First, an update

As you know, my life's not generally as exciting as that of the glitterati, but for a normal person, I've had some cool stuff going on this year. So first things first, a quick update. The year in pictures:

In March, I bought a new car:

Her name is Ruby Scarlet, and she's just lovely.
We were also due to go ballooning in March (on what would have been Sam's 16th birthday), but it was too wet. But we did go one foggy morning in April:

If you've never been in a hot air balloon, can I suggest you try it? It's a truly wonderful experience!


Of course, it wasn't all fun and shiny red cars, I did have to work. But, oh, that's right. I have a very cool job. We do some interesting things:

In April I also did my Sh'Bam instructor training. And then I went to Sydney and did Sh'Bam with 300 super-fit hotties!

And then in May, I went to Melbourne for a dear old friend's 40th. And I saw Prince. He was very cool.

Then we went to Sydney and walked across the bridge.

And swam  in a rooftop pool in the rain:

We bought some goats:

(They're gone now. They were a bit stinky! And they needed more room - and edible trees - than we could give them!)
We walked up some mountains:

And we played with Lego. In Sydney and in Canberra:

And most recently, in Milton:

(We'd lost Wally. But lots of people found him. I'll tell you about it sometime).

 And we welcomed a new member of the family:

Meet Rollo!

So yeah, all in all it was good. Good, yeah.
And before you ask, yes. I did have a nice year. And spent a lot of money. And was lucky enough to do some really cool things with my family. And that's what life (and this blog) is all about now.
I'm sure I'll get to tell you more soon. I hope you'll join me!

Checking in

Wow! It's been a busy couple of weeks!

The weekend just past was the first in quite a few that we haven't had some kind of social engagement.

Since we got back from Queensland, we've had Oliver's birthday, Anthony's birthday (and their respective celebrations, small as they were), then last weekend I went to the horribly tacky (but kinda interesting in a train wreck, social experiment way) Oktoberfest with my lovely brothers-in-law and their partners/friends (quite fun I guess).

I've also been doing my uni stuff. It was my last tute last Wednesday, just a big bunch of marking to do once the munchkins (can I call uni students munchkins?) hand their final HUGE assignment in. Let's just say between the 18th and end of November I'll be pretty much invisible!

And we've been gardening. It's spring, so the weeds are growing quickly (unfortunately we have a healthy share of them), but we have been balancing weeding with planting and preparing for a big crop of yummy vegies. Stay tuned for some delicious updates!

Oliver's started baseball on Saturdays, which of course knocks out most of the morning. But he's enjoying it, so that's what matters.

And I've been good too. Very diligently exercising, and watching carefully what I eat. I've lost 5 kilos so far, which is not as much as I'd expected, but a good start. More about that soon too.

But for now, it's time for me to go and snuggle up to my poor neglected Anthony.
Nighty night.

Go Go Mode

Hi all,

Just stopping in to say it will probably be the weekend before I get in here to do a nice, juicy post. It's been an extraordinarily busy couple of weeks, with the next two set to cap them off!

Over the next two days, I'll be attending (and helping at) a leadership conference here in Canberra, including a dinner tomorrow night. But that won't be the end of my night, I've then got to go online to do a webinar about a product we'll be using here in schools later in the year. I have to do it at 10:30 at night because it's based in England (and 10:30 was better than 1:45 in the morning!)

Speaking of England,  my parents are over there at the moment. Having a wonderful trip, I'm sure. They left last Thursday, with a stopover in Japan (that we were worried, but not really worried about), and what sounds like a nice flight. How amazing to fly over Siberia and Russia when it's covered in snow and ice! My Dad's blogging about it if you're interested. I'm missing them already, and they're away for a loooooong time!

I've also been diligently exercising - every morning I get up before 6am and either walk or go to a class. Not that it's doing much good. I swear I'm putting weight on!!! I do eat too much crap though. I think I'm going to have to do some Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or something - it's getting ridiculous!

And I've been pretty good at keeping up with my study. I've got two assignments due next weekend, so I think I'll be 'heads down' whenever I can, to make sure I get them done. I'm loving it though, it's great to be studying again.

And work is hellishly busy too! Because there are only two of us who do training, we are constantly on the go. Very tiring some times (which doesn't help with the study in the evenings, for as soon as I start reading, my eyelids grow very heavy!). But it's fun. I love working with lots of different people and sharing my passion!

Of course, on top of all that I'm making time for my boys. Oli and I are in a Harry Potter habit - we're reading at least a chapter every night. It's a nice hour or so with him. I also try and hang out with Anthony at least once a week. We went to the movies the other day (saw Limitless, I didn't mind it), which was nice.

So, yeah, busy. but I'll pop in on the weekend and post something a little more substantial!
'til then.....

All quiet on the blog front...

I know, I know, it's been very quiet around here lately, but I promise I've been thinking about you!
Thankfully, now it's holidays, so I might be able to blog a little more regularly for a couple of weeks.

But when I last left you, I finished rather abruptly. On Thursday night I was writing the post when Anthony hurried me out the door. Which is fair enough, if not surprising (we are NEVER on time for anything!).

We had a lovely Turkish banquet with my work colleagues and friends. I love a good Turkish banquet: always WAY too much food, but delicious nonetheless.
We are lucky enough to have a wide variety of restaurants (as well as a supermarket, butcher, chemist, newsagents, gym, pool, clubs etc) less than 2 kilometres from here, so it's nice to know we can walk over for a meal if we want it (mind you, on Thursday we drove there!).

Friday was a busy final day of term, trying to get things wrapped up for the holidays. Then Anthony, Ollie and I settled in for a night of Dr Who. Ever since he got into 'The Sarah Jane Chronicles' on Nickolodeon, Ollie has been totally hooked on Dr Who. We have been working our way through all of the current day episodes; and getting very excited about them! We haven't watched the current series yet (as we wanted to get up to date), but now that we are, we are ready to catch up with series 5 (anyone got it on DVD yet?)

So that's been my week in a nutshell. I've had an ongoing back-and-forth with Adobe, who got very confused after I ordered Photoshop and Lightroom; but it's all worked out now and I'm trying to work out how to use them!

Speaking of photos, I will be back later with my sensational six, just waiting for the camera's battery to charge (must buy a second battery....) so I can upload some photos taken today. Might be a late one today! See you then.

Wow, what a week!

It's been a crazy, hectic week, that is not going to get any calmer! This weekend, we've already had Ollie's first soccer game (very cute!); I've got to do some shopping and cleaning; I'm going to try and see my mum; I'm going to an engagement party tonight; breakfast with family tomorrow morning; and then for most of tomorrow I'm going to a music festival called 'Groovin' the Moo'. CRAZY!

But it's nice to be busy. I've mentioned before that I'm one of those people who likes to be busy. And it wasn't a bad week, really. Despite the fact that I barely had time to scratch myself, it was fairly interesting and fulfilling. I'm actually enjoying the library role quite a lot.

It's also kept my mind off Mother's Day, which I have been trying not to think about too much.

As I've mentioned, the Book Fair was on this week, and we were very busy selling books. It kind of reminded me of my days in retail (my first job was at Grace Bros (now Myer) and I worked in a cinema for a long time). We actually sold more than $4500 worth of products, which was amazing considering we had to stick to fairly restrictive opening hours. This means our school earns more than $1500 to spend on resources, which is fantastic. On top of that, I had my regular teaching load, so I was working pretty non stop. I also made about 2000 trips up and down the hill from the library to the rest of the school (my school is set 2/3 of the way up a very steep hill - with a beautiful panoramic view of South Canberra) and the building which houses the library is about 20 metres below the rest of the school).

But the nice thing about working in the library is that even though you're on the go the whole time, it's pretty much over at the end of the day. You can't take books home to shelve them, you can't do the administration at home, and apart from a bit of planning and marking, there's not the frantic preparation that you have as a primary school teacher, planning for (sometimes) up to 4 different subjects in one day. Then you have to mark and assess a lot of this work as well, and plan for the next day.

In the past, I've mistaken taking home truckloads of school work as fulfilling, mainly because I didn't have anything else to do. I told myself that I enjoyed sitting with my computer and working. If we weren't doing 'family stuff' or playing board games together, my boys were generally happy playing video games or watching TV, and I'm not really into those things, so I would tend to work. In the day time, it was easier to find other things to do - I do actually like gardening, but at night, the last thing I wanted to do was watch some mindless TV show. Anthony would sometimes indulge me and have a 'conversation', but he does like TV, and I was happy to let him watch it.

But now I have photography. And boy do I love it! As I've said, I've always liked taking photos, but since I've started getting serious, it's become a little consuming!

So I'm going to go out shortly, and take some photos, because I'm actually having withdrawals! :)
I'm enjoying this new hobby so much! Actually, I can't think of a 'hobby' that I've ever had before, let alone enjoyed this much.

I've certainly tried many things: When I was younger, I collected many things, from stamps to rubbers (the eraser kind) and pictures of pop stars. I still have a nice collection of dragon figurines. I played tenor saxophone for a long time too. I've made clothes; bought a few 'drawing implements' and did a bit of sketching; collected shells with the intention of making stuff with them; made various baked treats... I'm a tragic op-shopper, a fairly passable gardener, and a pretty cook, but none of them have ever made me so interested and excited.

It's kind of nice. I like having something to do. I like the thrill of looking at a nice photo. I feel clever when I notice something that would make a good photo. I love it when people make comments about my photos on Flickr. I want to buy a bigger, better camera and make fabulous photos that I (and maybe other people) would want to display on their walls. I love it when I pull out my camera and people comment on it (this morning I was jokingly called the official team photographer, which was kinda nice!)

Now that I have a hobby, I know there's more to life than that. I guess now that I have my head more tuned in to the whole teaching thing, there's room in my life for hobbies. Perhaps 3 or 4 years ago I wouldn't have had the time to devote to it, but I'm glad that I do now.

So stay tuned, more photos when I come back!

Work

Yesterday, I visited work to catch up and say hi to a few people. It was actually very nice to be in there, and I got a great reaction from the kids (and totally interrupted their lunch - sorry colleagues!)

I don't go back for another two weeks yet, but I thought it would be a good idea to start popping in and getting a feel for the place again. I finished work on the 18th of December last year. Samuel died 4 days later, and I haven't been back since. It has made me wonder how other people go in jobs where they can only get three days bereavement leave, or they have to go back after a week or two. I'm very lucky that I had enough personal leave saved, and an understanding doctor, or I may not have been able to have all this time off. And while I'm doing OK here at home now (most days), I don't think I would have done my job well. It's also been good to be here for Anthony and Ollie.

While it was good visiting yesterday, I'm not sure whether I could have done the job well if I had gone back a month ago. At the same time, I'm starting to realise how unproductive I can be!
It's amazing how much of nothing you can do when you don't have to go to work. Don't get me wrong, I have been doing stuff, but there are also mornings where I can literally do nothing and suddenly realise it's lunch time.

Busy Busy
I think I'm one of those people who needs to be busy. I like being productive and making an impact in the world. I like to do something and be able to see the results (unfortunately in teaching the results are not always tangible, but I can generally see the difference I make to kids, even if I don't always see it in their work). I get fidgety and fiddly if I sit still for too long and tend to do several things at once. I think some of that comes from being a woman, and some of it is genetic. I have vivid memories of my grandmother knitting, watching the tennis on TV, listening to the cricket on the radio and having a conversation all at the same time. I've always got 6 or 7 tabs open when I'm on the internet as I can't just wait for one to load, I've got to go back to the other one. I am always the one who sticks their hand up to volunteer for this job or that one, even if I don't really want it and I always have several 'projects' going on at home.

It's funny though, the busier I am, the more productive I seem to be. And if I let myself get into the habit of idleness, I can do it very well too. As I mentioned above, I can be very good at doing nothing, but I get fed up with that pretty quickly. I wasn't even really all that good at the stay-at-home-mother thing. I loved spending time with my kids, but would probably have done more of that (and napping) than the housework etc that I should have been doing. And I would have missed adult company! I need to talk to people, to stimulate my brain, and the likes of Oprah and Dr Phil just ain't gonna do that for me (**please don't misinterpret my meaning, I think stay-at-home parents are fantastic and do a great job, it's just not a job that suits me). Luckily I was in a position to be able to go to uni/work, and Anthony was able to do what he needed to do (be a stay-at-home parent and start his own business).

Back to work?
My first reaction to the thought of going back to work was that I absolutely had to get out of a school (actually, my first reaction was to pack up my two boys and head for the hills, but that was a little unrealistic). I love teaching, and will probably do it (or something very much like it) until I retire, but there were two main reasons I would have found it difficult: the emotional commitment to a class; and the time commitment that teaching demands.
So I started the ball rolling in the Education Department, to see if they could get me an office job. One thing about this grief stuff is that you never know how you're going to feel from one day to the next, and in the week or two after I did that I started to think about how disruptive that would be for me and my family.
I then contacted my boss to see if she could give me a job in a school that doesn't involve teaching a class. The main reason for this is I just didn't think I could give my 'all' to one class. Some teachers are able to detach and just do the job 9-3, but a combination of perfectionism, stubbornness and empathy compels me to bust my gut for each class that I take on. In a support role, where I am teaching more than one class, I can do my little bit of planning and assessing and behaviour management, but it doesn't have to as full on as with a class full of kids. And I wouldn't have 25 kids depending on me. I wasn't sure if I could depend on myself, let alone a group of kids in some very important years of schooling.
Luckily my boss was able to accommodate me, and I will be teaching all classes in the school when I return. After visiting yesterday, I thought that would probably be OK. I'm glad I am not taking on a class, but I am also glad to be going back to school.

It must be so hard for people to return to work quicker than I have. I guess teaching and the demands that it makes on your time and your mental health do make it a difficult job when you're grieving as well (it's a difficult job at the best of times!), but I can't imagine running a McDonalds or waiting tables or sitting at a table pushing papers around would be much easier.