Thank goodness the daily puppy is updated every day...

...to make up for the lack of posting from me.

So much for those New Year's resolutions I made.

I have blog posts galore to write about such diverse topics as circuses, Pilates, prayer, adopting a new dog and books I've read recently, but they shall have to wait a little while. Hopefully this weekend there will be a window of opportunity to sit down and type something, since we are enjoying a rare month off everything on the church roster. This seems miraculous and blogworthy in itself. No music for me to play, no set up/pack up of chairs, no morning tea preparation, no kids program to organise...what on earth will we do with ourselves on Sunday mornings? Sleeping in sounds like it could be a very appealing option....

Sorry for the silence

There's been a bit going on. That's an understatement really. I'm currently enjoying a couple of quieter weeks on the work front so that is good. I even managed to take myself off for a lovely pot of tea in a cafe this morning. All by myself. Sitting in the front window seat gazing out at the beautiful river flowing past. No one else in the cafe except the two women who run it. Bliss.

I did get a call from my Uni teaching colleague while I was there. But somehow, even talking about work seems like fun when you are in such a peaceful environment.

I should have resisted the call of the cake cabinet though. I haven't been eating much sweet stuff lately, so the coconut lemon meringue slice (I did have it without cream and ice cream) tasted a bit too sugary for my liking.  Had a tiny lunch to make up for it.

Teaching has been going okay this year. My tutorial group is much smaller and most of them seem reasonably switched on. Although teaching them from four until six p.m. can be a bit of a challenge when they've all been there since the eight a.m. lecture in the morning.

I'm thankful to God for providing me with some more work for the next couple of months. I didn't get the permanent position I applied for but there is a short term job I can do at the local hospital until the next student education contract comes up. This also solves a transport problem. We are still without a second car but for the next little while I can go to work with my husband and we actually don't need the second car as desperately as we did a few weeks ago. Of course, Murphy's law (or God's sovereign plan) says that this is probably when we will find another one. Chris is off to check one out tomorrow afternoon. I hope it's good. It's a blue one, my favourite colour, so I'd be happy to take it on that basis alone. But I suppose the mechanical condition is also important.

And somehow in the middle of all the craziness, being sick, being buried under a rather large workload and dealing with all the usual family dramas, I've managed to continue my morning walks. Not every day, but at least three times a week. I'm even doing a bit of jogging for part of the way sometimes. And I have lost five kilos in the process. And about five centimetres off my waist measurement. My original aim was to lose five kilos but I'm feeling so good, I'm going to try and lose a few more.

The C.B.R.P. went off track for a little while. Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were hard going. I just started Joshua last week. But I'm still trying to read along as much as I can before I forget what I've read before.

So that's me for the past few months. Just popping up for some air before it all starts again next week. Hopefully the blog will get a bit more attention now that I'm back into the groove of going to work.

One of those weeks

Not a good one.

Yesterday I had one of those days where I felt like nothing I said came out the right way. As in open mouth, insert foot. Bible study is not a good place for this to happen. I apologised to someone I realised I may have said the wrong thing to, but there may be others whom I may have inadvertently offended. Sorry.

Today, I discovered a student who was in my tutorial sessions last semester has complained about the way her assignment was marked and has demanded a re-mark. Well, actually, she signed an affidavit so her mother could complain on her behalf. I think that says it all, really. But it still hurts. I wonder if I could have handled her situation differently (probably not), or whether it would have made no difference either way.

The subject I am tutoring this semester (which starts next week) appears challenging. To give you some context, my area of specialty at work is paediatrics, in particular young children with delayed development. This subject involves practical lab sessions where I will be teaching the students how to assist adults with strokes or other physical impairments to transfer and move around in bed, how to prescribe wheelchairs and pressure cushions, and how to use equipment to assist with dressing and eating. Part of the assessment is viva based, so I assess their ability to do some of these things in a practical scenario-based session. Think "blind leading the blind" and you have a pretty good summation of how I'm feeling about that right now.

Chris has offered to set up some equipment at his workplace so I can practise beforehand, and hopefully not look too stupid when the sessions come around. I am filling the shoes of someone who had vast experience with all this stuff. I am not in the same league.

The kids' school was seeking people to take billets from a high school band that is visiting the primary schools in our area next week. They are only billeted in pairs and we only have one sofa bed so I didn't say yes to start with. But when nobody offered to help and they got really desperate, I thought I should stick my hand up to take somebody. So now we have two male trumpet players staying at our house for two nights next week. They're aged 18 and 16. Good in that I'm thinking they've toured before and should be relatively responsible. But they probably eat a lot. And we'll all have to be on our best behaviour for those two days, which means the days after that might not be pretty.

Sorry. That's all pretty grumbly. But that's life here this week. I'd better get praying for patience, calm, and the ability to quickly get up to speed on how to position an adult stroke patient in a bed and chair.

No silver bus this week

It's off having a new door put on after my recent crash into the post. We have a second small car that Chris takes to work and he's been dropping the bigger kids off at school in the mornings as well. Yesterday I walked down to school to help with reading and to take the younger kids to a toddler music group that's just started up in the school hall.

So three days in, we've been surviving okay without the big car. It's off-road time has been well timed in some ways. I think some quieter time at home is good every so often. And I need it at the moment to concentrate on some of Rowan's eating issues.

Anyway, this morning, I decided we'd get out into the fresh air and sunshine, and walk up to the local neighbourhood shopping centre to buy a couple of treats for lunch. It's usually a brisk five to ten minute stroll from home when I'm by myself. Today I discovered it takes at least twice as long with a walking toddler and a baby in a sling.

We don't go to this shopping centre all that often. If we do, it's mostly on weekends where we might pick up a newspaper or a loaf of bread or something. I don't go there much during the week. The only reason we went today was because it didn't involve walking home up a steep hill the way walking to the local Coles supermarket would have.

So after all the effort of walking what felt like a very long way with two small children, you can imagine my joy when we walked into the little IGA express supermarket and saw a student of mine stacking the shelves there.  I'd just failed her on her major assignment. And, even better, she'd sent me an email first thing this morning to query the mark she'd been given. She's not going to get it changed. It wasn't good enough.

Awkward.

How did I manage this situation, I hear you all asking? Well, not exactly with poise and confidence. I lowered my head, picked up my bananas and hot dog sausages, paid as quickly as I possibly could and escaped to the relative safety of the bakery next door. A jam doughnut there assisted my recovery.

I'm hopeful she may not have recognised me in my mother disguise (broad brimmed floppy hat, baby attached to front in sling, cute toddler who often draws attention away from me). I'd like to think my presentation in University tutorials would be vastly different to today's look.

But by the way she suddenly started paying extremely close attention to the cans she was putting on the shelves, I'm thinking she probably did know it was me. And she probably felt equally awkward.

The exam for the subject is tomorrow. I hope she had big plans to go home and study for the rest of the day and night so she can blitz the exam. Because otherwise she's not going to pass. And it's a subject they have to pass or they have to repeat it next year.

Too much information

Today I went to have a bit of orientation at my new workplace. I came away feeling a bit overloaded with information. But I did score a free lunch because it was also student orientation day.

I will have twenty six students in my tute group if they all turn up. There will probably be a few drop outs though.

Getting myself onto the Uni email system and getting a photo ID card are the next jobs to be tackled.

Before I went out to Uni, I caught up with my friend, Jonathan's Mum. We walked and talked, and drank peach iced tea together in a cafe. And it was nice to just be with her, talking about anything and everything and enjoying the sunny day. And we talked about our little boys. Even though we were sad Jonathan wasn't with us, it was good.

Highs and lows for the day

Went to the doctor this morning to get results from my follow up glucose tolerance test and a few other recent tests. No more blood sugar problems for now. And my full blood count was good too. No anaemia. All good news.

Then I went and caught up with a friend from work at a very cool cafe. She had a little baby boy four weeks after I had Rowan. Well, he wasn't so little actually. He weighed 4.5 kg at birth and already weighs over 6 kg. Rowan looked very little beside him. But it was very pleasant sitting in the comfy chairs drinking coffee and enjoying the atmosphere. Some nice vintage furniture to look at and wish I could afford to buy.

Heard from ukulele shop. They are going to give me a whole new ukulele because he can't get a single tuning peg. Cool.

Picked up Rosie from child care, then came home to discover she had a head full of nits. Not so good, since we had some other ladies and small children at our house yesterday for morning tea. I'd noticed Rosie had been scratching her head for a couple of days, but Chris kept telling me he'd checked and there was nothing there. Hmmm.

So we've spent the afternoon and evening getting nit treatments happening. I hate that itchy feeling that always comes on when you know nits are in the immediate area. And the shelf of nit treatment products in the chemist shop is quite overwhelming. What to choose...which comb works the best etc etc...

Quiet day at home coming up tomorrow. Think another nit treatment may be in order. Sorry to any of my guests from yesterday who might be reading this. Hope the nits didn't jump heads. But I'm not sure where they came from to start with. We haven't been anywhere for a couple of weeks except church.* Oh well. One of those things that just happens, I guess.

*But I suppose nits do come to church too...I know they don't discriminate between Christians and non-Christians (!)

Holiday movies and other random life stuff

The boys are very excited about this one (opens here on Boxing Day). They borrow TinTin DVDs from our local library on a regular basis. Nerdy, I know.

Not sure what the movie will be rated though...

Not much else happening here. Last week of school with the round of busy-ness that involves. My (teenaged) nieces are staying with us for a few days to help take care of Rosie now that Chris has gone back to work. We sold our car (the CRV) so the funds from that will be nice to have before Christmas.

Saw a house for sale over the weekend that we didn't mind the look of, and that suits our new larger family size slightly better than our current place. It's being auctioned next Saturday. That's not great timing so we're trying to work out whether to do anything about it or not. Do we like it enough to put in the hard yards of organising finance etc in the middle of our sleep deprived state and the last week of school festivities? I'm not sure...

So much to do....so little time...

I have book club on Friday night. I got the book today. I am working tomorrow and Friday, and going out for coffee tomorrow night. I think I will be reading it in the middle of the night if I am going to get it finished.

I got the Mad Men DVD working again, so I am also busy watching many episodes of that. Although at least I have it for three weeks from the local library so I have a bit more time to watch it. Hoping for a rainy long weekend this weekend so I can watch lots more episodes.

Kids are busy practising speeches for school public speaking competition. I wish they were more responsive to the feedback they receive. I feel like a broken record saying the same thing over and over again.

Need to work on tact and diplomacy skills for tomorrow night's coffee evening. A couple of other women from church want to discuss the recent sermons at church on men's and women's roles. My understanding is that I have been approached to participate in this discussion because my thoughts might differ slightly from those presented in the sermons. How to maintain respect for all involved is the challenge. I do actually think it's good to hear different points of view presented because it makes me think more and read my Bible more to get a clear idea of my own beliefs on a topic. The thing is, I'm a bit tongue tied when it comes to explaining stuff to other people.

A few extra hours in the next couple of days wouldn't go astray, I am thinking.

I want to blog about the banana diet I was reading about in last weekend's newspaper but it looks like that will have to wait a bit longer.