?

1. Write a glossary definition for wellies.

Hmmmm. I was trying to paste something else in here, but this turned up from my Word clipboard instead. It sort of summs up my life at present :)
Well, no, not really, but I'm having great fun filling in with a Year 1/2 class in the absence of a colleague at school. They're great, but much, much more dependent than I can really do justice to, given the other aspects of my job. Something will have to give and it can't be the kids.

Just in case you were wondering... that's an explanation writing activity for one of my Literacy groups linked to our Weather topic.

temporary glitch

Posting has been very infrequent recently due to the fact that any free time has been spent on the kitchen refurbishment. This has actually spread into the hall, stairway and landing too so everything is upside down. I'm already behind with my January socks, but have nearly finished the front of boobalicious.
Normal blogging will be resumed shortly (please....)

Growing up and moving on

Work on the kitchen moves on apace. We now have plaster on the walls and some electrical sockets that work.
When J took off all the old paper he uncovered this:



No, not the awful décor we once had. It’s three years’ worth of height recordings for j from around 9 years ago. The markings come up to my chest. He’s now somewhere about 6 feet 2 inches and still growing.
And who can imagine we ever thought that terracotta (even allowing for the fact that the photo makes it even more yellow and vivid than it ever was) rag rolling was a good idea?!

Sometimes time passes so slowly, sometimes it seems to rush by. How can I be old enough to be the parent of someone who needs a signature to guarantee his compliance with AS level exam protocols next week?

You know that your children are growing up when they are not only 6 feet plus, but when you follow a blog link to a website that they think is unsuitable for you.... "Oh! My! God! I can't believe you're looking at that!" (I was only on the front page...) "It's the Wikipedia of everything that is sick and disgusting on the web!" (I was only on the front page, honest...) "No, it's just too horrible, the idea of you reading that stuff - it's wrong!" (it's obvious that he regularly gets further than the front page and may, indeed, be a contributor...)
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I was at a funeral this morning. One of our volunteers at school, Jean, died on the 2nd January, aged 72, after a year of failing health, but she kept coming in to man our library and work with the children. She never married and was a very modest, quiet lady and it was standing room only at the church for the service. An avid reader with a penchant for showtunes, she had been an engineer, a librarian, worked with inmates at our local high security prison and was a steward at her church. And she was a knitter and she knew the vagaries of our barcode scanner. She will be very much missed.

Extreme Makeover, Ravelling Edition

Have been suffering the consequences of having moved so much furniture and spent so much time on step ladders on Friday at school. Friday night and all day Saturday devoted to a full blown flare and J telling me how he had told me so-could have predicted this would happen-I should have known better-when will I learn etc etc etc. Well, I suppose it's only fair as he is the one who has to put up with the grimmacing and groaning and helping me lift my leg in and out of the car...

Anyway. I've found the answer to my Resolution quandries over at Geek Foo. A random resolution generator that takes all the hard work out of think up a resolution. This is mine:

In the year 2007 I resolve to: Become a slut. Get your resolution here.

In case this goes the way of all other resolutions, I'm keeping my options open and allowing J to continue on the kitchen remodelling.
Here he is having a busman's holiday:



I wish I had a wide angle lens, but I guess this gives some indication of how horrible the kitchen is at present.





Now that j and I are back to school, J is keeping his work schedule clear for a couple of weeks to work on our house.

I am keeping out of the way and working on this:



I haven't given up the walking, but have got rid of the tracker as it refused to update the way it was supposed to.

4 down, 96 to go.

Nike minus

So, I got a new pedometer. Not exactly Nike+, because I don't exactly have the Nike+ shoes, lifestyle or body. In fact, I imagine they would pay me not to use their products.

Today I wore it all day while I went into school to do a little work on the classroom I'm sharing from next week and what with one thing and another, I appear to have walked almost 2 miles today. I knew there had to be an advantage somewhere of having three buildings make up our school.

I'm wearing my two miles with pride and have found a ticker to chart my progress.

Why is there not a Nike Knitting+ kind of gadget, that would upload rows and decreases to my iPod? Actually, I don't have an iPod! I love the look of them, but I have iTunes on my Powerbook and listen to music on that and in the car, when I'm by myself. Most of my life is spent with other people so it never seemed appropriate to get one.

First steps

Setting the record straight: I intend to walk 100 miles by April, not run. If I ran there would be seismelogical events all over the North East of England and I would end up in Coronary Care. So, walking it is. Need to find some way of displaying the distance covered on my blog.

I've spent most of today preparing for going back to work :( I have some teaching commitment in Spring term so I've been doing all those things like lesson planning and cutting out letters for display that used to occupy so much more of my life. Still, it will be really nice to have a class that's almost mine for a while.

I have actually started to use some stash! I cast on for Boobalicious, from Big Girl Knits the other evening. I'm doing it in Silke Tweed in this colourway.



Was worried that it might feel wooly next to my skin, but it seems to be more like raw silk or linen and if it is wooly, I'll turn it into a tank top (sweater vest).

The building work progresses slightly. We have been looking at uPVC exterior doors as our existing back door wobbles in its frame and there is a howling gale in the kitchen. Not conducive to cosy eating at the dining table. Problem is they are sooooo ugly! I can have moulding, mock leading, real leading, gilt trim, you name it. But can I have plain glass, plain frame? Might be back to the drawing board on this one.

Looking forwards

Happy New Year everyone!



New Year's Eve found us being totally boring old farts - including a 15 year old old fart - and staying home. I was fighting off a flare and we were all exhausted. I fell asleep in front of the telly at 10ish and was woken by J in time to go to bed well before midnight. I slept through all the fireworks and festivities and, do you know what? I don't care :)

Yesterday, New Year's Day, we had J's father over for dinner. There are some 'tensions' within J's family at times so it's always difficult to know what to expect. Yesterday he regaled us with stories about Saddam Hussein's execution for starters and it was downhill from there, so less said, the better. j was disappointed that he had missed the 'best bits of bigotry' by the time he joined us. I'm glad he can see the humour in it and dismiss the ideas and beliefs.

Resolutions! How many must I have made and not kept over the years?

Why should this year be any different?

I would like to:

• reduce the size of my stomach


• stop buying things I don't really want or need from eBay


• keep up with this blog


• reduce the size of my stash

To this end I am joining in:



- to use up lots of the sock yarn in my stash already and maintain that sense of accomplishment that comes from finished objects

and:



- to force myself to face up to the stash and get it down (with a view to replenishing it some time with new things)

and:



Thanks to Rho for that last one.

I'm off to find my pedometer.