tap on my window, knock on my door, i wanna make ya feel beautiful.

am having a bit of a maroon 5 blast on the stereo today – Bulldog has taken the kiddos to skool and he is staying to analyse data. I’ve been up 'til 2.30am analysing great bundles of data of my own. not being the consummate statistician, my head hurted a bit – but land sakes, i never thought census stats could be so fascinating – i have been comparing lower decile areas (poorer peeps) to higher decile areas (richer peeps) in The Sunny Bay in terms of educational and employment opportunity. it’s the same stuff we all know – middle class people send their kids to middle class schools and push the poorer people out – and it’s slogged me in the guts again.

there have been two speshal deliveries arrive yesterday and today – both all the way from Canada! so there was snow and french writing on the front of the parcels...

oh, what was *inside*??

Sarah of the petit sac français sent both Woozie'n'me a handmade *fabulous* sparkly top each! and a delish bundle of fabric which i am gonna fashion into an apron for her (perhaps in june in my take-a-breath-space between semesters) – cos her daughter is going to skool this year – apron strings, you know.

and Anna, aka Beach Mama posted me a box full of pinkness. a *chanel* bag, and photo, and soap, and desk calendar – all handmade – as part of the Pay It Forward thing a wee while ago. ah yes - life is good at the beach.

on the topic of french, here's a sound bite of my wee Woozie doing her speech in front of the class. just listen to this gorgeous effort -
woozie.mp3
(click the words lol. nope still not working. i have tried all manner of upload sites. but nuffin' is workin' and i've run outta time and energy for it. so if ya know me and you wanna hear woozie, email me and i'll attach the file specially for ya.)

it's le petit français speech all memorised and delivered fluently - i have told her that when she travels overseas and arrives in Paris and decides to stay awhile, she needs to make sure she earns enough euros to shout me an annual plane ticket.

mystery landmark tour

ha! how we love skool trips. today sam's cool teacher loaded the keedz onto the bus and Bulldog and i piled on too - yep - we hogged the back seat lol. we went on a *mystery landmark tour* which was kid-exciting-speak for discovering two war memorials. the day started out so grey, but as we neared the beach, skies turned blue and beautiful.

i love it when life is like that.

walking on sunshine

finally, katie's painting journal is finished.
ideally, it is a resource for teachers -
to journal the painting process


and to perhaps get ideas for teaching painting with kids.

that would equal five weeks of katie learning to

draw
stress herself out
drink coffee
freak out
procrastinate
get wonderful help from distant artistes

paint.

and eleventy billion hours of
compiling the ultimate resource -

because - on the one hand, i hate being graded -

but on the other hand - if i'm gonna be graded,
i'm gonna give it my all.


so if i was my art lecturer grading my drawing/painting,
i'd give myself an A+ for effort. lol.

and if i was eight,
i'd be pretty impressed with my offerings.
lol again.


and if i was grading my love of arranging stuff/sewing stuff/refashioning stuff/researching stuff/making stuff i'd be really happy with the result.


let's hope my art lecturer is too.

so - katie's painting journal is completed a week early.

that is spelled
o-b-s-e-s-s-i-v-e a-d-u-l-t s-t-u-d-e-n-t.


PS this sounds rather up-myself, but it looks amazing irl - all the textures and layers make it really interactive, like one of those toddlers' books with the zips and buttons, you know? i always wanted to make one of those lol.
PPS yeah, i think i got my macro button foncused with my unmacro button on the camera - blondie again.

blame it on the boogie

"i think eddie van halen is my favourite guitarist at the mo, mum. listen to this awesome solo, mum. mum! quick! come and listen to this... far out mum, these guys ROCK!"

yep - it's none other than eddie's old 1984 hit Jump - fantastic bit of tapping in there. oh, and the other thing that is currently on rinse-and-repeat at our place is a seven-year-old michael jackson chirping "rockin' robin". sam has a bit of a karaoke set up and is tweedly-deeing along with the jacksons.
so - eddie is the guitar guru, and michael is the style guru - yep, sam dresses like this nearly every day - he has finally got himself his own skinnyjeans (that didn't previously belong to his sister) and teams them with button-up shirt, old earlyeighties tie and new pinstriped hat - which he grabbed at the same time as the jeans.

oh, and last night we found five pairs of cheep cheep fingerless gloves - ...i'm gonna moonwalk outta here (guess the movie line).

"Let us see how Squirt does, flying solo..."

(oh how we adore Crush)
i am not cut out for this solo mum lark.
BD drove six hours across the island on sunday for a uni contact course and we are not seeing him 'til froiday - three sleeps down, two to go.

my uni lectures are still on this week and i have two and a half assignments due - but it's clashing with the kids' second week of school hols - can you spell r-e-m-o-t-e-c-o-n-t-r-o-l-l-e-d-p-a-r-e-n-t-i-n-g?

i'm not very good at it, this solo juggling act. there is no one to say "SHOTGUN NOT!" to - i am the one locking the doors and remembering that it's rubbish day and saying yes or no (mostly trying to say yes) to every kid request - while trying to research three different artists and produce the A+ art journal.

why so conscienscious/conscientious?
even my spelling is taking a dive. egads.
am now thinking: can we please just go with the first essay result and flag writing any others?
oh and i have a new theory about weight loss and studying - i think it's because my heart is permanently beating faster than normal.

i am finding myself longing for the daze when my biggest concerns were getting the washing dry and what's for dinner and which beach shall we hang out on this froiday.

"Dude? Dude? Focus dude... Dude?"
i fink i needa hug. or the EAC.

je suis une rockstar!

it turns out that all that running on adrenalin, espressos, mints, two minute noodles, and vino (oh, didn't i already mention the vino?) is freaking worth every angsty minute:

i just got my first essay back, and i got an A- !!!!!

of course i shrieked oh! my! gosh! and burst into tears, and the kiddos all rushed over, ignoring their movie, and gave me big squeezy hugs. Bulldog is eleventy billion miles away at his own uni course, so he hasn't dispensed any congratulations yet. never mind, i am toasting myself.

fix

i've been having such a KHB (Katie Hold Back) Vibe with Making Stuff since starting uni and i was nearly shrivelling up. needed a fix. woozie got this book outta the library a month or so ago and *ideas* have been shoved under the carpet ever since, but TODAY Sammy generously donated a black punk-looking teesh, Bulldog donated an "old" shirt and i put my uni stuff back in the box for half an hour.

(can you read that? my eyes are going squiffy.)

and lookit!

it totally looks as good as the one in the book.
i'd prove it if my camera would focus.
i sewed lines of white and red and black stitching
down the placket and frayed the edges.
the collar is under her hair lol.

woozie dibsed it today and i dibsed it for monday -
i fink we need some black docs to match.
and we'll definitely need to make another one pronto...

maybe i could do one assignment,
one teesh fix, etcetera...

and that, said katie, is that.

these freaking perfectionist genes.
i woke up at five thirty this morning

and had another go at it.

it's still juvenile-looking to me,
but i need to draw the line somewhere.

which is why i'm not a world famous artiste -

Mauao is the sacred mountain at

the entrance to Tauranga Harbour.

Its name, meaning ‘caught in the

light of the day’, comes from the

legend in which Mauao was once

a nameless mountain, spurned

in love by the beautiful mountain

Puwhenua. One night he begged the

fairy-like creatures of the forest

to drag him to the ocean and end

his misery. But the creatures fled as

the morning sun’s rays struck,

and he was transfixed on the spot.

I had this idea in my head - for my painting journal, I'd paint after the style of Nicolas de Stael. Mostly because he doesn't bovver with faces or minutiae. I'd use limited hues (which is art-speak for colours) and paint with a piece of card instead of a brush. I'd put Puwhenua inside the mountain -

she who will always be in the heart of Mauao,

even though she did not love him.

The idea looked really awesome in my head.

And then I painted it.

Um, I don't think I'll become a Specialist Art Teacher then.

you've loved me for more than half of your life.

two decades of ineloquent surreality,
our first kiss memoryfresh
in the summerlight bicycling.

two decades of children's choruses,
kitschkitchen sunset dancing,
somebody to lean on singing.

two decades of heart symphony,
dreamfloating, journeymaking,
same way on the rope pulling.

two decades of symbiotic existence,
richer, poorer, sickness and health
in fingercircled gold entwining.

well that was good and that was great,
how about a word from kate...
let's pop the bubbly.

The Big Weekend

while Charlie and his Daddy
went on a boyz weekend - doin' freaky boyz stuff -
uuurgh uuuurgh -

the rest of us stayed home for a beachy day
and a Charlie's Angels fest -
and i wrote my second ethics assignment
until the wee wee wee small hours.
well - i mostly stayed up that late because
i find it hard to sleep
without Bulldog's heartbeat next to mine.

today i started finding my mojo for my art journal -
oh how i love food colouring.

it's supposed to turn out like an altered book -
with *ahem* all of our *ahem* paintings in it.

well, as we all know,
i am NOT the scrapbooking queen,
so this is as far as i've got -
(recognise that piltdown man photo? c'est moi)
it's the front cover -
which still needs a little *jhushj* -
some fancy paper and some string.
or some glue would be a good start.
i followed this tutorial
to use up some of the overflowing
plastic shopping bags that've been
accumulating in my pantry -
to back the letters on.
because i'm insisting on doing
this project on the cheep cheep.

the tute shows ya how to make
a fabulous recycled bag.
and they use waxed paper to iron on, but i used
"white newspaper" and it worked fine.
try it, you'll love it.
you can even use up all your spare
seat belts for the bag straps.
i know. g-r-e-e-n.

so yesterday - i "Collected Images".
that's an Art Phrase, don'tcha know?

tomorrow i need to rush the drawings and paintings then.
i think i'll be needing Miracle Max.