Cat-astrophes

I'm not one for New Years Resolutions. Partly because I feel that whatever I set forth with writing down attached to good intentions and excitement that 'this year will really be different', comes crashing down by February and I'm left with tatters of guilt and remorse that once again I 'stuffed this year'. I got a little sick of writing off years before they were through, getting to October or November and wishing the last months away in the hope that the resolutions for the New Year will make the next 12 months so much better...

Does that mean I don't have goals? No. Nor does it mean there aren't things I set about to change (and often). I just don't call them New Years Resolutions. The good thing about this is when I do get a bit lazy or a goal doesn't quite go to plan, I don't feel like that's it for this year - and better wait until January before trying again.

I guess one benefit of having Resolutions at that New Year period is that there is an expectation to have thought things through - so you do. When it becomes a Whole Year Resolution it comes down to discipline to stop, think and apply yourself to change. It could become a whole resolution in and of itself.

I guess blogging on a more frequent basis has become one of my Whole Year Resolutions. How long it will last? Who knows. I have a pretty bad track record...however I'll give it a shot for now. Maybe it is only achievable because I'm on holidays (for 4 more days!!! ARGH). Maybe because I have something terrible deep, meaningful and important to say to the world (HA). Still, when I start to lack the time, or when life becomes sleep-work-eat-repeat once again and there isn't much to talk about, I won't feel so guilty and blow every other resolution out of the water until next year...

What are my others? Well, Many I'm sure I'll make up along the way this year...but I know that some involve this new season of parenthood fast approaching (I can't say/write that word anymore without thinking about the show...) both in preparation, adaptation and then evolving to the journey along the way. Some definitely involve health. Okay so the Magnums aren't a picture of a healthy person, however once my blood pressure is back to normal and I'm allowed to do 'normal' movements again, it will be my goal to get back in shape as soon as possible.

Hmmm...does that resolution *ever* succeed? New Years or not?


xxx

I think this post is best said in pictures...







xxx

I cannot believe it.

I almost ashamed to write it.

In fact, you can consider this a confession.

I am sitting infront of the tv with netbook in hand. (No, that's not the confession) What horrible little secret am I indulging in?

The tennis.

Please don't tell anyone. Tennis has been one of those sports I've relished mocking others for watching. I've always put it in the same category as golf and cricket. The sports that have always appeared beyond boring for anyone not actually on the court, or field, or course...

Please...a little yellow ball popping from one side of a net to the other? For five hours???

And yet, here I am. Watching Tomic play Lopez...so far it's 7-6 7-6 and I'm almost ashamed to say I'm excited.

Actually maybe the excitement is more due to the Magnum Temptation that's coming my way...
however that still doesn't explain the last few weeks. In my defense I must admit that with Darling Hubby monopolising the remote, there isn't too many other options. I must also state that I have been taken some rather enjoyable naps during crazy long matches - waking up only for the score and to shift my belly into a more comfortable position. I must say the 'thock, thock, thock' can be quite calming...

Still, my point is to never to say never.

Who would've thought I'd be watching tennis in my holidays? Certainly not I.


xxx

Yes, I'm aware of the time that has passed.

A lot of things can happen in a year...

...even more can happen in two!

First I would like to introduce the bump growing in my middle. She looks pretty cosy and quiet in there, right? Well let me assure you when that picture was taken she was flailing around putting up a right fight against the sonographer.

She's apparently a headstrong little bump who has no problems standing up for herself. Last week when the doctor started poking and prodding to feel where everything was, there was a swift sharp kick from the inside - giving that doctor 'what for' for interrupting the morning nap.

What has amazed me most is not necessarily the ultrasound pictures or the increasingly growing waistline...but with the sound of that heartbeat it made me realise that there is actually a little person in there. Complete with eyes, ears that can hear and already with reactions to the outside world...'someone' is in there.

It blows me away...

I used to adore (and still do) Psalm 139 - and loved verse 13 - the thought that God knew us before anyone else did. I haven't thought about that verse deeply in about 10 years...but again I find it right before me - I haven't met this little person yet, but already she is fearfully and wonderfully made...complete with a hope for the future.

...right now I think she is complete with a 'kick-button' telling me breakfast is overdue...


xxx

Once someone asked me what my muse was in an artistic sense.

I had never thought of it before then...being a young and naive thing (not like the old and wise thing I am now.......) but after a quick thought realised that it was music.

Music is something I LOVE...but to me it is like Spanish actually. (I've always used the analogy of another language...but now Spanish just fits perfectly).

I love the way it sounds. I love listening to it and marvel how people can make it sound so good. I desire to speak it...and I try...but it's not my native tongue. The words *do* come out...but stilted, with mistakes and with not nearly as much passion to do it justice.

Music to me is just like that. It moves me no end...and I've dabbled in a whole manner of different instruments - some I can pull off a little better than others, but at the end of the day I leave it to the musos.

However...every art work I have ever painted has always been to music.

It has been over a year since I last painted - like REALLY painted. Not the house, or a little craft project...I'm talking about canvas, easel and a whole lot of mess. I wondered where my inspiration went...

...then it hit me...

My 'music time' had become 'podcast time'.

Oh yes I have learnt a fair bit over the last year...but the brushes are dry...

So I made room for some music.

First there was nothing. It was kind of like revisiting old friends - 'oh I remember you'. Different songs suddenly took me back to different points in the journey. 'Fake Plastic Trees' was travelling away from the city on a winter's evening. 'Little Plastic Castle' was lying on the grass at uni. 'One of Our Dholaks is Missing' was fire twirling. 'Besame' was dancing with hubby for the first time (without hitting him)....you get the picture.

But no art.

So I took the headphones out, and went back to my book instead.

As interesting as James' theory on emotions was I just couldn't focus.

Next thing you know, Radiohead's 'Stop Whispering' was in my head. But instead of 'stop whispering' I was singing 'stop listening'. Then came the itch....

...and the paint flowed.

Radiohead did it again.



xxx

Soooo...

The silence is becoming more of the usual rather than the rarity.

Partly because I have had too much to do.

Partly because not much of it has been that blog-worthy (unless of course you are just as excited as me about vegie plants getting their first blossoms...)

Partly (and mostly) because I forgot my password.

Passwords...they tend to be the evil necessity to someone who has a remarkably terrible memory. In fact, that's another issue altogether...is the memory really as bad as thought?

Every memory test I carried out during psych came out saying I had a fantastic memory - above average etc etc. Anyone who knows me however, would say the exact opposite. Apparently I have a knack for remembering things that aren't really worthwhile remembering. More to the point...it may seem I glide through life in a way that I don't concentrate enough to put anything to memory in the first place...

Not something I'm very proud of. Don't get me wrong...I enjoy things very much...and I make a point to stop and enjoy things...it just seems I don't stop - enjoy - commit to memory very well.

Back to the password issue. An evil necessity. Oh sure...we need passwords. Especially when bit by bit everyday events start to revolve around the convenience of a laptop. I also believe that passwords 'should' be somewhat cryptic for security's sake.

Cryptic and la memoria de la Cat don't tend to go very well together.

So I have now changed my password *again* and hopefully this time I'll remember and another post will appear here in due time.

If the silence returns, you can probably at least guess for yourself what has happened.

In the meantime, I will continue to be a living example of Pavlov's dog - the washing machine just went 'click' which means its time to hang out the clothes...

...not sure why I'm drooling though...

POST SCRIPT

Would you believe after I posted this I actually realised I had forgotten to include a title. No drama...but point proven.

...what point? Hmm...not sure actually. Something about memory.

xxx

You know those tv lifestyle shows? They make renovations seem so easy! Obviously it is not at all like that...they just want to make you think you can make-over your kitchen in 10 minutes with makeup and hair intact...

Obviously we all know that it is easier shown during a half hour prime time slot than done.

It's also a lot easier to get someone else to do it.

Though of course we like to do things ourselves.

First, let me introduce you to 'the kitchen'.

I first met 'the kitchen' a little less than a year ago when we were two newly weds looking for a place to call our own. We found the perfect spot....but when I stepped inside the first thing that caught my eye was a 30 year old mustard and olive green kitchen. Okay so maybe I make it sound worse than it is...

Please keep in mind that the photo doesn't capture olive the green ceiling...

And then there is the new kitchen:

Okay, little problem...it's in pieces.

Oh yes, and it's in my dining room/lounge room...

So where do we start? Well I guess we rip out the first one? Shouldn't be too hard, they make it look like fun on tv. All we need is a mallet...

...Okay we don't have one of those. A hammer, a jigsaw and an electric drill will do it...

Can I please remind you that *that* green was on the ceiling? ALL over the ceiling...


xxx

All was quiet in net-land...

until.....

the fight


xxx

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