Cat-astrophes

I'm alive...

I'm breathing...

I'm happy...

I've busied myself with other projects...

I may be back...

But for now, I'm pausing and thinking


xxx

So yesterday some of my lovely female friends braved the weather and celebrated with me for a bridal shower.

I must admit the thing I was looking forward to most was just hanging out with some of my favourite faces and having a good laugh.

But I ended up also being blown away by the generosity of these beautiful people! Rather than showering me with gifts, they made contributions to our honeymoon. Collectively they raised enough money to cover our meals for the week!

That was one of our headaches...paying off the wedding and honeymoon bit by bit is one thing...but then there are the costs the other side of the date! So now, thanks to these lovely people...we'll have food!!!

Much laughter was had also...some interesting veil designs produced (and me being the most indecisive person ever couldn't choose the winning piece), some lovely portraits with some interesting bits of advice for marriage life...

It really was a great afternoon...and lots of memories to keep :)


xxx

Oh my...what a fortnight.

The next person who says that teaching is an easy profession is going to find some sort of implement lodged between their eyeballs.

I love it, I do...but let me give you a run down of the past two weeks:

1. Tuesday - Newsletter report due: create a three page report on what the class has learnt this year, experiences, quotes etc and add cute photos...
2. Wednesday - program due (anyone who knows a teacher will know that creating/submitting your program is a BIG stressful ordeal)
3. Thursday - Observation of colleague: Set work for the Deputy Principal to teach my class whilst attending two meetings and observing another teacher, then providing feedback information. Photographer leaves a voicemail message to say probably can't do the wedding after all....ARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!
4. Friday - Demonstration lesson: more meetings. Try to settle a crazy class on a Friday to demonstrate a Quality Teaching Writing lesson...HA
5. Weekend - family, friends....REPORTING
6. Monday - a VERY 'trying' student returns: back to his normal ways in a matter of hours. Mother jokes 'you must have enjoyed the break. You probably felt sick when you saw him return'. I smiled and said 'not at all'...but on the inside I was screaming "TAKE HIM BACK!!!". Supervisor noticed I'm a little stressed and offers for me to hand my reports in on Friday (when they are due anyway....?) I decline as that is the busy part of this horrible fortnight.
7. Tuesday - finished reports (HALLELUJAH!!): Supervisor away and not planning on coming in for the rest of the week....so I could've handed them in NEXT TUESDAY!
8. Wednesday - Breathe....went to bed at 6pm
9. Thursday - Observation lesson - again...watch teachers, prepare work, meetings, feedback. Went shopping with mum, had nails 'done'. On an aside...I like now just being able to say I had my nails 'done'...I feel like a should add 'darling' on the end.
10. Friday - okay...get ready for it....meeting, art groups, sport, assembly (yes...my class were presenting it...so that includes a LOT of coordination), demonstration lesson, duty, choosing time. I didn't have time to pee. Literally. By the end of the day I was dancing around waiting for late parents to pick up their kids just so I could visit the toilet. PARENTS PLEASE PICK UP YOUR CHILDREN ON TIME!!! Your teacher will love you for it. On another aside I have one student that is consistently picked up at least 15 minutes late daily. That is an extra hour and 15 weekly. Given the course of a year, that is more than an extra working week that I spend looking after this one child! To top it off, anyone living in Sydney (or central coastal New South Wales for that matter) would know that the weather was hideous yesterday. Pouring rain galeforce winds...and all of that equals CRAZY KIDS. I was shaking with the stress. Apparently I appeared very calm though...amazing.

So now it is Saturday morning and I'm listening to the rain outside from my nice warm bed. The wind has finally subsided. My reports are finished. My program is finished. All of those horrible extras are over. My Deputy Principal happens to be into photography and has done a few weddings...and offered to do mine for the price of a memory card. I have 3 days off!!! Huzzah for the Queen...Oh...AND (I just remembered) I get to see lots of my beautiful friends for a bridal shower today! It certainly will be a shower with all of this rain...less than 4 weeks to the wedding and just over 2 weeks until my hero returns.

All is well in the world once more...

xxx

Quote of the day "I'll wear whatever you want me to wear...but I'm not wearing that"


xxx

This quote resonated in my head this morning:

"Music organises your intelligence" - Wynton Marsalis

It was spoken in the context of jazz - but I'm now thinking about it in relation to other genres and I think there is some truth in that. It also says something about the intelligence of some of the people producing some of the garbage that is around at the moment too...

xxx

I woke up this morning to find two lovers in my kitchen.

I did what any girl would do at 5 am - I screamed and threw a tea towel at them.

The two freaky little cockroaches did the bolt across the kitchen counter whilst I reached for the spray.

Now you must understand that these are no ordinary cockroaches...these are freaky mutant roaches from Mars. Picture little brown bugs but with 'frilly' shells. Disgusting - even more disgusting than the ordinary roach. I don't like other cockroaches, but they don't make me feel physically ill looking at them like these things do... and they were doing hanky panky in my kitchen!!!!!!

Anyway Rocheo (little male) hid straight away and fat Juliet bore the brunt of the spray. She took a dive off the counter, crawled a metre and lay on her back kicking her little legs around. And no, I did not feel sorry for the icky bug.

Don't think Rocheo got away though. I found his little hidey hole behind the rice cooker. Obviously knowing his doom he took a kamakaze suicide dive off the counter as well. He was met at the bottom with a blast of spray. He ran around in blind circles before hauling himself...wait for it...next to his dying lady. And that's where he stayed...

...and NO, I still did not feel sorry for the icky bugs.



xxx

So I dropped my hero off at the airport and watched the sky until his plane took him right out of view.

I felt like I was in one of those old war movies and I should have been running after the plane with a handkerchief in my hand.

Funny, but as fast as I could run, and as high as I could jump, I couldn't seem to catch the rotten thing.

...and that's that. I won't see him again until a week and a bit before the wedding.

Though I don't have to hide the chocolate anymore!

xxx

I love Wikipedia.

What is there that you cannot research?

Would you believe that this post actually began discussing a random occurance today regarding Powderfinger's Double Allergic. Sparing a thought for people out there who may not know who/what a Double Allergic is I decided to throw in a link...and what do you know, it's there...what's more, even D.A.F. has its own article.

I also learnt that there is a distinct difference between 'booger' and 'snot'.

As a Year 1 teacher it is important to know these things (coincidentally a boy actually told me today very matter-of-factly "I like to eat my boogers because they are salty").

I also never realised that there were so many derivatives of the word 'bugger'.

And so the trail continues...

It happens every time, I go look up one thing and before you know it, I'm looking at an article on the Irish Potato Famine wondering how I got there from the Amazon Rainforest.

So yeah...Double Allergic...

...ahh, it's not that interesting anyway...

xxx

Whilst at the school Cross Country Carnival I received a phone call on my mobile. Being an 'organiser' I had been receiving a barrage of calls all day - including missing equipment, late people, locked gates and lost buses...

...this one was in regards to a little darling who had hurt herself along the track. So I did what any teacher would do...

I took a short cut.

The short cut consisted of walking out a gate, sliding down an embankment and climbing through some bushes. Of course if I have to go to that much trouble, I was going to make the most of it.

So when some snotty usually 'too-cool-for-school' senior boys came running past, I did what any teacher would do....

I leapt out of the bushes and roared.

I think I can take some credit for the two boys who won the race - I have never seen kids run so fast during an endurance event....

Oh yes, I did find the little girl eventually. She wasn't too impressed when her teacher turned the corner wailing like an ambulance. Apparently that's not very cool either.


xxx

OMIGOSH!

Two posts TWO days in a row!!!

Either:

1. I have too much time on my hands (see yesterday's post)
2. I'm procrastinating
3. I have something so insanely profound to say that I just couldn't wait another second before proclaiming it to the world...

I'm afraid it is 2.

Today I move back to my parents' house. This marks an interesting season indeed! Mr Some-Kind-Of-Wonderful (today's pseudonym courtesy of Joss Stone) will be staying at my little abode from this day forth...which means in the last week it has become some kind of mish-mash of 'boy meets girl'.

I'm very aesthetic - meaning everything *must* be in its correct place...either alphabetical or in order of subject, height, colour, date or however else I can organise it. This makes me appear a very organised person...I'm not - I just forget where things are, so they need to be somewhat logical.

Mr SKOW is a little more practical. If there's a space, it'll go there regardless of whether its in my purple room or red room or a blue chest of drawers smack bang in the middle of the green room.

The frustrating thing is...he's right. Unfortunately Little Home means Little Space. Trying to stuff two lifetimes into the one flat which was very full in the first place makes me appreciate the fact Mr SKOW doesn't have as much stuff as me.

...mostly I appreciate the fact that he has waaaaaaaaay less clothes than me - when you have had a full wall-length built in wardrobe to yourself for so many years that you have managed to fill by your itty bitty teeny weeny self...it is *very* difficult to downgrade. On an aside....how come with a full wall-length built in wardrobe full of clothes is it possible to still not have anything to wear??? hehe

Anyway...so that brings me back to point number 2. Procrastination.

In my efforts to make the place look less like 'him' and 'me', and more like 'us', I find that inevitably as in all of my cleaning endevours...I begin to get sidetracked...and before you know it, I'm rambling garbage.

xxx

Yes, I've been quiet.

But my world has been noisy.

With such a long list of things 'to do' I have no idea why I have taken the time to write about the fact that I have no time...and now I'm writing about writing about having no time....

I've realised how subjective time really is though. Three months ago I was originally going to be married tomorrow...

...three months seemed to be plenty of time...

Now I have to admit I'm glad we changed the date (ha...did I scare anyone?). Yes, it'll be winter, and yes it'll be cold...

...but most importantly I have an extra three months with my own surname...

hehe

No, I know that a wedding can be pulled off in three months (even less...) but it's amazing how you seem to work to your own time. If we were still getting married tomorrow, I know that we would've *found* the time to have everything done. Granted there would have been a few things out of our hands - sick parents and the like...but in terms of organisation I know it could be done.

So why with the extra time do I still feel so busy?

At least I managed to squeeze in a little time away. That was definately needed!

xxx

Firstly I would like to say that I have now had uninterrupted sleep for two nights in a row! *bliss*

Secondly I would like to talk about tenuate.

I love discovering how people stumble upon this blog. Often it is x-rated searches generated by my little sign-off with kisses (however, I refuse to change it). Lately I have had a whole range of other hits. Often they will take a subject from one entry and link it with another ie 'Pidgeon toes' will lead to my pidgeon escapades and my narrow escape from drowning in the carpet.

The search that has caught my eye today is 'tenuate'. I'm not entirely sure how I was linked to this appetite-suppressant, but there you have it. You name it and I will appear...

I'm about to reveal my immaturity though. In my own search to discover what this stuff was I discovered a phonetic breakdown of 'diethylpropion' - (dye eth ill PROE pee on) and giggled for far too long at the 'pee on' part.

In fact I was so amused by my own silliness I felt inclined to admit it to the world.

Yes, I Cat giggled at my own pee-joke.

I think I need to get out more.

xxx

If you have read any of my entries in the last few months you would know that sleep is very precious to me.

Lately it hasn't been happening.

I love my neighbours, I truly do. They are lovely people. Apparently they love each other very much too.

It is great that they have a healthy relationship, and fine if their healthy relationship kept me awake for a night...but when it has been four nights running (long nights) and no volume of music played in my room can drown out noises it gets a bit much.

What is the etiquette in these sorts of situations? If I was in a hotel, I would throw a shoe at the wall because I don't know them, they don't know me and I probably won't see them tomorrow anyway.

If I throw a shoe at the wall here it is a little obvious as to who owns the shoe. Do I slip a little note under their door - 'Can we please all get a little shut-eye tonight?'

Surely they must be tired too?

Originally I thought 'hmm, how awkward', but it is becoming a little more awkward as their healthy relationship appears to be getting healthier, and there are now strange noises throughout the day also - which has made entertaining visitors very awkward.

You know that little pause of quiet when you both break from talking about your latest shopping bargain to take a sip from your hot chocolate? I used to savour that moment. Now I find that I am doing all I can from preventing that moment because I know that it isn't going to all be 'quiet'... unless I have music playing at a deafening level...which isn't very hospitable now anyway...

I was wondering whether this was pay-back for my latest addition - for Christmas I was given a surround sound system...

Now I'm certainly surrounded by sound, but it is coming through 30cm thick concrete walls.

So I'm at a loss. I need sleep. I don't want to offend good neighbours. I don't want to have x-rated sound effects at g-rated hours of the day when I can't turn up music loud because my friend is chatting about her latest hair style and whether she should go from chestnut to fireball.

WHAT DO I DO???

At about 4am last night I discovered that headphones were more effective than speakers and finally got 2 hours sleep before my phone (which doubles as mp3 player) ran out of songs and I was awoken again.

...do you think I could hand out complimentary headphones to guests?


xxx

So there are now two weeks left of holidays.

That sounds like a lot. And it is...I'm grateful for it...but this is the time that it suddenly dawns on me that in two weeks time, 28 little midgets are going to walk into my classroom and though they have been to school before, they would have forgotten everything - 6 weeks is a long time for a 6 year old.

Last year I thought I was prepared...until I told them to sit at their desks, open their books and fold their arms.

Mistake #1 - don't give multiple instructions to kidlings just out of kindergarten.

Then we played sound (phonics) bingo.

Mistake #2 - assuming your class know their sounds is too optimistic. There are a lot of letters in the English alphabet after all.

I won't even begin with the disasters of lunchtime. Or when I discovered that two of my girls had severe emotional trauma and would swing into sporadic violent tantrums with no warning.

So this time I realise that in my little group of 28 I may have some knowing everything, and some knowing nothing, with the ones in between full of many many surprises. I decided to start planning, programming and organising things ready for that first week.

The only problem is although I have had 3 and a half weeks of 'almost nothing' my body feels as though I have worked all the way through the holidays. I have a list of things to do, and phonics games to create and all I can think about is laying my head down on the keyboard and ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

oh yes, and eating all those Ferrero Rochers so I can use the boxes to put the phonics games in....


xxx

And I thought I was busy before...

What a whirlwind end to 2006! I don't think I could have had any more excitement if I tried!

Though 2007 is already shaping up to be a busy year. 3 milestones already loom ahead and they are all major events that I never would have dreamed would all happen in the same year. Though time frames have been set, plans have begun to roll in motion and all of a sudden it has dawned on me that my life is about to undergo huge change this year.

...a lot can happen in a year...

I'm sure I'll elaborate later...but for now you'll have to be satisfied with ellipses...

...and if you know me, I'm sure I'll elaborate to your face...

ha, that sounds like a threat...'I'll elaborate yer face real good...'

xxx