SOOC Saturday: My How You've Grown

Melody's back! And with her; amazing stories, amazing words of inspiration and love, amazing photographs and Straight Out Of Camera Saturday.

Today (although it's Sunday here in Aus), I thought I'd give you this recent untouched shot of our Small Boy. He has really started to shoot up. Well, relatively, he's still the oldest yet smallest of the neighbourhood lads.

But I reckon he looks pretty dashing here, for a Small Boy.

Wish I could get him out of his bathers and into some proper shorts though......

That's Another Swimming Carnival Off The Blocks

For some reason, every school in Adelaide seems to have held their annual swimming carnival yesterday!
Here's the setting for ours.

Swimming carnivals in Australian schools are not the 'Baywatch' events you might imagine them to be. A remarkable number of teenagers seem unable to swim; unable at least with any degree of confidence. Getting kids to nominate for events is a continual trial and even those who put their names down are frequently incapacitated on the day for any number of reasons.
"Miss, I pulled my hamstring at footy training."
"I can't swim miss, I feel sick."
"Miss...it's ladies things...you know!"

Humph. Ladies things indeed. Have modern youth never heard of tampons????? Apparently, or should I say conveniently, not! I remarked to one of my colleagues that it was amazing how 80% of the House seemed to have a period today.....and that included the boys!!!!!

My Care Group were no exception. They readily embraced the opportunity to wear casual clothes, some of them even managing to stretch to some House colour! (green of course)
But of this little group, gathered in our home room for roll call, only two actually got in the pool!

Mind you, there were those who entered totally into the spirit of the thing.
That's our House captain in the body paint! But even out of this enthusiastic group, only one was a swimmer! She was a pretty good one though.

You may have seen a picture of this before:
it's our House banner, taken at last year's sports day. On the first day back at school this year, they called for the banner, to be used in assembly as we presented badges to the new House officials. It had last been used in a similar assembly on the final day of 2009 although I had been reluctant to part with it as, on many occasions previously, it had not been returned. Well, surprise surprise, as I looked around my office on the first day back I realised.....the banner had not be returned. A quick email to the staff brought me no joy. No one was willing to take responsibility for the whereabouts of our banner! Grrrrrr. I set the new House Seniors onto the task. They had to search the basement sports store room and the offices of any likely sport related staff who may have inadvertently packed the banner away with other equipment at the end of the year. As the swimming carnival approached and our fruitless searches left us empty handed, I faced the realisation that I would have to make a new banner.

Which I did on the night before the carnival.

I finished at 3am.
Now, admittedly it is not as showy as the original, but it is bigger! It is also not perfect...but did I mention it was 3am?

Why did such a simple thing take so long? Well, first I had to go shopping for materials, home at 8pm, cook dinner, then start planning and sewing. I started off with a cheap, queen sized satin fitted sheet from The Reject Store ($25.00) and cut it down to a rectangle. The fiddly bit was the letters. Himself generated some letters for me to print out in tile formation. I then had to tape them all together and use them as patterns. I backed them all in iron on interfacing and carefully ironed over the edges to create neat letters for appliqueing. I had originally intended to put some yellow lightening bolts onto it but Himself and I couldn't agree on the design principles and it was getting late at that stage so I left that for another day. I hope to embellish the thing before the Sports day in week 5 or 6.

Oh and guess what? You've guessed haven't you. On the morning of the Swimming Carnival I went into the basement sports store to look for some random item and looked up on the top shelf. Yup. There was the old banner.

Still, we used the big one. >:-( I wasn't sitting up all night sewing for nothing!!!!! The kids seemed happy enough.

Speaking of the kids, the swimming carnival is always a great revealer of character. Usually this is a good thing; kids rising to the occasion, filling in at the last minute; setting themselves a challenge, even if it is only to make it to the end of the pool; but yesterday I had more of an ugly reveal. One of our year 12 girls is an accomplished swimmer and has always done well for the House, even though in the last few years she has become less inclined to compete and more inclined to lounge about in a revealing bikini displaying her other talents. Yesterday she just didn't show up at all. I couldn't believe the selfishness of that act. To have a gift and keep it when your House needs you? Sorry. I just don't get it.

BUT.... on the other hand.....

A while ago I wrote about this guy.....

that's him up there on the blocks! And what is significant about this is that he IS up there on the blocks. Now, as you may be aware, the African race are not known for their swimming prowess. A few years back one of the African girls jumped in during the swimming carnival and had to be rescued! No joke!

In the past, Gene has been very reluctant to participate in anything House related. He and another three African lads wander the school looking like some sort of Liberian Mafia gang and generally being 'too cool for school'. Gene turned up to the swimming carnival wearing very sharp clothes, with plenty of 'bling' and looking like there was no WAY he would go anywhere near that pool. Now, I would love to say that I talked him into giving it a go, but in truth it is an even greater joy to me that I didn't. I simply looked around at one point and there he was sitting in a chair waiting for the next race. I guess he feels like he belongs now.

I love the House system.

We Will Honour Yet The School We Know

I have been feeling very guilty about my lack of blog posting. I know we are supposed to be 'blogging guilt free' and supposedly I am more productively using time which would otherwise be spent blogging, but it truth, it doesn't sit well and I can't quite pinpoint why. Maybe I don't feel like sharing at the moment? Or is it that I have just lost interest in life? Like, nothing's worth blogging about?

And yet, of course , it is.

Like this last week for instance. Surely I couldn't let the start of the BA's time at my Alma Mater go unmarked? I dutifully took photos as she waited nervously in the kitchen for Grandma and Grandad to pick her up and take her down for her first day. She had been in to an Orientation on the previous day; but that was in casual clothes, the only other students being other newbies and consisted mainly of a lesson in how to use the school's IT network. Thursday was the big day and she posed patiently for photos, her lovely smile masking that deep, overwhelming dread you get as you stand on the end of the jetty and look down into the murky, seaweedy depths below, knowing that the push in the small of your back is but seconds away.

She shed a few tears before I left that morning. She shed a lot more that afternoon in my office after school when, as I rushed down the stairs from a meeting to gather her up and ask her the inevitable questions, the relief and loneliness poured out of her.

It was a fine day. She had been given a buddy who was very nice and whose group of friends were very welcoming. She had people to sit with at lunchtime. The lessons were fine. She had endured the first of hundreds of assemblies in our old Hall, where my Bestie's name gleams dully down from the dark, aged wood of the Honour Roll; where dust motes are caught in the light, streaming from the huge, rear lead light window.

But it was all a bit overwhelming. My Baby Angel has been a central player in a close knit group of very social friends for a long time now. Her old school was smaller and has less history; it has no 'Great Hall' as she calls it: it does not have the ghost of her teenage mother lurking in its hallowed corridors. For the first time in a long time she was completely alone in an unfamiliar environment. And she smiled at everyone the whole day. No wonder the tears flowed when the pressure cooker lid lifted.

I was supposed to be going up to our Year 12 camp that night. 2010's Year 12s are a group I have known for 3 years and I have taught many of them. I was going up for the 'Red Faces' Concert, usually an hilarious occasion, but the BA hugged me desperately and begged me not to go so of course I cancelled immediately and we spent a bit of time twined together on the couch that night.

The next morning there were more tears and an inability to eat breakfast so I promised to pick her up after school, as she finishes after we do. I dropped everything at 3.03pm and with the anticipation of a mother, awaited her arrival at the school gate.

She waltzed out about 15 minutes late, all smiles, announcing that she thinks she might like to do 'Drama Studio' this year!

So in a quick answer to all of your very thoughtful inquiries......she's doing OK!! So far......

This morning it was back to feeling sick and shedding a few tears. Dearest Grandad was so concerned about her that he stopped enroute so they could both have a coffee together. Unfortunately she doesn't drink coffee yet! Tonight when I picked her up again she was fine; and tonight we have been learning French irregular verbs on flash cards!!!!

Already we are seeing value for our $$$$$$$$$$$$

The Perils of Facebook

There seems to be a distinct lack of blogging enthusiasm across the blogosphere and I for one have fallen victim to the virus. I blame facebook. It is too easy to stick up a one sentence status update and cover just about everything I want to say without having to compose a well written and thoughtful post (when was the last time I did THAT?). Even the photos load faster on facebook. *sigh*

Mind you, facebook has also proven to have some pitfalls. Today in class, one of my more er.... problematic students, waltzed in positively crowing about the photos she'd seen on my facebook profile! >:-(
What the....? She isn't a 'friend' of mine (in ANY way , shape or form)!
Turns out one of my real life friends has some of the school students as facebook 'friends' which, unbeknownst to me, enables them to see photos I have posted! grrrr

Don't worry. I have been in and changed my privacy settings but I was stunned by my friend's foolishness. I mean, having seen my Bestie lose her job over a blog in the past, I can't believe she would be so casual about the internet. Of course, according to the student in question, pictures of my friend dancing around the pool in her bathers have 'become' pictures of her in her underwear! >:-(

It's a slippery facebook slope out there. Beware....

The Post Where I Catch Up On Everything.....

First of all there was New Year's Eve; hot, with very good company, swimming and some of this:




Then there was the January Ugly; a party by our pool where we started off with this:


followed up with a bit of this:


moved on to this:
decided it was the right occasion to finally open this:


(21 Year aged Chivas Regal, bottled in honour of the Queen's Coronation in 1954(?))
which resulted in faces like these:


and the pool looking like this:

!!

After that there was a whole Sunday in recovery mode.

Then I started sewing again.
This is one is for Himself and once more a closer look at the print is in order.


And finally, there is THIS!Whew.

The holidays are roaring rapidly towards their inevitable fragmentation and conclusion. Next week the teachers are back for two days and, realistically, probably three. We then have a four day weekend in celebration of Australia Day and it's back to the frontlines on Wednesday the 27th :-(

We also have to cross the bridge that is the Baby Angel's new school. She gets back from Sydney on Friday and then there will be time for the nerves and dread to set in. I'm hoping Grandma and Grandad will take her on her first day to smooth the road.

Meanwhile, I am making the most of my time with Mum and Dad. I had better start doing some school prep though; I have started having those 'back at school in front of the class and having never looked at the text book before' dreams!

In Praise of Contact Lenses

I wandered around the house, biting my bottom lip in confusion. Where had I put my glasses? I checked the usual spots, retraced my steps in my head. I'd been up to the pool for a swim...perhaps I 'd taken them off there? Braving the blast furnace that greeted me as I swung open the back screen, I scampered up the grey stone stairs to the pool area, unwilling to pause or even glance around as radiated heat assaulted me from every surface. I reached the relative safety of the market umbrella over the rickety wooden picnic table and peered through the sudden shadow with my less than efficient eyesight, patting the warm wooden surface for good measure.

No glasses.


Sighing, I glanced back towards the house. Something in the bottom of the pool caught my attention. Leaves? No. There was something both vaguely familiar and disturbing about the shape.

Can't see it? Look closely.



Please tell me I did not dive into the pool wearing my glasses.

OK. Don't bother.

The tricky bit of course was getting them out. You see apart from the diving in thing, I don't put my head under the water. I know; stupid, illogical, whatever! I can do it with diving goggles on but even then I can't get all the way down to the bottom of the deep end and stay there long enough to grab something. I have tried on numerous occasions but after one or two strokes I explode upwards in an explosion of silver bubbles and emerge with a tortured gasp for air.

My family find it quite amusing. Ask Himself about the time I tried to scrub the sides of the pool whilst wearing a snorkel.

Anyway. I got them out with the long handled leaf scooper thing. And collected a few of those leaf babies while I was there!

I am nothing if not resourceful.

Because Size Matters

I am enjoying my holiday slug time and I am enjoying my new overlocker. Here's my latest projects, a shirt for my oldest stepson and one for my nephew in the UK. I loved this fabric. It says 'men' to me.....because after all, size does matter!