bless my soul, circ was on a roll.

i am seriously fat. this week has been Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and one of the teachers put down a hangi at skool yesterday, and at the end of the day there was a steaming happy porker (that his uncle had hunted!!!) ON THE BENCH at skool and the crackling was divine (but it still had some sandpapery hairs in it but i didn't care: saves me deplaquing my tongue later bwahahaha) and the meat was THE BEST evah piggy, and there was taters precious and the tastiest pumpkin and i SWEAR it was the BEST hangi i have EVER TASTED: no grease, just smokey deliciousness. buuuuuuuuuut, oh sweet porker i have a big belly. have not been doing gym or bike or even zumba. i do have a crazily clean house tho.

oh, the other funny thing about the hangi was that the kids' ticket to hangi kai was a can of food, to be donated to i-don't-know-which-fabby-cause, and one of my maths kiddos tried to swap his sandwich with me so that he could nick my can of spaghetti that he was measuring the circumference and diameter of to try to work out an equation that included both.

i am super-impressed with these kiddos: the buzz in the classroom was SO COOL!! and the kids all found out what i was hoping they'd find out, and they are getting closer to finding out the answer/s to The Question, which is: "if every New Zealander (that's four million peeps) all took a big wheelbarrow load of dirt off The Mount, how much Mount would be left?"

i have in my possession a Very CompliKATEd H'explanation which Sir has drawn me. i fink i will need to give it much blonde thought before i can show'n'tell. need to ixnay on the piggy piggy too. eat less, move more. needa sleep more too: am currently on a pre-dawn wake up call. hence the crazily clean house.

science experiment

i got my science kids with a good whoosh just now. they know i'm kinda jumpy super careful with all the chemicals we're experimenting with, and i make them use the special four-step-instructions-on-OHP (miss, nineteen eighty nine called and wants its OHP back) every time we light the bunsen burners. anyway in one part of the lesson i did a demo of dissolving a solute (copper sulphate) in a solvent (water) to get a solution. didya see all my sciencey words right there? didya? didya?????

yep, skiting now. *so* i sprinkled some copper sulphate (blue stuff) into a test tube of water (clear stuff) and stuffed in the stopper securely and shook it up. and as i started to shake it, i yelled BOOM!!! at which all the girls in the front row jumped and shrieked.
ha! it's an oldie but a goodie...

❤ my bubbas cos i spent eight HOURS at skool today - yeah, on a saturday - and they patiently read books and cuddled bubbas and hanged out and waited forEVER for me to act the scientist. and i still have six science fair projects to mark. oh but bite me archimedes - i finally understand your principle X

miss, you're my favourite teacher. did you bring lollies? oh that's ok, you're still my favourite teacher. uh, because you talk to us... and stuff.

disclaimer: that title may seem ridiculously egotistical, but i've had a couple of I'm A Complete Fraudster Days and i need all the pep talks i can get. and of course other teachers TALK to the kids. i know it's really about the lollies, but i'm still writing the luffliness here.

i relieved/substituted a few art classes today. it's money for jam, really. anyway, this morning i rolled into a year 8 classroom, and the kids all called out, hi miss!!! and gave me smiles, and one looked at me aghast and gasped, but you're a MATHS teacher!! and i giggled to myself and looked at the teacher's brief (that's brief, not briefs) which was about drawing a hanging branch. so i got to chat to the kids about The Secret to Excellent Sketching (yeah, the kids all went miraculously quiet when they heard that phrase) which is Drawing What We See, Not What We Think We See (cos i'm such an expert bwahahaha).

and now we're home, with fresh coffee, and a thousand things twirling in the clothes dryer, and i'm bribing my own beautiful kids with an arty-farty slow-cooked chicken curry when their rooms are tidy. and i might even see if i can offer up the vacuuming for dessert...
i did give them a lolly after skool though X

it's time to hack this perfectionism off at the knees

well, i am totally ahead of my guilt trip because i got up at the crack of dawn and made dinner and folded washing and sat on the bike pedalling and reading the listener and huffing out paragraphs to danger for twenty minutes yes i did and then i went to skool and hyperventilated through the ERO prep and then i wrote a whole lot of shizzit for ERO about my mahvellous ICT programme yes i did and then i read through woozie's eleventh hour art history essay and offered mindless shizzit helpful suggestions yes i did and then i even brought my boys home from skool after they arrived on the bus and then i biffed the crockpot shizzit into the oven and drank a glass two or three glasses but who's counting? of wine yes i did. i am not sure i am cut out for this wohm buzz.

ready freddy

so i was just about to post a big huge check-off list of all the shizzit i've been engineering to get ready for the onslaught of The Big Skool Restart, which shall include parent interviews and ERO and my appraisal. not to mention three science experiments in the first fortnight with fire and toxic chemicals.

shoot me now.

anyway, the list was all about my massive wardrobe reorganisation and the garage huck out and pantry and nefarious bottom drawer sort (ohk, i paid raych to do those last two) and de-flea-ing the cat and even the mortgage we took out at the supermarché this morning. jeez those kids can eat! and that's only half of it. i feel like i'm staging an assault on a small country.

but then i just checked my emails and there was one from My Techno-Guru floss, which was a reply to my cry for help in teaching my Soft Materials Technology sewing class:
i got into trouble. my year 7s found Mrs Boss's Fabric Stash and sneaked into it during the last class while i was frantically helping kids finish off boxer shorts. actually i was saying things like, “just give it to me and i’ll overlock that seam, i really don’t care how it’s sewn at this stage.” (need tips: we have 15 hours to sew a sample, a drawstring bag, and a pair of boxer shorts. oh, some kiddos managed it, and even finished a sock monkey in that last hour – no pics – oops)
anyway, there’s always SOMETHING i forget to do – left a machine unthreaded, didn’t pick up ALL the presser foots/feet off the floor, broke a needle, one bobbin case missing.
never mind, i have another term to get something right…. X

floss's reply email, entitled Organisational Tips:
Bwahahaha you must be kidding. It's TECHNOLOGY, it's the most disorganised curriculum in the country. All that free choice and follow your bliss and design briefs make for chaos each and every day of the week. You really only have one option...get rid of Mrs Boss. Stage a hostile takeover and force her to retire to Winton, Southland where her organisational skills will be appreciated. I have to tell you this... I did a section in Winton, Southland and thought I was being helpful when I folded the freshly washed tea towels. BUT I folded them wrong and my associate patiently refolded them all the correct way. Mrs Boss would be beloved down there! luv ya xxxx PS Sometimes, near the end of term, if I have a really slow class, I just give up the rush and finish everyone's final seams for them at lunchtime.

so instead of zooming off to clean out the fishtank, i burst out laughing and decided to b-r-e-a-t-h-e. actually, i need a new mantra. something like CHILL THE FREAK OUT AND STOP ALL THIS RIDICULOUS PANIC ABOUT THE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS WITH THE TOXIC CHEMICALS.

baa baa black sheep

we're actually living in suburbia, but there's a farmlet over our back fence which has a sort of rotation of horses, cows, and sheep. little lambies are starting to be born and lookit...

a real baby baa baa black sheep has appeared!!!
oh, bwahaha, this ad is now in my sidebar:
i've spent my whole life avoiding the knitty thing
but this pink army tank really has my attention.

huka falls

yeah.

we woz here.
and we love you.
thanks for the memories.
we'll be back, baby.

It Might Get Loud

oh boy i love the hols. peeps spread out and random teenagers arrive and stay for tea parties and nachos dinners, and music and games and movies and late nights and easy mornings and lots of loudness ensues. we're half way through it - the glass is half full, my friend - and today we're heading off on an adventure to the north pole aka taupo road tripping with our favourite allies - fully loaded we've got snacks and supplies - it's the first family w*nter adventure we've had in i-can't remember-how-long. there are plans floating for lake walking and hot river swimming and snow seeing and general hilaritying. yippee zippee.

Cinderella Skirt

i have a friend who has a friend who's an interior designer. the other week she was biffing out a great bundle of curtain samples. you know, those things on hangers that ya take home to match with your new carpet? yeah, them. today i got all inspired by this and so i fired up woozie's sewing machine and spent ten glorious hours making my very own Cinderella Skirt...for free. so i've just saved myself $360, which is super fantastic, cos i've got my optics on one of these. PS i love my boots.

drawing lots for who gets to go food shopping. no takers as yet. i just made some emergency butter from cream. so bulldawg's late-nite-vegemite-toast is now vewy happy. PS marmite ftw X

The Second Day of Rehab

a very slow start to the morning. the short second life of bree tanner. sneaky café moment. sunshine soup and ginger kisses. chopping my thumb off. rendezvousing with cuzzies. playstation and set and monopoly and singstar. big chinese takeout. berry flambé over french vanilla ice cream. clothes in the dryer. rain outside. more playstation. more huggles.

The First Day of Rehab

sunshine. croissants with blackberry jam. espressos. alice in wonderland. backyard soccer. loads of clean clothes. people i love. much breathing in and out. a soon-to-be martini. kids making their own dinner. huggles.

ominous anonymous

funny, in the four whole years i've been safely blogging, i've only had one unsettling comment. oh, and one robot spam, which is why i use word verification. actually, i feel so safe out here in the wonderful wide web that i even set up a class blog for a group of kids last term. it's closed now. and i've rejigged my facebook profile too. cos this wee message just popped into my inbox, unsigned:

ah, but here you are:
(all hail sitemeter)

uh, this is my diary ya'll. and it's the last day of a ridiculously long term. please don't make me feel so vulnerable - if ya scribble a lovely insightful note in the margin, sign it. i ain't gonna bite.