Day 60 Feeding the masses.

...part 2 of the marrow saga...

So last night I turned the Marrow and tomatoes into a work of art to feed the masses...and feed the masses it did! 

The supersized zucchini and tomatoes, (with a cup of rice, half a pack off baby spinach, a tin of tomatoes, half a bunch of coriander, an onion and a teaspoon each of vege stock and ground ginger) made enough to feed the many of the staff with a few plates left over. There were many thankful people when, on a humid, showery day with temps in the low 20s, a hot lunch appeared! 

The above pic is of some of the marrow served on plates (I forgot to take a pic before cutting it up). The pic only shows some because the rest had already been eaten (as displayed by the lovely Sue (whose head I chopped off purposely as she was eating at the time).

Day 59 Wet, wet, wet!

Tuesday is my travel day. I go to Gunning to work with a student. Gunning is about 70km from my base school. This week my travel day co-incided with the beginning of a big wet in our area. Before I left home today, there were weather warnings about potential flash flooding in ACT and potential river flooding in nearby NSW areas. 

 Not knowing the area very well, I was unsure if the road to Gunning floods, so I just drove, and hoped I wouldn't have to turn back at any time-and didn't need to! 

The above pic was taken on the way home. Unlike Saturday which was 32degrees and sunny, this looks more like the middle of winter (though the temperature was still warm) even though Summer still hasn't ended!

 

Day 58 Come what marrow!

Today a couple of people brought veges into work that they had an abundance of in their gardens. I also learnt something. The above massive vegetable is a marrow...I thought it looked like a giant zucchini, it turns out both views are true...to a point. It was explained to me by the lovely Kirsty, that while they are small, these veges are called zucchini, however when they get larger they are termed marrows, and as you can see by the 30cm ruler in the pic, this is certainly large!

We had a brainstorm in the staff room about what you could use these for; zucchini slice, zucchini choc cake (which I am told is as tasty as but healthier than mud cake!), but I plan on stuffing it and taking it back to work...I miss being at West on Tuesdays (morning tea days) so I am going to inject a little life into Wednesday this week (what a great opportunity for a pic that day)!

Day 57 In the blink of an eye!

I went to Tuggeranong today for some retail therapy (Yes I enjoy grocery shopping!) I popped in to Millers as they had a sale on-everything $20 or less. I found a shirt I was interested in, but as the only shop assistant in the store was wrestling with a mannequin (changing the window displays) I wandered around for about 10 mins, waiting for her to be less occupied so that she would serve me. Eventually I gave up, put the shirt back and walked out. 

I did a few other things I needed to but the shirt played on my mind, so I went back to get it. The shop assistant was then standing at the counter sorting a pile of clothes. I grabbed the shirt, walked up to the counter and got on with the transaction. 

She scanned the item, an told me it was $24.95. I said, but isn't the sale everything $20 or less? She said Oh that has ended. I turned around and sure enough, there was only 1 sign in the store that said everything $20 or less left. I said I was in here about 30 mins ago and you were busy so I put the shirt back, I came back and the sale has ended?? She said yes, I got a call from head office to say it had finished about 15 mins ago! I said, well I don't want the shirt then! She said well ok, I will sell it to you for $20. 

I bought the shirt (should have not bought it on principle!) and left the store. 

The situation bugged me so I turned around and walked back and she had removed the remaining instore sign but missed the one in the pic above, which was outside the store...and because of the way she treated me, I wasn't going to let her know about it!

Day 56 A new cat.

Today was bath day for the cats. Many people believe cats don't need to be bathed, but we have found that Caramel especially, having long white hair, finds it hard to keep himself white. Neither he nor Angel hates being bathed, don't get me wrong, they don't love it and won't stand still while you do it, they complain  and trying to escape occasionally, but they both tolerate it to an extent. 

Today's pic was taken by Illi as I was up to my elbows in pet shampoo and water. I wet Caramel from the neck down, and as his mane was flat and most of his fluffiness was stuck to his body, he looks like a totally different cat! They both now almost glow in the dark on their white bits, and smell infinitely cleaner.

Day 55 Such a long day!

Today I finally got to go to a Bill Rogers seminar. I was scheduled to go last year but ill health co-coincided with the seminar date!

I got up at 5am and left at 6am as the seminar was in Wollongong. On Thursday, Sue at work told me to be careful to take the correct exit or I would end up on the Macquarie Pass Road (Eeeew!). So I plugged the address into the GPS and set off. All was going well, the GPS told me to turn off, but I knew I shouldn't turn at the first exit, it told me to turn again...hmmm still didn't feel right! I fiddled a little with the display and found that if I didn't turn soon, I would be miles away from where I had to go. So I took the next turn off. It didn't take long to realise that I had mad the wrong choice but I plugged on. The roads were about 1.5 cars wide and the speed limit was 60-80kms! THEN I came up behind a B-double truck ON THE MACQUARIE PASS! I followed it through the 25-35km bends, by the time I got to the bottom my brakes were quite smelly, but I was nearly there! I drove up the road as the GPS told me to, only to find that the GPS had interpreted 61 Church St Wollongong, as 61 Church St somewhere in the Wollongong Area and dropped me at Albion Park! It was 9am (course started at 9!) and I was still 25 km away!

At this point I just wanted to get there...so on I went. I ended up walking in at 9.30 but was preoccupied with the ridiculousness of the events getting me there (3.5hours to Wollongong!)

I settled and got into the course, there was so much info and my brain got pretty full around 2.30. When we finished, I stopped for petrol and headed home. I left Wollongong at 5.10, and drove into Kambah at 7.40-a much better trip time! I had spoken to Rowie before I left Wolllongong and she asked if I wanted to go shopping, so instead of going home, I dropped in and picked her up and headed to Belconnen, finally getting home at around 10.40pm. I went to bed around 11.30 this making it a VERY long day indeed!

Day 54 More books.

This afternoon, Illi and I needed to do a few errands. These included a trip to the library.

Unfortunately towards the end of last year, ACT libraries changed their opening hours and now instead of being open most evenings til 7, they now close at 5.30 most evenings. This really makes a weekday visit to the library hard to achieve. So I got home and picked Illi up and headed on over to the library. We got there a little after 5 and Illi settled in for a big browsing session. Unfortunately it was cut rather short by the limited time we had until closing time. We are also finding it harder and harder to find titles we are interested in that we haven't already read. Maybe it is time to take a weekend library browsing trip to find some previously undiscovered (by us) reading material at another site.

Day 53 The place to be.

Lately I seem to be going to bed after 11 each night. My alarm goes off at 6.30am. This means I am getting around 7 hours (max) sleep each night. For those who have spent any length of time with me continuously will know that my body prefers to get 8 hours sleep in order to function well. Therefore I am accruing more and more sleep debt each night. 

I love my pillow, I rest well in bed, but I just seem to have so much more I want to do rather than sleep! Thus today's pic is of my pillow. The place I should be instead of blogging! Goodnight John-Boy!

Day 52 Happy Birthday Sean (sorry about the wax!)

Today is Sean's birthday. In our family, Sean's is the first birthday for the season, Declan's follows (almost) 4 weeks later, then Illi's is 11 days later and mine is 2 weeks after that. So in all, there are 7.5 weeks to fit in all 4 birthdays. 

Sean had class all day today and didn't finish until after 7 this evening. Normally I would make him roast chicken for dinner on his birthday (his fave) then follow with a butter cake (also his fave) with candles. The compromise due to a busy weekend, being unsure about his exact finish time and another school meeting at Stromlo, was chicken kebabs and apple pie (another of his fave foods). 

The above pic is of Sean's individual pie with cream and ice cream. I used 4 long candles for ten sticks and 2 short ones for unit blocks as 42 candles would not have fitted on the pie! As it was, the heat of the pie started melting the candles from the bottom while I was lighting them/carrying the pie out...Safety note: candles in hot pie are NOT a good idea! We worked on the idea that birthday candle wax wouldn't be toxic anyway and he ate his birthday pie. 

Happy Birthday Sean (sorry about the wax!).

Day 51 What rain??

For some time, we have wondered why the small hedge plants out the front closest to the fence are not as healthy as those near the mail box or inside the fence. Sean had a poke around the other day and came to a conclusion. Before I tell you though, let me explain today's photo.

It was taken at 10.30 pm. It has been raining since about 5.30 (in varying rates of heaviness). There has been enough rain for the guttering on the front verandah near the front door to have spilled over onto the verandah. The pic is of one of the bushes in the group closest to the fence. I brushed back maybe 4 mm of soil in a small area to reveal dry soil.

Now back to the theory. Sean reckons that the gum tree near the fence provides enough shelter for the plants when it rains that the water does not penetrate to the roots and therefore they don't grow. The proof is in the above pic...5 hours of rain and the soil is dry when only the top few mms is brushed away. What chance do the poor plants have....and does rain actually help them at all? I am guessing the sporadic watering they get is their main source of H2O and that even the rain that we have had of late is not really doing them much good at all!

Day 50 Flopcat.

Mr Fluffybutt, AKA Flopcat, AKA Caramel.

Caramel is a big sook. He tends to want to be loved (not that we don't love him) all the time. He demonstrates this by walking into a room and throwing himself on the floor and waiting for you to pat him. If you don't pat him he will meow at you to pat him, and recently if I ignore him some more while I am on the computer, he will come up behind me, put his paw up the back of my chair where the chair and the arm rest don't meet and put his claw into my butt to get my attention!
Today, he came and pleaded with me to pick him up -which I did, and lavished attention on him for 10 mins with him on my lap, he then jumped down and went away. About 2 mins later, Sean walked into the room and Caramel followed him in and meowed to be picked up-which Sean did, and lavished attention on him for about 15 mins, he then jumped down and went away. The Declan walked into the room, with Caramel in his arms and sat down with Caramel in his arms and proceeded to lavish attention on him!

Sean commented earlier today that Caramel has learnt to sneak around soft-footedly. When he does his Flopcat routine though, he actually thunks on the ground, maybe it is attention seeking so that there is no mistaking that he has positioned himself for attention NOW!

The above pic is of Caramel demonstrating his Flopcat position in the doorway of the kitchen-a fairly major thoroughfare!

Day 49 I finally found myself!

Last year when Coke started selling their product with names on it, I was disappointed that my name was not available. Then I saw that they were going to release more names in January and you could vote for your faves. I voted and amazingly Felicity was one of the names that got through as being printed on coke bottles. So since January, I have been keeping an eye out for a Felicity bottle. In the original run, I found Sean and Anthony, and in this run I allowed myself a little poetic license and also got Jayne (instead of Jane). Today when I was shopping I finally found Felicity! so in today's pics I have Felicity Jayne and Sean Anthony. I also found Wen and Christine so I also have a pic of me with 2 of my sisters (couldn't find a Kennette or even just Net!). Now that I have my pics we can drink the coke...I am not that driven to want to keep it, having the pics is enough.

Day 48 The end is nigh!

Another trip to Rowie and Trev's this evening. Their carpet was laid today and we went around to help move the heavy stuff back in. They finally get to sleep in their bed for the first time in weeks (the big luxurious ensemble, not the smaller slat bed). The lounges are back..no more sitting on beanbags or the floor! We managed to work in between shower bursts and the stuff that is left is mostly small stuff they can carry in. Although they now have to unpack everything, at least they can begin to settle into their lovely refurbished house properly! 

Since Christmas, they have ripped out walls, rebuilt some of them, ripped up carpet and tiles, stripped wallpaper, totally painted inside, disposed of load after load of overgrown garden shrubs, resealed both bathrooms, replaced doors, installed a new wardrobe, extended and rebuilt the linen press, and that is the stuff I can remember offhand! 

After we had finished moving all we were going to for the night, we sat for a few minutes and I remembered to snap today's pic. It is of Declan stretched out on their new carpet (in his karate clothes after class, making the new carpet smell like sweaty teenage boy!). 

Well done guys...the end of renos is nigh...until next time!

Day 47 How do you peel a banana?

This time last year, bananas were on their way out because of storm/cyclone weather in Queensland. One teacher friend said that in her class, bananas were known as 'lunchbox bling.' Then at the end of last year, the kids in my class started bringing bananas for fruit break, however I had one child come to me and ask me how to open their banana as "I've forgotten how!" 

I was reminded of this tonight when I walked into the kitchen to see Illi peeling a banana with a knife! There was a stage in her life when the only fruit she would eat was bananas (back when she ate cheese sticks...now THAT was a long time ago!!) and for a while she went off bananas totally. But tonight she asked if she could have a banana off the bench...you could nearly have knocked my over with a feather! Of course I said yes, then she proceeded the almost ceremonial peeling! 

There are times when I revel in the entertainment value of my kids...I guess that is one of the reasons parents everywhere persist in having them! :P

Day 46 What did I do today?

Today has gone on FOREVER! This morning started with me almost pushing Illi and Declan out the door for the bus. Then I went to work and found things going a little awry nearly every step of the way. Including that in getting the kids out the door that I forgot to take my morning medication. I felt rotten and at lunch time went home to get the medication in between one school and the other so that I could keep on for the day (found out that the problem was that I had also missed yesterday's...that would explain the problem! NOT looking forward to the week before surgery when I am only allowed to take Panadol to keep me going!) Then I went back to work and had a slight issue with a student. On the way home I dropped in to Bunnings, tried to call Sean to ask his advice on choosing the product I was to get (he called back nearly an hour later). The went to the supermarket to grab the extra ingredients for my evening cooking endeavours. When I got home I went to do the cooking and realised I had forgotten a vital ingredient and couldn't do start straight away. So we took the kids to karate, the dropped in to Rowena and Trevor's to help moving the last of their furniture out in preparation for their new flooring to be laid over the next 2 days. When we left there, we called by the supermarket to get the remaining ingredients, then picked up the kids and came home. I started cooking dinner while I started the cupcakes for my lesson tomorrow, then went to start the slice to take to school tomorrow and found that even after 2 trips to the supermarket, I was still unprepared as the coconut I thought was in the cupboard was nowhere to be found! Rowena and Trevor arrived to drop their lounge in our office as their garage is full of their other furniture, and as they were popping down to the shops, they offered to grad the coconut for me. While they were gone, I put the cupcakes in the oven, dished up dinner and we ate, just in time for Rowie and Trev to come back with the coconut! I finished the slice and put it in to bake for its first 20 mins while I prepared the second base, the topped the first one, and put it back in them prepared the top for the second one and put it in to bake for its final 30 mins! By 11.15, the baking was finally finished, the making it a LONG day...now to face tomorrow!

Oh, BTW the above pic is one of the slices, some of the cupcakes in the pink container and some other goodies needed for tomorrow's cooking task at school!

Day 45 Creating confusion.

This evening I went to my kids' school to hear about their new points system for yr 10. This system is to be used to determine the "level" at which students graduate. It sounds weird and confusing and I am not sure that any of the (I estimate) 50+ parents attending the meeting were entirely happy or totally understood the system. I expect it would have helped if they had used a focus group to gauge the support material they needed to present this evening. 

I entered the evening thinking I mostly understood the system but left feeling confused and a quite upset about how it is being handled. I think that the system should not be used for the current yr 10 cohort as the information to date has been sketchy and appears to not have had any parent consultation. A better approach would be to advise the current yr 9 group that at the end of next year they will graduate with this system, not pro rata this year's yr 10 with a system that still has bugs to be ironed out. 

I believe that if I wanted to present parents with a proposal such as this, my boss would delay the presentation until it was more thoroughly covered and supported with easy to understand support material/handouts. 

In all, after a long day at work, I walked away from the evening feeling confused.

Day 44 Just like Romeo and Juliet...but still alive!

Remember at the end of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet takes a drug that makes her appear dead, Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself, then when Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo dead, she kills herself? Well my afternoon kind of perpetuated like that.

Tomorrow is the start of the CIT year for Sean (the ACT version of TAFE) so he won't be home until late tomorrow night. So when he arrived home this evening, he brought me flowers for Valentines Day. Then I said well seeing as we are doing Valentines Day early, here is my present to you. Then HE said well that wasn't your present, hang on a sec and I will go and get your real present! So what started as a bunch of flowers perpetuated to a medium sized gift and then a large gift! All in the name of love-just like Romeo and Juliet!! (Except we lived to tell the story!)

Day 43 Conversion...Tape to CD via USB

Last week Cheryl at work mentioned that she had some tapes she used often but her tape player had broken and she was having trouble getting a replacement tape player to use in the classroom. I said that we have a stereo at home that converts tape to CD. She asked if I would mind transferring the now out of production tapes to CD so that she could use them. I was more than happy to do this. So I have spent a few hours today on the project. to be able to separate each part of the tape into separate tracks so that they are easier to navigate I have found that you need to listen to the tapes as they play. So for each letter of the alphabet, there is a short story (7-8 mins) a song (about 1 min) and an instrumental version of the song (also about 1 min). So far I have turned the letters A-L into MP3s (about 1h45m) and renamed the files from the generic names (ie recording 1, 2, etc) to what they actually are (A story, A song, A song instrumental, B story, B song, B song instrumental, etc) and am now onto the 2nd half of the alphabet. After I have turned them into MP3s then I have to burn them to CD! This project is turning out to be quite a bit bigger than I had anticipated and may not get finished this weekend! Oh well, at least it will be done in the not too distant future!

Day 42 Visitors

Sean organised a barbeque today and Graham from Sean's work brought his daughter Katrina. She is 4 and very sweet and intelligent. As the evening rolled on, she was getting tired and a little bored (grown ups and teenagers can get tiresome!) so I took her in to Illi's room and set her up on Illi's bed with some books and some pillows to support her while she was sitting on the bed (quite the lounging position). She was adamant that she didn't need help to read (although 2 mins after I took this pic, she came looking for Illi to read to her). I really think she suits the setting she is in, her pink fairy dress matches Illi's pink sheets and pink and purple bunting Bec made before we left Newy!

Day 41 Square peg in round hole or round peg in square hole??

When I was at uni, I did a subject called "Perspectives on Elementary Mathematics." There was nothing elementary about it really, it was university level maths. It was very 'out there' in some of the concepts but it really made you think (apparently the perspective we were meant to get was of a child struggling with using mathematical concepts). 

One of the problems we looked at was "A round peg fits better into a square hole than a square peg fits into a round hole" and I think of this assignment every time someone comments about square pegs and round holes. 

Tonight Peta made a comment that had me looking back at the assignment and reworking the maths of the problem, as I seemed to remember that I had noticed a mistake after I got the assignment back (that the lecturer hadn't noticed when he marked it). After going through it a couple of times, I found that there was no mistake and that the result holds true "showing that a square peg fits better into a round hole than a round peg fits in a square hole."

Day 40 Extending a 4.30 coffee date to 9.30pm...and on a school night!

This afternoon after work, I arranged to have coffee with Steve. He is down from Newcastle on a training course. We went to Ojo in Tuggeranong and found they had pool tables, so we had a coffee while playing pool (edit-thanks for the spell check family..how embarrassing! :s) and then decided it was a bit warm and switched to cold drinks (weirdest lazy way of making lemon lime and bitters!). I messaged Sean and asked if he wanted to join us, so he stayed on the bus and came directly to Tuggeranong. Steve took a pic of me playing pool for today's pic but I later found a better subject.

Around 7pm I thought we should get something to eat so we went around to the little sidewalk restaurants out the front of the Hyperdome. Steve said he is best to stay away from Asian food as he is allergic to soy sauce, so we went to Little Istanbul. 

While looking at the menu, the table next to ours received their meal-it was one of the banquets and we were inspired. We ordered the kebab banquet. The first course was Turkish bread and dips. The second course was a plate of mixed kebabs (chicken, beef and lamb) with rice and salad. What started out as a coffee date turned into a great night with fabulous company and some funny stories told. Thanks Steve!

The above pic shows the dips (after we had eaten our fill of them with all of the bread), the kebab plate and the salad. It was lovely and filling. I would recommend it for a lazy meal out with friends.

Day 39 A trip at night is not easy to photograph when traveling!

I dropped around to Rowena and Trevor's this evening. It was meant to be a quick visit but we were talking curtains and as Kmart had the curtain rods she wanted, she called and asked if Belconnen (24hr store) had any. The response was favourable so we set off to the shops at after 8.30!

When we got there, they didn't have the curtain rods (not sure where the lady on the phone got her information from) but a very nice manager by the name of Rowan took the problem to hand and is going to order the rods in!

On the way home, I remembered I hadn't taken a pic for the day and tried taking a pic of the really nice night-scape showing the lights in the distance, however traveling and taking a pic with my camera phone is not a good mix. So rather than find something else to photograph, I decided to use one of the pics and show just how difficult it was, as this is one of the better pics in the group! 

Lesson learnt, a trip at night is not easy to photograph when traveling!

Day 38 Achievement of the day!

When we arrived to pick up the kids from Karate tonight, I was interested to see Illi get an award. I then saw her get a bit of tape added to her belt and realised she had graded tonight for the first time! I am happy that she is achieving as well as enjoying Karate. Now if only she would practice between classes, she could blow the boys (esp Declan) away!

 

This on top of her first day of year 8...Well Done Illi!

Day 37 My son is in year TEN!!

OK so I cheated. I have 2 pics for today, but they are of the same item, just different views.
Today was Declan's first day of school for the year. He is in year 10 and therefore had the opportunity to purchase a commemorative shirt ($$ouch!) He put it on at school and it was already stinky with teenage, smelly boy on a summer day smell! Interestingly he chose to have Deckles printed as his name on the back as this is what his friends call him (I never knew this until we discussed the name he wanted on it!).

The big deal about yr 10 in the ACT is that it is the end of high school. While NSW has abolished the School Certificate as it is no longer relevant, in the ACT because you graduate from high school in yr 10, it still has reason to be a big deal. THEN you go to college for yr 11 and 12, thus having another reason to graduate after 2 years!

This is the beginning of the end of an era for us. After this year, Illi and Declan will no longer go to, nor be likely to ever go to, the same school again.

Another issue related but only slightly...how is it possible that I could have a child in yr 10, an almost 15 year old!?! I mean seriously, I am Flis, I am the youngest of the 4 Waser girls, I was the last one to start having children, I have the youngest grandchild in our strand of the family, it is not possible for me to have a child THAT old! Although I like to shock people by telling them that I have a child that old, when I look at it from the opposite view, it also make ME old! So excuse me if I start telling people he is my little brother or nephew or SOMETHING that means I appear to decrease in age, cos I don't feel old enough to have a child in year TEN, about to graduate from high school!!

Day 36 Money motivates.

After 2 days of 'encouragement' Declan finally went out to mow the lawn late this afternoon. The interesting thing about this is that even though he spent 2 days putting off doing it and only going to do it when I used my 'no more excuses, go and DO IT' voice, within about an hour of coming inside, he informed me that he should have $x in the bank now cos he mowed the lawn. I am thinking that it will take at least as long for me to pay him the money as it took him to mow the lawn!

Day 35 The things that please us...

It is interesting the things that please us. I like doing the washing and hanging it on the line. I have a particular way of doing it (4 people in the family, 4 sections on the clothes line...co-incidence? I prefer to think that it is that way to contribute to my OCD tendencies!!)  I like the way I hang and distribute the washing on the line. I have trained this kids to do it my way and therefore I don't have a problem with them helping hang the washing out occasionally, but Sean is not as particular as I am. I feel like I have accomplished a lot when all of the washing is done, dry and back in bedrooms, and as most mothers will agree, I hate when all of my hard work ends in a pile on a child's bedroom floor...aaarrrgghhhh! I don't have a problem with washing...I do have a problem with rewashing!

Day 34 The end of a long week.

Friday morning. End of week 1 back at school. It is raining. I am tired. Angel had the right idea, she climbed up on our bed at around 7.30am and settled down to sleep. I wish I had that luxury. 

It also didn't help that when I got home in the afternoon, Declan informed me that HE hadn't gotten out of bed until almost midday! Bring on Saturday morning and a sleep in...wish me luck, my body clock does not respond well to being allowed to sleep in, it only wants to sleep in when I don't have the option of that luxury.

Day 33 Dinner each night for a week cont...

Tonight it was time for Illi to complete her shepherd's pie. She had already made the filling last night so tonight she had to cook and mash the potato, assemble to pie and bake it as well as prepare the veges to go with it.

As Declan had previously told her that she couldn't make it, she would not even peel the potatoes and put them in the saucepan without direction (something she has been doing for years!) All she really needed was some company to tell her she was doing fine occasionally as her pie was great and went well with the carrot, broccoli and corn that she served with it! 

I took the above pic after the first piece was served so you can see the filling.

Day 32 Dinner each night for a week.

With Sean and I both back at work this week, but the kids still on holidays, I decided that it would be their job to make dinner each night. The upside of this is that I don't have to decide what to eat, the downside is that they both insist on having supervision while they cook! My idea HAD been that they would prepare dinner while we were at work. However the reality is that they do nothing until one of us is home because they say they don't know what to do (more like they need someone to keep them on track should they get distracted and forget they were cooking and burn something!) 

On Monday night Declan cooked sausages and veges, last night was burritos-a combined effort between the 2 of them.Tonight Declan made lamb steak, sweet potato fries (freshly cut) corn on the cob, carrot and broccoli. While he was chopping the sweet potato, Illi started on tomorrow night's dinner-shepherd's pie. Friday night will be fried rice prepared by Illi. Even though they both profess to not knowing how to cook, they are both critical of each other's preparation methods and cooking skills! 

The above pic is of Declan cutting sweet potato while Illi looks on in between browning the mince for her pie.

Day 31 I wanted the results ABC!

I have been watching the program ‘Gareth Malone’s Extraordinary School For Boys’ on the ABC for the past few weeks. The general idea of the show is that Gareth (a choirmaster) has been engaged for 1 term to try to boost literacy levels in a group of year 5/6(?) boys. He only works with them 3 days a week and only works with the boys, not the girls (they work with their normal classroom teachers).

The goal set for him is to improve the boys’ reading ages by at least 6 months in 1 term. A hard task when you see what some of the boys are like.

I tuned in tonight to see the third part of the 3 part series, only to find that the ABC has cut the third part in two and the final is now next week! How am I meant to know if his methods work if I have to keep waiting?!? I want to get on with building my classroom in the woods, running through the local common and taking boys on the train to the nearest major centre to use the library’s budget in one afternoon buying books just to engage the boys!

I don’t think that his ideas won’t work, I just think that even if they do work they are impractical to be replicated especially in a normal school setting without large amounts of resources available. I will reserve final judgement until I see some results from the literacy assessment (hopefully) next week.

Day 30 Knees...the ongoing saga

For quite a few years now I have had problems with my knees. In December of 2005 I had surgery on my right knee and in December of 2006 I had surgery on my left knee. I had lateral releases on both knees to try and make them ‘track’ properly as my kneecaps don’t run in the grooves that they are meant to (kinda like a train that doesn’t quite fit on its tracks) and therefore the cartilage is being worn away. The surgery did a little bit of good but I also take a cocktail of drugs each day to enable me to function.

In about August of 2010, I spoke to my GP about increasing my medication as the medication was no longer keeping me pain free. She referred me to a specialist (as I had moved cities since my last knee surgery). I got in to see the specialist in May 2011.

In July 2011 the specialist suggested further surgery however when the hospital rang me with a date, it co-incided with my kidney surgery date! I asked them to hold off on surgery dates until this year as I had had a total of 4 anaesthetics last year and wanted to have a break before embarking on more surgery.

In December I called the hospital to find out if they could tell me when my surgery date was likely to be so that I could arrange work for 2012. They nominated 17 Feb as a tentative date for surgery.

Last week, I called and asked if that was still on the cards and was told that 17 Feb was out of the question and my date was more likely to be 16 March. I arranged work around this and started on Friday.

Today I got a call from the hospital saying they had had a cancellation and could I make the 17 Feb date for surgery. As I had already committed to work I had to refuse and stick with 16 March even though it drags the process out further.

The pic above is of what I use to strap up my knee on days when I feel I can’t get through the day without extra support. I use 2 tubular bandages (1 over the other) and some lovely skin glue called “it stays” which stops the bandage rolling down my leg as I walk. I have tried thermal knee supports but they don’t stay up and the “it stays” is not strong enough to support them.