Last week I took my kids to a park to meet up with my friends and their kids. We began reminiscing about the good old days when we used to stay out all night and have the most awesome sleep-ins the next morning. But now that lazy Sunday morning stuff is a thing of the past, thanks to our toddlers and their pre-sunrise wake-up schedules.

One of my friends piped up, “Well, you know, we’re middle-aged now and our bodies can’t handle late nights like they used to.”

At first, I wanted to tell her that I’m not middle-aged. I’m…

Penpals were totally my thing as a kid. I had penpals from all around the world. Literally, hundreds of letters were painstakingly written over the span of my childhood. I loved receiving envelopes in the mail with stamps from exotic places like Zaire or Missouri (my 10-year-old self thought any destination other than Australia was exotic!)

When I reached high school, letter writing was still something I enjoyed, but my penpals dwindled down to just one. Jessie and I were both the same age when we first became penpals. She lived in America, which is where I dreamed of travelling…

It started off as a joke. Actually, there were multiple jokes involved. About a year ago, my then eight-year-old son thought it would be funny to tell me his latest collection of disgustingly funny jokes.

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: A sunburnt zebra.

Q: What’s brown and white and red all over?
A: Poop disguised as a sunburnt zebra.

I countered with my own fart-themed joke.

Q: What’s silent but deadly?
A: A ninja’s fart.

We then got into a joke competition, of sorts, with each joke out-stinking the next. …

A little while ago, I had a chat with the founder of an online writer’s academy I attend. We talked about writing goals. Specifically, how to succeed with your one-month writing goals.

My first goal was to finish a chapter of my junior fiction novel I was writing with my son. I achieved that goal by the end of the month.

My second goal was to succeed in online writing. So, how did that go?

I have to shuffle back in time to answer that question.

When I first started publishing online in 2019, it was to improve my writing…

My bookshelf is crammed full of children’s books. There are picture books, middle-grade fart-joke books, tween adventure books, and young adult coming-of-age books.

Sure, I have actual kids living in my house, so that’s one of the reasons I own a lot of children’s books.

When visitors come over, they marvel at the children’s literature that fills my shelves, tables, and floors in my house. They tell me how lucky my kids are to have so many books to read. I nod in agreement. Sure, those books are all for my kids.

To tell you the truth, I purchased more…

My mother visited my house the other day. When she opened the kitchen pantry, she let out an audible gasp. She stared at me with a perplexed look.

“Why on earth do you have so many breakfast cereals in here?” She asked, flabbergasted.

I shrugged. “Well, I eat granola for breakfast, and the kids eat Weetbix and Rice Bubbles in summer and porridge in winter. I’ve got Nutrigrain for after-lunch snacks. And then there’s Coco Pops Chex for dessert. Oh, and that box of limited-edition Unicorn Froot Loops is just for fun. …

This story isn’t an unusual one. It’s quite common. I grew up in Australia, but this story could be universal. This is the story of a teacher who failed.

And there lies the problem.

Are teachers put under so much scrutiny and stress today, that in the end, the hopeful, bright-eyed newly graduated teachers end up quitting after just a few years?

Or is there something else that makes them quit?

I lasted eight years as a teacher, but during that time, I stopped for almost a year to raise a baby. So, I guess you could say I was…

My nine-year-old son recently asked if I could help him create his own YouTube channel. I thought it was a great idea. He’s a bit shy and I figured it would be a good way to bring him out of his shell. He’d also learn valuable skills by creating videos, editing them and sharing them online with his friends.

Then I stopped and thought about what a YouTube channel really means. I asked my son why he wanted a YouTube channel so badly. …