Beginning to see the daisies not the weeds.

Things are looking up. Bantam Boy has had his extra reading time for his TEE approved. My principal has given the ok for me to have the time off to support BB which is great because we will have to travel to an external examination place to do his exams. His school is about a 5 minute drive but the college we have to go to is about half an hours drive. And we have to go in peak hour traffic. So having time off means all I have to do is focus on him and getting him there on time and as stress free as is humanly possible for these things!

I am on holidays for 2 weeks. Again! You have to love teaching for that.

But something else I love is when a project goes well. I just had to share with you the work of a couple of my year 3 kids. These two did a particularly good job. We have been learning about "the world". We've been reading and writing about it. For T&E(technology and enterprise) I told them they had to select one type of habitat to create a diorama showing what it was like. To do that they had to use their Society and Environment research skills to find out as much as they could about their chosen part of the world. All around the outside they have added information and interesting facts about their region. I love it when one project goes across a number of learning areas.

The one above is a Northern Forrest complete with a bear and salmon in the river. The one below is a tropical rain forest.

What I love most about this one is that the little girl has crammed it full of vegetation and created labels for her diorama just like the ones she has seen in diagrams in her reading.

And my final piece of good news is that I have finally been able to install my bath! It has only been sitting in the car port for 2 or 3 years. But every time I got close to having the money another thing happened to take priority.

Now don't look TOO closely as you will see that the old stained sealant that held the glass shower screens in place has not yet been scraped of the walls and floor. There is also a fair amount of building rubble and dust on the floor from where the plumber went through the wall and Tim drilled to put up a shower curtain. I could have dealt with that first but I went and bought bubble bath and relaxed a bit instead. When I closed my eyes I couldn't see the mess.
So the bathroom is up there on my list of holiday projects. Hopefully I'll resist the temptation to get in it and just close my eyes.
I have a tin of paint to freshen the whole room up. I have plans to sew some new clothes -if I can get BB to move his oil paint covered art work off the dining table(that stuff goes EVERYWHERE!!!) I'm halfway through my zig-zag rug which BB wants very big so it will cover his double bed, at least he likes my crochet unlike Chicky Babe! I laughed when I saw Cate Blanchett wearing a crocheted dress (a granny square one at that!) and the appearance of crochet in the local fashion awards in the Sunday paper. What will she do if the stuff her weird mother is doing becomes fashionable! She will face a dilemma then!

Chicken and egg.

I used to be able to fit time for my own art work into my life but lately I just haven't got the head space for it. I would have thought that having the kids get older was easier, but right at this minute they seem to require more attention-not in the same way as when they were babies but pretty much the same intensity. I have reflected that late teen children seem to be like 3 year olds again in terms of parenting because they are moving from child/teen to adult and they feel ready to do all sorts of things yet they are not fully independent yet so they rely on you for your help but they reject it at the same time. Rather like when they wanted to dress themselves at three but could not quite manage the buttons.
I have decided not to do the George St Market this year as I am going to focus on getting Bantam Boy through his TEE. It looks like he won't get to keep his extra reading time (for his mild processing disorder) so I need to make sure the home is as stress free as possible. (In human biol. they took their blood pressure everyone else was normal and his was 150 over 80, the doctor thinks it is stress related, i worry because my father had outrageously high blood pressure- he had an over active adrenal gland and this made him stress more or feel stress more rather, so I worry about my boy.) I have applied for leave during this time and it has been approved. So I am going to dedicate myself to being a full time at home mum for the two and a bit weeks of his exams.
So I am tired and out of sorts and have not ideas of what to make/paint/do and don't have the energy to do it anyway. But I know it revives me so it is kind of chicken and egg stuff, I don't know if I'm blocked because I am tired or if I'm tired because I'm not doing any art work! May be it's a bit of both.

Catch up.

100 balloons!
For the party last week. This image and the next three have been waiting to be uploaded to be used since then!
I've just spent the afternoon trying to find a way to download them after finally finding how to get them off the internal memory of the camera. (Now I'm not exactly sure what I did but it worked! Let's hope it behaves from now on!) Then I discovered that my computer which had to be wiped and re programmed all over again due to some strange computer problem/ virus/something strange involving programmes being wiped off regularly...Does everyone have these problems often or is it just me because I have teens who go to strange and dodgie places on the net??? anyway I digress....I have now found that the camera software/programme that I use to down load photo's with is not on there and I can't find the disc to load it on again!!!!
So I had to put them on the laptop locate a thumb drive and transfer them across.
They really aren't worth all the effort!

Although I did think this was a bit amusing!

And this is my "Trim" that I had at just cuts where she trimmed about 5inches off the back!
But all the kids at school think I look much younger (even some of the year 6/7 boys had positive comments to make about it) and I've had lots of compliments so I've decided I like it after all. Plus I'm getting the hang of what I have to do with it now- which is actually not much! Another bonus!

I finished the floral rug I started a few weeks ago in time for Bantam Boy's party and made a cushion cover to match.

This is my current project. I love the colours and the wool is really nice. Light but warm, merino again but thinner than the 8 ply I used in the last rug.
Bantam Boy thinks the place is beginning to look a little like "The Burrow" and I am a bit like Mrs Weasley (A Harry Potter reference for those of you who don't have kids.) He actually meant it as a compliment. Because Mrs Weasley is homely, as in warm and maternal and a bit potty but she can kick arse when needed.

Phew!

Well the party was successful. I provided lots of soft drinks and non alcoholic champagne cocktails and the teens dutifully played the game of accepting them graciously, those who did choose to drink did so slyly and not to the point of obvious intoxication.
I enlarged a photo of bantam boy and we had "pin the mustache on Bantam boy". And because he used to dress up alot I had the obligatory photos of him as a little kid in dress ups- next to this I put photocoppies of just his face and invited people to draw a picture of what he might become in the future. Some of these were quite funny.
Having mum here and some of the parents of his friends that I have been friendly with for years was also very good, I was far more relaxed and the kids accepted that it was not just a "Piss Up" type of occasion and it was no where near as stressful as the 'trial party' we had early in the year.
I did have too much food and we will have to eat party food for the rest of the fortnight as I spent a large chunk of my pay this fortnight on the party. I was paid on Thursday night and the party was on Friday!
I had my hair cut to help me feel better so that I'd look good for the party- big mistake. Where I thought I was getting a trim and a tidy up of the style the hairdresser had other ideas and now I have a short short bob. Chicky Babe assures me it is pretty but I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll get used to it. (I just tried to take a photo to show you but someone has done something to my camera and stored all the images on the internal camera memory and I've no idea how to retrieve them!!!!) I'll fiddle around with it.
I'm also happy to report that Bantam Boy is busily cleaning up all the mess after the party! What a good lad!