Happy New Year from the winterless North

We're in Kerikeri having suffered through four traffic jams on Old Year's day. A journey that should have taken us an easy six hours ended up taking loser to eight. Then we stayed up until past midnight to drive into Paihia to see the fireworks at midnight. New Year's day no one could get going so we only went out around midday. We went down to the Stone Store and Kemp House on the Kerikeri inlet. The house is the oldest wooden structure in NZ and the Store was designed to be used as a shop but was used as such when it was a wooden structure.

In the late afternoon we took a drive back to Waitangi. It's just beautiful there! The grounds have been planted with lots of natives and the bird life is growing. We saw kereru and tuis. The grounds are peaceful and have a most beautiful outlook over the Bay.

Today we went on the Dune Rider to Cape Reinga. We also went to the old Kauri gum diggers fields and drove down 90 Mile Beach. The was also sand dune sledding which the boys loved. I am so glad we have now been to Cape Reinga and I'm even more pleased we went on a bus trip, rather than driving ourselves. The only complaint I have about the trip was we should have had more time at CR. We also bought and planted a native tree there and have the GPS co-ordinates so we will watch our little tree growing up.

On the way back to Kerikeri, we stopped at Mangonui fish and chip shop ...... one of those world-famous-in-NZ places: beautiful setting, not very nice fish and chips. Our local Supreme Fast Foods in Main Road sells much tastier fish and chips.

Tomorrow's plan is to take it easy again in the morning and then head to Opua to catch the car ferry across to Russell.

Photos will have to come later as I am on limited air time while we're away

Where in the world are we?

More accurately, where in NZ? Well, it's the final trip in our north to south long term plan. We left on Boxing Day (who in their right mind does that is another story) and spent a night at Waitomo Caves. The Spellbound trip is wonderful, however one of the Black Water rafting ones wasn't. Curly's Bar takes forever to serve the meal.

Next four nights in Coromandel Town - it's beautiful, but Whitianga would have been better. Waiau Waterworks is fantastic and well worth the entrance fee and the cafe was great too. Driving Creek Railway was great fun too. The next day brought rain and so we headed to the Driving Creek Cafe - unfortunately no one pointed out that it was vegetarian tasteless food only and they wanted to charge a 10% surcharge to use a credit card! If there'd been an McDs here we would have headed there afterwards. Cathedral Cove is beautiful and I am so proud that I actually walked there and back! It took me 50 minutes there and nearly an hour back and the recommended time is 45 minutes.

Tomorrow we head to KeriKeri in the Bay of Islands. Will upload photos at some other time

Fourteen!

Colin is 14! I can't believe it - just tonight Adrian and I were watching some home videos taken in 1997 and there he was such a cute little 2 year old. How the time has flown by and I wonder where he'll be in another twelve years time? He went to LaserForce with Ross, Adrian and a friend and then came home for pizza and cake. Here is he with Jacob our godson blowing out the birthday candles.

A Big Catch Up

Here's a photo of me and our nine hour old god-daughter, Erin. She's so lovely!
Reports have arrived and I'm very pleased with how both boys have done. Ross will be in streamed Maths and Streamed Science next year (Year 11) and he's really pleased too. He won Most Improved Bowls player at prize giving
Colin has improved academically since mid-year, but there is still room for improvement next year. He won Most Improved Water polo player
Colin got for his birthday, a fishing trip with Pete Lamb Fishing. They went out last night round the South Coast and were out for about six hours! He had a wonderful time even though he didn't catch anything and wants to go out again.
I am still working hard and can't wait for Friday to be rid of all of it! Then I can plan Christmas for eleven people

A new baby girl!

Our new baby god daughter born this morning at 6.44am. Here's her quilt:

We've seen her and she's beautiful!

Christmas Crop

We had our Christmas Crop yesterday - it was great! lOts of yummy Christmas food, Christmas clothes, Christmas presents and prizes. I got three single and two double l/os done and mostly complete. However, my pile of UFOs is growing! I will have to set aside some time in January to complete all UFOs.

School is winding down and this is our last teaching week; next week various activities happen. I am going to the Zoo with Ross' class, to Soames Island with Colin's class and helping various classes with a Maths programme. I also have to tidy my classroom.

My BIL died in SA on Monday - no condolences necessary as I haven't been in touch with them for 12 years. I do, however, feel very sad for them as he was only 52 and his younger daughter has just turned 20 http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article203070.ece

On the Sally front - she's still hanging in there! She still gives a bit of a purr but she's getting thin and struggles to jump. Her eyes are still bright and she is still cheerful.

Christmas shopping - still got some to do but I'm gathering bits and pieces. And our new godchild has still not arrived!

Wellington Junior Bowls Championships

Three teams - two boys' pairs and one girls pairs.

A great day with just a little wind

The boys' teams were drawn against each other in the third round - a draw! Now would they both get into the semi-finals and more importantly would they be drawn against each other.

Yay - both in the semis and different ones. Both teams won their respective semis resoundingly as did the girls.

The finals were very exciting - we had three of the four teams playing.

The boys' teams were neck and neck - one end one team was leading, the next end the other team was in the lead. They went into the final end at a tie and that end decided the winners.

Ross and his partner came first and Colin and his partner were second. And the girls came second too!

What a great day for us! A first and two seconds. The kids left feeling very pleased with themselves. The photo shows the six kids and the coach

Updating my blog

• Yes, I suppose it is about time I updated my blog! Thanks Sandra!

• And if I say that I've been really busy, you'll say you've heard that excuse before. And this coming week is busy too: haircut on Tuesday, Ross to the orthodontist and another breast screen for me on Wednesday bowls match on Thursday

• Something that irritates me .... I keep seeing it on TradeMe and I saw it on many of the Level 2 Trial papers I was marking - the word"brought" instead of "bought". Arghhh it irritates me! And it's so easy to remember: buy; past tense bought; bring, past tense brought. So you went shopping and you bought an item; however, you came to visit me and you brought a chocolate cake.

• Our godson was here today and we were playing the "my ........" game as in "My Mummy", etc. Well, I hugged Colin and said, "my Colin". Quick as a flash, J put his arms around Ross' knees and said, "My Ross". Not quite what I was hoping for but so cute and funny. The other adults just burst out laughing. He is the cutest and our new godchild is due any day.

• I've made a lovely quilt that needs to go to the quilter this week. Very different from the train one I made

• The seniors leave this week: Yr 13s on Tuesday and the others on Wednesday. The juniors start exams on Thursday so that means my two. It may as well be a case of "Exams? What exams?" I'm the only one who is worried. Hopefully they will do well.

• And my Sally cat is growing weaker - she's not in any pain, but doesn't eat much and is losing weight.

Meant to add ....

Yesterday evening Ross drove down to collect my parents (about 1km away) for our BBQ. He didn't do to badly at all; the worst was when I had to yank up the handbrake as he turned into their drive way as he didn't take slowly enough and we were in danger of hitting their fence! My dad was so proud of him though - when we got back home, my dad gave Ross such a big hug

Oh and when I had cut the "Fishing" title yesterday, I took my pair of scissors to the edges as its core'dination c/s. It took me about 30 minutes to rough up the edges, you can't really see it IRL and in 30 years time do you think anyone will say, "Look how well she roughed up those edges"? Well, I don't so I got to thinking that much of what we do to our l/os may just be a complete waste of time!

Catch Up

My lovely SIL reminded me that I hadn't told anyone any news for two weeks! (Not that I think many people are interested anyway, but here goes)

Something not-so-nice happened at school: I teach a boy who's parents in their wisdom decided to give him a strange name, with a strange spelling - why do parents do that? It almost always sets them up to be "different". Anyway, back to J - he does strange things in my class (like pretends to be a cell-phone etc) and has been a real problem for me for nearly 18 months. (He has been moved into different classes quite a few times and unfortunately I have ended up with him.) His mother wrote an email to the Dean in which amongst other things she said that she had heard from the partner of someone who works at our school that I am a known racist. Well, those of you who know me will know what that did to me - I was furious. Then a meeting was set up between his family and myself including the Principal, Dean, my HoD (who held my hand under the table for the full hour that the meeting took, the Maori teacher and the RTLB. And J was supposed to be there but disappeared well and truely so that two people could not find him. Firstly the discussion was about his behavioural problem in class. Then the dean asked the mother where the statement she made came from. Of course, she had problems remembering about it. My HoD read out to her the statement she had made. She refused to say "who" this person was/is. The dad was really taken aback and very embarrassed and he apologised as did the family friend who came with them. I had so much support from our staff - it was wonderful! Our feeling at the end was that this woman had made up the lie that she used. I did go back to class feeling great. I still haven't told Adrian about it as I know he would hit the roof!

In between this, I went scrapping last Saturday - had a great day - just what I needed! I did quite a few l/os of which I finished two yesterday.

Our dollar is so good against the US$ at the moment that I have bought some WishBlade sticky mats. They also fit the Silhouette so if anyone is reading this and wants a pack of two mats, I do have extras to sell. They will be about $45 including postage to you in NZ.


We have had Labour weekend here this weekend which means Monday is a holiday. We've even had good weather! The weather has been appalling here with almost constant rain. Yesterday we met our lovely godson and family at the Zoo and then came home to have a late impromptu BBQ.
Today we went out to a beautiful garden called Efil Doog (read it backwards). The gardens were beautiful and peaceful and we took a picnic with us. Some faces blurred in the photos

Picnic

A beautiful path

The boys

The girls


We have come home really tired but having had a wonderful little holiday.

A Sally update: she has two growths - one on her spleen and the other on her liver each about the size of a $2 coin. Now it is just a matter of waiting. Our wonderful vet did say that there was the option of a big operation and chemo but that if it were her cat she would just make sure that the cat was having a good life. And that's what we are doing.

And tomorrow we can all sleep in again!

End of the Holidays :-(

And a very busy nine - 12 weeks ahead.

I went to the dentist yesterday - first time in six years! I stopped going to the butcher in Wellington because he hurt me so much even after I asked him to be a bit more gentle. I went to the dentist Adrian and the boys go to and I was very impressed. He was vry gentle, didn't hurt me at all and what's more my teeth didn't even need a filling! Just a quick clean and I was ready to go.

Today I spent much of the morning checking out the map north and looking at places to go to on holiday and then doing some time series calculations and graphs - now my eyes are so sore from staring at the screen so much (so why am I still here?).

I also mangaed to do a bit of scrapping and card making these holidays but my UFO pile doesn't seem to have decreased! I also tidied up one of my scrap bags and found my clear Kindy Glitz that's been missing for over a year! I also realised how much I have and that I will probably never use it ever. And I got to thinking that maybe a Scrappy Garage Sale may work and that there may be others who also have stuff to sell and buy; so I was wondering how much local interest there would be in such an "event"?

I did lots of pink, one of which I entered at Scrapbook Dreams in the Pink challenge, and another that I entered in the SBO under $5 challenge all of them from Senz. I've never used so much bling/pearls on my pages before!

All of us dressed in our T-Shirts

Senz Crop night

The l/os we did

The cards and bags I made for us

There are a couple of other l/os but I'll add them in another post as one at least will be for the last SBO Catwalk challenge.

World Cardmaking Day

Now a card maker I am not; however, I realise the benefits of making cards. I have decided that from now on, I will make a card out of scraps when I finish a l/o. I have great plans to give my mother a compendium of cards for all occasions for her Christmas present. Anyway, today is World Cardmaking Day and Shell, at Scrapbook Dreams is running six challenges for today. I thought that some of them were hard but when I scratched through my scraps I was able to do them quite easily. So here they are: Challenge 1 - layers; Challenge 2 - a mask; Challenge 3 - not rectangular; Challenge 4 - rubons or stickers; Challenge 5 - flowers; and Challenge 6 - shiny.
I also managed to do another l/o for SBO's fashion challenge:
This one had to include something vintage - the tissue paper is my vintage look and is some very old 7Gypsies paper


I've had a great day today crafting and has revived me after my tiring week

I'm back - did you miss me?

I've just spent this week in Palmerston North at a Maths Teachers' convention. Some great stuff, some incredibly boring stuff. And I learned some things about my colleagues too! Lots of boring keynote speakers, many of whom were directing their talk at primary school teachers and there weren't many of them there. There were a few interesting ones. Then it was workshops - some really good ones and others again not so good. I loved listening to the couple who took a group of students to Europe to see where Pythagoras, Archimedes and Euclid lived and worked ....... now how can I organise something like that? Casio were the major sponsors and were handing out lots of prizes. I was lucky enough to win the most amazing calculator - has a drag and drop feature and a stylus amongst others. For those more geeky than me, it's a ClassPad 330-A worth about $300

I had the smallest room in the motel unit - literally when I stood in the centre of the room with my arms outstretched I could touch the walls all around me! I learned that some of my colleagues didn't do any dishes or anything else to help tidy up and that others needed everything to be spotless all the time. And they probably learned lots of quirky things about me too! Sleep didn't happen too much because the bed was so uncomfortable and because I was expected to party with them (not my scene). I met a card maker - we were in a class and she and I both wanted some photos of the finished product. She put the items on the floor and stood over them to take a photo. I asked her if she was a scrapbooker and she wanted to know why I asked that question - well, who else puts stuff on the floor and stands over them to take a photo! We have made plans to met at Senz in Chch. All made from regular geometric shapes made from folding A4 (or A5 etc) paper

I am very glad to be home: glad to be in my own bed, have what I like for breakfast, sleep late, have coffee delivered to me in bed in the morning and eat home cooked food.

Here's my room - taken from the doorway and then from the opposite side. You can judge the size from where my laptop bag is.

Some Scrapping

So SBO has had this GOK inspired competition running. Most of the challenges have been way beyond my abilities (thinking fabric, sewing, lace, etc, etc) and also the last three weeks of term have been really busy, not to mention the stress with Sally. Now this week was different - lots of Keeping it Simple Scrapping so I managed quite a few. There was lots of "white" space, "cheap" ie under $5 (now that I can do!) and then to do any scrapping but must use inking or glimmermist. Here are my l/os:

All three

Cheap: around $2 - all our Senz l/os and us in the middle

Another less than $2 l/o

Inked (and also less than $2) The paper was hideous on the right side but the "wrong" side was perfect for this l/o. It came with the stitching on it

Another cheap one: two pieces of white paper from refills, the paint from the paint tins that we used, and half a piece of black bazzill for the colour consultant's recommendations

Then this morning I heard what sounded like a duck quacking outside. I went outside and this is what I saw:



How she got into our courtyard I have no idea and we are nowhere near a river or lake. We opened the gate for her and off they waddled. I hope she got somewhere safe!

And today is the start of Daylight Saving! It's just gone 7.30pm and the light has just faded. So for those in South Africa, we are now eleven hours ahead of you

Photos

I used to resize photos using Photo Shop and then I got lazy and just printed all my photos at 6x4. I printed over 100 a few weeks ago and in planning some page kits I realised that I have way too many photos for the number of l/os I want to do. So I'm off to have some more photos printed that I have resized using Photility which is a very easy resizer. I'm annoyed with myself because I have to make another trip to Harvey Norman and pay more money for the photos. And that's funny because the photos only cost me 10 cents print in the first place!

Tomorrow is the start of two weeks holiday - YAY!! I am off to a Maths Teachers' convention in Palmerston North. I'm a little bit worried as I am sharing a motel unit with some colleagues. As many people know, I don't share spaces very well. I'm fine with my family and with my scrappy friends. We don't share bedrooms, but we do share the living spaces and I know them and they know me. Now these other people only know me from school so I'm a bit worried. I will have my own bedroom but it's sharing the rest of the spaces that worries me.

Ooooh didn't it get cold today? There was snow on the Rimutakas and we could certainly feel it down here.

As for Sally - she's doing fine. She's still on medication though. Next week she has to have a blood test to see how things are going.

Quick update on Sally

I took her back on Tuesday for a followup visit. The vet could feel that her liver was enlarged but not hard and certainly wasn't causing Sally any pain. From this, the vet suspects that Sally does indeed have a tumour and we have between one and three months with her. I was a mess as I'm not sure how I will cope with a space on my desk (and in my heart). All we can do now is offer her a good quality of life and not let her suffer

The oven

Reading Michelle's post about throwing the chook in the oven reminded me of our oven/chicken event on Thursday


Our lovely friends from National Park were coming to visit us to see Busting Out (hilarious) and stay a few nights. I took some chicken pieces out the deep freeze on Thursday morning and put them onto a large green plastic tray in the oven safe from marauding cats. I usually leave the door open, but hubby, who goes to work after me, decided that he'd close the oven door so that the cats couldn't get in. (How they'd get in I don't know, as it's a eye-level oven and I usually have a towel and an oven mitt hanging over the door handle.)


Anyway, Ross came home and as is usual on a Thursday afternoon, turned the oven on and then started getting things ready to bake his chocolate cake. He said he was mixing and out the corner of his eye he saw a light in the oven and looking closer it was a flame! He immediately switched the oven off and left the door closed. He phoned me and I could hear the smoke alarm going. I rushed home but there was nothing for me to do other than remove this:

Oh what a mess! The chicken had to go in the bin so we went out for dinner and I got fish and chips for the boys.

Saturday

It's a wet, miserable day here today and I really need to go out! I need to have some photos developed and I have to get shoes and socks for Ross. He is off to Auckland on Monday for the Barbershop Nationals and his shoes broke on Friday! He also needs enough black socks for three days and only has one pair .... did he tell me? Of course not, I had to work this out. Oh and of course we need some kind of headset thingy for the PS3 - and that is the most important shopping of all .... isn't it?

Hubby is in Akl so I have to do all the laundry - three loads done already but I can't hang it outside so the garage looks like a Chinese laundry and the tumble drier is working hard.

The update on Sally is not good: she had blood tests on Tuesday when she went in and again on Friday when she came home. After being on a drip with fairly strong antibiotics her blood tests results were worse. She could have necrotising pancreatitis, or hemolytic anaemia or possibly a tumour. She has strong antibiotic tablets and a steroid tablet. I have to go back on Tuesday for more blood tests which I suspect will show a further decline. We could have an ultrasound or a biopsy but I'm not sure all those many tests are worth it (both financially or emotionally) when the outcome will all be the same.

I have decided that I am going to buy expensive food for her (Hills Science Diet), give her all the little treats she likes as I think her decline will be quite fast.

However, I could be wrong .......

Sally

Now as some people know, Sally is my girl , my baby, the princess of the house. The boys will tell you that "Sally only loves Mommy" and it's true. She talks to me, calls me and generally lets me know what she wants. She has a corner on my desk that is her mat and that's where she sleeps. She even understands "Get on your mat"

I have been noticing that she has been getting thinner and on Tuesday night she was sleeping quite happily on my desk but got up all of a sudden and threw up on the floor. I then couldn't find her when I went to bed which created a huge search outside; I even went for a drive in my car in the hopes that she would be waiting at the door fo me when I got back. She does that when I go out and if I'm out for the day/weekend she waits patiently at the door for me. Anyway back to looking for her - I couldn't find her anywhere and finally I found her curled in a ball downstairs under a chair.

Tueday morning I took her to the vet and the diagnosis was liver/pancreas disease. They put her on a drip with some anti-biotics and upped those when one of her blood tests came back with a very high white cell count. She is still in the cat hospital and will probably only come home Friday afternoon. It could have been a tumour but our lovely vet said she had a feeling that it wouldn't be that serious

I miss her so much! The space that she takes up on my desk is so empty and I can't wait to have her home

Quilt

Well, the quilt for our godson is finished! I am so pleased - and these are the daylight ones. I had it professionally quilted by Sue Burnett who has two huge industrial quilting machines. I would have been happy with straight up and down lines but I am soooo pleased with the stars etc she has put in. I finished the binding tonight so that we can give it to him tomorrow when everyone comes for a Father's Day lunch. I hope that he loves it as much as Colin loves "Quilty" given to him in 2000 by our friends in the US. "Quilty" goes every where - in fact, as I type he is sitting cuddled up with "Quilty"

The complete quilt

One of the panels

A closer view

Here he is snuggled under it - he is now so possessive over it - Adrian was trying to

take it from him but he wouldn't let go - I am so pleased