veggie tales

it's been ages since i made this. the last week's been a bit of a whirlwind and my head is already full of next year's plans and dreams and i really just needed a wee sunshine moment.

enter delish roasty veggieness: parsnips, red onions, carrots, pumpkin, courgettes, red + yellow capsicum, mushrooms, chick peas, cooked couscous, toasted sunflower + cumin seeds, gently layered and swished all over with lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, tsp curry powder, freshly ground salt + black pepper all snuggled up on a bed of mesclun leaves. everyone loved it. then we shared lemonydrizzled slices of woozie's delish banana cake. sunshine. all. around.

rockit man

so, sam was helping set up the stage for the skool assembly today and his music teacher asked if he could play a few chords to intro a song in the rehearsal > which impromptuly turned into a guitar-and-singing-duet in front of 400 peeps.

cos that's how he rolls.

#pleasuretoteach

part of Bulldog's job is to complete a final edit of skool reports. because i'm such a spelling nazi dediKATEd editor, we usually split the pack and trawl through it together until the wee small hours. last month i won the 'pleasure to teach' medal - that particular phrase was repeated FIVE times on an individual student's report, out of a possible six different entries. as a result i've totally sworn off that particular filler, but i think i've jinxed the universe cos really, how many different ways can ya say "Student has had a hugely successful year in Mathematics and the whole class recently got Excellences so we all had a pizza lunch..?"

this weekend i've already spent about ten hours trying to write individual comments, and i've just noticed that they're all turning into variations of:
"'Student's natural ability, coupled with hard work, has seen her achieve a huge number of successes in Mathematics this year. Student is focused and conscientious in the classroom. She sets goals and works towards them diligently, taking responsibility for her learning. Student grasps new concepts quickly, is able to articulate her mathematical processes clearly, and is a valued contributor in group situations. Congratulations on a superb year’s work."

and there's not a 'pleasure to teach' in sight! but what does it really say? arrrrrgh. and what non-generic NEXT STEPS can i suggest if she's topped the class and got 95+% on every single end-of-topic test? this process is driving me nuts, cos even after all my raving attempts to individualify the universe i find myself playing the forehead stamp game. yes, i really would like an answer, or at least a few suggestions...

friday night, it was late

it's strange how friendships change. i'd like some things to always remain the same, but it seems that the constant thing about life is its changeability. when we moved to the sunny bay nine years ago, i had no idea how much would change about our world. on the home front, our kids have grown so much. one has left home and gone to university and has even got himself a job to go to in the new year. the second is in her final exams and has just applied to our local university to study teaching. she's gonna save significant pennies by staying at home during her tertiary years - oh goodie, we get to keep our resident chef. the rest of us are still at skool together - i do find it hilarious that we can't really say goodbye to homeskooling.

it's wonderful that even though peeps come and go in our lives, there are always friends we can land with for a few hours. last night saw five of us in the secret garden, sharing some early summer sunshine and sillybrating change - a year of university and new jobs, of success and all-round superhumanness.

i hope these lot stay in my life for a long time hence. x

danny is on university study break and i am 200km down the road writing skool reports and ohlookit! both of us are on facebook and now we're chatting

Katie: so last night we were rudely awoken at witching hour by KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK...
and someone (or maybe both of us) mumbled "i think someone's knocking at the door.." so dad and i wandered rather drunkenly down the hall (even though we hadn't previously touched a drop) and turned on every single light before opening the door to a blonde lady who looked us up and down and 'splained:
"i'm so sorry to wake you but your letterbox is on fire..."
Danny:
Katie: so i said, "oh, i'll just get a bucket of water.." and wobbled off to the laundry but then dad insisted on finding a torch incase there was something dubious in said letterbox and it jumped out at us when we threw the water on it so it took delirious us ten mins to discover three torches... but alas! none of them had batteries in them... and i was busy having a wee kitten cos what! if! we! have! a! real! emergency! and! we! have! no! batteries! in! our! thousands! of! torches!???
Danny:

which is probably why my son is an almost-qualified-engineer and i am still procrastinating writing skool reports #somethingshinyoverthere

woozie wokstar

i picked up a new wok today cos i killed my old faithful last night making something that burned cos there was something shiny over there was eventually named 'smouldering mexican' by this dude

(they were going to a moustache party)

the wok we found was $70 reduced to $20 and is ZIP and a heavy 30cm non-stick base and it even has a glass lid. brilliant... and comes with its own wokstar

who is making us pseudo-noodle box for lunch, sans coriander and cashews.

status update

it's funny how micro-blogging seems taken over the blogiverse. so many peeps i have met through my blogging history (of more than five years! wowsers) have drifted off to facebook and/or twitter. it's funny, too, how much twaddle gets posted online these days. at last, here is the definitive guideline for what to say and where to say it:

i don't use foursquare or linkedin (yet), and after going to a brain-melting conference on social media and 21st century learning i have started uploading here again (even though blogger.com doesn't appear on the above destructions), cos it appears that we are still encouraging kiddos to blog. monkey see, monkey do.

but *ahem* today's REAL status update is: I HAVE A NEW JOB!!! YES!! I WILL HAVE MY VERY OWN BUNCH OF COOL KIDS AND MY VERY OWN CLASSROOM IN 2012!!!!! no more pushing my supermarket trolley 100km around skool every day. i'm just so exciiited! talk about a velveteen rabbit moment. <pops champagne>