Green

Green day today. I love green. It suits me to wear, and there are so many beautiful shades. I tell Mr B that if I ever have a baby girl I'd call her Emerald. Not sure if that would be his first choice! Maybe I'll call a cat Emerald if it has appropriately coloured green eyes. Actually my eyes are dark murky green around the outside of my irises and brown in the middle. I'm fond of dark green eyeliner.



Of course my favourite magazine has a lovely, fresh green cover.


And here's my Olga Berg bag. I should have featured the pink lining yesterday. I carry my sheet music around in this at the moment.


Mr B got me a green music stand to match my 'cello bag. I didn't take a photo of that because it is empty and uninteresting at the moment.


I've got a green frog umbrella.


Here's a top I got at Colorado. I don't believe in ironing unless under duress, or sewing. Bad wife.


This green paint is called Frog. I love the name and I love the colour.


Other news:

• Our frames are up! It is starting to look like a house. The roof trusses go up tomorrow.
• I only had six students today as one was sick. It was so much better with one less.
• Tomorrow we are going to the matinee performance of Cinderella presented by the students and some of the staff of our Special School. Should be a good laugh providing no one from my class blows their stack. Highly probable.
• I managed to get out of the supermarket without buying chocolate bars or crisps. Whew.

See you tomorrow!

Pink

Miss Ruby Two Shoes has decided to have a colour week and I am joining in. Tonight I've popped here and there around the house snapping pink things here and there, some of which look pinker in real life (and a couple which I practised my enhancement skills on to bring out the pink). Country Living magazine featured a few pink things too. In my house pink seems to come along with other pretty colours.

Country Living- oh so pretty!


Kitchen curtains- the flowers are pinker in real life!


I made this pretty pink bag. It even has a pink lining. The wall behind even looks pink. Not sure how that happened because it is actually yellow.


Monty in his favourite spot under the pink squares on my quilt.


Mmmm- chocolate and pink. Yum.


I wish I owned this cerise lantern. Country Living again.


My Wallace Cotton Rosalicious quilt.


Gorgeous pink ribbon. Haven't got far into this book, but it is a bit of a laugh.


A closeup of a painting I did a while ago.


My pink colander XXX. I love colanders.


Pink roses on this pretty trio given to me by the wonderful Mother-in-law Black.


I love pink. Did you know that it is called mawhero in the Maori language? Ma is white and whero is red- blend them together to get mawhero. Isn't that clever? I just think that it is a shame that pink is associated with putrid Barbie stuff, and other gaudy kid-associated paraphernalia. So I'm thinking of rose, cerise, watermelon, blush ...

What a view!

Today we drove out for our weekly inspection of the building site. We met one of our lovely friends out there, with her darling wee doggy. Mr B was able to have a catch-up with Richard and his amazingly tall brother (very useful for putting up frames and doing ceilings apparently). They were marking out where our frames are to go with blue chalk. We weren't allowed to walk on the blue lines, so we pretended to walk into the rooms. By next week we will be able to use the doorways. The frames were all delivered on Friday, almost safe and sound. Richard had to repair a couple that went splat off the truck. Oops. Richard said they are stronger than ever. And here they are:


How strange looking at the skeleton of our house lying on the ground. The earth was incredibly boggy after the snow, and I was scared I would slip and land on my bottom in the mud.

The best bit about our visit today was the view of the Port Hills with a dusting of icing sugar snow. This is the view from our future kitchen window. I don't think the house across the way will block too much of the view. We met another one of our future neighbours today and he was really friendly. See the wee tree on the right side- that's his piece of land.


I was mucking around taking self-portraits of myself today, and after several amazingly weird looking photos (how do I manage to look OK posing in the mirror, and like a total lush in a photo trying to make the same face?), Mr B snapped a few for me. This was the best one.

I love the purple scarf with the green jersey. Pretty colours together. I'm really self-conscious about how I look. I've always been bothered by my teeth, and my really small bottom jaw. That's why I've got braces now. I could have opted for facial reconstructive surgery to break my bottom jaw and move it forward so my teeth lined up, but it was ridiculously expensive and nasty. So I'll live with the jaw, and have photos from the front, because you really can't tell except from the side. I must get the henna out again to brighten up my hair. I love red hair, and wish I had bright, sparking goldy red tresses. Or gleaming coppery locks. Unfortunately I can't use artificial dyes because my scalp gets so itchy I feel like ripping it off my skull. So I use henna, which is a bit variable in results, but gives me a chestnut gleam, especially in the sun. I'm one woman battling the horrible discrimination people have against people with red or ginger colour hair. Go Ginger People! You lucky things!

Snow day

What an odd day, weatherwise. This morning was bright, sunny and warm. It turned at about lunchtime and by later in the afternoon it was snowing. We don't get snow here much. I used to get ridiculously excited about snow, racing outside to touch, and play. Now I'm happy spectating from the warmth of my house. I cheated with some of these photos and sent Mr B outside. He was thrilled to have another opportunity to go in the snow.

The view down the road. How dreary.

Here is our little house. It will be goodbye soon. This wee house has been very kind to us.

This is the mahonia I said would have to go when we moved in. Hmmm.

I also swore I'd never plant a flax bush after removing one from the front yard. This one is in Miss Dog's play garden.

My front garden.

And the best of all. Mr B in snowy ecstacy. He always manages to make a snowball, no matter how little snow we have.

Oooh, Nigella is on. She is doing a show about puddings. She does sound awfully posh. I wonder if it is like a telephone voice - put on for the cameras. XXX

Drainlayers and More from Hunka Munka

Thank-you for all of the lovely comments about dear Hunka Munka. Even those of you who would rather not face a ratty in person managed to say nice things about her. She is sitting on my shoulders across the back of my neck at the moment. Miss Dog is quite interested in her, but Monty Cat hasn't noticed that she is here. Either that or he doesn't care. He has never hunted in his life. He is as soft as a marshmallow. Still, I wouldn't leave Hunka in harm's way just in case. Now I've got Monty on my knee as well as Hunka on my shoulders. Luckily Miss Dog is busy napping.

"Let me out for a play." Look at those wee hands.

Ratty supermodel showing her best angles.

Onto other pressing matters. It is remarkable how much mess a drainlayer can do in only three days.

Mr B assures me that by Saturday everything will be filled in and flat again. Otherwise I'm not sure that I want to make my weekly visit. The framing is being delivered tomorrow afternoon.

Bye for now. Time for relaxing. XXX

A Ratty Sleepover

I hope I don't upset anyone with this photo! People can be so horrified by the thought of ratties. This is Hunka Munka. She is having two nights with us to see if she would like to live here. Her mummy and daddy are English and are returning to England later this year, and are moving to Queenstown in the meantime. Their new landlady says no rats. I think she is much prettier than I am, but it isn't a good photo of either of us. She has fawn patches on her body and her eyes are like wee black currants. People say rats tails are disgusting, but Hunka Munka's tail is lovely and smooth with pink skin and soft white hair. Her wee hands are just delightful. I think I might be Beatrix Potter reincarnated! Mr B totally approves of her, which I am thrilled about. He even cuddled her while I hung up the washing. So I think Hunka Munka will become a permanent member of the family, since she is so settled with us. Her Mummy, Wendy, wanted to take her back to England, but the quarantine for rodents is six months. Since rats don't have long lives, and quarantine would be no fun for Hunka Munka, she had to find her a loving new home. Lucky me! I love her already! XXX

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is a word that gets slung around in teaching circles by people wanting to look clever. Weird to say I've never actually had a simple explanation of what it means. Now that I've made an effort to find out I thought I would share with you.

Pedagogy is the art or science of teaching.

Golly gosh. In my case I'm not sure if the word pedagogy applies to anything I do during the day. Here is a basic rundown of what I did today:

• Morning talk (circle time) with a viewing of the photos from wacky hair day last week.
• Then we had a dance to something lively that I can't recall.
• We had a talk about Queen's Birthday and made some collaged crowns to display on the wall (they like to collage and can all put thing onto paper like glitter and buttons).
• We washed hands and then had morning tea (like a family with a focus on social skills)
• Then we put the jackets on everyone and sent them out to play for 20mins.
• When the bell rang we rounded up the students because most of them don't come in unless you retrieve them.
• Everyone went to the toilet (nappy changes etc)
• Then we rotated through art lessons, individual activities and the multisensory room.
• We went for a walk around the block because the trikes were not out.
• We came back and washed hands then had lunch.
• I had 1 hour for lunch so I ate my salad and wrote reports. The kids played outside.
• When the bell rang it was round-up time again. Then toilet.
• Then we had a shared story.
• We all trooped next door for gymnastics (in which we are actually doing massage and relaxation)
• When we came back to class I got out the instruments and we played some music.
• Everyone got their bags on and we took them to wait for their taxis.

I must say I think I am kind of getting close to needing a change of class. I've been with the severe senior group for about five years. There is a point when you would love someone to respond to a story that you are reading (listening quietly would be good, in some cases). I guess I must be incredibly patient because I've been saying the same things to the same students for such a long time, and things don't change a lot. But we do get lovely surprises, occasional super progress and lots of laughs.

So I hope that you have learned a new word today, and therefore I managed to educate someone!

Ps. Did a good job on my eating today.