Wednesday, 31 December 2008

Happy New Year!


I've been writing another post this morning about an adventure I had yesterday which was both scary and in the end, I hope, good. But as I rambled on and on I realized that it wasn't very appropriate for today. It's New Year's Eve in case you've been stuck under a rock.

So I wondered if I was going to make any resolutions this year? I made some last year, I remembered, so I had a look back and I came across these

1. Get Organised
2. Get Healthy
3. Get Fit
4. Get Slim
5. Get a direction
and probably most importantly
6. Always, always to be grateful for everything I'm am blessed with.


Well I'm still a tad unhealthy, on the chubby side, could do with getting more exercise and am thoroughly disorganized so I'm not claiming that my resolve stuck, that's for sure. But the bottom two I think I did alright with. I had no idea that I wanted to get serious about writing twelve months ago. I was just enjoying doing my blog and finding that I kept coming up with little stories that were growing and growing in my head. Then I started looking around on the blogshere and realized I was not alone. Suddenly the aimless wonder that I was took off down a path and I haven't looked back since. It's one of the many things that I am eternally grateful for from this year.

So what else has changed? Well I have a new home, community, new job, tons of new friends [most of them virtual - but valued hugely nonetheless] and I'm happy. I was finding the move from Hertfordshire to East Sussex really difficult this time a year ago. A year on and I would say that I feel settled and contented. I still miss my old home but much less now and I see how much the kids and Hubby have benefitted. It's certainly been good for the family. Also if I hadn't moved I may not have given myself the time to develop this writing bug. So it's been good. Very good.

So do I set myself goals again to be written and forgotten till next year? Well I've answered that really haven't I? No resolutions this year but now I have a direction I'll continue on, trying to make progress. 2009 is an adventure waiting for us all. I'm looking forward to it.

So I'd like to wish you all and your loved ones, a very Happy New Year. May you follow your dreams and live your lives in the abundance they were meant to be lived and may you always appreciate the moment and every blessing that you are offered.

Peace to us all.

Lots and lots of love


Jane
xxxxx

Sunday, 28 December 2008

The consequences of indulgence.....

There are a few downsides to the enormous amount of cooking I've been doing over the last few days.

1) The enormous amount of eating I've been doing over the last few days.

2) The enormous girth I'm developing as a result of the enormous amount of food I've cooked then eaten.

3) The fact that my fingers smell of onion and nothing seems to clean it off.

I have come to the conclusion that TV chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey and Nigella Lawson must eat nothing that they cook themselves and must stink to high heaven.


I feel a detox coming on.

Later - after I finish everything.

Sunday, 21 December 2008

In Which The Nativity Was A Bit Dull…

Scary afternnoon there when Blogger told me I didn't exist and I couldn't comment on my own blog. Eeek!

Hi y'all! 'Smee! I'm all better (more or less) and raring to go. This week was a big washout all-wise; workwise, blogwise, Christmas preparationwise - every which wise. So sorry that I haven't been around to see you guys. I still have to listen to all the smutty talk via Robin's blog. I'm sorry but I can't carry off "sexy" - not even anonymously! Even if the toad took a break from croaking loudly, I fear my deep scarlet blushing would interfere with the audio signal. I'm looking forward to hearing all yours though. I'm glad that everyone else doesn't suffer from such shocking chickenitis.

Anyhoo I just want to share a little Christmas tale.

Small Son and his school recently gave a carol concert on the local C of E Church. It was a lovely service and the kids all sang like little angels. Small Son is only 5 and I watched with pride and joy as he sang out and boogied on down to the story of the Nativity. The thing about teaching little 4 and 5-year-olds loads of Carols and hymns and whatnot is that they have a bit of trouble retaining all the words. Let's face it, the archaic nature of most religious music isn't exactly something the children identify with but bless them they sang out loudly even if they hadn't a clue what they were singing. How little of a clue that Small Son actually had was brought home to us last night as we were having dinner and the Little One lauched into a Carol.

"Ding Dong mellily in eye
Nevin bells are ringing
Ding dong mellily a pie
La-la-la-la-la singing"


We were all in stitches at these mislearnt lyrics but nothing prepared us for the chorus...

"BO-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH-ORING
ZANNAH IS A CHELSIS
"

I'm still giggling even now that he sang "Boring" so loudly and with such enthusiasm to the entire village.

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Unclean! Unclean!

Sorry about the lack of presence internetty-wise. I've been percolating a rather nasty virus. It kind of came to the boil yesterday when I was at work and I felt like my head was being squashed between a bulldozer and wall of granite imbedded with knives and my temperature soared into the 100's. Little Expecto asked me if I was "growing a red face" (don't you just love how children put things?). Luckily I was finished by 12 so I came home, took more drugs and took it easy. I felt almost human again by bed time.

When I woke up this morning a large tone-deaf toad had taken up residence in my throat so I've decided to stay home. Thing is now that I'm quiet and still I don't feel so bad so I'm feeling guilty about staying home, but the second I make any kind of effort I feel like I've been run over by a steamroller.

I have a pile of shopping to do in the next few days before school ends (teacher's gifts and I have to buy a Secret Santa gift from a charity shop) which will involve movement. Am I the only one who regards shopping as a torture? And I can't really justify going to shops (even if it is my idea of hell) and not being at work with 50 loud and hyper children, can I? Urgh! Where's my duvet? I must climb back in.

I'll be flitting about … ish.

Thursday, 11 December 2008

TINTINTS Thursday!

We're doing a Pantomime with 50 kids aged between 4 and 7 this week. It's an hour and a half long and we've got 5 performances to do. My job is crowd control. I have to sit with half the kids and keep them from making noise. The ones who aren't onstage at any given time sit on benches to either side of it. They are in full view of the audience, right next to microphones and remain in costume in the full glare of the lights. There's another teaching assistant on the other side doing the same.

I have Expecto on my side. He's playing a little lost sheep and is essentially wearing a big furry sheepskin coat. His part is finished by about half way through after which he asks me constantly when it's going to be over.

"I'm hot!"

"I hate this bit!"

"I'm starving. My tummy is rumbling"

"Heimlich isn't doing his actions. HEY HEIMLICH, WIGGLE! WIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGLLLLLE!!!!!!"

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WIG-GUH-LING!"

"How much longer?"

"How long is ten minutes?"

Yesterday I found myself saying the following Thing I Never Thought I'd Need To Say (TINTINTS)
After urging Expecto to keep his voice down again I said

"If you don't keep quiet nobody's going to be able to hear all the mean things the wolf says."

----------------------------------------------------------------

It's been a mad week for many reasons. If you still are vaguely interested in the laminator saga I will get to it soon. Honest!

Friday, 5 December 2008

Recess

I'm going away for the weekend. I'll be back Monday to tell you all about the laminator. I know! You're thinking "Can I wait that long?" but you're just going to have to!

Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Reset - quickly!

Some mornings you just wake up and you have a gut feeling that it was the wrong thing to do. For a start it was pitch black at 6.45am, the wind was howling and the rain was pouring down in monsoon fashion. The country had been promised blankets of snow over night. We just got lots and lots of rain.

Now, as I have mentioned oft times, I am not averse to rain - not the drizzly stuff, not the ploppy stuff and not the stuff that feels like you've walked under a waterfall but I do object to the stuff that should have turned into snow. This is the freezing stuff that is so pissed off that it's transformation into star-like fluffy precipitation hasn't occurred that it secretes tiny little daggers in its drops to really hurt you when you dare to walk out in it. It's angry rain. It's rain who's only aim is to inflict pain.

That's what I woke up to today.

When I finally got Small Son to school, getting jolly wet and cold in the process, I headed to work. On the way around a bend I hit a big flood on the road and almost went off it. Luckily there was nothing coming in the other direction as I ended up on the wrong side of the road. I can't explain to you how dark it was. It was 9.15am and it was like night time. Visibility was practically non-existent. So I turned up for work a bit off kilter and feeling like I should go back to bed. That's when I realised I'd left the mic stands that I'd forced Hubby to beg for from a sister company (for our school Key Stage One Production) at home. It turned out that the school had gone out and bought some without telling me anyway so Hubby wasted his effort. I think I must've looked really annoyed when they told me because the teacher made me tea and gave me a biscuit to say sorry. I didn't mean to make her feel bad, I was just all ack! Then I just felt even more ack for making her feel bad. Then I found out that I was expected to attend a course after school on some bollocky ICT thing I'll never use on Monday when I will have no childcare for Small Son. They'd forgotten to mention it. AAARGH!

We had a photographer in to take photos of the 50 children involved in the Christmas production … in costume. There were space missions that were less stressful. I am not joking.

Playtime was fine.

For my next job I had to do a bit of laminating. As the children learn new sounds they are given the words made up from those sounds for them to read. We laminate them, put them on a key ring and they get sent home to be practised. I was laminating the phase 2 words today. For some unknown reason I put the plastic pocket into the laminator backwards and guess what? It got stuck. I broke it. It was nobody else's fault - it was just me being stupid. GRRR!

Taking the laminator home with me (in the optimistic hope that Hubby might be able to fix it) I arrived back to find that my late return (due to faffing about with a laminator) had agitated Pooch who decided to eat a small package that had been delivered. She tore through the packaging and chewed on the box of the VERY EXPENSIVE X-BOX GAME WE'D ORDERED FOR BIG SON'S BIRTHDAY! They cost nearly £50. The disk is undamaged but the box is a mess. I could have cried.

It was at this stage I made a cuppa and decided to hit the reset button. It's a simple process of going back over the day and de-negativising it.

So … I woke up at 6.45am, it was still dark and all I could hear was the wind howling and the rain lashing outside. I snuggled down under my covers thinking how much I love my bed when Hubby brought me a tea in bed. This is a good way to start the day. I was glad that Hubby always takes the Pooch out for her first walk as the sun came up and I saw how dirty the weather was. I closed my eyes and asked the powers that be that the rain would have dried up by the time it came for me to walk her later.

Small Son had great fun splashing in the puddles on the walk to school. I was glad of my fleece-lined raincoat. It was still dark and raining heavily as I drove to work. I must've been driving too fast because I hit a flooded part of the road on a bend and skidded. Thankfully there was nothing coming and it was a blessing in disguise as it made me realise how slippy the conditions were and I slowed right down. On reaching school I realised I'd left some mic stands at home that I'd volunteered to borrow from Hubby's work for the school production. It didn't matter though because they'd bought some the day before. In gratitude for my effort the lovely teacher made me a cup of tea and gave me a chocolate biscuit.

The photographing of 50 children in costume went fairly well - all things considered - I mean it was 50 kids so … y'know!

During playtime I realised that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.

When laminating the Key stage 1 phase two words later on I foolishly fed the plastic wallet in backwards jamming the whole thing up. I was unable to retrieve the stuck wallet even when I took the casing off. It's the school's only laminator and instead of being cross they told me not to worry about it and even refused my offer of buying a replacement. Knowing how very handy Hubby is I brought it home with me in the hope that he has better luck with fixing it. Having a handy Hubby is a very wonderful thing.

When I arrived home I found that the Pooch and ripped open an X-Box game that had come in the post and chewed the plastic case. Thankfully she didn't touch the disk itself and Hubby says that he can get a new case at work and he knows how to find the artwork online so he should be able to repackage it so that it looks OK. Hubby saves the day again.

By the time I took the dog out for her walk the sun was shining brightly and it had dried up outside. Someone had listened to my prayer.

I came back from my walk thinking that it hadn't been such a bad day after all. But mostly I thought about how lucky I am to have Hubby.

*******************************************************************

And for TINTINTS Thursday I found myself saying;

"Oh my God I've killed it! I'm the laminator terminator!"

Monday, 1 December 2008

Just one more thing...

'Sreally weird not blogging every day!

DOH!!!!