ideas in July

Journaling in July Week 1

Journaling in July Week 2

Journaling in July Week 3

Journaling in July Week 4

I also wrote a guest post for Sue’s blog – 5 things I don’t want in my life for the Day 24 prompt.

I invited Sue to write a guest post for me, which she did in response to Day 23 prompt Favourite Seasons through Sue’s eyes.

What did you enjoy the most about this week’s responses?

Have a great week ahead and I’ve really enjoyed this month of prompts! Thanks so much to Sue for letting me co-host with her!

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Deb xx

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