i really cannot think of a title. that's what a whole weekend with an assessment assignment does to your head.

it's suddenly that time of year again, where you grab your boot straps and heave upwards, and get back on the wagon. cos you're rapidly turning into a fat lump *futt looomp* (dig the Blighty accent?) and then you have a simultaneous freak out cos you've spent so many years in jeans and tshirts, and soooooon you're gonna have to play dress ups most days.

so you leap on the ONE dress OCTOBER bandwagon:

From October 1st until October 31st,
you wear one dress.
Anti-consumerism, pro-simplicity,
anti-conformity, pro-imagination.

which is closely related to something that's been in your heart for a couple of years. yes, you decide that the creativity of dressing up or dressing down ONE dress for the whole of OCTOBER is gonna help you regain some much-needed perspective on life, the universe, and everything, and you get all gung-ho and begin a food-for-thought journal for it.

and you plan on taking photos every day.

love love love

finally, the revelation
of my *forty* quilt.

it's full of fabrics from

across the miles and years.

some fabrics have been gifted,

some have floated around
the world in aprons,
some are in my children's quilts,
and some i even remember
from my childhood.

it captures the essence
of my world.

it's so wild and crazy.

i am now on the lookout
for a VW kombi to keep it in.

s p a c e o d d i t y

my latest mission:
impersonating neil armstrong.

i even had the
american accent perfected.

"one small step for man..." etc

i must've been reasonably convincing: after i'd removed the helmet (and smoothed my helmet hair and adjusted my eardrums - jeez those things are impossible to hear anything inside - i think i was doing a lot of shouting)

a little blondie looked at me incredulously and asked, wide-eyed, "have you *really* been to the moon?"

(unfortunately the *moonwalking* pics got lost in space)

la lumière

i lit our last light from Paris this morning. the Paris that i had longed to visit for twenty years and finally did. the Paris that we were in, a little over three years ago. the Paris that inspired all those francais fridays and these Français fridays during my first year of blogging.

the lighting of this last candle in the second little red espresso cup is perfect timing, because i've finally spotted the light at the end of the tunnel. oh yes, i am handing in my second literacy assignment this morning. which means that there are only four weeks and three assignments to go:

1. an eight minute panel/interview powerpoint presentation on my philosophy and practice of assessment (oh golly what shall i say? i have the perfect quote but am a bit afraid to use it... *recites* i must play by the rules, i must play by the rules...).

2. a three-day team teaching and evaluation/pedagogical implications 1500 worder on curriculum integration, including NZC (2007) links, and three previously uncited authors all woven within.

3. a big bad test. my first. and it's on running records, which i have done eleventy billion of... twenty years ago... it helps that i totally believe in running records. i *heart* marie clay. so am just needing a wee brush-up on the analysis and future considerations. and i'll also need a count-relator. for all the adding and dividing and times by two.

and then..? i've got tickets for The Rita Angus Road Trip... an ode to my art assignments and a couple of days with my mummy and daddy to celebrate the end of this long and arduous and awakening year.

you're the voice

Sam, you're twelve today. twelve going on twenty-something. actually, you've been going on twenty-something for quite a while. i noticed you at the park on thursday, after your guitar lesson. you are all intuitiveness and awareness of others, with the peripheral vision of a fly. seriously, i have never seen a kid so aware of keeping the younger ones happy. slowing the roundy-roundy down so that someone with shorter legs can keep up with the pushing speed. going to check on a random kid who's face planted after spinning off said roundy-roundy. calling to your brother to make sure that he's listening to another random kid who wants to get off.

you are the family's cool-o-meter. you even make pink-and-white surf shorts look cool with a red-and-yellow-and-black shirt. i don't know anyone else who could do that. your current fave musician is van halen, and this morning before school, you got a *singstar* on the singstar.

and this year - oh how i have waited for this to happen - this year you have fallen in love with books. not just the comics you've been reading for the last three years. books, with words and chapters. not that there's anything wrong with comics. and the other thing is that you're finding your own voice with a pen. i knew that would happen too.

but that's not all. three weeks ago you got a rabbit. Thumper. a hand me along from a friend's sister. yeah. and every day without being asked you clean out his cage. and you even let Daddy take him for a walk. well, actually, Daddy sneaks him out while you're at school, but hush, i won't tell if you won't.

a flea in yer ear

to be honest, my iPod has been nuffin' but trouble since iGot it two years ago.
but iAm convinced that this is the next thing iWant.....

iThink it's the most brilliant Flea Byte i've evah seen.....

conclusion

Beane (1997) asserts that curriculum integration begins with the view that “young people have a right to be intelligent, to be well informed, to search for meaning in their world, to be engaged with significant issues, to do authentic work, to learn the whole story, to think critically, to form values, to make judgments, and to be respected” (p. 103).

I believe that children are born wired to learn: in their unique way, and in their own time. As the poet William Butler Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Educators must start and end with the students – with their interests and wonderings about our world – to ensure that our “marshmallows” are aimed towards wide open mouths.

and that, said katie, is the end of another essay. and i even managed to stay within the word limit this time. boo yah. i think i've earned 24 hours off.

i can't believe we've waited so long to do this. for the first time this year, i picked all the kiddos up from skool at lunchtime and we did that friday thing we used to do. although the sky was a bit grey for the beach, so we rendevous-ed at the skate rink.

when we first moved to The Sunny Bay from The Big Smoke on a whim, six and a half years ago, a group of beautiful women immediately drew me and mine into their hearts and we drew them into ours. the instant sisters. we did maori on mondays and drama on tuesdays and steiner on wednesdays and we beached it on fridays. uh, thursdays? we had to stay home one day a week.

today we waved another of the long-haired-freebies off to skool, and sneaked a glass of wine, and watched kids monkeying all over the walls, and reminisced about the crazyness of the last six years together, watching our babies growing into fine young people.

i want to turn the clock back.

Little Miss Flossy's Little Miss

Little Miss Sunshine has travelled three squinthly kilometres from The Big River City (pffft) to The Sunny Bay (no pfffft - it's hot sunshine here baby) to hang with us this week. well, she has a bit of sport to compete in amongst rabbit-dancing, paper-walking, movie-watching, hair-braiding, movie-line-quoting, zippy-pencil-case-buying, muffin-scoffing, special-plate-eating-offing (yep, got her name in the local newspaper today!!! woot), and marshmallow-roasting. mm-hmmmm, the peeps are currently out on the back lawn in the dark, all crowding around the fire and cramming sticky goo between choc bikkies and being generally hilarious. soz, no pics from tonight cos my camera is an idiot and my trusty rusty phone has no flash.
but here's the pxt from monday nite's lovin' of da wascally wabbit. amazingly, for a wee sunshine girlie so far away from her own peeps, she's tremendously buoyant and resilient (and rather wired on sugar). i hope she doesn't take too many of our bad habits home...

blink and you'll miss it

last week, this boy turned twenty,
which is so hard to believe,
and so wonderful to celebrate.
tonight, he and woozie are
dancing around the kitchen

making chocolate chippie bikkies
and singing along to natalie cole's l.o.v.e.

(and now he is stirring the mixture
and she is calling, muuuum, can you
please ask danny to do it *my* way?)

Bride to Be

(in rather a few years' time)
@ today's photoshoot for Bridal website
@ flash hotel on the waterfront.