Category Archives: quotes

once was lost, but now fly free

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book hoarder

That was me until a few months ago. I have learnt that just have like all sentimental clutter that the memories are in my head and not in the item. The joy of reading is not retained in the physical book, it is in my head, my imagination. So I no longer greedily hoard my books, except for a very few, I now set them free. I donate to charity book fairs, or give to friends, and it makes me feel so happy to know that someone else might have the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful book.

Let’s be honest, how many of us reread our books? Set them free.

 

book collecting

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neverland

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baby girl

I drove into the city. We moved to the country in late October and already I wonder how I survived living there for the 10 years we did. Saturday morning traffic jams, aggressive Lycra clad men on bicycles and people everywhere. Country Flamingo Dancer wanted to hurry back to her rural retreat immediately!

The only reason I continued on was that Daughter1, just a week away from her due date, has developed raised blood pressure and has been ordered to rest, so mother dearest (I can be nice to my children when I absolutely must) made the supreme sacrifice and went city side to help out for the day.

I got to wash lots of little baby clothes. They are using cloth nappies and of course they are nothing like the terry towelling squares that we folded into a kit style nappy. Today the nappies (diapers) look like disposals in that they had elasticised legs with clips. One nappy they showed me had multiple rows of clips to adjust as they baby grows. Engineering has come to baby world! I warned them that if they every come home and find baby wearing a tea towel it will be because Grandma Flamingo Dancer was defeated by the technology!

I was more in my comfort zone making muffins. I baked cherry muffins and hummingbird muffins for Mr Boy’s work lunches (son in law). I love baking muffins and for these I used daughter’s recipe so there was an element of trying something new, but I was all fingers and thumbs cooking in someone else’s kitchen. By the time I made two batches of muffins and a spinach frittata  for lunch I was feeling more comfortable. But it is odd cooking in another person’s kitchen as it is organised according to their life style and logic, isn’t it?

One of daughter’s neighbours noticed me hanging baby clothes on the clothes line and asked me if the baby had arrived. I explained the situation and we made small talk for a few minutes. Daughter had overheard us speaking and said that was a longer conversation that she had shared with neighbour in the three years she had lived there! Nothing like a baby to bond neighbours!

The two houses are very close together and neighbour’s two young children seem to cry night and day, and have kept Daughter1 and Mr Boy awake on many nights, so they are looking forward to the revenge of having their baby keep the neighbours awake. Yes, she is my daughter and I trained her well.

alice

Life really is a cycle. It only seems a little while ago I was washing baby clothes for Daughter1′s birth, now I am preparing them for her daughter. I developed severe blood pressure and spent the last month of my pregnancy in hospital. I had to lie on my left side the entire time, and I was only allowed to sit up to eat my salt free food or to shower. I seemed to have a blood test almost every day.  Then her birth ended in an emergency caesarean section as the cord had become twisted around her neck and she was in distress. I have never done anything by halves and if there is an exception to the rule, just call it Flamingo Dancer! Hopefully, Daughter will be spared any and all dramas.

Since moving to the country I have become a dog person easily manipulated by her pet, and now I am about to be a grandmother, the best grandmother that ever was of course, but still a grandmother.

Never say never, you just never know where life will take you and how much you will change…

“The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”
― Johnny Depp

 

Augie likeness

that was the week that was

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Model in Pink Silk Jacket by Mainbocher
My first class teaching ICT and Information skills to year 8, a double period lesson, went really well.

I did my slideshow telling them about myself – what I did on my holidays, what I am reading, what I am listening to (played them Lumineers and Mumford and Sons songs that I am playing in my car on the drive to work; music as long as it is current always goes down well in bonding with students) and explained my expectations (number one rule is to treat others as we would like to be treated) as well as made my promise to them to work hard for them and to care about their studies. I also made sure that they wrote down my email address and told them to show it to their parents. Hopefully, I won’t regret that!

Then we got down to work, learning how to log onto the school system and set up passwords. I have one aspergers’ student and he called me over to tell me that he had encrypted his password into a number code so that even though he wrote it in his diary, he would be able to remember it. Minutes later he called me back over – his password wouldn’t work! We will continue next lesson…

I also have a home class, and the mother of a year twelve student (a senior) rang the school to say that her son did not receive his school diary. I know that when they were handed out we were not short, and so the school secretary telephoned the mother back with that message. Not yet sure of names and faces of students yet, I went online and checked the ID photo of the student – he was the student who volunteered to hand out the diaries! He has either lost it already, or his helicopter mother pisses him off and he told her he didn’t have one, just so she didn’t go through his school diary. By year twelve I think parents need not to hover quite so much.

blame

So, it’s been quite a good start in many ways. I did have to draw a line in the sand and stand my ground over one or two internal admin issues with colleagues which is never nice, but things do seem to be working out in an acceptable manner. I have found over the years that if one rarely complains about things than when one does, it is usually taken seriously and attended to. Usually. It also helps to suggest a solution along with the complaint, even if it is not the final solution, it shows that you are trying to settle the issue yourself.

I just wonder how long we will have the year 8s bluffed and the hormones click in and they become the ferals we always seem to end up with by the end of the year!

ink maura via pinintest

more gravel than pearls

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pearls 1

I wore pearls, three strands; my mothers. They didn’t make the day magical though.

Yesterday, our first day back at the school, was all pastoral care, lots of warm and fuzzy moments where we told each other how wonderful we were. Nice people being nice. So, you can understand my burden. By the end of the day I was exhausted by being nice, which is against my natural order and so took to my bed early.

Second day, today, was a little less taxing. Lots of meetings, none of which I was involved in as I do not teach a “subject”. My area of Information fluency sits like a little shag on a rock, all by its self. The IT teacher with whom I co-teach and I could have our meeting in a phone box, or in the corridors at school, which is probably where it will occur!

Tomorrow we do CPR training, annual event. I have no expectations of my dummy surviving. This year we answered an online questionnaire instead of having a human instructor, which was to save us time, and stop us stabbing pencils into our eyes through boredom. Many of us felt that the information given was inaccurate however and often the language was ambiguous.

For example, in one question about needle stick injuries the info sheet said to wash with warm water, and yet the question asked if  the wound should be washed with hot water. Some people would view warm and hot as very close things. Was it a trick question, or just a poor transcription error?

Previously, on multiple occasions in fact, we have been told that despite undergoing training we are not legally obligated to do any first aid if we do not feel comfortable doing so. Yet, in this instance they stated we are obligated to help anyone for whom we have a duty of care. It was such a poorly researched and presented site that I really suspect there are many errors.

So we may all fail, more because they have presented incorrect information than ignorance, but being opinionated and outspoken teachers we will no doubt argue our points and win the day!

High point so far? Well, I made a very nice smoked salmon wrap for my lunch.

I was given a new tablet laptop, so I spent some time getting it set up. Now when I doodle on my notes in meetings I will be able to not only doodle in colour and different pen widths, I will be able to save or email to friends as well!

It rained this afternoon the first time in weeks, and will probably rain all this coming long weekend, which doesn’t worry me in the least.

I suppose the very best thing is that I got permission to turn the raised beds in front of the library into a herb and vegetable garden. I have a senior home class this year (class years 10-12) and we will twin with a junior class, and as our project we are going to garden. What vegetables actually manage to survive we will either make into a meal and share, or the students can take home to their families. We may even get a worm farm!

My hope is to have a class that is a stress release to their day, build a sense of community amongst the students, and to get them in touch with nature (most of them are city kids). Everyone should know how to care for the earth, and to grow their own food. So  the whole project should be quite an interesting project, come what may.

And of course I shall wear pearls when we garden; all goddesses do!

Garden wall

In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls. Honore de Balzac

Flow it, show it, Long as I can grow my hair!

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Hair cut 1

I know this will bring the green eyed monster out in many of you, but I am used to stirring that emotion in others, goddess that I am.

I found the hair stylist of my dreams! It is not just students who line up for hair cuts before school starts (next Wednesday for teacher me!)  but teachers as well. Having left my regular stylist far behind in the city and not quite desperate enough to drive well over an hour to continue having her cut my hair, I tried one of the local stylists for my first “country cut”. I was less than impressed.

However, just 10 minutes drive to the shopping centre outside of the Village where I buy most of our groceries, there was another hair option and I struck gold.

It wasn’t long into the cut that the stylist commented “goodness your hair is thick” and I did the old reply “yes, if I could bottle the secret I would make a fortune, ha ha ha.” Disappointment was fleeting though as she continued, “I love thick hair, I love to cut into it and style it. I get such a sense of achievement taming it!” Be still my beating heart.

She excelled far beyond my city stylist! A country gem.

So, I am one more session away from achieving the look above (top layer not quite long enough at the sides yet so six weeks will do the trick), except in grey, because I no longer colour my hair. I look so scintillating. In fact, I am so fantastic that I even make myself jealous!

quote coco chanel