Unexpected Places

Teaching is a many-splendoured thing, and even in a short period of teaching you can encounter a whole range of totally unexpected and out-of-left field experiences.

Our class drew the first assembly this term, and I was fresh out of ideas after last term's extravaganza. The kids were keen to do another play - they're still buzzing with theatrical vibes after doing "The Secret Garden" last term, and besides, they want back into the costume shed :-D. So I got them to collaborate on writing a play, with the sole stipulation that it had to be to do with the environmental challenges facing our world, to tie in with our term theme.

The result, I'm overwhelmingly proud to say, is a short play named "Doctor Who and the Future of Earth", in which Doctor Who and his companion arrive on earth in 2219 (don't ask me why then exactly, they picked it!) to find it desolate, and meet an alien who warns them that the world has been polluted beyond recognition and needs to be saved. The Doctor and his companion then go back to 2008 and meet people from six different continents, who all have their own opinions on how the world has ended up being destroyed. They take all of the 2008 people with them to witness the desolation, and they all agree that a) all of the problems caused the end result, and b) they have to go back and work to prevent it.

It's a neat little play, and I'm rather chuffed at what they've achieved. And delighted that they chose Doctor Who as the vehicle for the play. Awesome kids!

So all of this is the reason why, when the cleaner opened the door of the art room this afternoon, I uttered the immortal line: "don't mind me, I'm just painting a TARDIS".

Unexpected places . . .

Just when you think you're getting ahead . . .

This morning, I distinctly remember grabbing my wallet and putting it in my handbag before I went to school.

At lunchtime, I grabbed my handbag to go down to the shire office an pay my bills. And . . . no wallet.

It hasn't been stolen at school, I'm absolutely certain of that. Which means that I've lost the blasted thing somewhere.

The kids, the principal, an aide and I turned the classroom upside down, several people helped me search my car twice, I've searched the house four separate times and I've looked all over the garden, car park, my car port . . . et cetera. We've been over every square metre of ground that the wallet travelled this morning, and . . . nothing.

There was no cash in it, and my cards are only accessible with a PIN so they're pretty much useless, and there's not much on any of them anyway because I've done all of my tax return spending and I don't get paid until Thursday. If someone has found it and nicked off with it, there's not much harm they can do. It's just a complete nuisance having to replace all of my cards, especially when I'm out in the country.

I'm not going to let this piss me off too much, and the silly childish part of me is actually a little bit excited about replacing my black wallet - I'm going to get a colourful one this time. But it's going to be a huge aggravation getting new everything. But still . . . lost wallets happen to everyone sometimes. It's not because I'm stupid or a freak or anything, and I've got to keep reminding myself of that. It's just life.

I got a good laugh out of Mum this evening, though. I phoned her to tell her about the wallet, and we were chatting away when she suddenly spoke to my 10yo brother who was busy in the background: "That's really rude! Very rude! And it has an 'h' on the end of it!" Apparently he had written 'bla bla bla' on a piece of paper, although he claimed that he was just writing it and it wasn't about Mum and I lol. I laughed until I was nearly having hysterics. That is such a thing I would say - bust the kid for writing something rude and correct the spelling in the same breath - and it's hard to tell whether it's because we're mother and daughter or because whether we're both natural teachers, or whether I'm a natural teacher because my mother is a natural teacher . . . oh, it's just funny either way :-D

So . . . frustrated, wearied, but staying determinedly positive.

Success Begets Success

It's an old saying, but I discovered a new dimension to it today.

I've had two successes in the past week. The first was getting my tax return in early, getting the money back quickly, and immediately doing sensible things with it - clearing debts, paying big bills, getting stuff I really need, etc. The second was of course starting weight watchers, sticking to it perfectly, and finding that I had in fact lost 1.4kg which was a great start.

These two successes have, apparently, made me feel successful, and today I've been doing the things that successful people do - ie the things that need to be done to get success.

I found myself extra motivated all day at school - I was eager to get into the planning I needed to do, and at the end of the day I launched straight into getting ready for tomorrow rather than sitting around feeling exhausted and defeated. Then I came straight home and finally did what I said I was going to do right from the start of the year - I got changed and walked to the post office to pick up my mail. Simple, no? But I never seemed to find time before. I picked up my mail, brought it home, and sat there and opened and read every little bit of it. Normally I kind of ignore my mail if it's probably a regular bill, which in the past has meant that I've missed changes in payment amounts and things like that. This time, everything got opened. One was a rather overdue bill, which I knew about but was still unpleasant, but nothing else was a reason to be scared. I'm so proud of myself. I have the money to pay the overdue bill so I don't need to be afraid of it, and once I pay that I'm going to be able to say that I'm actually settled up on everything that needs to be paid. I'm actually on top of things for once. And I am NOT going to let myself get behind again.

I am successful, and I'm going to start . . . no, I'm going to keep on acting like it.

Pictures

I went for a little walk this afternoon and took a few pictures in my garden and around town . . .

Strange plants in my front yard:



Landscapes on the edge of town:





Awesome flowering sundew in the nature reserve:



Pretty salmon gum in the nature reserve:



I also realised that I've never posted a picture of my awesome car. Here it is (number plate obscured of course). You can see the new frangipani seat covers through the window :-D



And as promised, the inspirational mural I was doing for my wall. I ended up changing the design a bit, and just made two posters that were a mixture of helpful quotes, virtues and photographs of me both overweight and at a good weight, photos of people who love me, and pictures to remind me why I'm doing this - two photos of wedding dresses I adore, and a "Dress My Wedding" screencap!





They look pretty cool pinned to the wall. They're quite large - the bottom edge of the pink cardboard is about a metre across. I also have a graph on a piece of A4 paper stuck to a larger piece of purple card, but that's on the wall next to me rather than the one behind me.

Wow!

So much for worrying that the diet wouldn't work. This morning I weighed in at 80.0kg. I've lost 1.4kg! That's 200g a day!

This won't last, of course - that's quite a high rate of weight loss and it will probably grow less as my body gets used to the lower calorie count, and I'll have to drop my number of points eventually. But for a motivational start to the diet - what a first week!

I'm incredibly pleased :-) If I can keep up this rate of weight loss or something close to it, I'll be at my goal weight by Christmas, never mind the 10kg-off goal!

Adding: I was just checking through my weight watchers account online, and discovered that I never updated my occupation type when I restarted last week - I still had it set up as it was when I first joined and was working a desk job. It had "Mostly sitting" as my daily occupation, when it should have been "Occasionally sitting, but mostly standing". I don't get a lot of time to sit down while teaching! This means that I've actually been eating one point too little each day - I was on 21, but I should have been on 22. Oops! I'll probably keep eating 21, since I know I can get by on that much, and save the extra points each week in case I want a Friday night drink or S wants pizza or something.

*hugs Weight Watchers and feels soooo good*

Happy

The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I love all of the poems from A Child's Garden of Verses, but this two-line rhyme is perhaps my favourite. It captures the childish joy in little discoveries and everyday things, and the odd phrasing - "a number of things" - makes me think of those times when one is completely and utterly happy due to several unconnecded things.

Today I woke up indecisive about what to do with my Saturday. Normally, on a Saturday, I would sit at the computer all day doing 'this and that' - writing, message boards, various other stuff. I wasn't in the mood for that today, but I wasn't in the mood for sorting boxes either. After pondering for a while I decided that I was going to do two decisive things: phone up the credit institution that holds the debt I need to pay off, get the exact payout amount, and pay it online; and second, go buy the printer I've been dying to get.

The first went very smoothly and I paid out nearly $2900 to completely settle the debt from buying this computer and a few other things back in 2005. I also got them to put a note on my account to say that I want it closed when they receive the payout amount. I should get a letter next week to say that this has been done. This will leave me with an extra $90/month, which will come in handy.

The second, buying the printer, involved lots of ringing around, and it turned out that I couldn't get what I wanted in Big Country Town, so I wound up driving in to a large retail centre on the edge of Perth, about an hour and a half from Little Country Town.

It was on the way to Perth that the poem above popped into my head. It was a cool, mostly sunny day today, and the drive to Perth was glorious. My car is lovely to drive, and I had awesome CDs I'd burned playing, and the countryside . . . it's the middle of winter and everything is green and growing. The farms are a tapestry of soft green pastures, lush green wheatfields, and spectacular fields of bright yellow where the canola crops are busy flowering. These dotted about with the sage, tan and brown of the salmon gums and mulga bushes, and streaked with the rich rust red of the dirt and the glittering ribbons where creeks are flowing. And over it all are scattered herds of sheep, complete with bouncing and bleating lambs. I felt full of life and truly blessed just to be able to drive through such a landscape.

Back to the story lol. I got a fantastic Canon printer-scanner for $140 - it prints photo quality and can take photo paper, and the scanner is much better than the three year old one I already had. And it's shiny :-D I'm going to donate my old scanner to the school where I work. My old printer was dead so there's nothing I can do with that!

While I was at the 'real' shops I took the opportunity to pick up a few other things on my wish list or need list. The 'need' list stuff was boring, but from my wish list I got front car seat covers (really cute ones, black with a frangipani design, I know it's trendy but I loved frangipanis before they were the latest thing :-P). I also popped into JB-HiFi which was nextdoor to the shop where I got my printer, because I wanted the DVD of "The Sound of Music" and hadn't been able to find it elsewhere. After picking up that, I wandered into the music section, spotted the Soundtracks rack, and in a split second had picked up the soundtracks to "Labyrinth" and "Love Actually" - two soundtracks that a) I've wanted for years, b) aren't available in many stores, and c) aren't available on iTunes. I was stoked. And to top it all off . . . they were all on special!

I would also like to mention that I went to the city and back without being the least bit tempted by any food I wasn't supposed to eat. Go me!

I'm feeling pretty good today!

Weigh in tomorrow . . . I'm sure I've lost weight, and I can't wait to see how much!

Ooh Goody :-D

My tax return went in today - only 4 working days after I lodged it, which is a record for my tax lol. I got $4988, which is totally awesome and will mean that I can settle a couple of debts, get totally caught up on my bills, and have a bit left over for spending.

 

I did a wee bit of spending today lol . . . I completely filled my petrol tank (which cost me something like 80 dollars for 50 litres, and I already had nearly a quarter of a tank full! Yowch!). Then I drove down to Big Country Town and bought myself that electric blanket. $79.95 worth of not getting burned by boiling water and being able to get into a nice warm bed when I get tired! I'm really happy about that :-D

 

Also on the theme of happiness, I just passed the 1000-word point in my current writing project. It's early days - I've barely written the first scene - but it's a nice psychological point. I like how it's going so far, although I'm itching to get past the 'real world' stuff and get my characters into the alternate dimension, which is where the fun starts!

 

And it's Saturday tomorrow and I'm sleeping in. YAY.