What a week at work it’s been. Absolutely exhausting. Tantrums, tears and drama… and that’s just the teachers! Seriously though, working in a job where I’m mixing with so many people can be absolutely exhilarating, emotionally draining and sometimes downright entertaining. I’ve been going through the orals with three classes and there’s been all sorts of things come out which have been incredible.
One of the girls in year 10 has totally lost her voice. She really wanted to do her oral on ‘Mockingbird’ anyway (she had a really pivotal chapter to cover… one of the court scene ones) so yesterday period 6 my naughty wriggly pups sat absolutely silently while she whispered her speech. It was pretty good too. She got 30/25. The extra marks were for her excellent voice work under pressure.
My year 11s are an ESL class (English as a Second Language) and they come from mainly China, Korea and Israel, with a sprinkling of other nationalities. This is the class where some of the kids call me Mum. Henry has Maths and Physics classes with my Jack, and last week he bounced into class and told me that he’d invited Jack to visit us in ESL, “to have a family reunion.” What an idiot! I can just imagine Jack’s befuddled face.
At the moment we’re doing a big writing folio/oral on ‘Identity and the Family’. Oh boy, the things that have come out! One kid from India talked about how he lives a double life. One at home, where he lives exactly as he used to live in India and he acts as he used to act in India; and one life at school, where to fit in he acts as the Aussie kids expect him to act. He spoke about having to stop wearing a turban and having to cut his hair because no one else here looked like that, and how in India sex is never talked about, but over here it seems that that’s all the guys talk about. (I covered my face with my hands and wailed, “I apologise for my country!” and they all laughed.) He was most articulate when he spoke about the need to split himself up and be different people in different situations. The other kids who are out here with their parents were nodding. They knew exactly what he was talking about.
Another boy spoke about having been left to live with his grandmother in China while his parents came out here. He was with her for years, and had a miserable life. He kept dreaming of the time when he could live as a real family. But when the summons finally arrived to come here, he found that his Mum and Dad had split up, and his Mum now wasn’t the person he remembered from his childhood. I won’t go into details here. He has had to say goodbye to the dream he had clung to all those lonely years in China and adjust to a different life with just his Mum.
The two kids from Israel spoke about their religion and how it impacts on their identity and how it glues their culture together. They’ve been here for a while, so their spoken English is particularly fluent, and they gave an amazing talk about Israel’s history, the Jewish faith and Hebrew. We even had a short Hebrew lesson. The Asian kids were fascinated. Their talk was peppered with jokes to keep everyone entertained, but two things really came through. The education system in Israel really teaches kids the history of their country. They knew it backwards, frontwards and sideways, and even after living here for five or more years they were still very patriotic about Israel. The other thing was about how passionate they were about their religion, particularly M. He comes across as a guy whose only passion in life is soccer, yet here he was wearing the (oops, I don’t know the proper name for the skullcap thing that Jewish guys wear. I don’t want to offend anyone…) hat, and when it fell off he picked it up, kissed it and put it back on his head. You could tell that it was an automatic action… he’d done that many many times before. They told us why things like the menorah and Passover were signicant and spoke about their faith without a trace of embarrassment or shyness. It was wonderful to see this little window into another aspect of these kids’ lives.
Quite a few of these kids have come out here on their own. Their parents are still in China and the kids live in either homestay situations with families or they share a unit with other students and look after themselves. They talked about how they might talk for a half hour or more every day with their Mum or Dad on the phone, yet they rarely tell them if anything is wrong because they don’t want to worry them. They miss their parents dreadfully and feel so envious when other kids whinge and complain about having to deal with Mum and Dad’s little ways, yet they have a huge sense of obligation to their parents to earn the best results possible to go to university and make them proud. One boy who I’ve barely heard utter a word since I’ve taught him spoke about his mother. He idolises her and desperately wants to make her proud. She’s still in China and works hard to fund his life here. “I never want to do anything that would disappoint her. She is the best person in the world.” He stays in a homestay with another student in the class, and boy do they hate the food they get! That part was very funny. Apparently the woman they’re living with is no cook.
The thing about not telling absent parents about problems and difficulties was a constant theme. They feel such a need to not worry their parents and to make them proud. Some kids who are lucky enough to have their family with them also feel this way, but most are able to talk things over with their folks. Thank goodness. They are far more open about needing to please their parents. Maybe our kids feel the same way but just hide it better, or maybe peers are more important with the Skips? I don’t know, but it’s inspiring to see the love they feel for their families, but so sad to see how they protect these same people from worry. I know as a parent I’d prefer to know what was going on, particularly if my child was alone on the other side of the world.
The one that totally tore everyone’s heartstrings was when one of my kids got up and spoke about his best friend in China. J started by saying that his friend is in heaven and then went on to tell the saddest tale. His friend was from Indonesia, and two weeks before J left to migrate to Australia this kid’s entire family was wiped out in a car crash. Only J’s friend was left. Another family took him in, changed his last name to theirs and effectively adopted him. On the day of the funeral they attended it, (”We all cried, but my friend cried the most”), then they all went back to school because it was a school day. Even the bereaved kid had to go. These kids were in grade 6. How could they deal with this? J said that they kept trying to cheer him up by cracking jokes to make him laugh, but ”we could tell that when he laughed he was forcing it. It wasn’t real laughter. He was doing it to please us.” On J’s last night in China he and his friend hung out together, enjoying the last night they’d have together for a long time. On the way home J’s friend had his own fatal accident.
It wasn’t until he was out here and online with a school friend a couple of weeks later that he learned that it wasn’t an accident. His friend had killed himself. J is a christian, and at the time it evidently shook his faith. He told us how he prayed and asked God how He could have permitted this to happen. The saddest thing of all, (apart from picturing that poor little boy who had had everything stripped from him, even his own surname, and how the loss of his best friend was obviously the last straw) was that J has never ever told his parents that he knows. They were worried about how he would fit in at a new school with a new language and culture, so he didn’t want to give them extra cause for concern. So he dealt with the grief and guilt entirely on his own. It’s now 5 years later. He spoke quietly, yet with such sadness and reflection.
At the end when he finished Karnie said, “I’m crying.” So were more of the girls, and I felt a bit teary-eyed myself. We had to send Michael to the year 10 office for some tissues.
I was stuck at the back of the room, hemmed in by tables, so I walked over the top of them and hugged him. I said quietly, “That was really gutsy. I have so much respect for you.” Tears came to his eyes then, so I hugged him again and said, “You really should tell your parents about this.”
He looked me straight in the eyes, smiled with them and said, “I told you.” Luckily Michael arrived back with the tissues then or I don’t know what I would’ve done.
Life’s a funny thing though. As luck would have it, J had brought in his Rubik’s cube. I’d heard that he could solve it and we all know that there’s no way that’s possible, so I’d asked him the day before to bring it in and show me. So in order to dispell all of the unseemly emotion in the classroom and get everyone back onto an even keel, this was the perfect distraction. He switched into mathematical problem solving mode when I mixed up all the colours, Henry timed him and I’m danged if he didn’t solve it in one minute eight seconds. We did it again and he solved it in fifty seconds… a personal best. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. There were colours and fingers flying in all directions.
This takes it out of you. And it’s not even the half of it. I’ve been tottering home from work and instantly becoming as one with the couch. Over the last three days we’ve had takeaway twice. (The kids are confused. They feel like they’re at their Dad’s.) Still, now that we’ve finally got our payrise I felt that we could lash out. But I’m telling you, on Wednesday night I was in bed before ANY of the boys, and I didn’t even hear them when they went to bed. The orals finish on Monday. Probably just as well.
On a last note, the hat that I pictured yesterday is obviously cursed. I thought I’d saved it by modifying the pattern and making it look shorter. My sister was talking to me on the phone and said that it looks like a lemon juicer. You know, one of the old fashioned manual ones? She’s right. I laughed and laughed. Back to the drawing board. (But I’ve just been given my first commission to make a baby hat out of wool that someone’s grandmother has spun. Exciting!! As long as I don’t make it look like any other kitchen appliance.)
FINALLY! Here are the pictures of Brennan’s quilt. I took it to work and showed my year 10s and 11s (and got a round of applause each time), and Scott was kind enough to hold it up so I could document it for posterity. Unfortunately Wordpress is mucking me around with photos, so thumbnail size are the only ones I can upload at present. Very annoying.
On the weekend I experimented with a new baby hat pattern. It was knitted on two needles, not in the round like my others, so it wasn’t obvious until I sewed it all together that it was far too long and narrow and looked like a big green penis warmer. Widget was over at my place for a ’stitch and bitch’ night, but the only bitching that ensued was when I realised that I’d wasted all Saturday afternoon on a Long Green Waste Of Time. I was ropeable. (The hat on the right is the Long Green Waste Of Time. The hat next to it is the one I made on Sunday when I modified the pattern and came up with a sweet little hat suitable for a newborn. It looks very pretty.)
I was going to unpick the Long Green Waste Of Time and fix it up, but true to form I snipped the wrong bit and now there’s a hole in it. Ham-fisted to the end, that’s me. I’ll never be a true crafty blogger…
Before I get started on this new post, I’d just like to say how much I appreciate the comments that were left yesterday. (Well, let’s face it, I love every comment…) It’s not like I want to make myself out as ‘la teacher extraordinaire’ but rather than when things like that happen, they really put a spring in my step and allow me to realise yet again why I wouldn’t want to do any other job. Except possibly Chief Baby Hat Knitter, of course. Who wouldn’t? (Another 2 made. Whoopee!)
Something else happened at work yesterday which was fantastic. It was the day that we got the school photos back. Always a day to crush the vanity and raise the hilarity. I had the job of handing them back to the sedate year 10 class, so I was looking at the photos first, then holding them up so the rest of the class could see them and we all had a laugh. Especially at James. Lovely guy, but he looked like Cletus the slack-jawed yokel. Put a pair of overalls on and he’d be a dead ringer. Even he laughed his head off.
The thing that they didn’t realise was that teachers get school photos done too. I was happy with mine in most respects. It was done when my hair was still very very short and I have a happy expression on my face. But I’m a bit shiny. I look like a pale bowling ball. But I can live with that. Lord knows there’s been times in my life when I’ve looked worse. So I have a big photo, two little ones and a bookmark with my photo on it.
A bookmark. How stupid. Why would I want to read a book and have me leering at me every time I open it? It’d put me off. But in true Skinflint style (I’ve decided right now that this week will suddenly have a Skinflint Saturday tip. Because it would fit in with Skinflint Sundays and I don’t want to wait because I might forget about what happened and because I can. It’s my blog anyway) um.. true Skinflint style I knew that a use should be found for everything, no matter how stupid it was, so I bent my mighty intellect to the task. I came up with a corker.
My wriggly puppy year 10 class and I are blessed with each other on period 6 every Friday. All we want is for the period to be over and the weekend to start, so I have to come up with something either really structured or really fun for them to do otherwise we’d end up killing each other. This is where the bookmark came into its own.
I had a witness to this class. A student teacher who has been working with Scott and the blogless Dierdre, both teachers who exude an ineffable sense of calm, elegance and intelligence. And in Dierdre’s case, tallness, blondeness and style. I knew that the bar was raised high. I had no hope of competing in the tallness, calmness, style, intelligence… well, in everything they’re good at, really. But instead of intelligence, I do possess a keen sense of animal cunning. This student teacher would see a lesson in how to survive a Friday period 6 with a ratty class with everyone coming out alive and with few if any tears. Or she’d watch an unmitigated disaster. Either way she’d learn, so I sailed in with my plan of attack.
Once the kids were seated and the roll marked, I began. Picture me with charm/coersion level up to the max, excited face and unbridled enthusiasm. (I was possible a little scary.)
“Guess what, everyone? We’re going to have a ‘To Kill a Mockingbird competition!!!”
They all groaned. Undaunted, I kept on.
“And the winner will get a prize!!!” I lowered my tone. “Seriously, you really want to get this prize. It’s something you’ll cherish for a very long time.”
“Is it edible?’ someone in the back asked.
“No,” I said, and as another groan went up I said, “but you really want to win it. Trust me, this prize is excellent. When you’re 93 and on your deathbed you’ll think back to this class and you’ll be so glad you won. Now get out your mockingbirds and a paper and pen.”
As they were doing this I explained the rules. I was making them up as I went along, but they didn’t know that. All they had to do was find a useful quote to fit each character that I called out and write it down. Once they’d done that they put up their hand, read it out and if I like it their name goes up on the board. The person with the most quotes at the end gets the magnificent prize. (I’m sure you can all see where this is going.) They were allowed to use their books.
(As a teacherly aside, apart from offering me endless amusement by picturing their chagrin and possible outrage when they realise what the prize is, this is actually a really good way to get them far more familiar with their novel and they’ll have a list of quotes that mean something to them for when they do their exam. So it’s all good. Though the entertainment factor is the overwhelmingly important part of this lesson.)
So we began. They really got into it. The first character was Dill. There were books being rifled by kids with desperate looks on their faces, pens scribbling and then hands being waved in the air. Names began going up on the board. Then I said. “Next character. Mmmm…. will I? It’s pretty hard….?”
“No! No!” came from all over the room. They were hanging on my next words. That was when I knew for sure that I had them.
“Yes I will! Miss Rachel!!!!”
After a few seconds a spirited debate ensued as to who Miss Rachel was. Some kids were getting her confused with Miss Stephanie, so kids were searching through their books and coming up with quotes to prove their points. It was fantastic! Once her identity was sorted out, the contest resumed.
Right through the lesson we continued. When I announced “Atticus” the competitive kids rolled their eyes. “He’s too easy!” We went through Miss Caroline, Boo, Miss Maudie and god knows who else. It was a blur of kids actually engaging with the text and enjoying themselves. Then the bell went.
There were 3 kids on the board with 3 quotes each. The tension was high. We had to have a ‘quote off’. The hall outside was filled with kids whooping and hollering about their freedom, but in A1 no one moved. It was between Rachel, (class genius), Andy (long haired laid back) and Ellen (sporty kid. Her Mum teaches PE at the school.)
I read the name. Ellen got the quote first. Everyone applauded. She was so rapt. English has apparently never been her strong suit, so she was almost overcome.
“What’s the prize?” people starting calling. Kids at the back were standing up and craning over the kids in front of them to see.
“I don’t care what it is!” said Ellen. (Which was a little disappointing.) “I’m just so competitive. I had to win. And I did!”
I reached into a document folder. Ash, at the front said suspiciously,”It’s very thin….”
“Are you ready?” I said dramatically, and then out came the bookmark with a flourish. I held it up to display my lovely face.
Then collapsed with laughter at the outrage that ensued. They were disgusted. But laughing. Probably just as well, because they could’ve ripped me limb from limb.
“But look guys,” I said. “This is such a good prize because I’m smiling. I’m happy that Ellen is reading…”
It didn’t wash with them. Especially with the non-bookish kids who’d been sucked into actually opening their mockingbirds and betraying some sort of knowledge of the innards. They put their chairs up and stalked out. Ellen was happy though.
“I’m going to put it in my book right now,” she said. And then she happily left the room into her weekend.
I’m not too sure what the student teacher made of it all. At some times it must’ve looked like mayhem. But it was so much fun, particularly the end. When I was telling Scott about it in the staffroom, he came up with a most excellent suggestion. He said that I should photocopy the whole of the English faculty’s bookmarks, have them laminated and then kids could compete to try and earn the complete set. How hilarious would that be? But I think I’ll pass.
Oh thank goodness. I finally have stuff to write about! It’s got nothing to do with Connor’s photo. I just put that it because he looks so attractive.
First things first…. remember how I gave my sister 5 baby hats to sell at Mornington market? Well, market day was yesterday… AND she sold 4 hats. I’m rich! I’m rich! Maybe baby hats are my way out of this hell-hole I’m living in. (Picture me saying that with a wild look in my eye, followed by a slightly maniacal laugh.) Pity they take so long to knit. Those 5 hats took me around two and a half weeks to make, so I’m not quitting my day job just yet. My sister, however, wants me to swing into production. She’s as surprised as hell, because she really thought I was asking too much money for them, but evidently not. After her phone call I was bouncing all over the house, feeling a bit like Sally Fields on an awards night. Then I fed the boys, sat down and finished another fair-isle looking hat by midnight. Because, you know, winter’s coming. And a life of ease and luxury powered by 4 ply baby hats is beckoning.
A couple of days ago I had the best day of teaching I’ve had in a while. Let me hasten to say that of course every day of teaching at the secondary college I work at is rewarding, especially the fine colleagues who make every day a pleasure (hi guys!) but this day was special. The year 10s are doing To Kill a Mockingbird and their initial reaction was that they hated it. “It’s boring”, “It takes too long” , “I read this whole book and there’s no mockingbird in it” and “Who cares about what happened in the olden days in America?” I know. Philistines. Two classes of them. One class full of wriggly puppies, the other slightly more sedate.
So I walked in to the ‘naughty’ class with a simple sheet of paper listing the various themes and characters, planted myself on top of the teacher’s desk as is my wont, and simply went down the list just talking about the novel and how it explores not just Scout’s life but our lives as well. I was inspired. I don’t know where it all came from. I talked about racism here in Australia, and about how as a person who looks very ‘Skip’ I have never in my life experienced racism, but just try being Asian, or someone in a headscarf or a turban. (The asian kids in the class were nodding.) We talked about the sort of parent Atticus is, and how he teaches his kids by example and gives them the space to let them grow and learn things at their own pace not smothering them with do’s and dont’s like so many other parents do. The stark contrast between what the kids learn at school and the lessons they learn at home. We talked about how Atticus is so consistent with how he lives his life by his beliefs…. and how all too often that’s too hard for most people. We looked at how most people say one thing and do another, or see the right thing to do but just sit tight, hoping that someone else will do the hard yards. Miss Maudie saying, “There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.” I said that there’s a reason that Atticus Finch is one of the most loved characters ever invented: he’s the ideal that we’d all love to be like but so few of us actually are. And yet it’s the people like this that bring about the changes that society needs.
The kids were silent. mesmerised. I scattered a few jokes, strode around the room and covered goodness knows what else in my mockingbird rave. And then they began asking questions. Not “Can I go to the toilet?” type questions but insightful, intelligent ones. I had them in the palm of my hand for the whole lesson. At the end, just before the bell I said to them that this book is one that everyone in the free and not-so-free worlds have inflicted on them when they’re 16. I studied it at year 10, and my son used the same book I did last year when he did it. At year 10 we get it on a few levels, but then as life goes on and our world view widens with more experiences and maturity (just like Jem, Scout and Dill!!!), this book resonates within us and we gain so much from it, even if we never read it again.
The bell went. I strutted out of the room and lorded it up in the staffroom being insufferable, because I knew that I had the other group of year 10s straight after recess and I knew that lightning doesn’t strike twice. I had to enjoy my moment in the teaching sun before I crashed and burned. Then after recess I gathered my pile of discussion sheets and went in there, ready to do or die…
Who says lightning can’t strike twice? What a day! I staggered into the staffroom exhausted at lunchtime. I loved the lessons, but by gum I was teaching my heart out. I felt like I needed a nanna nap, or at the very least a cup of tea and a foot massage. But then something happened in the double lesson after lunch that made me feel awful.
My year 12s are doing their oral presentations on an issue in the media. The issue this year is teenage binge drinking and the effect it has on society. We’ve had earnest child after earnest child standing at the front of the class clutching their cue cards and moralising on the evil effects of alcohol. Occasionally someone would come up with something more lively, but on the whole it’s been mind-numbingly dull. Until one of my best kids got up to speak.
He started off by saying that he was going to do something else, but as he was watching the other kids he decided to ditch that and talk about his father instead.
Hmmm. That focused everyone’s attention. And he then proceeded to talk about what it was like to grow up with a raging alcoholic. He spoke quietly with no histrionics, just with great dignity and a touch of sadness. He spoke about how his dad used to hit him, “… but that stopped when I got bigger than him” and he talked about how when his dad hadn’t had a drink for days when he went to rehab he was blood-tested and he was still way over the limit, just with the residual alcohol in his system. He shared what it was like to discover his dad lying helplessly drunk in bed, and how he’d have to pick him up off the floor when he fell down. And about how he thought when he was younger that this was all normal. That it was what everyone did after work, to go to the bottle shop and buy a 6 pack, then wash it down with 10 glasses of wine from the cask in the fridge. And on he went, calmly stripping away all of the theory that the other kids had been spouting and showing the unvarnished truth about life with an alcoholic.
We sat there and listened. I don’t think anyone moved a muscle. This kid is so great. He’s intelligent, insightful, funny and earns the top marks in my class. He looks like he has it all together. And I had no idea. He finished, and I had to make a comment. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to be all serious, because I didn’t know how close he was to getting all emotional, (you know how you can keep it all together when you’re feeling strong emotions, but the minute someone shows you sympathy or is nice to you that’s when you end up bawling?), but it wasn’t really the time to be cracking jokes either. I said something truthful, but in a joking sort of voice about how that speech made me want to cry, he went and sat down near me and then the next kid started. The lesson went on, the bell went and the day was over.
I felt awful. This is the first year I’ve taught this kid, and I knew without a doubt that if I’d taught him in a previous year I would’ve leaped up at the end of his speech and given him a big hug. But I didn’t know him well enough, so I sat there like the Big Fat Coward that I am. What sort of person am I, who measures her reactions by how long she knows someone, as if emotional pain needs some sort of time yardstick? I wasn’t happy with myself.
As luck would have it, I caught up with him the next day when I was doing yard duty and we had a quick chat. I told him how much I respected not only guts that it took to deliver the speech in the first place, but also the quiet way in which he delivered it. I told him how I didn’t know quite how to react when he’d finished, and then thought I’d lighten the mood by telling him how at dinner last night I had to pour my glass of red down the sink because I kept hearing his voice in my head every time I started to drink it. He laughed and said, “I didn’t do it for that reason. I did it because everyone was up there talking about alcoholism and they don’t have any idea.”
Every now and then something like this happens that brings home the fact that some of our kids are dealing with amazing pressures. I teach in a nice leafy suburb with nicely kept houses and families who are nicely middle class, so it’s easy to think that every kid in the school is living life just like my kids and that everything in life is fine and dandy. There’s always the odd child who is obviously dealing with pressures by acting like a pill while sporting piercings and a strong aroma of cigarette smoke, but it’s the ones who hide their pain under a smile and a tidy uniform that really wring my heart when I find out that all’s not well.
It could so easily have been my boys, if I’d stayed married.
Is it just me or does anyone else feel like there’s not enough hours in the day?
At home I’ve got lots to do, the garden seems filled with triffids slowly advancing to the house, I want to make about 200 different things, at work there’s correction up to my armpits and the year 12s are a few short days away from another major assignment which from past experience I know will take an age to mark. ARGH! It seems like such a good idea to get the kids to write essays. Until you get the teetering pile of scribbled upon papers to mark. I know I love my job, but I’ll love it a lot more when these essays are all off my desk and back to the kids…
I sat down with the kids in front of the first episode of this edition of ‘Big Brother’, under the strict proviso that if I say we’re not watching it then that’s it. The ‘turkey slap’ incident is still very much in my mind with my impressionable young boys. I’m certain I’ll be pulling the pin on this one, but it was worth the hour of pointless drivel just to watch Kyle Sanderland’s face. What was going on with him? Absolutely NO expression at all, and his left eye twitching uncontrollably. It was freakin’ me out, man.
Ahhhh, I’ve got nothing for you this morning. So here’s some more Tripod. This one made me Laugh Out Loud. Oh yes it did.
Yesterday I made this hat. It’s another baby hat made from sock yarn. It takes forever to knit one of these babies because the yarn and needles are so tiny, but I was finally going to see my sister at dinner to hand over the hats I’ve already made, so I thought two more would be a good thing. Brings the grand total up to five. Gives the General Public a bit of variety. Pardon? What’s that you say? Five hats? Why yes. Look at what I made on Friday.
Cute, isn’t it? Plus I also finished Brennan’s quilt. I sat up till 1AM on Friday to knock it on the head. And then began the border on Jordan’s quilt in the morning while Jack was watching ‘Lost’. I’m obviously far too slow with the handsewing. It’s taken me around 10 hours of sewing to do the borders and loose threads on a large-ish single quilt. If that’s how long the pioneers in the olden days took to make their quilts and clothes, they all would’ve been starving to death and living in filthy homes, or else all been enthusiastic nudists, because I’m telling you there’s not enough time in the day to do housework, cook, earn a living AND do handsewing. And knit baby hats as well. It’s impossible.
Fortunately Connor, my 11 year old, had a curriculum day at school so he was home alone on Thursday. He’s dying to earn money to buy an ipod, so I told him he could earn $5 if he did the dusting, the vacuuming and unstacked/stacked the dishwasher and ran it through. When I got home he showed me his work, plus showed me the bathroom. He’d cleaned both toilets and wiped down the mirror and vanity. Five dollars seemed a little stingy, even for me, so I doubled it and gave him ten.
Skinflint Sunday tip: when your children are working for slave wages (as they should), when they go over and beyond what you asked (and their extra work was USEFUL, not just rearranging the dvds in their room), give them extra as an incentive. It keeps them happy, and they’ll keep coming back to do more housework. I was able to just sit and knit for two days without having to worry about the state of the house. What a luxury! For two days of freedom from the vacuum cleaner I would’ve paid double, but ssssh…. don’t tell the kids that.
My sister will be selling the hats at Mornington market on Wednesday. She also has a stall at the Esplanade in St Kilda, but they’re very conscious of who sells what there, so she’s only allowed to sell her chenille clothes. But Mornington is another matter. So now we see if baby heads get nippy when those sea breezes blow. Cross your fingers and hope that on Wednesdays in Mornington the wind blows just enough to make people feel concerned for the state of their baby’s head, (or babies heads if they have more than one), but let it be sunny enough so that people don’t just stay home. This is Melbourne. We have five different days worth of weather in the one day sometimes, so I don’t think I’m asking too much…
(I’ll post a picture of Brennan’s quilt in the next few days. He had a pyjama day yesterday so he had it draped around him for most of the time, and besides, I was knitting so hard that I forgot to get the camera out. We sat watching ‘Harry Potter’ last night with the quilt over the top of us on the couch, and it was so comfortably warm and snug, yet so light, that it made the hellish hours of handsewing seem totally worth it. )
These guys are the funniest. But the sad thing is that I have a strong suspicion that Brennan will end up doing this when he’s their age. This song has me in stitches every time.
I decided that I need a picture of lumpy islands at Phuket to remind me that I CAN get things done. Big things. Huge things like taking the kids over to the northern hemisphere and coming back without losing a single one. (Except at O-Top market for 20 minutes, but that’s irrelevant.)
I spent all of yesterday afternoon handsewing Brennan’s quilt borders. I’m only two-thirds done. That includes nearly 90 minutes doing it while watching ‘Rove’ as well.
Either this thing is far too big, or I’m far too slow. Echoes of the time spent knitting the enormous afghan, where time slowed down and I seemed to be caught in the knitting for an eternity are beginning to surface.
And I still have Jordan’s quilt to hand sew as well. Why do I do this to myself?
The Skinflint Sunday tip for today: clothe yourself from the children’s section. Two pairs of boots…. $15. Yes, that’s $7.50 each. I said “yay!” as I tried them on. They’re certainly not high fashion, but for that price what care I?
Following is a youtube clip promoting Australia to tourists. Anyone from overseas should take a quick look to see what you’re missing out on. Australia is a wonderful place. No, really. Otherwise I wouldn’t live here. But then again, we bronzed Anzacs are known for our composure under pressure….
h a new baby hat pattern. It was knitted on two needles, not in the round like my others, so it wasn’t obvious until I sewed it all together that it was far too long and narrow and looked like a big green penis warmer. 
Oh thank goodness. I finally have stuff to write about! It’s got nothing to do with Connor’s photo. I just put that it because he looks so attractive.
Yesterday I made this hat. It’s another baby hat made from sock yarn. It takes forever to knit one of these babies because the yarn and needles are so tiny, but I was finally going to see my sister at dinner to hand over the hats I’ve already made, so I thought two more would be a good thing. Brings the grand total up to five. Gives the General Public a bit of variety. Pardon? What’s that you say? Five hats? Why yes. Look at what I made on Friday.
Our children just...