love kt's school bag

I am really happy with Kt's school bag this year.

It has one big outside pocket on the front where I can put her drink bottle and brain break (these are things that she needs to take into her classroom with her every day).

The next big zip compartment has plenty of space for all her lunch boxes .... we have one lunch box for lunch (which is the earlier meal and longest play time) and another lunch box for snack (which is more of an afternoon short play break).

There is also a final big zip compartment at the back which can be used for homework folders, books, library bag etc.

Everything can be kept separate, everything fits and it is wonderful.

This year my big grade one girl even carries it all the way home on her back ... luckily by the afternoon it is very light with just empty lunchboxes, a few newsletters and in the coming weeks .... one homework reading book and perhaps a library book.

I will take a photo of her carrying it ... it is enormous!

covering books with contact

Ok here is another post mostly to assist my memory and less of a newsy one.

I will just say that day 2 of school started out very well with no anxiety or hassles on Kt's part.

She pretty much sent me off without a second glance! I on the other hand lingered outside trying to catch glimpses of her ....

I have been able to leave school and just get on with my day without feeling bad or empty or upset ... no need for weed pulling in the garden (although there actually are weeds that need to be pulled!LOL!)

So back to the title of this post ... book covering.

I struggled a bit with this, having to peel back bubbly contact off Kt's books numerous times before I got it right, so I want to record the best way of doing it to fast track me for next year.

The main problem I had was that the way the paper is rolled when you buy it, makes the sticky side of the contact want to curl over and stick to itself.

The other problem was running out of contact and really only being short a couple of centimetres.

So:-

Step 1) ... unroll your contact and roll it back on itself with the backing side facing out. This can be done as soon as you buy it or a couple of days or even weeks before you are ready to start covering your books. Even a few minutes makes a difference.

Step 2) ... Lay out your contact and measure out enough for each book. On the contact instructions they suggest leaving a 3-5cm border around the outside of your book but this seems to be a bit of a waste to me. Each square marked on the backing paper is 2cm wide and I think that one to one and a half squares (2cm - 3cm) is plenty.

Step 3) ... once you have figured out the best way to cut each piece to avoid wastage you should cut it. Try and cut as neatly and as straight as you can because the edges you cut will be the ones visible on the inside covers of the books and straight and neat looks much better than jagged and uneven.


Step 4) ... Next flatten each contact piece underneath some heavy books for a few hours or overnight. This seems to make it a lot less likely to bubble and really helps.

Step 5)... Once you place the spine of your book in the middle of the contact, only stick down a little bit of contact to the surface of the book at a time and use the rounded handles of a large pair of scissors to smooth out any bubbles. Although you will have to peel the backing paper off the first half of the contact, you can cut that backing paper and cover up most of the sticky part of the contact again until you are ready to peel back more of it and stick it to your book.

Step 6) If you are gentle you can peel contact back off the cover to correct any big bubbles so do this if you run into any trouble!

Step 7) Slowly rub and stick on about a 2cm section of contact at a time until you reach the edge of the book.

Step 8) Cut off your corners and pull each edge taut to seal up each side of the cover.

Step 9) Working on the second side of your book is easier because you only have to peel off a small section of backing paper at a time and you can use your scissors to rub 2cm at a time, and you can also pull the contact and backing paper taut to make sure it stays straight.

I have one last book to cover for the moment so I am going to follow these instructions now and will hopefully end up with a perfectly covered book!

extract from an email to mum - de ja vu experience likely

Kt started back at school this morning.

Uni and I both took her and she met her teacher and handled it all very well.

She has her own desk to sit at and has many of her friends from prep A sitting near her so I think she will be fine.

The first day is always good though ... we expect the worst and it turns out really well.

Time will tell how she reacts as the weeks go by, but she is more confident now and she knows the school routine and knows a lot of kids etc.

Also the older she gets the more the teachers will encourage independence etc and especially in this class where there are grade 1 and 2 kids.

She kept saying she had a fantastic day and can't wait to go back so I will keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

I have tears very close to the surface at the moment and suspect that this year I may be more emotional about it all than she is ... of course pregnancy doesn't help with your emotional stability ... but there is something to be said for having a baby in your belly to distract you with a kick or a wriggle.

I didn't think I would be able to fall asleep at all last night but as soon as I lie down to rest Mr bump makes his presence felt (ooooh and again just now ... he knows I am talking about him LOL!)and I can focus on how it feels and how he is growing and that relaxes me and I am asleep in no time (once he stops moving of course).

Last year and also at the start of kindy I spent the first weeks feeling like I had a big hole in my belly ... but its hard to feel that way when your belly is big and round ... and kicking LOL!!!

I have had a couple of sniffles the last few weeks and although they seem to have turned out to only be allergic reactions I haven't been sure if I am well or not.

Uniis actually sick at the moment and when I started sneezing violently yesterday ... I was sure I was sick too ... but I am feeling better today. I really didn't need it yesterday because I had so many school preparations left to do like school lunches, putting contact on books, labelling things etc ... and of course every time I sneezed or blew my nose I would have to go and wash my hands and make sure I wasn't contaminating anything.

I have been taking it easy and trying to get plenty of rest so I think that has helped.

I feel very slow and plodding these days compared to the old me ... but I am getting things done ... more slowly ... but still done and I don't necessarily think it is a bad thing.

The old me tried to do a million things at once, got stressed, got angry and was always zipping around.

Perhaps this slow approach is what I need to get me through the next few years ... now that I know what having a baby is all about and realizing that the old way really wasn't working for me.

Or perhaps it is the influence of the baby bull inside me???? LOL!!!

Yesterday I finished the photolog and went back and did captions and double checked the contents to make sure all the pictures were upright (not sideways) and didn't have too much personal information in them.

I was having a great deal of difficulty positioning the captions and then discovered that all I needed to do was put the caption underneath the a>ref thing for the photo I wanted it to appear beside. The preview thing is misleading as it puts it in a different spot in the preview to where it will actually appear when you publish your post. I don't know why this is, as the whole point of a preview is to show you what the finished outcome will be ... but never mind ... I have it figured out now.

I do have a batch of pictures from 2008 that I have rediscovered and I am debating whether to put them on the blog or not.

I probably will ... but I might take a few days break ... there are other things that need my attention.

the bottom of the pile

The bottom of the pile of artworks is in my sights.

I still have about 100 to 150 artwork photos on my camera, but I will process these all together and knowing it will be my last batch.

I am impressed with how much the blog can fit in ... although I am having a lot of trouble positioning my captions beside the pictures.

Perhaps in the end I won't worry about captions so much and just let the picture tell the story.

Yesterday I sorted through Kt's school awards and schoolwork and organized them into a few folders ... I wonder if she will notice if I secrete them amongst her books in her bookshelf LOL!

She has been pretty accepting of the fact that most of her stuff has ended up in her room, either in clear plastic boxes under her bed, or in the form of art supplies in her new desk, or in her wardrobe.

Most of the available space in there is taken up ... but it is all with her stuff and it is all relatively accessible and tidy.

alma park zoo

Today we went to Kt's school and picked up this years book pack.

Then we dropped it off at home and headed to Alma Park Zoo for the day.

We arrived there at 10.45am and left at 3.45pm.

We managed to get around and see all the exhibits and most of the information shows although Kt lost interest in those by the afternoon when the marmoset feeding took place. She preferred to wander and look at things at her own leisure rather than crowding together to listen to the keeper talk.

We did watch the koala talk and got a very brief pat of a koala at the end ... as well as the reptile talk which involved a snake and a small crocodile. I was keen to pat the snake which felt quite unusual ... Kt didn't want to ... but ended up doing it anyway.

It turns out that she has already in her short little life patted about 3 or 4 snakes and crocodiles (although I think the koala may have been a first!).

Both this year at prep and last year at kindy the kids have experienced a reptile show and each got to pat various unusual creatures.... unlike mum, who has not had many such close encounters.

I was a bit disoriented when we first arrived and found it difficult to follow their maps, but after a few hours we got a few landmarks worked out and by the end of the day were able to successfully navigate our way through.

I took heaps of photos until my camera ran out of battery ... many photo opportunities naturally presented themselves when I could do nothing about capturing them, but you are able to relax and take things in more when you don't have to worry about recording things so in some ways it was a good thing.

The cost of entry is fairly expensive but if you buy an annual pass which is something like 2 and a half times the cost of a normal entry you can go back as many times as you like in a year.

I am tempted to buy one each for me and KT because it is a really nice day out, full of exercise and even during the school holidays was not very crowded. If you don't try to catch the shows and just meander around at your own leisure you can have a fairly enjoyable and unhurried, uncrowded experience. Even one visit each month or every two months or even each set of school holidays would get you your moneys worth ... and it is really close to home ... and babies are free so I could wheel the baby around there in the pram and keep Kt pretty busy.

We bought two bags of feed and discovered that some of the animals were much more fun to feed than others ... everyone seemed to go and try and feed the kangaroos, which were no longer very interested ... while other animals were forgotten.

There are two parts to the park which is split down the middle by the main car park.

We only ventured over to the second half in the afternoon after lunch. There we fed two donkeys, a whole herd of fallow deer, a cow and later wished we had a bit of food left over for the himalayan tahrs which were fascinating creatures related to mountain goats.

Kt spotted one of the fallow deer next to the fence where we were standing and I gave her some food for him, then one by one all the rest came trotting over. There was no one else in the enclosure and we had the whole, very gentle herd to ourselves. Most were grown ones, but there were a couple of little ones too.

We followed some llamas or perhaps alpaca's that were being taken for a walk ... although there was no mention of them in the zoo brochure and there was no enclosure for them that we had come across.

In the first half of the park we ended up feeding some of our food to the very full kangaroos, some turtles in lemur lake, and a couple of emus. I got heaps of photos of the turtles who were both very friendly.

Kt also got the attention of the dingos as well, by clapping and generally calling them over the way you would with a regular dog. Both looked over at us with interest and one came right up to the fence to check us out. Then after a bit of a tussle with each other and a play gnaw on each others legs and muzzles the inquisitive one came back to us! Wish my camera had batteries at this point as we would have got a real close up!

Kt's sharp eyes helped us to locate a couple of animals like the green iguana who I could not even see until she pointed him out.

And she was interested in the brush tailed possom who was having a great nibble on a tasty looking silverbeet type leaf.

I hadn't realized we could feed the peacocks too, which were roaming along the pathways. One particular family with mother, father and about 5 or 6 chicks crossed our path many times. I tried many times to photograph them, but they kept on quickly melting into the undergrowth! At the very end of the day we got to see them inside the wallaby enclosure enjoying a drink of water. We then followed them along the fence line and the male peacock ended up jumping up onto the top of the fence in between kt (who was further up the path) and I. I thought he might try and get aggressive and was a bit worried but after wobbling on top of the fence until kt moved further forward and out of his way, he dropped to the ground and his wife followed him!

I was horrified that they might be leaving their chicks behind but relaxed when I realized the chicks could get through a small triangular hole in the bottom of the fence.

My family and theirs crossed paths.

There was only one chick left in the enclosure who looked like he might not know where the gap was ... so I quickly crossed over to where kt was so that he had a clear uninterrupted run and he doubled back and found the gap and was reunited with his family.

Another peacock later on looked like he might be interested in Kt's ice cream (and my shoe).

All in all it was a great day although I am totally exhausted now after returning home and having to launch straight into making dinner.

I will stop posting now and have a shower and go to bed!

caloundra

Today we headed out early to catch some waves at kings beach Caloundra.

Kt has been having so much fun on her boogie board but there are just not enough waves here so uni was keen for us to take her somewhere a bit more challenging.

It was a pretty hot day today and it is the middle of school holidays so there were a lot of people at the beach and of course the flags were not very far apart.

I was buffeted about quite a lot, ending up with gravel rash on my knees and being knocked to the ground twice ... landing once on each hip. It was really rough in the shallows, but uni took us out a bit deeper and we were able to stay relatively safe out there.

Kt caught a few waves back to the beach and for the most part was unhurt. Both she and Justin ended up with a scraped knee each, and we got an occasional dunking but all in all it was pretty positive and Kt had lots of fun.

She is very good at manoeuvring the board and can manage to stay on pretty well. Those boogie boards certainly can get some speed up!

While I got showered and dressed, kt and uni made sandcastles on the beach with the new bucket, spade and rake set kt got for Christmas. They were very impressive.

We came home for a Morgans lunch YUM!

And then I had an afternoon rest because I was quite worn out. Needless to stay Kt is still bouncing around!

I don't think we got too badly burnt ... we took sunscreen along and reapplied it frequently. Kt looks pretty brown and I only have a very small sore patch on my shoulders.

I still have not made it to the lagoon yet this summer ... maybe some time next week!

There is only a week left of holidays so I better get a move on ... although I might go on my own once Kt is back at school. Hopefully it will be less crowded once school holidays end.

well I have made a start on the artwork blog

It has been slow going, but I am fine tuning it and once I get the hang of how I want it to look and how I want to organize it I should be able to power along.

I have enlisted Kt's help to decide which pictures she absolutely loves and wants me to keep a physical copy and which ones are OK to scan into the computer and keep recorded on disk or on screen only.

Surprisingly she has been very co-operative about this and understands that we have to make room for the new artworks she does and we can't keep paper copies of everything.

It has been fun scanning the smaller pieces of artwork into the computer. I usually do a batch of 10 or 12 in one sitting ... this takes about 30 minutes or so.

The scanner zooms in on the picture part and selects what it thinks you should crop and usually it is exactly right.

Some artworks are too big to fit on the scanner screen so I have been taking photos of these ones and will process them all together as one batch.

Although blogger is slow to download photos, I have found that it does not go too bad on a good day.

I just have to be prepared to do other things while I sit at my screen.

Tomorrow is bin day and the recycling bin is absolutely packed, and downstairs we also have several full boxes of more recycling ready to go into the bin as soon as it gets emptied.

I think this always happens in January while we deal with the extra wrappings and boxes that come with Xmas presents.

Hopefully there will also be some space in this bin for the artworks I have photographed or scanned.

Uni is working hard downstairs. He has finished painting the bulk of the office ... doing 2 coats of light blue paint.

The whole room looks 100% better than before ... I better take some more photos soon.

He will be painting an old wardrobe and the window sills a contrast colour and I'm not sure what is happening with the ceiling (will have to go and have a look!).

Next will be recovering the old carpet.

Then I will organize some new curtains (and maybe look into getting a fly screen for the window).

Before you know it there will be office stuff in there and we can start work on completely emptying and painting the baby's room.

... and then refilling it with baby furniture.

The new mirror wardrobe for our room arrives tomorrow and there is a good space waiting for it.

I will spend most of tomorrow and the next day filling it with our stuff.

I am also on track with the "fortnightly shopping" ... although I completely forgot to buy fish fingers which I don't think we can do without for the next two weeks. Kt's palate is limited and fish fingers are a bit of a staple of hers unfortunately.

The fridge and pantry are looking much fuller after my shopping efforts earlier in the week and I was pleased to discover that I did not go over budget at WW even though I was buying 2 weeks worth of stuff and some of those things were bulk items like 400g coffee etc and I also had to buy some fresh food after my hassles at the markets.... read on ...

After two weeks break from the markets mostly for the purposes of sleeping in, I woke up earlyish and went to the markets this Sunday only to discover they were not there! I think this may have been as a result of the Greek blessing of the waters ceremony.

We were so low on fresh food that I went to the showground markets and picked up a few things there. I was VERY THANKFUL for my wonderful, wonderful ... can not say this enough WONDERFUL market trolley!!!

I only spent $10 and got a huge bag of nectarines, a huge bag of grapes, a big bunch of bananas and a couple of cucumbers ... good value overall, but this was all I could find and I had to pick up eggs, lettuce, carrots, capsicum, potatoes, sweet potato and similar from WW (at their horrendous prices) so we would not go without.

This is why it is a miracle that I did not end up going over budget (that is of course 2 weeks budget not just one)... although maybe forgetting the fish fingers may have helped the cause.

In the afternoon we went for another swim at the beach ... this time at Margate!

The water was lovely and warm and this time around we got out earlier before we felt cold and changed into clothes on the beach. I did a complete change of clothes for kt and I half dressed myself on the beach and wrapped the remainder in a towel and headed for the change rooms.

Margate beach did have a lot of seaweed unfortunately so when I took off my swimsuit I was covered in bits of beach debris.

I knew we would shower and wash hair at home so I just dusted as much off as I could and got dressed anyway.

Was completely exhausted by evening and slept for a good 9 hours with few toilet breaks (unusual) and luckily none of the bad dreams that have plagued me the last two nights.

Phew enough typing I am worn out now.

swimming

Yesterday afternoon Kt, uni and I went swimming at scarborough beach.

Kt had her new Xmas boogie board to try out, I had my new maternity swimsuit to wear and I also took along my prescription goggles because although I have had them for a while I haven't actually worn them swimming yet.

Kt was really amazing on the boogie board. We spent ages out on the water and it was good for all of us because she was very independent, not needing to hang on to either of us.

We were a distance apart from each other to make sure there was someone in close proximity to her at all times, but she didn't actually need saving at all.

The few times she went under her board, she came up clinging to the underside of it with a big grin on her face!

I loved my swimsuit ... it is nice feeling completely covered. The floaty bits did kind of float around me in the water and I had to keep reminding myself what I was feeling was fabric not seaweed.

The prescription goggles (the ones I got from the optometrist $80) were terrific! They were comfortable, I could see well, I could go under the water. I did not get a headache! They were not completely watertight, but they were tinted and they allowed me to see without worrying about losing my glasses (or contact lenses), or feeling frantic because I couldn't see our stuff on the beach, or the faces of my family in the water.

I felt a lot more relaxed in the water too .. not trying to fight the water, not tensing up because I felt I needed to keep my head above water.

I did lots of breaststroke because that and backstoke are supposed to be good for pregnancy and I was totally worn out by the end ... sore legs, sore belly, full bladder (OK nothing new there!).

All in all a great afternoon.

I have now cleared space on my desk for my new laptop ... once I have gotten a bit more work done I will crack it open and test it out as a reward for my hard work.

I also have all the baby clothes in one corner of the loungeroom ready to sort through when then time is right.

It is nice to have everything all together in one place instead of spread throughout the house.

I am still working through Kt's artworks and clearing out my old dressing table to make room for our new build in wardrobe being delivered on Tuesday, but there is now much more working space in both areas (as a result of musical boxes!) which will allow me to work on both jobs much more easily.

I have also started on a plan to do either one WW or one Aldi shop per week. That way I will visit each store only once a fortnight and start to stockpile and put our extra fridge, freezer and pantry space to good use.

I think it will be tricky to begin with, but I should get the hang of it.

Then maybe by the time the baby is here I can try and drop the shopping to once a fortnight for each place????

steadily we plough

I am making progress on the computer room clearing, finishing my box of memories last night.

Over the years I have been accumulating DVD's, photo CD's etc of our own and some that others have given us.

I now have them all in a big bright blue box ... wedding videos, wedding photos, wedding placecards, wedding invitations, photos from kt's year at kindy on cd, bellydancing video on DVD etc.

I also have other odds and ends that I want to remember in here in a small flip photo album. These are things like ticket stubs from movies or theatre shows, clippings from newspapers etc.

The next stage in sorting things out is to continue with Kt's artworks ... such a daunting task when you look at the pile of them!

I look at it, have no idea where to start and instantly USED TO jump on the computer and head to farmtown or farmville.

Now I prefer to use something else more productive like sweeping the kitchen floor or cleaning the bathroom basin or doing a load of washing ... or LOL writing a blog entry :-D. Now you know what I have been up to this morning :-P

I just have to remember to break up my big unmanageable jobs into much smaller doable parts. It is so easy to do in theory and once I get started there is no stopping me ... but starting is difficult.

I also need to make space for the cupboard arriving on Tuesday ... another daunting task.

I will be playing musical boxes, with my stuff for the next week ... moving things from one room to the next to make room and then rearrange and make room elsewhere...

Ok time to stop procrastinating now ....

shredder

hee hee

We have been hard at work preparing our new office!

Uni has put the termite damaged walls back together and cleaned the horrible carpet downstairs.

Today he cleaned the walls down with sugar soap in preparation for painting. That reminds me that I need to go down and take a photo of his progress.

Meanwhile I am upstairs arranging all our stuff into suspension files for the new filing cabinet that we bought.

I have completely filled it now and am very happy with how organized everything is!

I could probably do with another filing cabinet or a bookshelf or bookcase for a few more things I need to find space for but we can deal with that when we come to it.

I have a bit of space cleared on my desk now which I may be able to use to try out my new computer!

It is hard to work on things when there is no room available!!

Today we had a tasty morgans lunch by the beach before all heading off to get our haircut ... so now we all look fabulous.

Oh just remembered the shredder ...

It is a piece of office equipment that I bought along with suspension files etc... so that I can shred bank documents etc that I no longer want to keep filed. I have been cutting these up with scissors to avoid sharing personal information, but was finding my hands were getting sore.

So now I have a very cheap 5 sheet shredder which after a few teething troubles, jams and hiccups I now run one sheet of folded paper through at a time and it works perfectly! LOL!!!

Although one sheet at a time sounds tedious it is still quicker for me to feed 10 sheets through individually than cut up that many into bits myself ... and it also makes perfect sized paper worm food!

I have to unjam the shredder when it does jam using a long pair of tweezers from my sewing kit, a small thin metal ruler and a folded out or straightened out safety pin.

so glad I got rid of farm games

Well it has been a few days now and I haven't even missed those time wasting games.

I thought I would go into withdrawal symptoms but I haven't. I soooo wish I had got rid of them sooner.

I really do think face book is next ... but I don't spend nearly as many hours on face book itself as I used to spend doing the games.

Some of my friends continue to send me game stuff but I just blocked each application so I don't get any more of those invites now either!

There are plenty of other things I can do when I want to have fun and I get much more satisfaction from actually rearranging my house (of which there is plenty of that still required) than from not really rearranging a virtual farm.

I am also easing up on constantly checking for blog updates ... those sites that do update regularly seem to be saying the same things over and over ... and those sites that update unpredictably I can stumble on by checking once a day rather than several times a day.

OK well better get back to it now ... got a computer room to change into a baby's room and cupboards to clear in anticipation of the arrival of our new wardrobe next week.

very unimpressed

It seems I somehow managed to delete all the emails I sent or received in November.

They are gone without a trace!

Hmmmpfff now I know a potential down side to the way I have been keeping my emails stored!

facebook

Well I have been on face book for just under a year.

I discovered it in the early days of 2009.

It has been a source of a lot of fun and enjoyment, but has also been a tremendous drain on my time and I have been addicted to it in an unhealthy way ... especially the games.

I like to know what others are doing, and there is a lot of humour out there, but for most people the story continues to be the same.

eg one friend posts pictures of her and her friends and their various drinking outings. How many drunken pictures of her do I really need to look at, making suggestive poses to the camera?

How many times do I politely return something that has been sent to me only to be sucked back into a game or application I am either not interested in or do not have the willpower to resist.

Right now and in the future I will have so little free time to myself, why waste it on garbage.

It is so easy to waste time, before you know it it has gone.

So yesterday while feeling particularly low ... lack of sleep, social occasion the day before, Christmas not far gone etc. I decided my best option was to go cold turkey.

Cold turkey on the games that I have spent most of the last year playing ... hours and hours and hours unnecessarily wasted.

How many time have I tried to gently ease off them? Many?

The only thing that really works is to just delete them and all temptation is gone.

So on the 1st of January I removed the farm town and farm ville application completely, deleted a whole heap of friends and seriously considered closing off face book entirely (perhaps only temporarily).

I may still take this approach... am still deciding.

A lot of the information that is on there is no longer true or no longer applies ... and although I would like to announce my pregnancy I don't know how to handle the fact that some of my friends have very personally experienced the loss of a baby and I can't tell some people without telling others.