Terrific day

I have had a really great day today.

Everything flowed well and went smoothly. You know one of those days where the birds are singing and it feels like you have a fairy godmother watching over you.

Okay Okay so I just recently went to see Disney on ice with my husband and lovely daughter so perhaps I have fairy godmothers on my mind!

I was very tired this morning and found it really difficult to wake up and was not expecting to have a good day so I was really pleasantly surprised by how everything turned out.

It started when I took KT to school this morning and we sat down together to read a book (as we always do). A little crowd of interested kids came and sat down with us to listen to the story.... right to the end.

Then I said goodbye to KT and asked her to wish me luck for my first swimming lesson and she said .... "I don't think you are going to have a very good time" .....

bear with me here ....

I asked her why she didn't think I would have a good time and she said when she starts new things she doesn't really enjoy them the first time, but finds them much more fun the next time and the next time and the next time.

"So you are saying I shouldn't worry If I don't like this swimming lesson but that if I keep going and trying it will be better each time?"

"Yes" she beamed and gave me a big hug.

I headed home and headed into the backyard with our bin and was met by our puppy who greeted me with sooooo much joy and affection and then rushed around the yard playing happily with me! She is growing up now and although she usually wants to play she isn't always very responsive and sometimes doesn't feel up to it (possibly pregnancy related ... or phantom pregnancy related????).

Then I got changed into my painting clothes and did 45 minutes of fence painting. I discovered that I couldn't reach the top part of the fence and will attempt to paint those parts tomorrow using a ladder ... stay tuned for further adventures!!!

I headed upstairs to do banking and check my emails .... and inevitably play farm town.

They have made some great new changes to the game that took effect this morning and it is much faster and more fun to play now. They seem to know when I have just about had enough of it and then they add a new element and I am hooked again ... actually now that I come to think of it that may not have been such a good thing ... but today it made me feel great!

Some very positive interaction with Uni (tee hee) won't go into more detail as I got ready for swimming.

The class itself was full on and intense ... Jenni is lovely and I learned more in 30 minutes with her probably than I learned swimming at school.

I can only seem to take in a very small amount of information at a time ... so in the last ten minutes I was feeling tired and a bit frazzled and overwhelmed. Luckily I recorded (mentally) everything she said and have been playing it back to myself all afternoon. Wish I could have videotaped the whole thing so I could see what I did, what she said and what effect it had.

Things I have to remember and practise ...

1. put head down and look at the bottom of the pool instead of up or forwards ... this makes your bottom go up (I have heard this told to KT a million times in the pool so should be easy to remember).
2. Do deliberate slow arm strokes e.g. with kick board hold with both hands, lift right arm for breath, then left arm for bubbles. My arms were going all over the place too fast and not in the right sequence ... Jenni got me to try to move one arm all the way around and then only move the other arm once both were at the front.
3. kicking as if trying to kick off a sock ... not mad fast kicking that would be unsustainable in the long term.
4. Breathe every second arm ... get into a rhythm of breathing some air out and some air in with each arm stroke without trying to get all the air in or all the air out each time. (i am not sure if I breathed out using my nose in the water or just my mouth ... will have to see what i do next time)
5. when lying on my back floating my head is too far back (put chin down more ... as if lying flat on a bed) have head, neck, back, hips and knees in a line .. move feet rather than legs when kicking
6. Knees below the surface of the water but chest above the water (back floating)
7. Roll shoulders for arm movements but torso and rest of body stays straight.
8. Don't swim desperately ... try to be controlled and focused
9. If you are tired or struggling .. don't try to swim faster and harder, try to pace yourself, slow down etc.

I found it really difficult to be aware of what I was actually doing, hear and process what was being said and then remember it and put it into practise!!!

Oh well it was only my first lesson.

I plan to try her evening class next week ... which is 1 hour but has several people in it, some beginners some more experienced. That should allow me to have a bit of tuition time, but also to swim and practice on my own as well ... and perhaps observe and listen while others are being taught. I wonder how cold it will be in the evening ....

She also suggested practising during the week, purchasing goggles (I wonder if I could wear contact lenses with goggles and eliminate the panic associated with not being able to see properly)... and also short flippers rather than long ones.

Overall I feel pretty good about how I went and although I would panic as I started to swim, I found I was able to focus and really try with the breathing and could go further than I expected. I remembered someones recent wise words about not stopping and trying to get into a pattern of breathing ... thanks mum!

I left the pool feeling really happy, really tired and somewhat sore and throughout the afternoon I felt like I was breathing more air in and standing up straighter!!!

Feeling very enthusiastic at the moment.

Was completely ravenous and ate a tasty lunch with Uni and then very soon after went to pick up KT.

We had a good afternoon together, plenty of hugs and kisses and I managed to get dinner made and served on time AND KT asked for seconds!!!

There is a free dress and Crazy hat or crazy hair day for school tomorrow so we made a newspaper hat just before bed.

I have cleaned up the kitchen and am thoroughly exhausted now ... still have school lunches to make for tomorrow and Friday but after that I will collapse in a chair ... and head off to bed early.

Manic Thursday

I had a really manic day on Thursday.

This week has been my first child free week since the school holidays and I have been driven to work hard on all the things I have not had time to do.

I painted heaps of the fence, cleared a path for myself along the fence line (through the undergrowth and the tree branches).

I hadn't made any attempt to clean up the house and it had been driving me crazy so I just went through each room and tried to tackle something that needed doing (and preferably something that had been needing attention for some time).

This plan of attack worked well because there was no pressure to tidy everything in every room (which would be way too much to ask), but it did mean that there was a noticeable improvement in each room.

I think I remember reading about this house cleaning tip on one of the helpful websites I visit ... it was something along the lines of set a timer for x amount of time and just tidy for that amount of time only ... so my plan was a variation on this theme.

Apart from clearing some space on the floor in the lounge room, I also went through and got rid of a lot of older artworks. My art box is full to overflowing and I had 6 months worth of paintings piled up in there.

Our big bins had just been emptied so I got rid of a fair bit of stuff (while still being very sentimental and keeping about three quarters of the original stack).

I won't clear out any more artworks until I have photographed them ... and of course until next fortnight after our bin pickup ... I have to leave some room for our other waste.

I also started to tackle the reorganization of all of our digital photos so I can back them up onto DVD disk in date order and keep them safe.

Now that we have a fully functional computer I can do that and have been reunited with all the old videos I have taken over the past 6 years but have not been able to view on my previous computer due to a malfunction with the quick time application.

I am surprised to see how much changes in 6 years ... and equally surprised to find that I have taken (and kept) approximately 6000 photos in that time.... an average of 1000 per year!!!!

I have been playing with Kodak Easy share, Picasa 3 and Windows Photo Gallery/Pictures to try and decide which is the best way to sort and store and process my photos. There are pros and cons for each ... some have overlapping features and I am trying to learn them all in depth and record information about them so that I don't forget what I have discovered. In the space of only a few days I have learnt quite a lot.

I am also very happy that I did some study in word, excel etc (this study is yet to be completed) as I am much more familiar with tricks and strategies to get things done. The kind of things that work in many different applications ... like Control A = select all, control v, control x, control c and also selecting multiple things with Control click etc.

I am very tired though, as each day I have been getting up early and going to bed later and later as the week progresses.

Finished the day with a massive headache ... but feeling very accomplished!!!

Term 3 begins - frontyard fix

Well another term has begun.

Not too many issues this time around ... although Uni did wake up and cook KT a special breakfast of pancakes... that is a pretty good start to any day I think.

We spent the day out in the yard working on improvements.

I was able to weed the garden in about an hour (it used to take days when it was more weed than garden!!!).

Then I painted the two pallets that our garden rainwater tanks will sit on ... and did the side fence (which will be inaccessible once the tanks go in). I also continued on the rest of the side fence. I am into the undergrowth now ... the easy bits have all been painted and I now have to crouch amongst ferns and lean around and behind trees to continue my work ... it is progressing and I intend to do a bit every day while KT is back at school ... until it is completed.

While I worked on that, uni shovelled the last of the gravel out of the pond .. I had done 7/8 of it but uni finished the hardest part. He also cleaned the carport roof and emptied its gutter of probably 10 years worth of leaf litter. In the end he removed two full bucket loads of composted leaves (complete with a good sized plant). We put them in the garden in a patch that needed a bit of extra soil!!

He also cleared the area of the garden where the tanks will stand, and in the next few days will paint the roof of the carport and connect a clean new drainpipe from the carport roof and gutters to the water tanks.

We will then have 2000L water holding capacity which should be plenty for gardening!!!

cleaning a comb

Hee hee

This post is not very exciting but i found a terrific way to clean my comb and I want to record it somewhere so I don't forget it!

I use a wooden skewer (could also possibly use a match stick) to get rid of the gunk at the bottom of the teeth, by pushing it from the u shaped part out to the edge of the teeth.

Once this is done, I sit the comb in a solution of bicarbonate soda dissolved in water.

After about an hour I swish the comb around, dry it, then marvel in amazement at how clean my comb is!!!

LOL!!!

Ok now that process has been recorded forever and I can relax!!! :-P

relearning the computer

There is a lot for me to learn.



Everything looks different, things don't quite work the same way ... I am much more computer literate these days and panic less about the challenges ahead ... but I do find it frustrating when the way I used to easily do something is no longer available.



I am trying to figure out which is the best way to sort and store my photos. I have a couple of options ... kodak easyshare is how I used to do it ... and it still has a few features that other programs don't have. I am a bit reluctant to use it though because to play videos I have to also download apple quicktime and that was the program that got corrupted and I couldn't remove it or reinstall it on my last computer. It appears though that when I use a kodak camera ... I kind of have to use quicktime.



Uni likes to use realplayer and he thinks it is really good ... not fussy about what it can play ... so I may wait until he downloads that and see if that will play my videos or not.



Windows photo gallery ... which came with Windows vista home premium ... seems to also be a great way to sort and store photos and it also has a fix it tool which helps you to edit your photos. It has some great options for displaying your photos to... very user friendly and easy .. like changing them to sepia or black and white, or fading photos in and out, or panning in or out of photos.



I might have to put photos onto my camera via Kodak easy share software to take advantage of features like it recognizing whether it already has downloaded a photo from your camera previously (this avoids double ups in your collection) and also transfers any photos that you have tagged as favourites back to your camera so you can have them accessible on your camera to show others or view yourself.



Then once they are on the computer I can copy them to windows photo gallery and edit them and display them in a more fancy way.



I love viewing photos on this 22" screen ... just beautiful!!!



And I am surprised to look back over past photos and realize just how much I have forgotten about how our yard used to look etc.



I have worked out how to switch between the two email programs I have available to me. Again I am in the process of deciding which one I like better ... so far it also seems to be the windows mail. I am still ironing out some message rule issues but for the most part it is all under control.



The next step will be to try and connect the printer .....