Costume starting with A? and other things.

A is turning 30 on Friday and we're having a birthday BBQ dinner with an 'A' theme. That's all very well, he's all excited and organised to come as a character from Avatar - blue morphsuit and all! I, on the other hand am not a costume party kind of girl. I generally avoid them like the plague so I have no idea what to wear! I've suggested being 'A's wife' and 'a pregnant lady' but apparently they don't cut it!

Anyone got a better idea than 'astronaut', 'Albus Dumbledore' or 'apple'?

Apple was my dad's suggestion after seeing a my 22 week belly pic - thanks Dad! Oh yeah, and I have to be able to put it together for THIS Friday. While you're at it, if you have any good 30th gift ideas, that'd be great too. Nothing like having 6 weeks of holidays I could have used to work this out but leaving it until now!

Work has started for real and is going well, tiring, but well. The last two nights I've woken up with leg cramps and I'm really hoping they are just happening because my body is not used to all the standing and walking and stairs and that it's not a pregnancy symptom that is here to stay!

We got a bathroom quote. Are you sitting down? $39,000!!!!! Who are these people kidding??? How hard is it to remove a wall, put in a few pipes and slap up some tiles???? Ok, so I know I'm over simplifying things here but I didn't think what we had planned was that complex. Needless to say we'll be going back for a 'third time lucky' quote. The first one we got was $25,000 and we thought that was steep!

Finally, here's the cheekiest chicken saying hello through the (horrendously dirty) kitchen window. I was surprised and a bit concerned that she could get up there as it's a fair way from the ground and higher than our fences so I know she could get over them too if she wanted!

Dear Chicken, please do not take to visiting the neighbours yards when I'm not looking. They have dogs! Big ones!

Hope your week is going well!

Now I know how the kids feel...

This could so easily turn into a whingy, whiny post, I've not had a great day. I've been back at work for just two days - about 45 to go, not that I'm counting! No kids yet, just meetings and preparation and more meetings that run over into preparation time (!). However, sitting down on the school chairs for hours on end is killing me. They are hard and downright uncomfortable. I feel sorry for the kids having to sit on them every day. At least when they are back, I'll have no time or real reason to sit too much! 

I love my job, and I'll love it when the kids are back. I just don't deal well with office politics, last minute notifications of responsibility - "oh, yeah, you're coordinating 1st semester ..." even though I'm only there for one term and I have discovered I have little patience for staff members who plan to teach maths (for example) rather than teach their students maths. There is such a difference here, even if it doesn't seem like it to read! And in coordinating the 1st semester, I will be dealing with one of these teachers who I just don't see eye to eye with on, well, anything - not pedagogy (for the non teachers - how you teach stuff) and certainly not behaviour management. Gah, stress. Let's move on.

Baby A either loves me being at work or hates it as I'm feeling constant kicks and rolls and punches which, while I like feeling the movement, is not helping the comfort factor! It is a good entertainment strategy though. During some of the more repetitive meetings I'm surreptitiously watching my belly to see if I can see the big kicks from the outside! 

In order to get out of this whingy rut I'm going to borrow Yaeli's Thankful Thursday, just this once, it might help me sleep tonight!

Today I am thankful for...

1. Supportive colleagues who share my philosophy on teaching!

2. My lovely mum

3. My lovely husband who is still on holidays and spent the last two days dealing with tradies to get a bathroom reno quote and hanging the Ikea blinds (no small feat)!

Finally - the bump at 22 weeks 3 days.

Hope you are well!

Liebster Blog Award, holidays and those cookies

Firstly, thanks to Natalie over at inthenightsky for the blog award. You should definitely go check her blog out if you haven't already! This award is for bloggers with less than 200 followers and in accepting it you are asked to do the following...

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal 5 blogs you have chosen for the award and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog

3. Copy and paste the award to your blog

4. Request that people you have sent the awards to forward it on to their favourite bloggers

As my corner of blog world here is pretty small I'm passing it on to just two blogs at this point.

1. Sammie at Marriage Renovations And...

2. Relatively new blogger Yaeli at Mummy In Progress

In other news, I am now on holidays! Cue fireworks and happy cheers. No more work until February 1, 2012. Gosh that feels good to say. And even better than that, then there'll only be 10 working weeks until I start mat leave! 

The cookie in a jar thingys were a hit! They were easy to make (once we hunted down the right size jars)  and they taste pretty good too. How do I know this? I got to the last of 8 jars, was about to put the lid on and thought - hang on, did I put the baking powder and bicarb soda in this one??? So I tipped it out, added them (possibly for the second time), made that batch of cookies for us and refilled the jar correctly! All's well that ends well! I also got inspired and made Christmas cupcakes to farewell my year 7s. They were meant to look like santa hats - not too bad I guess although I could do with some piping practice! Sorry for the grainy iPad photo but you get the idea.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Finished!

By YellowBugBoutique

Sometimes this is how I feel. I think about the chairs still in their uncovered state, the fact that we painted in January and still haven't put the pictures back up and that the new carpet went in in March and the bedroom cupboards are still doorless.

But not today. Today I finished my reports! I can have my life back. I'm so pleased with myself.

A little blogiday

Phew, I've just finished marking 50 tests. I have 50 assignments to do next, 7 orals and tomorrow another 7 writing tests. As of Monday I'll have 50 more orals to mark. Then comes the fun bit, 130 something reports. All in the next 3 weeks.

So, expect posts to be even fewer and further between for the next little bit. When I'm not glued to the computer screen for work, I'll be playing with the chickens (the cutest things ever - I swear they have grown a good cm all over since yesterday), making sure the cat doesn't get too jealous and eat them and maybe A will get some attention as well.

I'll probably still pop by and check out your news and I'll be back here when I've made it to the other side of the end of term madness!

I might post a chicken photo tomorrow though - I can't deprive you of the cuteness for 3 weeks!

Happy days...

Back to that whole idea of stopping to smell the roses, there are some things happening at the moment in good 'ol Canberra that I love.

1. Balloon Festival! I love, love, love seeing the balloons floating through the air as I'm driving to work.

2. Outdoor Art Show - leaves rustling as you wander under the trees and check out the artworks. Such a nice vibe.

3.  Skyfire! Stunning fireworks. I love fireworks, they make me happy. Sorry I didn't take a camera because I can't stand to feel like I'm missing them while I'm trying to take a decent picture!

4. My garden - the plants are growing and I have a 'mohawk' of carrots sprouting. So exciting.

5. Cheap dining chairs as I mentioned last post. Here are the photos...

We've pulled one apart to work out how to fix the sagginess (not a word, I know) and create a pattern for the new covers. Hit a slight bump when we went to check out fabrics. A's choice $158 a metre. Mine, $71. When you need 1 metre per chair, this adds up to, well, I used my maths skills up last post, but the chairs are no longer such a cheap solution. So, still on the hunt for the fabric - know any stores/websites I should check out?

6. Finally, because I can't help but share this with anyone who will listen...a conversation from my classroom last week...

Me: "Ok guys, so next week we're going to start looking at Ancient Greece...blah, blah, blah, make it sound really great..."

Cue massive sigh from girl at the back of the room.

Me: "What's up StudentX?"

StudentX: "Well Miss, it's just that, what is grease apart from the stuff you put in a frying pan?"

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes I love year 7, they worry me, but they always keep life interesting!

Classic comments from year 7 assignments and a trip to Tiny's Green Shed

Via tvtropes

Here are some classics from my last round of assignment marking that made me giggle...

"He joined the army at 17 so he learnt to fly a plane before he learnt to fly a car."

In response to the question ...Who do you think the people are? How old are they and how do you think they are related to each other?

"The people are my great grandmother and her horse. It's hard to tell how old the horse is but I think my grandmother is about 30."

Sometimes you've got to get your laughs where you can. And everything seems funnier during the deleirum of marking 50ish assignments. They're done now though, just in time for the next lot!

I even had time to visit the tip with A and fit in the obligatory stop at Tiny's Green Shed. Is it a problem if we always seem to come home from the tip with more than we took there?

Leave home - car packed with old microwave and stinky old carpet.
Return home - car packed with 8 dining chairs and a silver and pink BMX*

Could you turn down 8 fairly sturdy dining chairs that just need a touch of paint and re-covering? For a grand total of $40 for the lot? That's $5 a chair**. So even if I spend like, $50 per chair for material, fixing up some of the foam, a bit of paint. That's like $55 a chair*** instead of $150 which seems to be to go at the stores we visited a couple of weeks ago during our "let's buy a new dining table" phase!

Phew. Excited for a new project. Feeling slightly guilty, like I should have finished some of the others off before starting another...I do have some holidays coming up in 4.5 weeks though, need something to do! Any advice on where to get some super awesome fabric would be welcome!

*Apparently it will be useful to go down the shops when you don't want to take your fancy bike. I predict it gets used exactly 0 times in the next year. But I'd just bought 8 chairs, how could I say no?

**Yeah, see how good I am at maths?

***See that again there? I'm on fire. Just don't ask me to do long division!

I survived year 7 camp!

Phew. What a week. 5 days of camping with 25 year 7 students. It was fun, kind of. We canoed, abseiled, hiked, camped out, built rafts (which fell apart fairly quickly), played games, rode mountain bikes and roasted marshmallows. It was fascinating standing back and watching them interact, try to make sandwiches (seriously parents, please teach your kids how to make their own sandwiches) and ride bicycles (yep, 3 out of my 25 could not ride a bike).

I also learnt a bit about myself - I have little tolerance for homesickness - I feel like such a meanie but in the end I just had to say in not so many words, "get up, get on with it, it's the only way the end of the week will come quicker" and on the last night when there were still sniffles, "go to sleep, you're going home tomorrow, toughen up". I may not have actually said 'toughen up' but boy I thought it. Home now though and just working on catching up on sleep.

Think we might be finally getting carpet in our bedrooms next week sometime. Yay!

Oh, and that adventure race we went in for A's birthday...our team came 3rd in the mixed category and 11th overall. Not bad huh? I am still covered in bruises from tubing down the river and the bike riding was super hard and we got lost once but it was so much fun and A loved it. Result!

Hope all is well!

Week 6 already?

Time flies when you're having fun!

I'm slowly digging myself free of an avalanche of marking and getting excited not just about wedding things but the fact that in 5 weeks I'll be back here!!

Let the countdown begin!

Feeling guilty

It sucks.

Why does it feel so bad to do something that you know is right for you?

I've been under the pump at work this year. It's been stressful, there have been tears. At times I've looked at myself or something I've said and gone, 'That's not right. That's not you'.  So I decided that it was time to get out, in fact I should have moved last year when I had the chance. I'm a fairly optimistic person though so I kept thinking "It'll be better next year". It hasn't been.

A couple of weeks ago a job came up and I went for it. Went through 2 interviews and a lot of agonizing over if it was the right thing to do or if I should stick out this year for the sake of some of the lovelier students I teach and the commitments I made to other things, overseas excursions, national grants etc.

Today I got the message saying "please call us". I did, thinking that it was going the be a "thanks for applying but..." phone call. It wasn't. I've got a new job. I should be excited, I am a little bit. Mostly I just feel guilty. Like I'm selling out and letting people down.

I know it's going to be awesome. A lot of work in a positive, productive way rather than the current banging-head-against-brick-wall way.

But right now I feel awful.