Now where did I put that flaming sword?

52 Weeks Of Me: Dark

2012-02-15T23:32:00.000+10:30

Well, how late can you get on a post??

52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Corey over at 'Living and Loving Every Minute', on a Saturday no less! Now, my excuses start with the fact that I recently had the absolute joy of attending the engagement party of my Kindergarten Friend, an unmarried man of my age who, in a blessed turn of events, met his soul mate three years ago and finally proposed to her on Milford Sound at the end of last year. Why is this relevant? Because I left my camera at their house!

I keep meaning to pick it up but haven't made it back yet and so I commissioned Himself (who really is a lovely patient husband at times) to take a 'dark' photo of me with his phone. After several exceptionally unflattering shots, I decided on this one. Certainly for my family it will 'ring bells' as I sit silhouetted by the ubiquitous computer monitor. For those with an eye for detail, spot my handsome nephew on my pinboard along with my husband, my baby (when she was a baby) and the medal awarded to me by my bestest work colleague for me managing to keep it all together last year!

I may sit in the dark but my life is full of light.

If you fancy joining us on the 52 Weeks of me Journey, click over to Corey's place by using the button.

It's Amazing What You Find When You Clear Out Your Files

2012-02-09T22:52:00.000+10:30

Many years ago we still played with video cameras.

Here, the BA's friend, Smidge, interviews a famous Hollywood movie actress a la "Thank God You're Here!"

The BA is behind the camera.

I had forgotten all about this.

To Complain or Not To Complain: THAT Is the Question

2012-02-07T00:44:00.000+10:30

OK. So now I'm going to tell you the story of 'Bad Doctor'.

My Baby Angel is incredibly robust. She rarely visits the doctor. In fact, so unaccustomed is she to illness that she was about 9 before she had to stay off school with a bad cold for the first time. In obvious distress and confusion she was heard to wail, "Muuuum, I can't breathe!!!" Recently, she's had the occasional flu/cough thing as her diet and bed times move increasingly out of the sphere of my control but nothing warranting a surgery trip. Which is why, as she complained yet again about the heat rash on the back of her legs, I was faced with the prospect of finding her a doctor.

I was mindful of the fact that, at 16 and a half, she is going to want to start visiting the doctor under her own steam. Perhaps not straight away but certainly in the near future, the idea of being taken to the doctors by Mum is bound to become anathema. So, obviously, we had to pick a surgery nearby and easily accessible by public transport. Check.

I called the surgery to book an appointment and got the standard "Which doctor would you like to see?" Well, call me coy but I only see lady doctors so that was my first request. After that, I told the receptionist it was for my daughter and she suggested Dr HNB. A quick check of the surgery's website informed me that Dr HNB had a certificate (and special interest in) adolescent and children's health. Bingo! We thought.

It was a cheerful BA and I who fronted to the surgery that sunny morning. We had a list of 'little things' that we wanted to ask about: the heat rash of course, a nasty dark mole on her neck, her non-meat eating diet and tiredness.....but I figured we could knock them off pretty quickly. Imagine our confusion when Dr HNB stalked out of her office and called our name with the withering tones of someone who wished to God she had put down Law instead of Medicine on that fateful uni application form.

In typical addictive personality fashion, I tried to work out later if it was something we had done from the outset. I mean, we were a bit late but she wasn't standing out in the foyer waiting for us so..... ??? Whatever it was, she was snippy from the get go. She marched us in and sat us down, then rolled her eyes as we did that familiar mother/daughter dance:
"Tell, the doctor why you're here.."
"Well, it's nothing really, I mean, it's like, well there's not much to see, it's probably nothing.."
"Oh for God's sake...she gets a heat rash on the back of her legs."
"Muuuuuuuuum" (spoken through clenched teeth)....
I mean, I know it's pathetic but surely we're not the first pair to air our changing relationship in public? And not even in public! In the seclusion of the surgery no less! Surely, that's what adolescent health care is all about???? Well, at least partly about?

She got out her torch and ordered the BA around to have a look at the back of her legs.
"Huhm," she snorted dismissively,"well, sit down, I'm not going to talk to your bottom."
Suddenly I have a distinctly uneasy feeling; this isn't going the way I imagined and yet, despite my intellect, strong character and usually forthright nature, I wonder if there is something I am missing? Perhaps this is part of the bedside manner recommended for adolescents?

The discussion around heat rash, wearing cotton clothing and 'there's not much I can suggest' went waaay longer than it needed to. In the end, bigmouth mother suggested some hydrocortisone,
Dr HNB agreed and we moved on to item no 2.

Again, the nasty black mole on the back of the BA's neck took longer than necessary to analyse. Apparently it was my fault that I didn't know the year, nay the month, nay the DAY it had appeared on her neck......as that may have made a difference to the treatment. Let's face it, we don't know if it's a melanoma, we could leave it there and see if it changes or we could make arrangements to chop it out. I get that. She gets that. Let's choose and move on!!

Next: diet and sleep.
Last year, one of the BA's teachers mentioned that she thought the BA may be iron deficient because she is very pale and she is often tired. Of course, she is pale because she is my daughter and we do not produce melanin (hence concern over mole), but she is a picky eater and not a great lover of protein so it did worry me vaguely that we weren't catering to her burgeoning adolescent need for nutrition.
Dr HNB: So, you're tired?
The BA: Well....yes....sometimes.....but...I....I mean I....
Dr HNB: What time do you go to bed?????
The BA: Well, sometimes it's quite late, I mean, on a weekend, and then some week nights I have
things on and home work and stuff so I...
Dr HNB: Do you get 10 hours sleep a night?
The BA: Errrrr no, I don't think so.
Dr HNB: Well then, there's your answer! It's not rocket science you know! If you're tired...get more
sleep!!!

At this point, my internal dialogue was having a raging debate with itself.
Me: Well she's right
Me: Yeah...but there must be a better way to say it
Me: Perhaps it a kind of tough love thing? That she learned at her adolescent health course?
Me: OK....and maybe the BA will actually take it on board since she's being so blunt.....
Me: Yeah but she's being so blunt!!!

At this point, foolishly in hindsight, I decided to let the BA have a chat to the Doc alone on the final, and perhaps most important issue. It was girly health thing and I thought I was doing the right thing by giving her some autonomy but even now, as I read back over the unfolding of events, I can see that leaving her alone with Dr HNB was a mistake. Firstly, as I announced I would leave them to it, the Doc pulled me up in no uncertain terms and told me that 'if I had a lot of things to discuss in the future, could I please book a double appointment'. A small gasp of surprise and I was apologising and assuring her that we would do that next time.
Oh the wisdom of hindsight.

Twenty minutes later the BA emerged from the surgery, weeping and broken. The doctor had told her that she was cross because we had made her 45 minutes behind schedule! But that was OK because
Dr HNB had also told her not to worry because she was the second teenage girl she'd made cry that day!!!!!!!!!!!!
A simple "please make another appointment, we've run out of time," would have sufficed!!

>:-( grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

We will not be going back to Dr HNB.

So what am I trying to say by telling you this story? Well, the BA will not let me write a letter of complaint and I wonder whether that is right? Should this lady, whom I am sure is probably a fine doctor, be allowed to tout herself out there as specialising in adolescent health, whilst at the same time being almost the polar opposite of what a doctor of teenagers should be?? Should I be informing her that her bedside manner is lacking. Would she care? What do you think? Should I ignore the BA's social reticence to inform the woman of her effect on others??

To add insult to injury, she charged me $150.00 for an extra long consult and when the rebate cheque came back....it was made out to the BA!

*sigh*

(PS: Have you worked out what Dr HNB stands for????? Here's a hint. It's not complimentary).

Image credit 1
Image credit 2

52 Weeks of Me: At Arm's Length

2012-02-05T22:38:00.001+10:30

Today's prompt: 'At Arm's Length', had me thinking about keeping things at a distance.
And there's so much to say about that, I won't say anymore.

Yes! I am Your Average, Irate Consumer!!

2012-01-31T01:21:00.002+10:30

I do not like this new blogger interface. (Except for how you can move the photos around after you've uploaded them!)

[ No, actually, after having tried to move the f*****s around, I also hate that. (I have now deleted them and will try again).]

And what is worse, this is the second time I have had to deal with this in three weeks. You see, over at facebook, they introduced a new format called the 'timeline'.
Have these people never heard of the old adage, 'if it ain't broke'?? ???? image credit

What piece of puerile market research suggested that your average, linearly thinking Joe needed their facebook profile page to be split up into a weird sideways alignment which forces you to jump, visually, from one side of the screen to another? I mean...my MOTHER reads facebook!!!! We have only just got her ON there! And now these bastards come along and make it completely confusing for her to look at!!!!!!

Grrrrrrrr *steam*..........

And what TOTALLY p****s me off about the whole thing is that you innocently press the button that says 'TRY' the new timeline and voila! You are STUCK with the b******!!!!!!!!!!
I think these d*** brains that sit about on their spotty behinds thinking about new ways to make themselves useful, might like to review the concept of CHOICE!!!!

And to make matters worse I have fallen for the same trick over here at blogger. 'Try the new interface' they spruiked! No mention of the fact that if you don't like it there is no button that says 'revert to previous'!!!!!

I gotta say, you f******* young leopards who hold our social networking life in your hands....you really need to take a good look at yourselves. I mean, I know flexibility is an asset, but come on, how many people really deal with change that well? Let's face it, the whole psyche of the human species cries out for consistency and security. What makes you think that your friggin 'area of expertise' is an exception??????????

Here's a 'heads up': give me more functionality, but leave the original functionality in the same effing place!!!!!!!!!!! I mean...what EXACTLY are you achieving by shuffling it all around?

*le puff le pant le phew*

So now, enough of that. I am afraid I will be struggling with this new interface for some time so please bear with me. To be honest, I don't even like the look of the new blog 'skin'. I'm sure that with the help of my talented husband I could probably edit the size of everything to make the proportions more aesthetic but really, when does he have that time??

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, cigar ash is still falling.

Here is my beautiful new balcony setting, given to me by my beloved Sister on her recent visit to Aus. How pretty is that?

I asked for an independent setting as I did not want to share my morning coffee/bacon and eggs with Himself and his cigars. Indeed, after several years of cleaning up the mess, I have drawn a line across the balcony :-)

So imagine my confusion , and horror, as I espied this blemish on my 'beloved' last Sunday!!

WHAT IS THAT????? I toyed briefly with the idea of mud splatter or caulking compound.

Pah!! On closer inspection, the root of the evil was clear!! An ash burn!!!!!!!!

For those of you who know our balcony, you may wonder how Ash Man and his foul accoutrements got near enough to my beautiful chairs to complete this accursed desecration! I will tell you in six words. 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'.

My dear friend Blondie recently lent me the entire Swedish trilogy, assuring me that it needed to be seen before we sullied our cinematic sensibilities with Daniel Craig et al. Now, Himself and I have few movie choices in common, his tastes tending toward explosions and gangsters and mine towards tap dancing, humour, romance, cinematography, plot and character development so the idea of a film we could both enjoy was panacea indeed. The scene was set: no children, a hot Adelaide night and the opportunity to enjoy something together.
Unfortunately Himself, being the nicotine addict that he is, cannot go more than 30 minutes without a hit so he retired to the balcony behind the lounge room, from whence he could watch the movie and smoke in peace. Except that it is the section of balcony which contains my chairs and table!

Not happy!!

So, incendiary graffiti aside, what did we think of the movie? Well, we both loved the first one. Indeed, Himself was keen to watch the second straight away! We deferred until the following night and then were royally disappointed by 'The Girl Who Played With fire'. I had loved the second book and looked forward to the cinematic rendition but was quite disappointed by the lacklustre adaptation. With school on the horizon I retired, disappointed, while Himself went straight to the third film and watched it on his big screen computer until all hours, well away from my precious balcony furniture (just saying)!!!

Surprisingly he loved it and so I am looking forward to the third installment, once my frantic clawing for control over the beginning of the school year is over.

I am not sure how to repair the offensive cigar burn in my cushion. The sad truth is that if I do nothing, some bastard spider will probably decide to nest in there, so, short of turning the thing over, I am faced with the inevitable cushion reconstruction project.

Excellent :-(

52 Weeks of Me: Close

2012-01-28T15:15:00.003+10:30

Now you see, I couldn't decide whether this was meant to be 'close' as in 'get closer' or 'close' as in 'close the door, mother!' So I did both.

Click on the button to join in on a focus on you over at Corey's.

The Dedicated Follower of Fashion.

2012-01-23T21:47:00.006+10:30

My husband is a creative man. In the sartorial arena, he leans towards the carefree, unselfconscious attire of the obsessive artist and I often have to remind him that there is a fine line between 'creative' and 'slob' and he is dangerously close to it!!

The thing is he puts on clothes he likes. He puts them on again and again and again. And because he likes them so much, he also mows the lawn whilst wearing them, cleans the pool and puts the chlorine in. Now, I do not know if any of you are familiar with the net effect of chlorine on clothing? It bleaches it. And then it weakens the fibres sufficiently for holes to appear. Himself is totally oblivious to this process.

I have done a lot of mending since we married, in deference to his love of certain garments. I have sewn denim inserts into the backside of a particular pair of jeans. I have gritted my teeth as he appears in public in tattered old T Shirts. On Friday I had had enough. I pulled two holey T shirts and a pair of jeans out of his 'stash' and committed them to the bin. And not just ANY bin...the outside wheelie bin. Up the back of the garden!

So imagine my dawning horror as I came to give him a cuddle last night, as he sat at his computer.

********************************************************************************
Me: Hang on.....(examines the fabric beneath her embrace)....I THREW THIS OUT!!!!!
Him: I KNOW!!!! I had to get it OUT of the BIN!!!!!
Me: You got it out of the bin????????? That is disgusting!
Him: Well you shouldn't have put it in there. It's a perfectly good T shirt for around the house!!!!
Me: aaaaaaaaaauuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhh

What am I supposed to do with him???????

52 Weeks Of Me: Morning

2012-01-21T14:48:00.004+10:30

Corey over at Living and Loving Every Minute of It is hosting a weekly self portrait challenge (for want of a better word). I haven't done anything like this since Megan and Melody did 'Team Up Thursdays' which were a lot of fun, but then life got in the way.

Because we are planning a facebook ration in our house as term commences, I feel a need to get my blog 'back on' and, although The Honourable Husband assures me that blogs are being abandoned left, right and centre by the chroniclers of daily trivia and being reclaimed by the real bloggers, the writers, I choose to use a photo challenge to kick off my blog revival. What that says about me and my credentials as a blogger, 'I neither kno nor care' as Nigel Molesworth would say.

The challenge asks you to take photographs of 'yourself' with a different weekly theme or prompt. How I feel about watching myself age further week by week I am not entirely sure, but Corey says that your family will appreciate these photos of you in 'years to come'. With thoughts of 'The Iron Lady' in my head, I assume she means when we're dead. Or too old to be recognisable as ourselves. A difficult thought.

So this week, the prompt is "Morning".

Saturday mornings for me usually bring a welcome relief from the interminable treadmill of 6am school 'get ups'. However, since I am still on holiday I have been fairly relaxed in the mornings of late anyway. The sun is mild at 8.30am and the balcony beckons.

My lines are my own. I have earned them. And as the lemon light of a Saturday morning breaks over the roof of our house, I claim them!

Good Morning Adelaide.

Not So Crafty Tuesday: The Button Disaster

2012-01-18T08:24:00.006+10:30

I tend to think of Crafty Tuesday as a place to showcase sewing but as Carrie has shown us recently, it is also a place to share all manner of creative activities, or in my case, solutions to creative disasters.

When I was a gal, I remember being able to buy self-covering buttons (would that they could have covered themselves!!) the pack for which included a shank, a small metal cup and two rubbery things...one for tucking the fabric into and one for pushing the button together. Look! This lady still has a kit!!

Anyway, when the BA asked me to buy her a dress for Christmas, which was missing one of its fabric covered buttons (half price dress due to missing button), I thought that I could easily buy a button kit and find some suitable material to replace the missing item.

WRONG

The button kit I eventually found required me to cut out a miniscule circle of material, run a line of running stitch around the circumference of the thing (oh for the eyes of my youth...or better glasses), gather the fabric and slip a washer over the gathered mess before jamming the washer down into the button to finish it off.

Hah!

After three goes on one type of fabric,

a change of fabric and two more attempts,

I decided on this.

(*mutter mutter bloody self covering buttons indeed mutter mutter expletive*)

For more inspirational Crafty Stuff, click over to Barely Controlled Chaos for Crafty Tuesday.

A Sailing We Shall Go

2012-01-12T17:19:00.007+10:30

This is Cronulla Beach NSW. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Queensland is the only place to be in Australia for beaches!!

Here's the view from my balcony.

Maybe it wasn't the top floor, but it was perfect as far as I was concerned.

For one thing, it did not contain smelly boys!!!!

The boys in question, No2 Son (aged 23) and Small Boy (aged 13) were ensconced at a seedy Motor Inn 10 minutes down the road. They had arrived on December 27th, after a massive 1427km drive, for seven days of sailing in the NS14 Nationals. Now, only two of them were sailing so for Small Boy, the following four days consisted of a fair bit of this:

In the mornings, 60 boats which had been secured at the Sailing Club overnight:

departed from the inlet for the open sea, leaving a scene like this:

Very pretty but pretty boring for a 13 year old on his own. Fortunately, one of the Sailing Widows back at the Club lined him up with a few other Sailing Orphans and they amused themselves by jumping off the jetty and undertaking any number of other unsafe activities usually undertaken by pre-teen boys whilst in a group. I try not to think about it.

Seriously though, they weren't allowed to stray from the environs of the Sailing Club so they could not really take advantage of this:

which was just as well as far as I am concerned. I mean, when did you know young boys to actually 'swim between the flags'????

I arrived on New Year's Day after a stressful New Year's Eve with the Baby Angel (who is about to be renamed the Baby Succubus!!!!!! >:-(...) who required me to pick her up from a party at around 1am. On arrival at the party I discovered that she had moved parties and a little bit more driving located her at a Toga Party no less!!!! Interesting as she did not have a toga!!! She was less than grateful for being collected at 1.45am and even less grateful for being conveyed to the airport for a 9.30am flight the following morning. By the time we reached Sydney we were not speaking and after some fairly harsh words and tears from both of us, she departed for her flight to meet up with her Dad whilst Himself collected me from the airport.

I was in need of a major chillout.

Here I am looking a lot more relaxed than I was; although the first day in Cronulla actually went very well.

We started with breakfast on the Mall

where I commenced my New Year's diet by having fruit salad with yoghurt and muesli.

After a hard day's shopping with Small Boy (who is very into clothes at the moment!) we walked around the point to see what we could see of the race. This was about it.

Unfortunately, the boats race quite a way out to sea. We could see them through the binoculars, but even then we couldn't read the sail numbers to know who was winning. There's one lime green boat and one yellow boat but other than that, they all look pretty similar from a distance.

On this day, the wind was blowing at over 20 knots and about 12 of the 60 entrants withdrew from the race or were forced to withdraw due to damage. This is not lazy 'messing about in boats' you know! If you haven't already seen it, take a look at this video shot by Himself last year in a mere 15 knots of wind! The other thing the boats have to contend with sailing here, is the ocean swell. On one day Himself told me that the swell was so big that when you dropped into a trough, you lost the wind!! That means the waves were over 4m high!!

My sailors were pretty much the worse for wear after their previous four days of sailing. Both were sporting open wounds on ankles and knees and No 2 Son had sprained a tendon in his wrist so he was wearing a wrist splint out there. Nevertheless, they were overjoyed with the performance of their new boat (I call it 'Retaining Wall') which saw them achieve some of their highest ever finishes in this kind of competition. I think their best result was 17th, which, in the calibre of sailors competing, was VERY good indeed.

On the second to last day they were in 24th position overall and gunning for a top 20 slot. They were up early, tuning the boat to perfection; adjusting the tension on the side stays, the rake of the mast and the angle of the dangle (well I DON'T KNOW what angles they adjust!!!). They were pumped.

Small Boy and I decided to head into Sydney proper on the train to see The Rocks, the Opera House and the Bridge. It was a one hour train journey and we left it a bit late to depart as Small Boy was, once more, agonising over which T shirts to buy with his Christmas money. We ended up finding a shop which enabled you to choose a colour and style of shirt and then a transfer to go on the front. not being a great decision maker, it took Small Boy over 40 minutes to choose his colours, styles and designs. Here's one of his choices:

the other one is here:

although do not ask me WHAT he is doing in this photo :-D!!

We made it into Sydney eventually but didn't have much time to do more than have lunch and play around with a bit of parkour on an outdoor sculpture.

(The BA and I had visited this sculpture once before. It's a wonderful place to wander and wonder about who lived here in the past).

On the train back to Cronulla we spoke to Himself to see how the final day's racing had gone.
Disaster!
It transpired that there had been a collision before the start, involving three boats. One hit another and the second, turning sharply to try and avoid the first collision, ploughed straight into the side of Retaining Wall. The side stay snapped and the release of pressure was so great that it bent the mast and snapped it off at the base! The whole rig crashed down over the side of the boat and proceeded to be dragged under the hull, the broken side stays gouging away at the deck and crunching the sails underneath like a Christmas cracker.

Fortunately, after a protest where the first boat was found negligent, a new mast will be provided by insurance.
UN-fortunately, my dear husband has decided he will ALSO get the old mast repaired so that he 'has a spare'...aaaaaauuuuuuuugh!!!!!! More money!!!!!

After one more day basking in the luxuries of a hotel over looking the sea (we moved the boys up for the last day too. It turned out the seedy motel was only $20.00 a night cheaper so we gave them a treat. A separate room of course!! No smelly old sneakers for me thank you!!) we headed back to Adelaide.

After more than 15 hours on roads like this,

we made it back home, boat still in tow and most of us tired but happy.

Next year the competition is in Tasmania. I don't think I'll be up for that one.

The Nips Are Getting Bigger*

2012-01-06T19:45:00.004+10:30

2005

2012

*With apologies to 'Mental as Anything'

Today In The Kitchen

2011-12-31T12:15:00.003+10:30

I'm baking. This in itself is unusual. I'm baking a banana cake, which, I am told, will freeze well. In true Baby Boomer fashion it uses up bananas which will go off while I am away and I have a cake in the freezer for 'ron'. (Later-ron)

Except that I need bi-carb. Only a teaspoon. But there is no familiar blue and white box in the baking shelf.

Rats.

I examine the recipe. Can I substitute anything? No. I'm already using self raising flour.

Rats. I have to go to the supermarket for this most standard of store cupboard ingredients. Who can have used up the last of it? Who else bakes around here? Not Himself, that's for sure. He's a salads and curry man.

"*mutter mutter irritation* BA!! I have to go to the supermarket for some bicarb, do you need anything?"
"Wa? Ummmmnah..I donthinkso. What are you going for?"
"Bicarb, for the banana cake."

I stump off up the corridor to collect handbag and keys and, in typical Arizaphale fashion, become distracted by the pile of buttons on the coffee table. Hah! I'll take up the two buttons off the BA's new three button (supposedly) dress and find a suitable mate for them while I'm at the shops.

I stump back past the kitchen again and decide to cover up the baking ingredients while I'm gone. But wait. What is this on the benchtop? Could it be a blue and white box of bicarb????

Now I wonder where that came from?

B. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!??
(silence)
"BA? WHERE DID THIS BICARB COME FROM??"

"errr.....I was using it to take off my fake tan."

Of course she was.

There was a bare teaspoon left for the recipe.

Result! Except that now she doesn't get her button.

Christmas Post Mortem

2011-12-26T05:33:00.008+10:30

At Christmas time, I wish I had a family who did things like this and this and this.

As a not so young mother, I spent many Christmases making ornaments and baking presents. I tried to involve the Baby Angel in this, but she's not much of a crafter and to be honest, was one of the few kids who didn't really enjoy cooking with mother! But when times were tight we painted coathangers for the family and I was able to utilise her drawings on Christmas cards (those were the days....when did I last send a Christmas card?). At all times I tried to teach her that Christmas was about thinking of others, making an effort, going that extra mile to find or make something that would bring a smile to their faces. In the manner of my own parents, I have never given money as a Christmas present.

All of this is why it is so difficult living in a step family where the traditions and values of the Christmas season exist at just about the opposite end of the spectrum to my own. I know I have banged on about this before so I won't repeat my rant, except to say that for the first time I experienced the BA's resentment at having to watch the others flaunt wads of cash when she had 'only' received gifts.
The Strange Scottish Girl ; who lifted our hearts, bringing a real feeling of Christmas into the house as she traveled back from Melbourne to be with us; held my hand and embraced me with encouragement and the reminder that the BA is a terrible teen with all that this entails; but that essentially she is good and will come back to the heart of things eventually.

She's right of course. I know this because of the gifts the BA bought for the boys. She had scowled around the shopping centre complaining vehemently that she didn't know what the older boys wanted (because they rarely communicate with us, apart from the occasional grunt, pseudo political rant or argument about doing dishes) and expressing resentment at buying them meaningless rubbish which they probably wouldn't appreciate. Instead, she proclaimed, she was thinking of buying them something from the TEAR catalogue, or from World Vision. And so she did.

I know I heard Himself exclaim in delight when he opened his 'School Supplies' gift. I'm not sure if the 'Water Sterilisation Kit' and 'Mozzie Net' got the same response from the older boys.

But I've got to hang onto the thought that she 'gets' the Christmas giving idea. Even if, for now, her own empty purse is her focus.

On a happier note, this year we actually got to play Christmas games! As a family!! (well except for Himself of course, who loathes games....unless he is guaranteed to win) I attribute this achievement solely to the SSG who brought a metaphorical whiff of Holly and Mistletoe to the house. The older boys may have mocked my Christmas music, lighted candles and strained efforts in the kitchen, but the SSG appreciated every last Northern European nuance. We played a new game called 'Get It Wrong To Win' which lured No 2 Son out of his 'Pit' to socialise.

Once we had him there, SSG worked her magic and, despite his loud protestations of ineptitude, convinced him to have a crack at charades! His rendition of 'Sonic the Hedgehog', complete with somersaults across the lounge room (!) were a complete delight. The SSG even had an impact on Christmas lunch as she prepared the gravy and cheese sauce and set the table with candles and glitter.
Which reminds me, glitter is a pretty powerful way to train a hungry young man to take care when transferring food from serving dish to his plate on the table! We have been on him for years about trying to be less messy at the table. Maybe this will work??

Don't know if you can see that but it's a glitter encrusted piece of turkey!

Christmas has other faces too. The family drama often rears its ugly head at Christmas time. We have come to realise that No 1 Son, whom we thought was doing ok, is in fact in the grip of a terrible addiction. His presence with us on Christmas morning left everyone feeling incredibly uncomfortable and worried and it was only later, after he took offence at something a stranger said to him at his Nanna's place at Christmas lunch and drove off at high speed (and with high levels of alcohol in his blood) that we were able to discuss the elephant in the room, as a family. Fortunately he made it home without hurting himself or anyone else, but he was scheduled to accompany Himself, Small Boy and No 2 Son on their annual trip interstate to sail in the Nationals. Of course he wasn't there at 4.15am when they were all set to go and when he did arrive he had brought waaay more than the small overnight bag he had been told to pack. There was much stomping around and culling of gear and then they were off, in the most obvious Travelling Disaster Show I have ever seen leave these premises (and there have been a few).

Yesterday Himself called to say they had experienced an awful night with him and after seeing the cramped and second rate accommodation in Sydney, they all knew it just wasn't going to work. Himself drove him 3 hours back down the road to Canberra and delivered him into his mother's arms. But not before she had phoned twice on route to change her mind and say she didn't want to take him.

I feel concerned for the combination of No 1 Son and his mother, but I also think Himself needed to protect the two younger boys. I am sure the whole situation is going to get worse before it gets better.

So back to Christmas!!

After a lovely time with the SSG and a Free Family on Boxing Day, we were again up in the wee small hours to take her up to a small town in the Adelaide Hills, to meet her 'ride'.

This is what all well dressed travellers wear at 5am.

The BA wasn't going to come with us, but she suddenly got an attack of the sentimentals and hopped into the car in her PJs and with her two fave 'cuddle rugs' (yes, still, at 16). Once we reached our destination she was thirsty and hungry and decided to check out the main street to see if there were any service stations open and serving. Needless to say there weren't.

And so her ride arrived and we farewelled that Strange Scottish Girl,

grateful for the 'great joy' she had brought us in our strange and dysfunctional family.

I gotta say, you meet some of the nicest people over the internet.

Season's Greetings one and all. Wishing you an upcoming Happy and prosperous New Year.

Waiting For Santa

2011-12-25T14:30:00.002+10:30

We are blessed by the presence of the Strange Scottish Girl here with us for Christmas this year. Thank goodness! Another Christmasophile! Makes a change from the stepsons derisively mocking my carol CD/singing (or maybe it was just my singing?)

Some Things Must Be Shared

2011-12-17T12:48:00.004+10:30

Whilst looking for an old knitting pattern requested by my mother, I came across this.

I wonder if that gentleman kept this picture in his portfolio?

Seriously! I don't think that, even in the eighties, I would ever have inflicted this monstrosity upon a male friend. Tellingly, the blurb at the front of the pattern collection says:
'Not forgotten are knits for men- you'll want to steal them for yourself...'
I would venture to suggest that any knit for a man that you wanted to steal for yourself was probably not suitable for a man. So what do you think readers? Am I being too harsh?

South Australia: State of Inebriation

2011-12-17T05:52:00.003+10:30

My friend Elisa and I have talked about the issue of teenage drinking on more than one occasion. Almost exactly a year ago, the BA was wanting to go to a local beach with her friends for New Year's Eve fireworks and carousing. There was discussion of alcohol. At the time she was 15 and there was no WAY I was condoning any bending of the no-drinking rules. The event passed without incident and I breathed a sigh of relief.

In May of this year (was it only this year???), the Formal and it's 'after party' reared its ugly head. For a brief moment I considered hosting the after party, providing a DJ, putting up lights and a dance floor, making party pies and sausage rolls.......
Then came the question of alcohol.

I thought my immediate 'no' response would be that of any sane parent but I was sadly mistaken. Tales of the previous year's after party complete with security guards, a cloak room for checking in bags so nothing could be smuggled in, fending off gate crashers, and wrist bands entitling the guests to 2 alcoholic drinks, changed the way I viewed the world. Such parties did not occur in my day!!

At a meeting with the girls organising the event, I explained that I would provide everything they needed for a party except alcohol. They thanked me for my interest and found another parent who would!

In the angst and stress that went with this whole experience, I read up on a whole lot of legal information and was surprised to find this:

Where can a minor legally drink alcohol?*

At their own home or someone else's - regardless of whether an adult legal guardian or spouse is present.
In public places that are neither licensed premises, regulated premises nor dry areas (e.g. a family barbecue in a public area such as a park) provided they are in the company of an adult legal guardian or spouse.

Where can a minor NOT legally drink alcohol?*

In regulated premises including licensed premises (e.g. a restaurant, hotel, premises with a limited licence or reception centre) - a minor may be present at these venues (before midnight, or before 9.00 p.m. at premises with an entertainment venue licence), but may not buy or drink alcohol.
In a public place unless in the company of an adult legal guardian or spouse.

*These explanations for where a minor can and cannot legally drink alcohol also include possession of alcohol.

It is illegal for anyone, regardless of age, to drink alcohol in non-licensed regulated premises, such as a public hall, shop, vehicle or vessel, and other specified premises such as dry areas. Therefore, the only additional restrictions on minors are that they are not allowed to drink in licensed premises, or unaccompanied in a public place.

In summary, minors:

can consume alcohol provided it is not in a public place or regulated premises
can consume alcohol in a public place under the supervision of an adult legal guardian or spouse provided that it is not a dry area, regulated premises or in or near to prescribed entertainment such as a dance
can generally be on licensed premises before midnight (before 9.00 p.m. in an entertainment venue) but cannot obtain or consume alcohol
are not allowed in areas of licensed premises declared out of bounds to minors, or in gaming areas
are not allowed on licensed premises between the hours of midnight and 5.00 a.m. unless in a designated dining area, a bedroom or an area approved for minors

Examples:

If at the clubrooms, a football coach gives the team some beers to celebrate a win, and some of the team are under 18, that is an offence (supplying liquor to a minor in regulated premises, section 110 & 114 of the Act). However, it would not be illegal for the coach to invite the team to his home for drinks.
At a wedding reception held in a licensed restaurant, a hotel, a wedding reception centre or public hall, it is illegal if a minor drinks a toast containing alcohol to the bride and groom (selling/supplying alcohol to minors, sections 110 & 114 of the Act).

(From: http://www.dassa.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=124#minors)

In July of this year, someone tried to do something about it: but as far as I know there has been no change to the law.

The BA is going to continue to be confronted with opportunities to drink to excess. In a recent conversation I pointed out to her, "It is not about me trying to control you, it is about you remaining in control of yourself."

Crafty Tuesday: A Birthday Present To Me

2011-12-12T23:39:00.005+10:30

My lovely Aunt/Godmother in the UK sent me some money for my birthday. I love birthday money because you can be totally self indulgent with it. I would normally have talked myself out of buying this as it is 'non-essential' but, because it was birthday money, I was able to spoil myself.

This book totally cracks me up

This is the first one that got to me.

Bwahahahahah!
This one was a close second!

But there was more!

This one is a jam jar cover, covered with bugs!!

And how much would I love to send these out for Christmas this year???

Happy Crafty Tuesday everyone. I haven't actually made anything since the infamous 'formal dress' episode, but I thought you might get a laugh out of these.....click over to Carrie to see what everyone else has to share.

As Time Goes By (and posts slip away)

2011-12-09T02:09:00.011+10:30

My Baby Angel attended a Formal with her BFF tonight.

(remind me never to sew with stretch satin again. Hit me if I even suggest it, and perhaps point me at this post. >:-(.......)

These two have known each other since 2003 when, praise God, the BFF's family moved in across the road from us in Happy Valley (no, that is a real suburb!). We had just arrived from the UK in the January, knowing no-one, and my poor BA had been suffering from leaving a very large and tight knit group of friends in the UK. She had made a few school friends, but no-one that really resonated, until the BFF moved in. What an amazing blessing.

The redhead on the right was the school friend that we have not seen since 2005, the BFF is on the left.

Even though BFF is 14 months older, the two hit it off like the proverbial house on fire. Dress-ups were the theme of the day

developing as the years passed

and it appears dress ups are still the fave game.

So for this Formal, the BA was the date of BFF's twin brother. That's him there on the right.

Aaaaaaand, there on the right again.....

My how time flies!

To be honest, I think the girls had the best night dancing together!! High School Formals are like that :-)

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

I have learned a lot from this one and I think the BA has too.
Lesson 1: Hair
The hair that looks good in a photo does not necessarily suit you. The back was pretty but she didn't like the front.
Lesson 2: Make-up
More is not necessarily better. Don't let the make-up wear you.
(note to self: make up short course as a Christmas present)
Lesson 3:
Never sew with stretch satin unless you are a whizz or have done some kind of a course.......
Lesson 4:
Picking up 16 year olds early from 'after parties' is definitely a good idea.......especially when you see young men helping themselves to two large bottles of vodka on the breakfast bar whilst you wait for your baby!!!!!:-(

On that note, I am fast reconciling myself to the fact that my area of expertise is younger children. In the warzone that is teen parenting, I find myself constantly a victim of 'friendly fire'.

Tonight, for some reason, I looked back over some unfinished (there have been many) posts from this last 18 months, and I found this:

85% Proof Parenting

"So Mum, if I were at a wedding, would you let me have a Breezer?" With this one question, innocuously asked after a visit with her father to an interstate cousin's wedding , the BA moved me deftly into the 'mega-hard, rethink your whole peace of mind', advanced section of the parenting course. Not for Sissies. I don't even know why I am making light of this. Except that of course I do. We make light of all difficult things in life in order to convince ourselves that they are less serious than they seem. Like Harry Potter we shout 'Riddikulus' at the boggart in the trunk, in the hopes that it will vanish into a puff of triviality and distress us no further. Of course, it's not going to happen. Having kept the spectre of the 'difficult teen years' at bay until now I am fully aware that I am about to be engulfed in the floodwaters. Back in July when La Jeune Fille was here, we had our first minor brush with the question of alcohol. The two of them had been invited to an 'end of exchange' party to be held at the home of one of the Year 11 girls who had had an exchange student. I didn't think twice about saying yes. It was a school function, at a parent's house....what could be simpler? Of course the BA returned full of excitement because alcohol had been provided by the parents and several members of the party had got 'very drunk'. She assured me she hadn't had anything and didn't appear anything other than her normal lovely self, but I noticed La JF slink off to bed
surreptitiously.

I am glad I didn't finish that post because it was going to rant on about the irresponsible parents who provide alcohol to under age children at parties. I am far less self righteous nowadays.

I also found this:

Formal: Part Two

A busy, and sometimes traumatic month down the track and I thought I would fill you in on the lead up to, and the second part of, the BA's Formal Adventure. I don't know how much you guys know about 'after parties'. In my day I don't think we called them 'after parties', I think they were called 'Join us for coffee and cake after the Formal'...usually on an invitation. Nevertheless, 'after parties' is what they're called now! I had a small idea about the phenomona from our own school formal last year, where I attended as a staff member. At the end of what was, let's face it, a pretty tame evening, there was a great buzz of excitement and much phoning and texting as pupils regrouped for the whispered 'after party'. Later, I was able to see from facebook photos that it involved a tent, apparently some music and, undoubtably, some alcohol. A little investigation revealed that this was a common event in school life today. The schools tend to cover their ears and go 'LA LA LA LA LA' as the parents organise the events and, apparently, often provide the alcohol. Well, some parents at some schools, I rather archly and naively snorted in my head. Or maybe it was out loud? Sometimes that happens.

Again, I failed to finish my sanctimonious post about the weakness of some parents. (although it was a good story and I should probably tell you sometime...)

Well tonight I sighed and drove my daughter home knowing full well that the no alcohol policy had been breached and all I said to her was 'I'm very disappointed'.

In retrospect, any stance I had on the issue shuddered majorly in its housings after that Halloween party where she went dressed as Cleopatra. Later in the week I saw photos on one of her friend's facebook sites, showing her clearly standing with a bottle of some sort of hideous blue alco-pop in her hand. I texted her that if she wanted to be allowed to go out with her friends, she needed to tell them not to post incriminating photos. I did not apply any other consequence.

Actually, the real crack in my fortifications, come to think of it, occurred at her own after party (the one that was the subject of the previous unfinished post) when she informed me (I was a chaperone) that she was going to have the two 'drinks' her entrance ticket entitled her to. I made a spot decision not to 'make a scene' and the two UDL cans were duly drunk, happy dancing ensued and she came away cheerful and satisfied.

So here I am, at this stage of her/our life. My innate parent sense tells me it is only going to get worse. What to do?

1) I could totally ban her from attending all social events where alcohol is supplied
(and they are MANY)

2) I can set acceptable limits and lower the boom gate when these are breached.

The only trouble is, I am wrestling with what the acceptable limits are. I thought I knew, I thought I held them securely in my hand. Now, in the reality of the situation, I feel their organic writhings and their nasty, sharp teeth.

In Which I Try And Summarise The Last Two Weeks

2011-12-05T22:16:00.010+10:30

So let's start with Slugger.

It had to happen I guess. We were up against too much: too much water under the bridge; too many mistakes; too much playing catch-up. Two weeks ago the principal delivered the news to Slugger's mother. He would need a 'fresh start' next year.

She was stunned. She had not seen it coming. She had to ask what he meant. It was awful to watch.

She ran out of the meeting in tears, followed by her family advocate, an eminently sensible woman with plenty of experience in working with autism. It has taken a week but she is now able to talk civilly to us and hopefully we can manage his transition to the local public school smoothly.

So how do I feel about this? Sad. Defeated. I mean, I hate failure. We tried so hard in the last weeks but it was all about shutting the gate after the horse had bolted. The Boss approached me a day or so before the axe fell; I had already surmised that the decision had been made.
"I know you're not in favour of this" he began, but I stopped him.
"No, no, it's got nothing to do with whether I'm in favour of it," I explained,"I'm not happy about it, but I can see that we don't really have a choice. We don't have the support of the community and without that we are pushing it uphill."

Even this week, as we have seen more improvement in his behaviour and the whole atmosphere in my room has become less volatile, it has only taken little things to remind us that we still have a huge way to go: a letter from a parent complaining that he had 'chased' her child (????his minder had been with him every minute of playtime and could recall nothing threatening or violent. Possibly he had seen the other child run away from him and taken off in pursuit, laughing and sublime in his innocence and ignorance? It is all a game to him.); an aggressive request for another adult to 'go away' when he perceived his comfortable two person bubble had been 'invaded', followed by slapping at his minder when he supported the other adult's right to observe.

We have stabilised him. He can operate quite well in the structure of my room with the 1:1 support of his minder. We have developed a more appropriate style of activity to keep him engaged; shortened the sessions, kept things multi-sensory and particularly, tactile. We have used the visual timetable system, introduced him to red and green choices and closely monitored his interactions with other children in order to prevent social misunderstandings.
And he has responded.

But the funding is running out. He cannot be reintroduced to a classroom 'cold', the attitude of the other children and parents is way too negative, and it wouldn't be fair on him anyway. These things need to be built up gradually and we just don't have time.

Hopefully, in a new setting, without the 'labels' that he has acquired through his extreme behaviour at our school, he has a better chance. We will work with the new school to smooth the transition and hope that the greater resource pool in the state system can provide him with the continued 1:1 support he requires.

It still breaks my heart that we couldn't 'turn it around'.

The rest of the last two weeks has been spent in the ridiculous business of making a dress for the BA's next Formal dance. What was I thinking? What did I save? What of my sanity?

Here is the finished product as best I could manage it. I am not happy with some of the puckered seams but these are waaaaaaaay better than my first attempts with the overlocker which resulted in me throwing away the front of the dress and buying new material (it's a looooong story). The problem was the stretchy fabric. I thought overlockers were designed to cope with stretch, but I obviously have a lot to learn. Here is the back. The drapes are a soft, grey chiffon and look quite lovely on, although they look like nothing here.

This is the train which she really likes.

And this is the gal in question, fresh from having seen the new Twilight movie with her mother. We were on a bit of a high afterwards, hence her rather 'out there' pose!

The Formal is this Thursday so I'll get some photos of her when she's all 'done up'. I think the dress will be ok. The puckering kind of stretches out when she has it on, and bits of it fit her like a glove, which is somewhat disconcerting considering I remember when she looked like this:

In between all of this we have been spending as much time as we can with my dad who is here for just three weeks. He's been playing golf and catching up with friends and tomorrow night we're all off to the BA's End of Year Mass at St Saviour's. Her dad and step mum are flying in from Sydney for the night and we are looking forward to putting 2011, with all it's school related traumas, to rest.

She's Still My Baby and She still Fills My Heart

2011-12-05T00:29:00.000+10:30

I haven't been writing too much about my Baby Angel lately. In fact, I think this was my last specific post. It's tough, 'cause she is ultra aware of anything I say about her and, naturally, would prefer I said nothing.

Facebook is her addiction and, as I have insisted that I must be a friend if she wants to have access to the internet, she is quick to discourage me from making my online presence felt.

BA: Mum! Did you comment* on my friend's page???? (*withering)
Me: Errrrrrr.... Yes.
BA: DON'T comment. She might not like it when you comment.
Me: She likes it when I comment, she says I'm a crack up!
BA: No, mum, you're not funny. No one thinks you're funny!
Me: No, YOU don't think I'm funny. Everyone ELSE thinks I'm funny!!!!!
BA: Just...........don't.......mum. (imagine the 'don't', liberally dripping with contempt)

But regardless, I've got to tell you about her because I lurrrve her so much and it's really hard to keep that love and pride under wraps! Even though she would prefer I did.

Over the last year, the BA and a group of teens from our church were involved in a discipleship journey culminating in a trip to Vanuatu.

After the visit of Frog girl last year, the BA had desperately wanted to be involved in an exchange trip to France. At $5000 minimum and a questionable attitude (from the organisers) towards the objectives of the exchange, I informed the BA that she did not have a snowball's chance of being involved. Fortunately, at the same time as this was up for discussion, our pastor and youth minster decided that it would be a worthwhile venture to take the teens of our church to Vanuatu to see how other people in the world live . And guess what the second language of Vanuatu is? Yup. French!

It seemed the answer to a prayer. Although I felt bad about not being able to afford sending the BA on a European exchange, I also felt affronted at the nature of said exchange. The Frog Girl and her mates spent, maybe, 4 days in our school. The rest of the time was spent swanning about the state on sightseeing trips with...other French people! Now in my day, the Rotary Exchange students spent a year at the school taking part in all the classes and other extra curricula activities. My own, defining, relationship with a Rotary Exchange student in 1977 emerged during his involvement in our joint schools drama production. The students were immersed in the culture and their only contact with other exchange students occurred during the school holiday trip to the Red Centre. A far cry from our experience with Frog Girl.

Happily, the BA decided that the Vanuatu option was an acceptable alternative. She knew that she was going to have to raise a significant portion of the funds, as we were under pressure financially, but she was undeterred. She threw herself into the fund raising effort. She worked at MacDonalds and banked significant portions of her income. She worked in the sausage sizzle stall at the Lion's Mart on weekends. She manned a stall at the church fund raising fair. Her dad and grandad threw in contributions towards the end of the process; but I am proud of the fact that she raised well over half the money she needed for the trip (unlike others).

The kids were involved in a full-on discipleship journey over the year preceding the trip. They did retreats and wrote reflections. Their work at the Lion's Mart raised funds for the kids in the group who couldn't totally afford the trip. They were asked to 'present' to the church and build relationships within the group. They learned the language and culture of their destination and modified their thinking in deference to another set of values. In the week before they left, they compressed their lives into a backpack and collected clothing which would be suitable for the cultural context of their trip.

In July we gathered at the airport to see them off.

They would be away for three weeks and for most of that time they would be out of electronic contact (like the old days).

They would spend a week in a village where the most technological item in town was the pit toilet.

I think I am safe in reporting that the excitement was tangible.

For the first time in many years I felt the stretch of the umbilical cord. I am used to sending the BA off to her dad every holiday but this trip had the added element of NO communication. I was ok to begin with, but after two weeks I moved a special picture of her from my chest of drawers, onto my bedside table. Such a brave mummy.

Just before their return, the pastor called me from Port Vila. He needed to tell me of an 'incident' involving the BA. My imagination ran wild. What had she DONE???? As it turned out, she had been guilty of nothing but naivety, and had been VERY lucky to escape intact. God was watching over her that day, as she allowed her outgoing and confident personality to take her into a situation that could have ended very badly. Of course, after the initial shock had worn off she was inclined to minimise the event, to the extent that the adults present wondered if she had learned anything from the incident. On her return, however, after her recount, we acknowledged together what a lucky girl she had been and did some grieving.

I can only try to imagine the anguish of parents who have lost children on the other side of the world. I dd not lose my child. I can only thank God; from the story she told me, the possibility seemed to have been very real.

But all this aside she LOVED being in Vanuatu. She loved the people, she loved the way of life and she loved interacting with the children. Currently, her main aim in life seems to be 'aid work' in under developed countries.

A week ago we had a 'Graduation' ceremony for the teens who had been involved in the trip.

They donned the garb of the place and their excitement in sharing with us was palpable.

Some parents expressed disappointment that 'nothing had changed' with their teen.
I say to them, 'just wait', nothing this impactful goes unnoticed.

And here is the group singing the famous welcome song for the island .....

Meanwhile, in a complete contrast, back in the 'real' world, the BA heads off to a costume party as Cleopatra.
And her mother has to pick her up from the other side of town at midnight.

Footnote* Hey SSG! You would be very proud of the way I have edited this post. there were so many things I could have said!!!!!!

He's Heeeere!!

2011-11-27T07:54:00.002+10:30

We have my Dad for three weeks! So happy!!

Spam Comments

2011-11-25T09:22:00.003+10:30

I have been getting a few
"This a good post. I like you see my post too."
comments with dubious URLs attached, recently. I usually delete them without even looking, having once been directed to an Indonesian online sales site.

Recently, my mum complained that she had a received a message saying her comment had been deleted by the blog administrator. On checking the post, I saw that I had indeed deleted a spam comment on that entry, but was not aware of anything coming from my mum. It made me wonder whether spammers are hacking in and piggybacking on people's comments? Has anyone heard of this before? Has anyone of my regular commenters had a comment deleted by me and wondered why? (and never come back again so won't be reading this anyway....)

I'd be interested to hear your experiences.

Crafty Tuesday: Trial and Error Quilting

2011-11-22T21:51:00.006+10:30

It's Crafty Tuesday and I am pleased to report that as a part of my debrief from a week with Slugger, I spent most of the weekend sewing, or thinking about it!

For all crafty types I'll cut to the chase and show you what I've done.

Yes, it looks familiar! It is my 'Annie' quilt from two years ago. That is how long it has been sitting, pinned together and waiting for me to have the confidence, or the nerve, to attempt the job of 'stitch in the ditch' quilting it together. I have to tell you it took me most of the weekend and a huge amount of quick unpicking and bicep work to get the thing to this stage.

I would hate to have been making a double quilt because trying to get this thing rolled up and under my sewing machine, was not fun!

I had wanted to be fancy with the quilting pattern,

but a few misplaced twiddly bits ( and the quick unpick) taught me to 'keep it simple' and, as you can see, I have.

I was surprised (and frustrated) by how difficult it was to keep the thing from puckering. I gave up in the end , after pulling out a few key rows and doing them again with differing tensions. Seemed to make NO difference at all! If any of you are quilters, I'd love to know your secrets.

Next up is the binding but it may be after Christmas before I get to that, for reasons I am about to explain. I am about to ramble now, so if you are here mostly to see craft you can probably click back over to Carrie's and check out the talent!

The other sewing project I've started is a dress for the BA's next Formal. She has been asked to partner an old friend's brother and the date is fast approaching. She has very definite ideas about what she wants to wear nowadays (no! really?????) and had her heart set on
a) something Grecian and
b) something black.
Needless to say, mother (moi) did not approve.

I've got to admit I feel sad when I see lovely young gals draped in black. They are so beautiful, they can wear any colour, why do they feel the need to widow themselves prematurely? Anyhoo, to this end I encouraged the BA to try on this dress when we went out browsing the other day.

She was mildly receptive and it was kind of within the price range (ok...there isn't really a price range and the tag on this one would pay my Teacher's Registration but hey....better than some!) but we both had to agree that the top did not fit well and was not overly flattering.

Thus we found ourselves in Spotlight searching out glamour material and a suitable pattern. There were a number of contenders but sizing and availability conspired against us; and then when we had finally chosen a pattern, we realised that it could only be done in extremely wide fabric (140cm+) and the fabric we'd chosen only came in a 114cm roll. :-( We eventually left in disgust but, as I had to return for more quilting thread, I did a bit more searching and made a unilateral decision.

She had identifed a few things she 'required' from her dress. It had to be long, it had to be slightly draped, it had to have a feature back. This one
fit the bill but didn't lend itself to the chosen fabric so I picked another one. Just like that. Well, the dance is in three weeks!

So we have a midnight blue satin jersey with a smoke grey chiffon to do that central version (in black and white). The BA echoes my own concern, which is that some of these patterns don't look like the drawings, but as we finally agreed, we can't afford a flash dress for this one. At least it will be unique. I have to say I am a little nervous about it but at approx $70 all up vs the $300 for the one she tried on in the shop......it's all about perspective.

And as a last comment on 'craftiness', which I interpret more and more liberally nowadays, here is one of the three holes I have to fill in our front room since the electrician came.
Anyone want to take a sweep on when I'll get them done?

Crafty Tuesday: For A Change of Pace

2011-11-16T01:12:00.005+10:30

After an eventful Monday where Slugger did a runner and left the school grounds, we are having a well earned breather. We managed to get his Mum to agree to sit in the staff room whilst he is at school, partially so she can hear/see what his behaviour is like, and partially so that if he bites, kicks, punches or spits at anyone, he can be immediately taken home. Interestingly, he did not make it into school today, the first day of this new procedure. Although I am desperate for a breakthrough with him, I have to admit it was a delightful day. I am human after all.

But I managed some sewing a week ago! Whilst the electrician was removing the dated chandeliers, I threw together this floaty drapey thing.

You will probably see more of this fabric as it was a windfall from school. The new Home Ec teacher was cleaning out the storage cupboard at the beginning of the year and gave a way two full rolls of fabric! This was one of them. Of course, halfway through the project I realised that the fabric has an obviously 'wrong' side, which isn't really ideal for this kind of drapey thing (what DO you call it?) but I figured, as a freebie, I could live with it.

I have another top cut out (which will have the same 'wrong side' issue, as it has a drapey front) and I am perusing other patterns to see what else I can use it for.

If you want to see what other crafty things people have been creating, click over to Crafty Tuesday at Barely Controlled Chaos.

What Will This Day Be Like......?

2011-11-14T07:11:00.003+10:30

I wonder....

This is make or break week for Slugger. Will he be able to follow instructions without waving scissors in our faces or throwing glue sticks into the ceiling fans? Will he be able to find a safe channel for his anger? Will the other parents stop complaining and leave us to do our best? Will his family stop asking when he can go back into the classroom? Will any of my other pupils get a look in?

We'll see.

Total Meltdown and A Regret

2011-11-10T22:04:00.005+10:30

Every day is an escalation.

Today, his mum was in talking to the Principal while we tried to deal with him. I had walked back into the room to find him twirling a metre ruler over his head and when I asked him to give it to me,
"Hey Slugger (smile, cheerful), may I have my ruler back please?"
he threw it at me. Luckily there was no harm done but he was in a foul frame of mind. As his Minder started to try and move him towards his work table, I ducked out to see another pupil in another class. On my way back in, Mum was leaving the Principal's office and approaching the classroom. I could see that Slugger was settling to work and I feared seeing Mum would break his concentration so I suggested she just go, without calling into the room.

BIIIIIIIIIG Mistake!
He saw her out of the corner of his eye and he saw her leave without saying goodbye.

The destruction was truly spectacular to see. This 6 year old child up-ended large wooden tables (the type that seat 6!), kicked things around the room, swung chairs, threw things at the ceiling fans and topped it all off by locating the only two pairs of non safety scissors in the room and hurling them in our direction.

Through all this I kept saying to him "You're feeling angry, this is not a safe way to be angry..."
and he bellowed back through tears "I want MY MUUUUUM!!!! Where IS SHE????????"
"Shall I phone her to come?" I asked.
"NAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW" (more tears and throwing things)
"Well how can we get her to come if we don't ring her?"
"NAAAAAAWWWWWWW (throw, swear) DON"T YOU PHONE HER!!!!!!!!!"

Now, this may seem illogical, to those not 'in the know', but 'phoning his mum' is a threat we have been using for some time. In the early days our line was 'if he's violent, he goes home'. Foolishly, the Principal bowed to parental pressure when the mother eventually got sick of coming to pick him up. Additionally, I guess there was the issue of actually giving him practice at following the rules and accepting the consequences here. Not that it seems to have helped.
So, even though he desperately wanted his mum, he did NOT want us to phone her as that would mean he was in trouble and would have to go home.

The violence continued.

Eventually he bellowed from the depths of such heaving sobs it would break your heart:
"She went home (sob) and she forgot (sob) to say (sob) goodbye to me..."

I felt like such a heel.

All the kid had wanted was for Mum to say goodbye to him. He probably would have cuddled her and got back to what he had been doing (errrr.......which was throwing a metre ruler at my head...). Here is where we come unstuck. We keep looking at things through adult's eyes. Why should Mum not saying goodbye matter so much?

But it does. It matters a LOT. Because for Autistic children the world is so unpredictable, there have to be some things you can rely on. And when THOSE things fail you, it is akin to the end of the world. I should have known better.

But I apologised to him and then we made him help clean up the room. And all the time he kept asking, in typical Autistic fashion, with no idea of the impact he had had,
"Why hasn't my teacher come down to see me?"

Tomorrow it is my day off and I am actually going to take it. I have an important wake to attend. As a result, Slugger's minder has decided he doesn't feel safe, coming in for the day and who can blame him. It is definitely a two person job. Slugger will be kept at home tomorrow.

image credit

And Yesterday He Bit Me.....

2011-11-09T18:48:00.002+10:30

Slugger's been at it again.

But we did get a win. He didn't get what he wanted and after 10 minutes of chair throwing and table clothing ripping, he sat down and got back to his work.

Today, as two new families waited in the foyer for meetings with the Principal etc, Slugger streaked through the double doors and out the other side with his minder in hot pursuit.

We all just shrugged and went about our business.

He has two weeks to make a breakthrough, according to our Principal. After that he'll need to look for a 'fresh start' elsewhere.

I am really hopeful we can make a difference here. After all, I don't want those incisor marks to be in vain.....

Dangerous Professions: Bullfighting, Lion Taming, Teaching

2011-10-29T14:15:00.011+10:30

Slugger is not the only problem child I have to deal with.

This week, as well as being punched and kicked by the aforementioned little charmer, I was pegged in the head with a whiteboard eraser by WildBoy. You've got to admire his aim.

WildBoy had been my major concern up until the arrival of Slugger. WildBoy is 10 and, before the age of 1, was a victim of such terrible neglect and abuse that he has been left emotionally scarred, for life. He only attends school up until morning recess and, after clocking his teacher in the face with his pencil case back in May, has also been attended by a large, male, teaching aide. The purpose of this was to ensure that he could be safely removed from the classroom situation if he 'lost it' but I am happy to report that things have been progressing well with him and he has not caused me much concern, until Tuesday.

The thing is, lately we have been so preoccupied with Slugger that WildBoy almost seems normal in comparison. Unfortunately, he is a ticking bomb and it doesn't take much to set him off. You see, WildBoy believes that he is intrinsically 'bad' and doesn't deserve the good things that happen to him. He is in a constant state of 'fight or flight' and too often descends into 'fight'. WildBoy believes that no-one can possibly love him (after all his parents didn't) and therefore he might as well push you away as fast as he can, or give you a reason to reject him, so he can 'cut to the chase' as it were. In proving that you will indeed, inevitably, send him away, he confirms his own understanding of the world, which is comforting and affirming for him, in an unhealthy way.

I have been working with WildBoy once a week to try and establish some academic baselines so his mum can target his patchy learning at home. He has missed so much school and had so much focus on his behaviour, that his learning has fallen behind and, although a clever little boy, his lack of skill is now a source of enormous frustration to him. Our sessions have varied in both content and success but we have been making some progress in the Maths field. Last week I pushed him a little too far.

I knew I had bitten off more than he could chew when he started scribbling over things with a whiteboard marker...notably my hand. I stayed focused and kept encouraging him and we made it through the 20 minute activity by the skin of our teeth. I was quick to point out how he actually had been able to do it after all (albeit with a huge amount of prompting and support) and breezily got up to put things away before walking him down to meet his mum. As I stood with my back to him, trying valiantly to shove a folder back into the overcrowded resource cupboard, I felt the shock of a sharp pain through the back of my head. Spinning around I saw the offending whiteboard eraser on the floor at my feet and WildBoy standing whitefaced and mortifed at his own actions, some feet away.

I was so taken aback that I did all the things you're not supposed to do with ODD children. Firstly, I questioned him.
"Wildboy, did you throw that eraser at my head?"
No response; 'fight or flight?' was probably racing through his mind.
"I didn't appreciate it." I said, breaking yet another ODD behaviour management rule: don't communicate a value judgement.
He responded by throwing two large rubber dice up onto the top of the cupboard.
The adrenalin rapidly departing my system, I started to think clearly again and switched to jovial encouragement.
"Come on mate, mum's going to be waiting downstairs. Let's go and tell her how well you did on that maths game."
He raced to the door and physically blocked the way; I think he thought I was going to tell her what he'd done.
"Maaaaaate," I said, in my best impersonation of an Italian builder," You don't wanna go there do you? C'maaaaarn...."
This seemed to do the trick. He relaxed, smiled and looked at me suspiciously.
"Where'd you get that from?" he queried."I've heard that before."
Of course he has. It's what his foster dad does when he starts to get aggressive. He had given me the strategy on a previous occasion, when I asked how he handled the physicality, but I don't think WildBoy had ever heard it coming out of the mouth of a woman before. It was enough to defuse the tension and we made it safely out of the door and downstairs to mum.

On the way he was still 'sparking' so I asked him if he was feeling angry. On his positive response (an achievement in itself, being able to identify his own emotions), I suggested he kick the brick wall. He did so. Then I suggested he kick the tree. He did this too. Then I suggested he thump the stobie pole and that was enough to break his mood. He looked at the concrete ediface and then at his fist, decided against it and laughed up at me.
"You're silly Mrs A!" he announced, and raced off into the waiting car.

On reflection, I wonder if he hit me by accident. He may have been trying to throw the eraser up on top of the cupboard. There are large cushions up there and it may have simply slipped off and down onto my head. In fact, when I think about it, that would match up with the look of horror on his face. The thing was, I had pushed him too far too fast. I had made him feel unsuccessful and that is unsafe. Unsafe for him I mean. For WildBoy, unsafe expresses itself physically with random aggressive behaviour. In the past he has pulled posters down off walls and overturned the nearest thing when he perceives himself 'threatened'. Really, throwing things onto the cupboard was a pretty tame response.

His foster mum and I talk about him a lot. What will become of him? Will he ever be recovered enough to fit into society? He only attends school up until recess time because he can't be trusted in the playground and around the other kids. His life is rigidly controlled to create security but as a result he has no passions and no interests. He can't play team games because he is unco-ordinated and thumps other kids if they beat him to the ball. His fine motor skills are too poor to be a model maker or artist. He has played the drums but this didn't last long as he couldn't take instruction and the teacher gave up. And to add to the mix, just yesterday his mum told me they think he is Asperger's and, at ten, he is well into puberty.

Great.

But we'll keep battling on with him. He didn't ask to be the way he is and to have been treated the way he was. Somewhere out there in the world there is a purpose for him. I just have to make sure I don't rush him into it too fast.

image credit

Crafty Tuesday: The Bookshelf

2011-10-26T22:51:00.007+10:30

There hasn't been much sewing going on recently; in fact, the main activity around my neck of the woods has been coughing and blowing my nose. :-( .
(I am the victim of the most persistent and debilitating 'flu at the moment).

However, during the recent school holidays I got a bit of crafty on, which I felt moved to share. (Yeah. Damn right I'm proud of myself!!!)

You see, one of the big money items on our Inheritance to-Do List, was the replacement of the flooring in our main living areas. On the first weekend of the holidays we saved ourselves $150.00 by moving all the furniture ourselves (what were we thinking???) and preparing for the arrival of the floormen. On the Tuesday that they were due, they arrived at 10:30am and had the audacity to announce that this was not a one day job. They proceeded to pull up the carpets, fill the house with dust and leave. Himself and I faced each other in a house with nowhere to sit, nowhere to eat and two days to wait for their return. >:-(

We decided to attack a bit of decorating whilst everything was in disarray so I hired a wallpaper steamer and we removed the cringeworthy 80s wallpaper frieze which has been bugging me since 2005 (see below):

Some of us were creative in our use of time.

Everything was going well until the steamer removed more than the wall paper.

These little patches actually doubled in size when I started my clean up ready for plastering! Himself was horrified and panic stricken until I told him I had patched bigger areas. I calmly set about rectifying the problem.

The floorers arrived a few days later and started work.

Our new gas heater proved problematic as the floorers couldn't get the carpet out from underneath.
"It's OK," quipped the gentleman, "we can leave it like this and then just kind of put a bit of beading around it....

Yeah, right! Like THAT was going to look OK!!!!
In the end we called the gas installer who came and UNinstalled the heater and then came back to reinstall once the floor was down.

Good job, I reckon.

So, here is my plastering:

And Himself's choice of new paint colour. Still not completely sold on that. Oh well.

Now this alcove is the point of this whole post but let's face it, if you've stayed with me this far you are obviously family, a renovator or incredibly loyal! (Or possibly all three...Unka Dick?)
There was previously a pretty utilitarian bookshelf occupying this alcove, the result of two households coming together in marriage with a plethora of disparate furniture*.

It is a mark of its ugliness that I have no other photos of it except as a backdrop to sewing!

Once the new floor was in, I couldn't bear to try and squeeze the totally inappropriate item back into the space and so I decided to stretch my carpentorial wings.
My Bestie had built bookshelves before so I called her in as an adviser. She recommended a simple plinth (only four screws required), then a trip to Bunnings for some pre-cut timber lengths to be supported on dowells.

Rather than a central support, she recommended a random allocation of uprights to prevent 'bowing'.

And here is the finished product!

And now, here is a gratuitous picture of Small Boy with his first batch of homemade pancakes.

And if that ain't enough craftiness for ya', click here to check out Carrie's 'Crafty Tuesday' at Barely Controlled Chaos, where you are bound to find something inspirational!

Musical Crews: On My Word, Everyone Change Partners!

2011-10-22T09:00:00.001+10:30

So, I promised I'd tell you about the launching and maiden voyage of 'Retaining Wall'.
(This of course is not the real name of his boat, but as far as I am concerned it is
'Retaining Wall').

Some background:

Himself sailed in Jester for about 5 years with No 2 Son as his crew.

This worked well as No 2 Son learned the skills of crewing and the vagaries of sailing and was, at the time, a nice, lightweight foil for Himself's rather generous proportions.

In 2009/10, No 2 Son moved on to crew with a very experienced female skipper and together they were runners-up for the state titles twice. Himself on the other hand, attempted to coerce Small Boy into crewing with him. After a promising start, Small Boy could not cope with the amount of yelling and ordering about endured by most crews, and handed out liberally by Himself; he lasted two races.That was the season I made my debut as ill-fated (and last resort) crew.

Last year, 2010/11 season, Himself got together with the nephew of one of the other sailors and had a good season, winning the Club Championship on handicap (always a bitter pill though) but, more importantly, gaining a trophy for 'Consistency'. We managed to frighten that young man off however, and at the end of the season he announced he was going to sail 420s as 'there are a lot more young people' sailing in that class. That, at least, was the reason he gave.

And so we come to the 2011/12 season.

As many of you will know, Himself deemed a new boat more important than a retaining wall, even though he had not yet found anyone to crew with him this year. No 2 Son and his lady skipper had finished up together at the end of last season but he was not a candidate because he is too heavy now to sail competitively with his dad. Himself's solution was to give No 2 Son the old boat, Bad Jester, so that he can learn to skipper, and once more try to coerce Small Boy into crewing on the new boat, Retaining Wall. Much to my surprise, Small Boy agreed, even going so far as to drive down to Victoria with Himself, to pick the new boat up.

No 2 Son thought he had a mate to crew for him but this fell through. Out of the blue, No 1 Son, whom we rarely see nowadays, expressed an interest in sailing with his brother. Now, not only has No 1 Son been previously reluctant to sail, but given the combative nature of their sibling relationship, I was surprised No 2 Son was even considering it. But, consider it he did.

So, to recap:

Retaining Wall:
Skipper: Himself
Attitude: Keen as mustard/highly competitive
Experience: lengthy and successful

Crew: Small Boy
Attitude: terrified and guilt ridden
Experience: nil

Bad Jester:
Skipper: No 2 Son
Attitude: nervous/insecure, but keen
Experience: virtually nil

Crew: Possibly No 1 Son
Attitude: doesn't like being told what to do
Experience: as above

Meanwhile, it transpired that Small Boy had a school friend who was also keen to learn to sail. His family had been into sailing, before the divorce, and he had never had an opportunity to actually learn, so when he heard that there were crew seats possibly still available, he was beside himself with excitement. The only problem was that this crew seat was with No 2 Son.

Now I don't talk too much about No 2 Son here as he has made it known that he does not like being plastered across the internet; but suffice to say that he is a rather intense young man with many Aspergery traits and a moderate case of dyspraxia to boot. Social skills and clear communication are not his forte and the idea of him trying to teach someone else (and a little kid at that!) to crew whilst learning to skipper himself was possibly the most convincing recipe for disaster that I have ever heard put forward! I communicated this to Himself who was gracious enough to acknowledge that it could be a problem. There did not seem to be an immediate answer to the dilemma and so as the first 'try out' race of the season approached, it seemed that FOSB (Friend of Small Boy) would be taking the crew's seat for No 2 Son.

With a stroke of providence from the Divine, No 2 son was struck down with a bad shoulder on the day of the trial race. This meant that Himself would take 'Retaining Wall' down to the beach, give FOSB a quick ride and then go out for the race with Small Boy whilst I, the inveterate non sailor, babysat FOSB on the shore.

That's FOSB looking keen in the red shorts. That's Small Boy looking like he can't get away fast enough to the right!

Himself was keen. He was really keen. He was so keen he wore silly sailing clothes.

As Himself was preparing the boat, Small Boy informed me in defiant tones, that he had hurt his leg and that no-one was listening to him and everyone thought he was faking but that his leg really hurt and he didn't know how he was going to sail with such a sore leg! A wave of inevitability washed over me and I brought the dilemma to Himself's attention.

Himself stormed around for a minute but quickly saw the immediate solution.
FOSB would crew for him in the trial race.

Look how excited he is!

To be fair, he initially got very excited about the idea, asking lots of questions and climbing enthusiastically into Small Boy's specialist gear. Small Boy stomped about, or rather limped about in an exaggerated fashion, with a brow like a thundercloud and the inevitable "No-one believes me.." echoing repeatedly from his lips...no mean feat considering the prominence of said lower lip.

Speaking of thunderclouds, as preparations were reaching a peak, the wind began to pick up.

The moment of Christening had arrived.

I grasped the champagne bottle and drew the cork.
"I christen thee Retaining Wall and God bless all who sail in thee..."
(thinks: ugh, maybe a few too many 'thees' in there....)

One of the other gentlemen approached me afterwards;
"That the first christening you've done then?"
"Uhhh, ye-es.." (thinks, 'where's he going with this..?')
"So how do you think it went?"
"Ummmmm..."
"Room for some improvement you think?"
Rats. I knew there were too many 'thees'.....

The gang began the process of getting the boat into the water.

All seemed to be under control so I turned my back, momentarily, to put something further up the beach. When I returned a few minutes later, all hell had broken loose.

Himself was standing in the water desperately holding Retaining Wall's nose in what was turning out to be an increasingly stiff breeze. FOSB was on the shore crying and holding his stomach. People were shouting things over the top of the mounting wind:
"Just give him a minute.."
"We're going to miss the start.."
"I'll...sob shudder...be...sob...alright in a minute..."
and of course the inevitable over-reaction from my beloved husband.

"I KNEW IT! I MIGHT AS WELL PACK UP THE BOAT NOW!I KNEW I WOULDN'T GET A SAIL TODAY!!!!"

A few quick questions and it became apparent that FOSB had suddenly been stricken with stomach cramps. Helpful onlookers were making suggestions, Himself was ranting and FOSB was doubled over whimpering and insisting that he had to go out because Himself was relying on him. Small Boy was deathly quiet behind me.

After bellowing at Himself to stop over reacting and quickly assessing FOSB's discomfort, I suggested he dash quickly up to the club toilets, see if he could be sick or go to the toilet, and then come back. Himself then started up again about how they would miss the start and they didn't have time etc etc etc. One thing I have discovered about my Leo husband over the years, is that for all his bluster and volume, he can't take it in return!
"Does it matter if you miss the start? It's only a PRACTICE RACE for F***s sake!!!!"
"Well what's the point if you're not going to be competitive?"
"Do you really NEED ME TO TELL YOU THE POINT???????" I bellowed back. (Bear in mind that all this is taking place at a distance and over an ever increasing wind.)
Momentarily chastened, he shut up while I checked on FOSB again who was still crying and doubled over.
"What about you Small Boy?" I called to him, "do you think you can do it instead?"

Now, this was a gamble. I was pretty sure that Small Boy's 'strained leg' was every bit as real as FOSB's sudden cramps but I was also pretty sure that both of them had the same root source: anxiety! I was banking on the fact that Small Boy would rise to the challenge to help out his dad and sure enough, he did. With pretty bad grace I must admit, but at least he agreed and the two lads started exchanging clothing there on the water's edge, accompanied by groans of pain (from Small Boy, whenever he lifted his leg) and whimpers and moans from FOSB, which may or may not have been relief and gratitude. I encouraged Small Boy, hopeful of the possibility that given the urgency of the situation, he would not have time to think about his anxiety but would simply get in the boat and do that crew thing. I was not helped by Himself who, having recovered his bluster, began to bellow:
"ARE YOU COMING OR NOT????????"
"HE IS DOING THE BEST HE CAN........PULL YOUR HEAD IN!!!!!!!!!" I defended 'our' little lad as he valiantly tried to pull on wet sailing gloves over sandy hands, between hard tears of terror.

Eventually, Himself and Small Boy were away, FOSB was sitting comfortably on the beach wacthing them go and I was standing, shaking my head over the drama of it all!
"Do you feel better now?" I enquired of FOSB.
"Oh yes thankyou."
"Do you think you just might have been nervous?"
"Oh yes, I think that's what it was. I vomited 5 times before I had to go in for my first taekwondo tournament!" he announced, chirpily.
It would have been nice to have known that in advance, I thought.*

FOSB and I retired to the club to have a lemonade and watch the race from the balcony. We hadn't been up there half an hour when we noticed someone coming back in. It was 'Retaining Wall' of course. The wind had picked up to 25 knots and the boat had taken off like a rocket. Himself of course was delighted but Small Boy was duly terrified and, to his credit, Himself had agreed to take him back in if he was frightened.
"Yea, but you'll be cross with me," Small Boy sobbed defiantly.
"No, I promise I won't; just say the word and we'll go back in. Nothing more said."
And he was as good as his word. He was just so excited by the acceleration of the new boat that everything else paled into insignificance.

The following week they couldn't sail because there was no wind. The weekend after that they sailed their first race and came third! Today is their second try and No 1 and 2 Sons make their debut as a team.

Can't wait to hear how that goes!

*It turns out, Himself had known that in advance. FOSB's mother had rung that morning to warn him of the lad's anxiety issues!!!!
"Did you not think that worth mentioning and discussing with me?" I asked him incredulously when he had informed me of this, later that day. He had no comeback.

Spider Poop: myth or reality?

2011-10-08T09:44:00.005+10:30

Why does no one in my family believe me? I will tell you why not! because none of them ever do any CLEANING!!!!!!

My husband and beloved sister have been laughing themselves silly over my random comment that I am less scared of spiders nowadays, I just hate the mess they make.
"Mess?" inquired Middle Sis, confused.
"Yes, webs everywhere, collecting dust, and all the spider crap on the skirting boards..."
Her hysteria was somewhat unkind I thought.
Disbelieving, she approached Himself.
"Sis says spiders crap everywhere. is this true?"
"WHAT?" exclaimed my ever supportive husband."Spider crap? Yea...right!"

I was nonplussed. Surely everyone is aware of the mess spiders make under an established web? Since the whole house was in uproar anyway, I located a small remaining pile (I have been cleaning a bit as we go) and called her over. Her deep belly laughs were NOT the response I had anticipated.
"That's not spider crap!!!" she guffawed.
(And how would she know anyway since she does not believe it exists!!?????)
"Of course it is, what else is it????" I protested.

She was unable to offer a plausible explanation for the effect but refused to be convinced that spiders do, in fact, crap!!!! I mean! They are LIVING ORGANISMS!!!!

Now, Himself and Sis keep making snide little comments whenever I am around.
Me: Where did I put the x?
Himself: I dunno, maybe it's near the 'spider crap'. (huge wink at Middle Sis)

So, I ask you blog world. Who out there believes in spider crap? Clap your hands if you do!!!!Exhibit A) the back of a shelf (which has been put back the wrong way around) which has been the recipient of some spider's excreta for some time it seems.....

Bitterness and Bad Grace

2011-10-06T16:29:00.003+10:30

I am only human right? And I work pretty hard, as does Himself, and we try to provide for everybody in this weird blended family. So will you forgive me if I have a really small minded bitch about the recent judgment against us by the Child Support Agency?

Small Boy's mother put in a claim against us as she feels that we are earning more than her and that she is entitled to some more of it. What she fails to recognise is that Himself and I bought a house, when we married, which would enable the children of three different partnerships (including hers) to live together, without living on top of each other. For this we pay steeply every month, approximately a third of our joint incomes. She on the other hand has a v nice house paid for by her parents, for which she pays no mortgage. She is also buying a new car soon. I wish I could afford a new car :-(
We are currently doing home renos, but they are much needed on the maintenance front and only affordable as a result of a windfall inheritance, most of which went to pay off credit cards and buy boats (OK I'm with her on THAT one). Currently we have not received a full pay for over 6 weeks because, due to the GFC, people are not paying their bills, so the rest of the inheritance is going on day to day living expenses.
The retaining wall is still collapsing. The pool filtration/chlorination system has given up the ghost. The gutters need repair if not complete replacement. The air conditioner is on borrowed time. It is just as well that the BA has transferred from extremely expensive Alma Mater to third of the price St Saviour's because that difference in income is about to go straight out again to Small Boy's mother. The same woman who buys him 'Bullet Storm'.

They have tripled our payments and we can't appeal until we have another tax return done.

Pardon me if I feel a bit bitter.

I hope she chokes on it.

That squeezing sound was us tightening our belts.

The Domino Effect

2011-10-04T08:52:00.002+10:30

You know when you start something, how everything else just seems to follow inevitably, and unstoppably, in its wake? Well, that's right where we are at the moment.

I am typing this on Himself's laptop, which is atop a desk and a coffee table, standing in the kitchen eating area, next to the piano. None of which normally live in this room, I might add. The new flooring is arriving today!

With this exciting event imminent, I suggested removing the hideous , apricot/dusky pink wallpaper frieze that has been bugging me since we moved in over 5 years ago. Naturally this got designer husband thinking about colour schemes and so the whole catastrophe began expanding. Actually, it wasn't that much of a catastrophe, until the plaster started falling off. Himself was horrified. he hasn't done much home reno before. I assured him that I had patched bigger areas (although, to be fair, not up a ladder >:-(...) and so we soldiered on.

Anyway, he has finished double coating most of the front room, with the exception of the plastered areas; all of the front room/study furniture is jammed into the family room/kitchen and the floor men are due to arrive any minute. Looks like we will be painting the coving and plastered areas when the floors are in :-(...which was NOT the plan.

Oh, well. Once it is done, and we're back in situ, I'll update with photos. At the moment I think the connections for my camera are somewhere at the back of the family room which currently resembles The Room of Requirement.

Crafty Tuesday: A Few Days Early

2011-10-02T16:55:00.004+10:30

I have been sewing of late but it has been a long, drawn out project; not particularly well done. Himself set me the challenge of making some 'covers' for his 'foils'. I put off starting for ages as I was trying to think of what sort of material I would use; and then Himself came up with some old sleeping bags.
"These will work," he pronounced.
Personally, I think they will rot in no time but there you go, I have acquiesed to his wishes yet again.

So, here is the larger of the two 'foils', the centreboard, with its new cover:

I used a piece of material given to me by the Bestie's mum, when she was cleaning out her sewing room, to line it.

Here it is, part way in:

Here it is done up with velcro straps:

And here is the smaller one, aka the rudder:

I think they'll do the job but I don't think they'll last long given the salt, sea and sun that they'll be exposed to. Anyway, I've got a much better idea for next time!

It's called oyster mesh and rather than sew it, you tie it together with cable ties!

Crafty Tuesday is hosted by Carrie at Barely Controlled Chaos and by Tuesday, it will be worth clicking here to check out the other craftiness out there.

Kid Wrangling:The Week From Hell

2011-09-26T16:25:00.002+09:30

Monday's focus was: 'crash tackling the teacher'. Apparently he does this because he loves and and wants to keep her for himself. The nett result however is a terrified teacher, a traumatised class and an angry frustrated little boy.

Tuesday: two letters of complaint, more crash tackling and some intervention attempts which were moderately successful but required my full attention, talking the teacher through her responses. A crisis phone call to the funding authority and specialist consultants. Lots of paperwork for me, tracking events and making an 'escalation and response' timeline.

Wednesday: He doesn't come to school. A two hour 'crisis' meeting and a discovery that the funding we believed we had been given was actually about a third of the requested amount! Phone calls to arrange a meeting with mum. Mum too busy to attend. Breaking the news about the funding over the phone. Mum hanging up. Grandma phoning back to berate me. Mediation and explanation.

Thursday: Meeting with the other parents who , rightly, wanted to know what we were going to do to deal with the traumatised children who had been witnessing the aggression. Work on that problem. Mum agreeing to come in for a meeting after all. Dealing with Slugger and keeping him away from the other kids mostly. Writing an action plan.

Friday: BIG meeting with Mum and her advocate. Good meeting. Consultants in working with Slugger. Some success. Kicking at the classroom door. Slugger running his own agenda again. Break for holidays and the knowledge that we are really not equipped to deal with this young man's issues but that we have to try and we have to provide support for all the others at the same time.

Holidays.

What To Wear When You Realise The Party Is 70s Fancy Dress At 6.45pm.

2011-09-26T06:52:00.003+09:30

It's amazing what one finds in one's wardrobe.

Although, to be fair, they weren't actually in my wardrobe, more in my dressing up bag...

That shirt has an interesting story though. My dad bought it for my Mum in China. Yes....I know. She was going to send it to the Op Shop but I rescued it for my collection. I mean, it's just too deliciously awful to throw out! Her comment at the time was "What in the world made you think I would EVER wear a shirt like that!" Dad looked mournful, "And I made the lady in the shop climb up a ladder to get it because it was the last one left on a model right up on the top shelf!"

One does wonder what was going through his mind at the time, however, I think I may have solved the problem. A careful look at the front placket will reveal three, what appear to be, soccer balls! And my Dad has always loved his football....... Happy Birthday Dad! I will always think of you when wearing this shirt :-D

Messing About With Boats

2011-09-22T01:12:00.001+09:30

Because, if you've got a new boat and it isn't sailing season yet, you have to make sure it all works!

Knee Deep in Chaos

2011-09-19T23:10:00.009+09:30

I suppose I must be seeing other children. I am certainly turning up to the classes. I think I'm teaching some of them. My brain however, is totally on...let's call him Slugger! I'm sorry but you have to laugh, otherwise you'd cry...

The day of the observation by 'The Funding Authority' saw Slugger giving a sensational performance. He shouted at everyone, ran up and down the corridor, crash tackled the teacher and eventually had to be taken home by his mother. We got the funding.

The following day he doesn't usually come in so we had a reprieve. The next day he had a headache and so it wasn't until Friday that we got him back. I sauntered down to the classroom mid morning to see how it was going and found his Minder sitting on a chair near the door. He seemed to be sitting in the midst of an up-turned box of toys.
"So, how's it going Minder?" I enquired cheerfully. He turned a long suffering face towards me and replied," He's in the corridor behind you...."

In one of those scenes from a movie, I withdrew my head from the classroom and looked up and down the corridor.
"Errrrrrrrrrrrrr, no, I'm afraid he's not...."

Therein ensued a mild panic until Minder located him, downstairs, playing nicely in the sandpit.

I stood upstairs watching out of a window as he busily dug and built sandcastles. His Minder stood under the shade of the verandah nearby and nothing seemed to intrude on his little world.

What do you do with that?

What do you do with a 5 year old who has his own agenda and will give no quarter in its following. He was as happy as a sandboy (pardon the pun) in that sandpit.

I watched him for a while and noticed that he began to look around. Finding his Minder unresponsive (we have agreed not to make the 'out of the classroom' time too much 'fun') and seeing a year 12 student studying in the sunshine nearby, he started digging in a more and more aggressive manner, turfing the spadefuls of sand over his shoulder in a spectacular arc. I watched to see if it was a one off and whether he would stop but the arcs kept coming and their dimensions were growing. Finding my Flaming Sword suddenly in my hand (I think it is related to the Sword of Gryffindor ie it appears when it is needed) I marched downstairs and silently but purposefully took the spade and bucket away from him.
"HEY!" he bellowed, in his gravelly little voice," GIVE ME THAT BACK."
I stood my ground and eyeballed him.
"No, I'm not giving it back to you, because you weren't playing with it properly. You don't throw the sand out of the sandpit like that." As I strode away I heard him start to wail and felt the handfuls of sand he was pitching at me, brush the back of my shirt. I made my way over to his Minder under the verandah and consulted with him.
"I'm not putting up with that," I said, "that was quite deliberate."
His Minder looked uncertain. The howls of anger echoed around the playground as Slugger lay prostrate in the sandpit drumming his feet and hands.

We continued to talk quietly about our next move, all the while watching him out of the corner of our eyes. He quieted. He sat up and looked across at me accusingly. I glanced back.
"STOP LOOKING AT ME!" he bellowed.
"Stop looking at ME." I retorted, somewhat peevishly.
He sat for a little longer and then got up and walked to the box of sand toys, giving the Minder and I a large berth as he did so. He helped himself to another bucket and spade and made his way back to the sandpit, watching all the time to see how we would react.
"Let's just see what he does," I suggested.
He climbed into the sand pit and began digging again. Sensibly. Occasionally he looked up and glowered at me. I flicked him the thumb up sign.

After awhile I wandered over, ostensibly to speak to the Year 12 studying nearby. He glanced up at me again and I smiled at him.
"Well, done, you're playing really nicely now."
A brief shadow passed over his face and then....he smiled at me.

The Minder and I decided that after his 'very bad day' with the observer from the Funding Authority, we would let him have a chill out day where he could do a few calming things and get himself back on an even keel. The danger of course was that he would think this was the norm and this has proved to be a real fear. On Monday he spent most of the day taking his Minder on walks around the school. He fronted up in my room more than once and nagged the Minder into playing football with him on the tennis courts. No work was done.

On Tuesday, it was more of the same, culminating in an outburst where he thumped another child quite soundly and had to be sent home. Tonight I am writing 'social stories' about the consequences of thumping someone and ways in which we can resolve conflict without punching someone.

Wish us luck....

Who Needs the Gym? pant pant

2011-09-13T07:17:00.000+09:30

I have been 'kid wrangling' again recently. Our new Mid Year reception class has another autistic boy on board. We were kind of unprepared for this one as his diagnosis came through during the holidays just before he started. Previously we had been told by an assessment team at the local General hospital that he was definitely NOT autistic. Now we have an Ed Psych report and a speech therapist's report which say he is! Whether he is or isn't ...his behaviour is keeping us on our toes.

He started 'running away' in week 2 although we quickly realised that he wanted us to chase him. Now we all ignore him when the bell goes and he doesn't come to line up. We've employed a lovely young man as his 'minder' and he sort of lurks around and shepherds him up the stairs. Once you're behind him he runs in the opposite direction, which is kind of where you want him to go :-D

Sometimes he doesn't want to be in the classroom so he kicks at the door and roars 'Get me outta this place' in his funny little deep and throaty voice. If there are any children, or adults around he has no compunction about kicking them too. Last week he punched me in the nose! (that will teach me to get down to his level! :-D) Not hard fortunately, but enough for me to tell him 'I didn't LIKE that' and put on my angry eyes!

Last Thursday was a concert in the Performing Arts Centre....an area of the school he hasn't been to before. We decided that without preparation, it was probably not a good idea for him to go with the class and were prepared to divert him to another activity but unfortunately he twigged that the class was going somewhere and he wanted to come to!!! I was busy wrangling another young man who has been following the lead of the autistic boy and throwing himself on the floor when he doesn't get his own way, so I remained in the classroom, ignoring the screaming and crying coming from the beanbags in the corner until the pile of cushions had quieted to a shuddering sniffle. A bit of TLC and a quick look at the drawings around the classroom and cushion boy was ready to go to the concert; unfortunately, the other lad had already made his way back to the classroom with his minder in tow. Apparently he had decided that he wasn't sitting in that big place without his 'shark books' to protect him. We all headed back together.

Once back in the performance space, he sat himself on the floor right at the front and spread his books around him. After a few moments he became interested in the choir in front of him, so he got up to take a look. He walked across the stage area, eyeballing everyone and everything, completely unaware that he was the centre of attention. The whole scene could have been a static display at the museum as far as he was concerned. Afterwards he collected up his shark books and proceeded to tramp up and down the stairs trying out all the spare seats in the suditorium...it was moderately amusing when we weren't trying to do anything about it (ie trying to herd him into one spot, stop him running out the door, collect him from the backstage area, follow him up and down the stairs to ensure he was safe....). Of course it was very distracting for all concerned, especially when he covered his ears and called out 'This is going to be LOUD!!' when the music started....he has sensory issues....

Eventually we got him out with suggestions that he might like to play on the playground, but he was back as soon as he realised no one else was coming; then the whole performance repeated itself. The Principal, who was in attendance at the concert, rolled his eyes at me as we left and said "That was very enlightening!". I guess he realises what we are trying to deal with now.

We had been funding the special 'minder' from a Government grant given to the family until the Government told us it wasn't for use in schools (grrrrr). Today we have an observer from the funding body coming in to observe him to see if they will give us some emergency funding to keep the 'minder' in place. We intend to take the minder out of the classroom and let the observer see what the teacher has to deal with. The teacher is terrified. I'll let you know how it goes.....

Take THAT! And THAT!!

2011-09-03T17:48:00.001+09:30

I am entering a new phase in the Flaming Sword stakes. The sword is getting heavy and seems to be burning my hand.

So I put this to you. Are these unreasonable parries?

1) I am uncomfortable with unsupervised (that's right...you heard me) sleepovers where boys (and probably alcohol) will be present.

2) Boyfriends do not need to visit on week nights (and no, I don't think he was helping her study).

3) On the majority of school nights it is advisable to come straight home through town without stopping for a 2 hour tryst with boyfriend in the Botanical Gardens, rendering arrival home at circa 7pm and in the dark!

4) Boyfriends, whilst welcome to visit on Friday-Sat nights, do not need to be entertained in the bedroom. There are two large living areas and the adults are usually in their study.

What do you think? Should I be 'chillin' the sword' at 16 years and 4 months?

Up In The Morning And Out To School

2011-08-27T05:41:00.010+09:30

First days of school.

Everywhere I look on the blogosphere at the moment, children are starting school and it put me in mind of the Baby Angel's first day of school.

(Oct 1999)

Oh, look at that! Is she sweet or what??

Blimey, I had forgotten how yellow that hallway was! I think I was trying to inject some Australian sunshine into the drab British landscape. Oh well, it was the 90s and we had all just rediscovered colour after the beige 80s....

Anyway, look at that tiny little girl with her navy tunic!!

Here she is with her best mates, all starting Reception together (pardon the flaws in the shot. I don't have a scanner anymore so I had to take a photo of the photo and I got a bit of 'flare'). Three happy bunnies and one very unsure young lady. We used to take it in turns to take them to school in the morning and we had weeks of trouble with our little friend here. She cried every morning :-(...it was heart breaking. The others were sweet though and tried to cheer her up. As you can see though, no sweat starting school for the BA. She loved it!

Which brings me to her school situation:

You know of course she had to leave my Alma Mater when it was announced that there would be no senior school next year? Well, on her last day she went through the usual rituals...

Do they do this where you are? On the last day? It was not the norm when I was a gal; we signed each other's year books (which is what is happening in this picture)!

And similarly here where my Bestie, in her final year, is getting her yearbook signed.

Nowadays, writing on paper seems to be 'old hat' and everyone signs everyone else's clothes! Hrrumph. I got quite irrationally prudish about this.

Scene: Last day at Alma Mater

Me: Don't go getting people to write on your uniform today BA.
Her: Why-ever not? (as if she really said 'why-ever'...still...)
Me: (unsure as to the root of my own disquiet) We-ell, we-ell, (thinks furiously) well....because it's common! That's why not!!
Her: Of course it's 'common' mother....everybody does it!!!!!

Faced with this rationale I had to capitulate. When she brought it home that night I had a chance to actually look at what people had written. I was actually quite moved by many of the tributes, this one from her Business and Enterprise teacher(All the best for the future. Remember, you have lots of potential.)

And this one from her Principal:

who had confided in me that she felt very honoured to have been asked to sign the dress.

I am sure our yearbooks were easier to store, but I know the dress will be treasured for years to come too.

But then it was on to the first day at a new school.

The Baby Angel is now attending St Saviour's (as I shall call it), a Catholic girls school in the north of the city where Prof J's daughter is Head Prefect.

We did have a laugh at the beret.

When we went along to buy the new uniform ($$ouch! and we couldn't sell the old one of course as there will be no more girls wearing that uniform :-(...) the lady selected a slightly overlarge beret for the first try. I am ashamed to say that I laughed hysterically.
"You're not helping, mum," said the uniform lady, through gritted teeth.
The BA loked crestfallen. Although my Alma Mater had a boater for the summer, there had not been a maroon velour winter hat for thirty years. Since my day in fact! What cruel irony that my 21st century girl should have to wear a French Navy wool beret!!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

In other uniform news, she is also playing netball for her new school. Yet another lycra body suit
and more school uniform costs!

She cannot, however, let go of Alma Mater completely.

So from her first day at school in a navy tunic, to another navy uniform. It seems we have come full circle. On Wednesday night she was choosing subjects for her final year. *sigh*

Blonde Is The New Lobotomy

2011-08-23T10:34:00.002+09:30

My Baby Angel is a blonde. If I was ever in doubt, incidents like this make it crystal clear.

We have been battling for 6 years now with one of those inferior rangehoods which only recirculate the air. This causes problems every time Himself decides to cook a steak or a sausage which fills the kitchen and then, by virtue of the recirculating action, the whole house, with blue smoke. One of the things on our "Inheritance To Do List" is to put a flue into the kitchen so that the smoke is vented to the atmosphere (as they say in the trade).

So, there I was at the appliance shop last Saturday, checking out all the range hoods.
Turns out there is quite a variety to choose from.

There's your 'full on' open plan style exposed flue,

your under cupboard hood,

and the retractable slimline version

which puts most of the 'workings', ie that square box thing on top here,

up into the cupboard above.

After some discussion with the salesman, I realised I was not entirely sure what kind of hood we actually have and whether it could be flued easily or would require a whole new unit with removal of cupboards, tiling, the whole ensuing 'kitchen renovation catastrophe'.

No problem in this age of technology. I called home and got the BA.
"BA, could you do me a favour and have a look in the cupboard above the range hood for me."
"The what? "
"The rangehood, the thing that (purportedly) sucks air out from over the cooktop!"
"From over the what?"
(For Pete's sake)
"THE HOB..the GAS BURNERS....the..."
"Alright, alright, I get you.....(rustling and general movement).......ok.....what am I looking for?"
"Can you tell me if the guts of the thing, the workings, are up in the cupboard?"
"WHAT???"
"Is there like a box up in the cupboard, above the rangehood?"
"Ye-es...."
"RIGHT! Like containing the workings, the motor...."
"Ye------es"
"OK. Now, can you see if..."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.....do you mean this box?"
"What? (highly confused now)"
"Well, there's a box here....."
"YE-ES???????"
"But it says :Sizzle Stone Table Top Grill"
I may have to kill her.

Hey, It's Only A Game: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

2011-08-22T05:17:00.003+09:30

Oh. In an addendum to the 'Bulletstorm' texting post, I went into EB Games one night the week after his birthday to see if I could find the game. Not that he hadn't been delighted by his 'Rango' dvd (he was actually, I was pleased to note), but I still suffering from that thing I told you about before where I hate to disappoint them (over little things...no problem disappointing him over a laptop).

Inside the store I was confronted with an obscene array of 'on sale' games of every colour and persuasion. Want to crochet on your computer? There's probably a game for it. Unfortunately, there's much more likely to be a game which allows you to steal cars and mug old ladies, for points.

After sifting gingerly through the morass of 'Kill or B Killed 4' (I made that up, but it is probably a title) style bargains, I came upon 'Bulletstorm', reduced from $98.00 to $69.00. $98.00??????? Huh. Just as well it was on special.

With distaste, I picked it up between my first finger and thumb and carried it over to the checkout like something the cats had recently dismembered on the back porch. The young, male assisitant smiled at me quizzically,
"Do you want that?"
"Do I look like I want it?" I grimaced. "Apparently however, I am going to buy it."
The young man, bearing the pallid dermis and probably negative vitamin D rating of a seasoned game player, looked dubious.
"Do you know what it's about?" he queried."What age are you buying it for?"
"Well a) I assume its about shooting, with bullets, and b) for a 13 year old." I growled, my disapproval running from my pores and forming a large puddle about my feet. He looked thoughtful again.
"This is a pretty full on game you know," he informed me."It's mainly about killing people in the most spectacular way possible and also there's LOTs of swearing."
His off-sider sauntered across with a collection of boxed excreta for pricing and shelving.
"Which one are you talking about?" (yes, I guess it's hard to know...there's so much choice)
"Bulletstorm dude. Have you ever played it?" My assistant's face grew rosy and cheerful. "It's awesome! You spray this guy with bullets and it takes off the top of his skull and the brains like fly out in a spray and splatter across the screen!!!!!"
"AWESOME!!!!" his mate nodded and grinned.
And then he turned back to face me. "It's a pretty full-on game for a 13 year old."

I had been prepared for it to be about death and killing, most of Small Boy's games are >:-(
I hesitated.
His mate's face changed.
"Oh wait, I do know that one. It really IS full on for a kid." (what? and how old are you?)

I left the store a richer and somewhat bemused woman. I really had not expected the consumers and salespeople of the industry to talk me out of 'Bulletstorm'. It inspired a small, but brilliant, gleam of hope in my heart. And anyway, I now had major justification for failing to buy the thing for Small Boy!

This episode raised a whole lot of issues for me: firstly, shame that I was willing to buy the thing in the first place; secondly, relief that even seasoned gamers a) recognise when something is over the top and b) care about kids enough to dissuade a customer; minor fear at the feverish excitement in the young man's eye as he described the game to his friend; disbelief that people sit around using their brain power to create these things and finally, the ubiquitous discussion over the classification of games.

Here in Australia the most severe rating classification has been the M15+ label. Many games which did not fit into that category were basically not sold here and some that did were squeezed in under the lesser classification. Many of the games on the 'sale' table were there because, as the classification system changes, they will soon be rated R18+. Retailers are emptying their shelves of the MA15+ versions. This prompted me to wonder why. Are we too lazy in this day and age to stick a new classification label on a case? Are they too easily peeled off? Might this open retailers to prosecution for illegal sales of games to minors?

But then there's the bigger issue: has the lower classification ceiling kept a lot of unsavoury games out of Australia? (clearly not, thinking of 'Bulletstorm') Will the new legislation, meant to improve the standard of viewing available to our younger audiences, actually encourage the import (and thus availability) of even worse material? What do you think?

Oh and in an addendum to this addendum, to our absolute horror, the Small Boy's mother bought him the game this week, after also being advised against it by the shop assistant.
"She just said 'it's only a game'," Small Boy reported.

The Inheritance To Do List

2011-08-21T11:37:00.011+09:30

On the sad but not unexpected demise of Himself's Fairy Godmother (she was 94), we have come into a little money. Here is what we would like to do with it....

The Back Garden

replace retaining wall

add useable terraces

repair/replace damaged paving around the pool

replace and re-site all pool 'workings'

replace/repair guttering

The Inside of The House

replace flooring to study, front room, hall, stairs and possibly entrance hall.

install gas heating to front room and study

install a flue over the cook top

replace lighting in kitchen adding bench lighting

replace lighting in study and front room.

Here is what we have done so far:

Yes that is another boat in the background.
You can award me my halo or print 'Welcome' across my forehead anytime you like now.
You choose.

And Now For My Next Trick, I Will Fit 5 Employees into the Same Timetable!!!!

2011-08-19T00:18:00.004+09:30

We have been in the throes of some major changes on the work front. Towards the end of last term, three girls with very little English applied to enrol at the school. They brought with them, $6000 worth of 'New Arrivals' funding which we are to use to give them intensive English lessons. With the incorporation of their 5 lessons a week into our already overloaded support timetable, I was faced with finding other staff members to fill the gaps. One has doubled her hours and another, a visiting tutor, has been put on 4 days a week! But that's not all!

In addition to our new ESL girls, we have a new little Autistic boy in Reception and a change in focus for our Down Syndrome girl. In summary, we have basically had to throw the timetable in the air and start again. It's been quite a jigsaw puzzle; although maybe more like one of those alphabet puzzles where you've got one free space and you have to move all the tiles around, one space at a time, to get them into alphabetical order!!

Our timetable is now so complicated one almost needs special glasses to view it!

With all this going on, we are still looking for a beefy male type to be on duty around our 'Oppositional Defiance Disordered' child, who is on reduced enrolment after having thwacked the teacher over the head with a pencil case. We thought we had the ideal guy: a nuggety Kiwi with a background working for a national football association training kids in schools, he was gentle yet intimidating. Unfortunately, after 2 weeks, he pulled the plug citing over commitment and demands of family. We were gutted.

Yesterday, we had a behavioural specialist in to observe said child (let's call him Gabriel). There was a relief teacher on the class which amped his behaviour up several notches and the specialist came out of the observation shocked and disturbed! She claimed he was the 'most severe' child she had ever observed!

Excellent.

As a staff we are being challenged daily by these kids who want to be in control. Whether they be autistic, abused or indulged, their agenda is identical. It's all about trying to get their hands on the Flaming Sword and, I gotta tell ya people, we can NOT afford to give it to them. This does not always make us popular. The mother of our newest autistic boy burst into tears as she saw him shouting and screaming at home time today. He didn't want to go home.
"Thanks for ruining my child" she spat at the astonished teacher, who had to walk the child to the car as he wouldn't go with mum.....

Kids do not really want to be in control.

In the meantime, we have come into some $$$$$$$$$! Well, more like $$$$$
I am going crazy ordering plumbers and carpenters, electricians and landscape designers. There is the small disappointment that Himself spent 20% of the inheritance buying a new boat and trailer!!! Cos we really needed a second boat!!!!! But I have decided not to let it bug me. On the other hand, I can't get overly excited either....:-(

Man Of Steel the Musical: Now With Added Sewing!

2011-08-12T12:44:00.004+09:30

Finally got some photos at the theatre last night. Firstly, here's the all-in-one dress that looks like a shirt/ skirt combo, that I did for the Lois Lane character. This came from an old late 70s early 80s Simplicity pattern which I'd never got around to making for myself.I didn't like the jacket included in the pattern so I did this one instead.

I still need to get a good shot of it! Unlike the Annie extravanganza, we left the chorus kids to get their own costumes. As a result there was far less sewing for me to do. I did have to add a little length to a few dresses:and make up a full circle skirt or two (that's one in the background there in the blue). But my main headache was the outfit for 'Olga' who 'vonts to rule ze vorld'! When she first brought in the costume (an op shop bargain), it was an above the knee 'little black dress' which she paraded up and down and we thought would probably 'do'. We had ideas of a fur coat and so thought the dress was not overly important. Eventually we settled on the fur stole which meant the dress was more visible, and then the day of the dress rehearsal was upon us and 'Olga' started moving. In dismay we watched the fitted dress make its way higher and higher up 'Olga's thighs!!!! Emergency!!!!
I thought quickly and announced 'deep chiffon frill'??????
"Do it!" the director shrieked and I was off to Spotlight post haste, tearing through the doorway at 5.28pm, just in time to purchase the material. I tried valiantly to gather the stuff on the overlocker, and, although it did gather, it was nowhere near enough to give the weight of fabric I was looking for so it was back to the old time tried and true methods of basting and manual gathering. *sigh*. At 3am I had finished the job (I'd also finished the jacket on the same night). Everyone was very pleased with the result and declared the dress much improved by the addition. That night I watched with bated breath to see if the frill hung alright on stage. I had left it open at the back to give her leg room and I wasn't sure how it would look. It wasn't too bad. But again, as we watched in horror, the back seam began to creep open....higher and higher.....By the final curtain, Olga's virtue was only just covered! She was blissfully unaware as to how high the split had 'run' and assured me it would be fine. Her friend quickly informed her of the severity of the situation, "Duuuuude! You can almost see your BUTT!!!!"
Hurriedly she disrobed and handed the offending garment over. Now what was I supposed to do?
Obviously, redoing the seam would have been pointless as she would have just split it open again. After some consultation with the Strange Scottish Girl, I decided to put a reverse pleat into the gap. I had just done one on the back of the red skirt (pictured above) and in the end, the dress was only a costume, so I made it up as I went along. Happily, as you can see from the pictures, Olga is now decent and yet still flexible :-) Result!!

Oh and this is what I found on the end of my file of shots from the theatre. I ask you. It's a miracle I'm still sane....

Crafty Tuesday: A Stage Jacket

2011-08-10T01:02:00.004+09:30

I've been busy sewing for the school musical this week. We're doing 'Man of Steel', a spoof on Superman, and this is the jacket I've made for the Lois Lane character...Rita Street. I also did a matching shirt/skirt dress which I have yet to shoot. This is a terrible picture as I had to take it without flash. I'll try and take a better one in the daylight.

The fabric is a faux suede which is alternately delightful and hideous to work with. I love the structure and weight of the material but you can't iron it directly with the result that, when asked, Himself pronounced the resulting garment 'rather lumpy'. It doesn't help that I left the iron at the theatre today :-)

Now to move on to my next project. The villainess of the piece wears a tight 'little black dress' with fur stole, Russian hat and long black gloves. When she first brought the dress to us we thought it was fine, as indeed it is when she is stationary. Unfortunately the moment she begins to move it starts to creep up her thighs. Waaaay up. Not appropriate :-) I am about to attempt to attach a length of gathered chiffon to the bottom of the thing in order that her modesty be preserved.

Wish me luck!

As always, Crafty Tuesday happens over at Carrie's place today. Click over and see what people have to share.

Kangaroo Island Birthday Bash 2011 Style: Part I

2011-08-07T01:35:00.000+09:30

This post has been hanging around for two weeks now :-(
It's going to be flung together now for the sake of getting it out of my 'drafts' folder.

You probably don't remember but this time last year we were on Kangaroo Island celebrating the Small Boy's 12th birthday.
Here he is last year (right), looking all of 12 years old with one of his mates. The whole birthday went so well that Himself decided we should do it again. Only this time we took two of his friends.

It was meant to be a nice 'get away' for me, but really, with 3 12/3 year olds to entertain, did I really think I was going to get to relax? Fortunately, they were absolutely fine. They spent some time at the local skate park and vegged around in bed for hours watching cartoons. At night, as we waited for dinner in the restaurant, we played charades and on one night I got them into a very competitive game of 'Racing Demons', my all time favourite card game. In a hard fought match, the birthday boy won!

Here they are on the ferry on the way over (left).
I'm actually not seeing any major changes in the Small Boy there. They are coming though. Oh. Yes. They. Are. Coming. I know that one day he will open the door and be taller than me and I will go back to being the smallest person in the family.

We might be getting a bit blase about the island nowadays, having visited so regularly. We always stay in the same place, as Himself does work for them (and this holiday was no exception), and we have established a few routines: breakfast and dinner in the restaurant or bistro, mini golf, walks down to the beach

to see if there are any penguins (there aren't, the seals ate them);
walks out to the landmark, Frenchman's Rock looking a bit sad nowadays since the storms have washed most of it away;

observing island architecture: old and new,
sunsets;

and rainy afternoons curled up in our cabins

reading or watching Foxtel!

The other big venture we have taken to is sand boarding. There is this phenomenal place on Kangaroo Island called 'Little Sahara'

which is basically a 2 sq km area of massive sand dunes. You can hire boards at a shop, 8 kms away, and then you are on your own to walk into the slopes and try your luck.

Yes, of course I did.

Actually, to be honest, these shots are taken whilst I was pretty stationary. The kids were having trouble getting the boards to slide on the rather damp sand.

Didn't stop them jumping though.

After my stationary attempts at sliding, I tried waxing the board up thoroughly. I put the wax on its side like a crayon and shaded the entire bottom of the board. The boys were sceptical, and a little sullen if truth be told. Apparently they had tried EVERYTHING and there was no way that fuddy old step mum was going to get the board going. Well, I have tried to load the video proof but blogger won't let me....suffice to say that their reactions were a picture. They were galvanised into action and waxed their boards into oblivion, sliding happily away for some hours afterwards.(Me about to show them how.....)

Crafty Tuesday aka Thursday aka Friday: The Wishful Thinking Dress

2011-08-04T23:55:00.008+09:30

I call this my Wishful Thinking dress as a) I am wishing it was warmer and b) I am wishing I could fit into it.

I have let myself go completely of late and, despite a contract with my beloved Middle Sis, aimed at getting both of us down to an ideal weight before her arrival in October, do not seem to be able to do anything about it. Consequently, this dress is a little tight around the tummy, but I am determined to be back into it by Summer. As a result of my lack of fit, I have not rushed to sew up the hem. But that is another story.

I had intended to post this for Crafty Tuesday but we seem to be in the middle of a vicious vortex of activity which leaves me alternately a) so busy at night that I don't get near the computer or b) asleep on the couch at 9pm. We are very excited to have The Strange Scottish Girl staying with us at present. I started following her (now defunct) blog, 'Wake Up It's Tuesday', in late 2007 as she was the colleague of A Free Man (the much missed music, fatherhood and science blogger; he's taking a lengthy bloggin' break to get on with life) and left many a witty comment on his site. After A Free Family moved to Adelaide to join us in the real world, we kept in touch with the SSG as she agonised over life choices such as job changes and university study. Frequently, A Free Man would tease her about coming over to Oz to babysit for him so imagine our delight when he informed us that she actually was coming!

The SSG has been staying with the Free Family since May now, during which time we have been delighted to get to know her in person. With the arrival of 4 o/s friends of the DVDs, a spare bed was required and we were delighted to accommodate her at Chez Arizaphale. She has fitted into our dysfunctional family unit like a hand into a glove. She brings a ready smile and intelligent conversation into our rather mundane world.

And she's a sew-er!!!!!!!! (as opposed to a drain for the removal of effluent which was my first spelling of the word!)

The SSG has been making a quilt out of patchwork denim that she's cut up out of old jeans. It is dead impressive and a work of art really. I will take a photo and post it on another Crafty Tuesday (and claim it as mine).

Meanwhile. Here's my summer 'wishful thinking' dress.

Would You Believe....?

2011-08-04T07:20:00.000+09:30

School is always good for a laugh when you work with Special Needs kids. We have a Downs' Syndrome girl at school, in year 8, who is at that difficult stage where she has discovered BOYS but, thankfully, doesn't quite know what to do with them. Naturally, she fixates on one and follows him around at lunchtime. It does not take very long for this to deteriorate into 'kiss chasey', with said boy and his mates hiding in the toilets and Emma (not her real name) lying in wait for them as they emerge. It's a bit like what we all did when we were 9 or 10 except they are 13 and 14.

What?
You mean you didn't do that? It was just me?
Oh well....

Anyway, there she is lurking outside the toilets and there's much hilarity from the boys inside, until one of them decides to hold his friend so that Emma can get to him. Now I don't know if you're aware, but Downs' Syndrome kids can be really strong and when Emma gets hold of you it is quite an effort to disengage. In all the wrestling and so forth that ensued, Boy 1's jumper was ripped, Boy 2 (the holder) got roughly jostled into a wall and Boy 3 hurt Emma's hand when he tried to pull her off Boy 1.
The whole lot of them ended up in the Office of the Head of Student Welfare having to explain themselves.
Part of my role is to debrief Emma after these situations and make sure she understands what is appropriate and acceptable behaviour so that she will be able to operate successfully in society. When she came cheerfully up to my office the next morning I had to sit her down for a chat.
"So Emma, can you tell me about what happened yesterday?"
(thinks hard)"Ummmm, yes, I got a lot of 'good's in my diary"
"Yes, that's wonderful that you were good in class Em but what about lunchtime? Did anything happen at lunchtime yesterday?"
(I am now about to get a lesson in asking euphemistic questions of people with intellectual disabilities.)
"Nothing happened yesterday."
"OK Em, when I ask you if anything happened yesterday, I actually know what happened but I just want you to tell me about it. Tell me about what went wrong at lunchtime yesterday. Why did you get into trouble?"
Emma's face fell, not into a canvas of remorse but rather into a Hieronymus Bosch-like darkened oil painting of deviation. I could almost see the cogs turning. 'How do I get out of this?'
"Well.." she started," John Smith was hurting my hand."
"Yes, Emma, but he was pulling your hand off Tom wasn't he?"
"Yes. But I never touched Tom's jumper. He was being nasty to me."
"I see. But you did touch Tom's jumper didn't you Em because that's how it got ripped."
(Eyes dart sideways, cogs turn.)
"Yes. But Tom was hurting my feelings. He mumblemumblemumble..."
Like many people with Downs', Emma's speech is sometimes hard to understand, but I thought I had heard her correctly.
"What did Tom do Emma?" I asked with some incredulity.
"Tom Brown killed my grandfather." she announced. And then for good measure:
"With a GUN."

Sometimes it's very hard to keep a straight face in this job.

The Joys of SMS

2011-07-13T02:20:00.004+09:30

Text message conversation between Small Boy and myself yesterday:

Me: Hiya! Watchu want 4 yr bday?
SB: ummmm... a laptop?
Me: roflmao
SB: plz?
Me: I do not even have a laptop and your dad's is 10 years old....
SB: OK mayb somit I will like or just money
Me: clothes? games?
SB: Games mabe there is a game I want bulletstorm and clothes like track pants and those jumpers that dont have hoods
Me: zip or no zip?
SB: no zip and I would like a game called bulletstorm

I rushed off to the shops to see if i could fulfill his every whim. Except for the laptop.

Me: Hey! Bulletstorm is MA15+!!!!?
SB: And?
Me; check yr birth certificate! :-D nyway, they don't have any
SB: Chck somewhere else
Me: Shops r shutting
SB:Hurry then.

I bought him the DVD 'Rango' instead. Suspect he will not be quite as thrilled. Cheeky sod. Still, I did get him two jumpers without hoods! :-D

Crafty Tuesday: Quick Skirts and a Vest

2011-07-12T08:02:00.005+09:30

As the holidays arrived and the Baby Angel's trip to Vanuatu loomed close, we realised she needed some skirts. In the part of Vanuatu they're visiting, there are quite strict cultural expectations and one of them is that women do not wear trousers, let alone shorts! Since the BA doesn't wear skirts too much back here at home, I didn't want to waste money on something she wouldn't wear again so I decided to run up some simple cotton numbers, using whatever was in the cupboard. On perusing the vast quantities of random fabric gathering dust in my stash, we couldn't find anything that fitted the bill but on the day before she left I had some inspiration.

Recently, my Bestie's mum had cleared out her sewing supplies as she made the move down here to Adelaide. In the move I had gained not only loads of fabric, but her Horn sewing cabinet and a bag full of pre-cut patchwork squares. I decided to make up some patchwork fabric and cut a gored skirt out of that.
Elastic waist for speed and comfort.
Because I wasn't excited by the (completely free) result, we went out and chose some fabric to make another version. Here she is surrounded by her possible wardrobe the night before the flight.
After finishing this skirt, I had some fabric left over and had another inspiration. I had been meaning to make a vest out of this tan coloured fabric and had not as yet bought anything to use as lining.

Voila, funky lined vest.

I'm quite pleased with this although I think the vest pattern is a bit plain. I may try one with some panelling in the front next time (see right). Or not. After all, this one I ran up in a night!

For more crafty creativity click over to Carrie's Place for Crafty Tuesday.

Tales From The Chalkface II

2011-07-05T05:11:00.003+09:30

Oh! I forgot to tell you the one other funny thing that happened the other day: The Baby Angel and I have been visiting schools, in an attempt to select a replacement for the Alma Mater, and we came into one well known Adelaide girls' school through a rear entrance and found ourselves lost in the labyrinth. A pretty, flushed young face was hurrying purposefully past us and I hailed her:
"Can you direct us to Reception?" I asked cheerfully. She looked immediately anxious and, after biting her lip briefly in thought, indicated a direction with her right hand.
"Turn left," she said," and then go on past kind of...well..some...buildings...they're...red..and I think there's....um...there's a pile of rocks and that's it."
The BA and I thanked her in amusement and followed her hand directions to turn 'left'. We wandered on for a bit through the rabbit warren of classrooms and walkways becoming less sure as we went. Stopping, we looked around us.

"I guess we have to look for the pile of rocks," I mused. The BA looked doubtful.
"What does she mean, a 'pile of rocks'?" she frowned.
"Well, I guess some kind of sculpture or something?" We wandered on for a bit until we came upon something a little like this.

Without the grass.

"The dyslexics always find you mum, don't they?"

Tales From The Chalkface

2011-07-03T14:23:00.004+09:30

We have had a couple of laughs this week. The BA and I were running late for an appointment to tour a new school and flew out of my school building, with five minutes to spare, only to find that one of the school buses had parked me in. I hopped into the my driver's seat and got the BA to stand behind me and guide me as I went back and forward 50 times trying to get out of the park. Suddenly there was an almightly shriek and I looked out to see the BA with a head full of bubbles and water. The bus was there to be washed and as the BA stood innocently by, directing traffic as it were, the driver on the other side of the bus must have overshot with the hose! It may have been a result of our overly stretched nerves but the two of us had hysterics laughing about it......all the way to the other school! Incidentally, the apologetic bus driver backed my car out for me!

Another humorous occasion came on Friday when we had been meeting with a parent of a Year 5 child who has become VERY disenfranchised within his class room and will not do anything the teacher asks him to do. I was in the classroom to observe him as he worked (or rather, avoided working) on a grammar exercise.
"What do you have to do here?" I asked.
"You have to replace the verb with a more interesting word," he replied and showed me the next sentence.
"When we got to the farm we met the teacher," he read,"you have to replace met..."
"Hmm," I pondered, "what word could we use instead of met the teacher?"
He thought briefly and then looked up at me brightly and said,
"Confronted?"

They Were Great Days and Jolly Days......

2011-07-02T08:17:00.014+09:30

"We will honor yet the school we know
The best school of all
We will honor yet the rule we know
Til the last bell call
For the working days and holidays
For the glad and melancholy days
They were great days
And jolly days
At the best school of all."

So go the words of the 'School Song' of my Alma Mater.

Yesterday was the Baby Angel's last day. A group of them started the day by meeting in the city at the famous, original 'Pancake Kitchen' (they have their own webcam!) and then taking the iconic Adelaide tram back to school. Two assignments were due and their were summer uniforms to be 'signed' for the girls who would be leaving.

Meanwhile I was in the throes of a very intense parent meeting back at my school. Once the meeting was finished we had to debrief the rather upset teacher and then we had to come up with strategies for the child in class which required me observing in the classroom for a while. All in all, I totally missed the start of the parent get together at 2.30pm, and when I arrived at 4pm with champagne bottles in hand, most of them had gone. Disappointed by their lack of staying power I marched to the admin office and fronted one of the many ladies who will be looking for a new job in 5 months time.
"Who will join me for a champagne farewell?" I announced, and her look of bewilderment told me that this was not the attitude she had been experiencing from parents this week.

Like a lit firework, this impromptu Friday Happy Hour drew staff together from all over the building. There's nothing like champagne for triggering people's radar. Heads popped out from offices all around us. The Principal found some crisps in a drawer and voila! Instant party.
We retired to the staff room and the mood was wonderful.
"This is just what we needed." exclaimed one teacher.
"Thank you SO much for doing this." sighed another.
About 10 of us, including the BA, sat around the table toasting: the school, the parents who had stayed, the resilient girls and the staff who will be unemployed through no fault of their own. I regaled them all with stories of my own worst deeds at school and we laughed, sighed and reflected on what had been a wonderful semester and an amazing journey.

As the darkness fell and they drifted off home, the BA and I were left with her Business Studies teacher and the Principal. We went back over the events of last year; we went back over the way the school had changed in the last 10 years and wondered where the pivotal point had been. Was it the expensive building of the Senior College at a time when the Government had proposed a 'Year 13'? Was it the introduction of laptops in 2001? Was it a principal who had tried to turn the school into a 'finishing academy' when its usual demographic
was middle class academics? We will probably never know.

The restructuring, indeed re-invention, of the school as a 'Learning Community' is a bold and controversial one. For those of us who mourn the past, it is sometimes hard to embrace the future but I am sure, with the benefit of time and space, we will come to appreciate and value the new Alma Mater. Anyone can be bitter but it takes character and strength to look beyond one's own needs and see the bigger picture. I think my Baby Angel can do that and I think this journey, and her school, have helped her to do that. Thank you Annesley.
We stayed as long as we could.

Dry Eyes, Tight Throat, Hard Heart

2011-06-27T21:53:00.004+09:30

I am so angry and grief-stricken right now that I am finding it hard to find words.

Tonight we trooped into the School Hall, the scene of so many of my girlhood triumphs and transgressions; the scene of the Baby Angel's panto and 'Oliver' highlights; the scene of Choir Concerts, Speech Nights, rock concerts and Formals. We trooped in, thin in number and falsely cheerful, each hoping to hear something reassuring, each brushing aside the dark and ominous looming shadow. We sat, as we had so many times before, facing the great arched stage, bedecked with cheerful penguins awaiting the Junior School Musical on Wednesday night. And then the axe fell.

Next year the school will become the Alma Mater 'Learning Community'. It will consist of an R-6 co-ed primary school with an Early Learning Centre and Childcare facilities. In 2013 they will phase in a Year 10-12 Women's Senior College. Next year there will be no secondary school.

They may as well have changed the name to Local Main Road Community School. There will be nothing left of my Alma Mater apart from the grounds and buildings. The traditions and values of the past have been decimated. The dignity, the history and the love, defiled.

The bastards sold us down the river. The families and girls who stuck it out, who worked hard to ensure continuity, who invested time and emotion in re-building; we've been abandoned. That's the bit that hurts most. And it will bite. Bad will hangs about in this town.

So, what will we do? Probably relocate as soon as possible. With nothing to look forward to next year the BA needs to establish herself somewhere else. She has leadership potential and she needs to be 'known' to be able to realise that. It will never be as it could have been but I will make the best choices I can for my kid. And she is made of stern stuff. She will grieve. She will cry. She will wish it had been otherwise but she will be loved wherever she goes.

In these last death throes we will feel the real weight of our school motto: Verae Numerosque Modosque Ediscere Vitae.

Creativi-tea: The Finished Product

2011-06-26T23:51:00.005+09:30

Regarding the Baby Angels' Creative Arts Product; the last thing to fill you in on is the display itself.

When the BA first brought her friend's teapots home for perusal, Himself suggested that she needed to name them. The teapots themselves varied greatly in both style and interest; some were wonderfully quirky, others blandly utilitarian. Giving them a name and perhaps a few props, he suggested, would transform them from teapots into works of art. His first suggestion was naming them after cities.

The BA had planned to use flowers with the teapots and so there was the idea that the flowers might reflect the nature or culture of the city. An oriental teapot begged for some bamboo and a more 'Australiana' number called for gumleaves. The BA was interested in the idea but not entirely sure. On the way to school one morning we were talking about options and I had a light bulb moment.
"We could call the whole thing 'Creativi-TEA'!! I suggested.
We then spent the rest of the drive into school brainstorming nouns ending in 'ty'.
Tranquility
Comedy
Unity
Authenticity
We seemed to have a concept.

That night, as the BA finished off an assignment, I sat looking at teapots and coming up with titles. I then created a list of suggested props to supplement our 'names' and the following afternoon we went shopping.

Some of our ideas had to be modified to cater for what we could get in the Reject Shop. For example we had planned to use a dummy (paci) and baby hat for 'Maternity', but on discovering that dummies retail for around $12.00, we decided to look for other options!

On the night before the exhibition I set up mock displays on the dining room table and 'shot' them so I could recreate them the next day in at school. What did people do before digital photography? Oh yes, there was the Polaroid.

Anyway, here is a sample:

Tranquili-tea:

Vani-tea:

Monstrosi-tea:

Festivi-tea:

And the one no-one 'got': Inscrutabili-tea
(cf: The Inscrutable Oriental)

I had a lot of fun doing this, finding props around the house and matching the teapots to the task. Tomorrow I'll show you the finished product.

The Cupcake Episode

2011-06-22T21:40:00.006+09:30

Part of the BA's Teapot Exhibition was the idea that the event would be a 'High Tea' with tea, obviously, and cupcakes (on investigation, it would appear that this is actually a low tea whereas high tea refers to a light, early evening meal consisting of meats and pickles). Anyway, while I was up in the freezing cold shed painting louvre doors white, she was back in the house baking 3 dozen cupcakes. I came down at midnight and she had gone to bed leaving behind what can only be described as a cupcake road accident.

She obviously didn't look hard enough for the muffin tin (I found it easily later) because she had laid out the patty pans on cookie trays so that the resulting cupcakes varied in size and shape. Seriously, there was a jellybean shaped one. Then she had iced them with icing which had obviously not been sufficiently pliable because it looked like it had been scraped on with a butter knife.

And then she had failed to put the sprinkles on.

The icing had hardened enough that when I attempted to sprinkle the sprinkles on top, they rolled off like so many plastic balls in a ball pool. I had to resort to upending the cupcakes and smooshing them into a saucer of sprinkles, with the result that the flat icing became flatter and the sprinkles submerged.

But it was way past midnight and I had had enough.

The following morning she thanked me for putting the sprinkles on and went about her business. She didn't seem at all concerned about the look of the cupcakes and seemed blissfully unaware of their dubious status. I turned to my colleagues at work in despair.
"Do I tell her?" I anguished. "She thinks they're ok. Should I just let her put them out on the cupcake stand?"
"Is this a good time to tell you that Woolworths does 24 decorated cupcakes for $10.00?" they offered.
On the way home I picked up a pack. Just in case.

Back at home the preparations went on into the night. We set up teapots, found props to go with them, named the displays, carried the louvre backdrops down from the shed. Everyone was working. Himself devised a way to suspend a teapot in the air. The BA ironed sheets and researched tea 'facts' for a pinboard display. The hours flew by. The cupcakes and boxes of tea were packed and ready to go and the least of my worries.

As time went on we all began to flag. The BA crashed just after midnight. Himself followed at 2am, I was still ripping sheets into the required lengths and cutting up tea facts on the guillotine at 5am. I dropped into bed for a couple of hours and then I was up to take the BA to school at 7.30am. Back to bed for another hour and then Himself and I had to pack everything into his car for the trip down to the school.

There was rushing. There was stress. There was lack of communication.

Then there was a loud crash and swearing.

Himself had fallen down the stairs with the cupcakes.
I had to work really hard to remind myself that his welfare was more important than the resulting appearance of the already marginal cupcakes. In a way, it was almost a blessing. At least we now had a minor excuse for the marginal appearance of the cupcakes.

Inevitably, no-one made the slightest comment and the first round were inhaled by the ravenous boarders (boarders are always hungry)

so that the store bought 'back ups' made it into the photos.

Well, most of the photos.

Love you Baby Angel.

The Teapot Project

2011-06-20T21:52:00.005+09:30

I have to tell you about the tea pots. All I can hope nowadays is that the BA doesn't bother reading this blog. Actually, I wish I could block particular readers from the blog, like you do on facebook. For so long this place has been a space to vent and rage. Now I have to be aware of the teen egos that call by.

Taking an enormous risk I still want to tell you about the teapots.

My BA undertook Creative Arts this year; I thought it would be a good option for a girl who loves performing and can write a reasonable essay. I figured they would go to a few plays and films, analyse a few texts...you know the kind of thing. Wrong. They had to do a skills assessment, a practitioner study and ......a product.

Need I remind you again of my BA's talent in the arty/creative domain?

Earlier this year I got a very excited text telling me how pumped she was about her Creative Arts 'product'.

"You probably won't like it Mum," she said, and I determined immediately to like it.

"So what is this project?" I asked nonchalantly one afternoon.
"Well Mum, I'm going to do an art exhibition of my friend's drawings."
(massive exhale of relief as I realise she is not going to try to do the artistic thing herself)
"Well, that's LOVELY darling! Tell me more."
" Well, I'm going to get Vicki to do some sketches cos she's rally awesome at that and then I'm going to arrange them on kind of antique chairs and tables in the Botanic Gardens. In a kind of 'high tea' theme."

Although doubt had already seized my troubled mind, I decided it was best to enthuse and shut up as I had already had aspersions cast upon my ability to be supportive.

Time passed.
"When exactly IS this exhibition mate?" I found myself asking halfway through first term. The far off date; 'Week 6 Term 2' eased my gnawing anxiety and I relaxed.

From time to time I would ask pertinent questions.

Me: Exactly how are you planning to display these drawings? Have you thought about framing?
BA: I'm actually going to arrange them on old fashioned tables and chairs with flowers and
cupcakes.
Me: Uh-huh. Where are you getting the tables and chairs from?
BA: Oh! The Lions Mart. ( a second hand furniture place)
Me: Uh huh. How much are you planning to spend?
BA: Oh Mum! Don't worry about it!

OOOOOOOKay.

More time passed.

I finally managed to convince the BA that she needed to go into the very public 'Botanical Gardens' and talk to someone 'in charge' about mounting a display in their grounds. This was a significant step. Listening carefully, the gentleman in charge of events quickly determined that the BA really had no clear concept of how she was going to pull the thing off and, to his eternal credit, asked her to 'write a submission' which would be reviewed by the Gardens Board. After a few weeks, it was obvious that there would be no submission forthcoming.

I was starting to panic. Student /Teacher interviews came up in the last few weeks of term one and I approached the Creative Arts teacher with some concern.
"Unless, you have a better grasp of the situation than I have, " I opined," this child has no idea of what she is doing!"
The teacher smiled indulgently and agreed that it was time to call the BA to task on the reality of her plans.
"I'm about to rein her in," she assured me; and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Shortly afterwards we were introduced to the 'new' idea. She was going to exhibit her friend's collection of teapots and she was going to do it in the school grounds. Many maternal parts of me rejoiced. Arranging all the teapots......

As the 'event' approached, she started to ask for help.
"Maaam. Can you take me up to the Lion's Mart????"
As we parked I asked her how much she thought she was going to spend on 'old fashioned tables and chairs." The fear in her countenance was now evident to see. "Fifty dollars?" was the timorous response. I suggested to the BA that some old doors may be a cheap option as backdrops for the exhibition. We really had no clear idea of what we were looking for as we made our way over to the door section but at that moment God stepped in and provided us with 7 smallish, mismatched louvre doors from kitchen cupboards. For $15.00!

Pleased with our find we got hold of the teapots and brought them home for perusal.
There were approximately 17 of them although there were some that obviously went together. Casting a practised eye over the teapots, Himself pronounced that the louvre backdrops would need to be painted white so that the teapot colours would 'pop' in front of them. He also suggested that she give each teapot a name and put a few props with each one in order to make the teapots themselves into works of art. It was at this point that the BA announced she had two assignments due and the exhibition was on the following Friday.

Guess who screwed together and painted the louvres, named and created the teapot displays and generally lost sleep for the next three nights. It was Himself and me. Have you ever painted louvres?

Himself came down from the shed at 1.30am on the Tuesday night saying that the screens would need another coat.
"Surely, they'll be fine," I begged,"They'll just look rustic."
"No," he replied,"They just look badly painted."
The following night saw me up in Himself's shed applying the second coat of paint whilst the BA made cupcakes. More about that later.

I Crashed Blogger!!!!

2011-06-20T17:40:00.002+09:30

Huh. After several heavy nights trying to tell the story of the BA and her teapots, I must have put too many photos in and crashed my site!

I will have to try again and tell it in stages.....bear with me please.

I have been pretty quiet of late here because we have been focusing on the Teapot Exhibition, the BA's exams, report writing at my school and a constant whirl of netball, rehearsals and Church. Add to that mix the arrival of a bloggy friend from the UK and you will have some idea of the busy-ness of life.

We are struggling with many things BA related at the moment, for which she will not thank me if I broadcast them here :-(. A shame really as I feel a need to document them and a need to vent! I am sure she would find my missives educational and poignant in years to come. Wouldn't she?

OK. Perhaps not.

It leaves me tongue tied however, as it fills so much of my consciousness.

Nevertheless, we will have a post for Crafty Tuesday tomorrow as I will try once more to load up the teapot pictures and give you a flavour of the family affair that exhibition turned out to be!

Crafty Tuesday: The Inagural Machine Project

2011-06-07T00:06:00.004+09:30

Voila! My first Crafty Tuesday post in an embarrassingly long time. This is one of two dresses I made (I forgot to shoot the other one) for the school dance team that were off to the Regional Semi Finals last weekend. The other one was the same style, just in a plain red satin. I liked this one better anyway :-)

This is the first real project I have completed with my new machine. Oh I have reinforced the butts on a few pairs of jeans and started the BA's bright red dress but this is the first start to finish project I have managed. Of course it took me until Wednesday 4.30 am to complete it. But I think it turned out ok?

Over at Carrie's place there is usually some awesome crafting going on, and if not, at least there are links to other creative crafters and photos of really cute kids. Why not click over and check it out?

Keeping Myself Amused

2011-06-01T20:50:00.006+09:30

In a constant state of worry over my teen and my inability to write about it lest it be viewed and my penchant for broadcast exposed, I have resorted to funny photos.
This is Pippin, about to take out someone's eye over the complete and utter humiliation involved in being a boy cat in a girl's bedroom. If you look closely at his upper lip you can see the slight scar on the right which is where he keeps getting his lip caught on his lower tooth. I must try and get a picture; it is terrifying to behold (and kind of funny). This next shot is my all time favourite anniversary card. I couldn't actually give it to anybody, but it just cracks me up looking at it!

But the best bit is inside.... bwahahahahahahaha!

Oh well, at least I am still laughing.

I have been sewing for a the school dance troupe too but I will keep that photo until Tuesday so I can finally participate in Crafty Tuesday again. Today I'm off to help Bestie paint a wall as her back does not permit her to do such things anymore.

Yesterday I met a 12 year old autistic boy who may be coming to our school next year. He was hilarious! Active, high maintenance, but such a delight. He greeted me by my first name as he could read it off my badge and then greeted the Principal the same way! It was hysterical. He informed me that many people read names off badges, that's why people wear them. The Principal kindly informed him that 'Mr T' would be more appropriate.

In the end I had to take him on a 'tour' around the school so the principal could get the parents alone to talk. There was no way he wasn't going to be involved in any discussions! As we toured the school he became more and more excited by all the facilities. His hands flapped, he bent over and straightened up again, he jumped up and down with whoops of delight. When I opened the door to the gym he raced across the empty floor like a young calf loosed from the race at a rodeo. He stopped halfway across and turned back to me with an ear to ear grin.
"I really like this school!" he beamed.

He did have a penchant for sticking his face right up against the windows of the classrooms we passed but he jumped back suddenly as he realised the children within were staring at him.
"They're all looking at me," he said with some alarm.
"Well, they're just surprised to see you," I explained.
"They looked very surprised," he said with mild concern, "I could see by their faces they were surprised."
"Well, they don't usually have people looking at them through the windows and they don't know you."
I could see him processing this.
Wait, they could see me too?
For the autistic mind there is only his point of view. It had not occurred to him as he observed the classes that they could observe him right back! I loved watching him take on this new understanding and modify his behaviour accordingly. I don't know if he will come to our school, but I think he would be an amazing blessing to the community. He was so joyful and enthusiastic. There's nothing like an autistic person to teach you about yourself.

My Bestie Turns 50

2011-05-24T21:53:00.011+09:30

We kidnapped my Bestie last Saturday. We whisked her away from her, somewhat demanding and attention seeking, Beloved and took her off to a 'girlie' lunch at a private dining room in a pub in the centre of town. It was only whilst sifting through hundreds of photos to make up a slideshow, that I discovered a picture which reminded me why that particular pub had rung a bell. It was the place where she met her first husband!

Regardless of this faux pas, the company were delighted by the elegant dining room and spacious balcony.
My Bestie, having been many things in her long career, has a wide and varied circle of friends. For example, in this photo there is: a high powered barrister, an ex member of parliament, the head of Creative Arts at one of Adelaide's most prestigious schools, a highly placed Business Manager in the Education Department's Finance Office ......and the owner and headliner of a local Strip Club. I'll let you decide which is which!!

Interestingly, the head of Creative Arts and the Strip Club manager had quite a lengthy and in depth conversation about the difficulties of getting modern youth to commit to something or give an impassioned performance.

The night before all of this, Himself and I sat up until 5am preparing a slideshow which contained some rarely seen shots of The Bestie. Creative Arts lady had delivered a packet full of faded 1970s snaps on the Friday. You know the ones; mostly orange in colour and shaped like a crisp after it's been peeled off the page in one of those monstrous 'magnetic' photo albums that everyone had and that did so much damage to our photos. Himself re-shot every, single, faded image and loaded them all up digitally. In Photoshop, he pressed a button and voila!!! Instead of a bunch of ginger haired girls with jaundice, he got things like this:

Here is a taste of My Bestie though the years:

1961
Our house 1970-1
With parents circa 72? High school graduate.University Graduate.
Publicity shot for her first job. First wedding. Honeymoon. Yes, he took her skiing and we all came too. No wonder that marriage was doomed. Legs up to there! With her first hubbie outside my flat in Sydney.

Congratulations on 50 years Bestie. May you have many, many more!

A Kind of Rambling Post That is Somewhat Indicative Of My State of Mind.

2011-05-20T10:47:00.008+09:30

Am I the only one who sees the similarities here? Forgetting hairstyle, background, light etc - do these two not look like the same girl??
First shot is from 1976; Middle Sis is wearing the old Alma Mater uniform. Must say that's one traditional thing I am not sorry to see replaced. See how nice the new one is?
Things are not much better on the Flaming Sword front I am sorry to say. Schoolwork, facebook, priorities and boys are the subject of much discussion here at present. Oh, and the possibility of attending the local public school if things don't change.

I guess this had to happen sooner or later. It's been pretty much a dream run so far. Well, all that is over now. I am walking the fine line between turning all this into a power struggle. I know who will win the power struggle (me) but at what cost?

I'll get back to you when I have some answers.

So Let The Love Tear Us Apart

2011-05-19T23:36:00.005+09:30

Unfortunately, my Flaming Sword has been in action this week as we deal with the aftermath of The Formal, The Wombats and a general inability to get on with things.

For all my espousing, the act of invoking consequences is an unpleasant one. I guess that's why I call it a flaming sword. The old adage 'this hurts me more than it hurts you' whilst not entirely true, does echo eerily around the walls at times like this. No one actually enjoys depriving a child of a prized possession or the opportunity for an outing and sometimes the results appear, initially, to be somewhat counter-productive.

When I think back to my own parents' attempts to dole out discipline and consequences, the thing I remember most was how the disapproval lingered. Years later, as an adult, when I made mistakes I railed against my mother's need to analyse the incident. Essentially, I knew I had done the wrong thing, I felt bad and I needed no further rubbing of salt into the self inflicted wound. So now as I wrestle with the naked resentment which comes from having one's comforts removed, I have to remind myself to roll with it. I have to try not to harp on about the infraction, not focus on the unfortunate behaviour; but equally shake off the rejection when day to day niceties are rebuffed. I have heard myself comment recently, 'I don't know why you're being snippy with me. I'm not the one who made the bad choices.'

Things have got to change around here. We have been doing too much. I have basked dangerously in the laurels of having a 'lovely kid', to mix a metaphor. I had momentarily forgotten that she is indeed, just a kid.

Unfortunately, it is the BA who has, ultimately, to suffer the consequences.

image credit

First Lesson

2011-05-15T08:35:00.003+09:30

Well, she has been driving with her dad, on his friend's farm, since she was 11 so I thought this driving stuff was all going to be straight forward. I thought traffic sense and road confidence and experience would be my brief as I waded into the 'driving lesson' thing.
Wrong.
She has mostly been driving an automatic.

Yesterday we spent half an hour at the netball field carpark (after a sound win I might add...so she was in good spirits) just driving round the lanes, doing right and left hand turns and learning how to change up and down from first to second and back. You forget how instinctive it becomes when you have been driving for thirty years.

She did ok for a first lesson. Steering, or rather over-steering is a common beginner's trait and the whole alternate foot action of accelerator and clutch are like learning to waltz I guess. Or not. Anyway, 'flipper foot', as we call it, was proving somewhat challenging yesterday and the engine on my little Corolla was getting a good revving out from time to time.

The main thing was, we ended up still speaking and we did not connect with any solid objects; and I am laying bets on who makes the the first comment which mentions my proclivity for doing just that!

My own driving instruction was a staggered, if not staggering, event.
I got my Learner's Permit at 16 just like the BA and my Dad and I duly did the whole father/daughter learn to drive ritual which ended, predictably, in dark brows and no one speaking to each other. He then handed the job over to Kindergarten Friend who taught me well but gave up on teaching me to parallel park (or maybe I gave up, I can't remember). Parallel parking also resulted in the infamous adventure with my mum's floorsweeper. One day I used it as a marker pole to practise my parallel parking. I ran over it. So I put it back in the cupboard.

Eventually dad forked out $$$ for 6 professional lessons and at 19 I finally became a fully fledged driver. And went through a red light on the way home from the test.

Let's hope the BA has more innate talent than I do.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

2011-05-11T23:41:00.003+09:30

Mad excitement. The BA got her L plates today!!!!! This means that very soon she will be venturing onto the road in a motor vehicle. How is it possible???

It's funny. On the way over to the Snowies, we were listening to a broadcast of the Melbourne Comedy Festival and a laconic, female comic came on telling this story:

I'm really sick of getting emails from my married friends with pictures of their children and notes like 'Caitlin turned 5 last week. She's starting school soon. Can you believe it?' And I'm like...let me see...Caitlin reached all the normal milestones of childhood, attained the appropriate age and started school....yeah...I can get my head around that! I mean, if she had suddenly started attending school at one, or never walked and talked and THEN attended school, I would find it hard to believe...but really? Five?

And so I slap my wrist for suggesting that it is impossible to believe that my 16 year old daughter has gone into the Motor Vehicle registry, presented her documents, paid for her test, passed first time and paid for her license. Herself. I mean, it's what I brought her up to do! It's just I never really considered what it would be like to be right here, right now, heading into the golden twilight of my life as she launches into hers like a star filled rocket.

I was particularly impressed by the way she noted that most of her friends had been taken to the Registry and had their tests paid for by their parents. "I did it myself, Mum" she said. Slightly resentfully perhaps but still, I know that she has gained a great deal more from the experience than her friends have. In withholding I have given her a gift. She knows he is capable, that she did it herself.

Of course now I may have to teach her to drive. Look! Am I not a natural? I did after all teach No2 Son to drive at a time when his father refused to get into the car with him! I do not know why I am getting so many smirky comments on facebook about my driving ability. OK so I may have recently fallen asleep at the wheel, but really, when I think of all the kilometres I have driven over the years......the likelihood of accidents increases exponentially. That, at least, is my story and I'm sticking to it.

When I came home this afternoon and told Himself however, he was less than excited. "16?" he grumbled,"It's way too young to be driving."
"But," I pointed out,"You got your licence at 16."
"Yes, I know," he said, "but I was too young as well."

:-D

The Formal 2011

2011-05-11T07:20:00.004+09:30

For those of you who don't frequent facebook (where the photos are posted the next day), here is my Baby Angel in all her glory at the school Formal.
It was a huge night, for all concerned-we didn't pick her up from the after party until 3am!!!!

An Internet Sweet Sixteen

2011-05-08T23:08:00.002+09:30

After a busy night at the Formal (more to follow on that), it was a very quiet birthday today for the BA, as she turned Sweet Sixteen.

With only Himself and I at home, we turned to the internet. That's Grandma and Grandad watching her on the skype video link.

So there were at least four voices singing happy birthday to her tonight.

Happy Birthday my Baby Angel. Now you're old enough to drive.

*gulp*