OMG, I said No!

Decided not to mention ze word work in this title, lol. After two extra shifts at the home last week and an 8pm -8am shift Saturday night/Sunday morning, I am choosing to have a couple of afternoons at home this week. I was rung this morning and offered extra work this afternoon, but actually said no! This was not too hard as I am working on about half a lung at the moment having picked up a cough last week - possibly from one of the kids, or perhaps being a bit run down. I have been regularly coughing the other half of my lungs up morning and evening with just a few bouts during the day. I do not often subscribe to illness (it is a waste of time when I could be doing other stuff, lol) so am treating this as a mere flesh wound so to speak. I have armed myself with a variety of potions to ward off things getting worse and am pleased to report, overall they seem to be working. First in the armoury of potions is good old Vicks or rather the Black Gold brand of Chest rub which is a generic brand over here. It has one less ingredient than Vicks but one does not have to take out a second mortgage to buy a pot of it either. Vicks sells for $12 a jar over here which seems rediculously expensive. Have been slathering the chest rub on my chest, bits of my back that I can reach and the bottoms of my feet (at bedtime), as I read somewhere that putting it on your feet does the best job. So far so good! As I felt like death slightly warmed up on Friday afternoon, I stopped at the chemist on the way to work, and asked for their 245D (lethal weed killer now banned in NZ lol) variety of cough mixture. After forking out $18 (you can tell I was not feeling that great on that day) I got to work and took a dose -15 mls. OMG, it was the most disgusting stuff bar none that I have tasted in ages, so much so, after smelling it I held my nose to get it down and have only had the one dose to date. Paint stripper with a nasty aftertaste comes to mind - what happened to the merry cherry flavours or that interesting orange alcohol flavoured ones of child hood?, lol. Yesterday a mild sore throat developed just before I did the grocery shopping so bought three packets of butter menthol cough drop thingies and they have been great. Although I sound like some two packet a day derro when coughing, I think I am winning.

The other reason I have chosen to have the next few days off is that the house is having an inspection on Thursday and there is still much to be done. Friend Jude, bless her, has stayed the last two nights while she has worked at the local rest home (in the kitchen) and has helped both days out in the garden. All lawns have been mowed, hedge trimmed, gardens weeded, edges trimmed at the front plus the roadside verge, and all the driveway has been weeded both sides down to the garage at the back of the section. I have some weeding between pavers out the back to complete tomorrow and then it will be the once over twice in the house on Wednesday. As the weeds were thigh high down the driveway, it was with a deal of satisfaction we stood back and surveyed the realm this afternoon when we decided to call it a day. In response to sister Kay's comments re wildlife - it is not hot enough for snakes and thankfully not a spider has been sighted. Everytime I go into the back shed, I do have to say I am on hyper alert for anything that might move - so far so good there too.

Being home for a period of time has its advantages - I have cooked two meals in two days. After getting back here yesterday at 8.30am I decided to garden first, then cook lunch (lamb chops, new potatoes and salad) and then when Jude went to work, I crawled onto the couch and slept for six and a half hours. I decided tonight we would have a roast and bought a piece of pork yesterday. It was cooked to perfection along with roast pumpkin, sweet potatoe, new potatoes, courgettes and cauliflower. What a treat! Jude had bought some Vienetta ice cream and I did baked apples stuffed with dates for dessert, so it was pure indulgence indeed.

Another advantage of being home this afternoon - I got to ring the No 1 grandson, and what a joy that was. He will be 8 next month and he was a delight to talk to. He has been studying silent movies at school and told me Charlie Chaplain walks like a penguin! He was in a group of six who made their own silent movie - Red Riding Hood! I got the names of all his group and their parts, lol. I asked him about choir and had three songs sung over the phone that he has been learning or should I say the edited highlights of them. We then discussed his upcoming birthday and he is having an Indiana Jones party this year - he has designed treasure map invitations and a map with footprints on to his place from school if I understood him correctly. Got the update on a new Wii game - he has Indiana Jones lego and a couple I have not heard of. He has also seen Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and in fact all the Harry Potter movies, lol. I asked him if he felt the earthquake in Christchurch and he said no but got told that they had talked about it at school, that there were still aftershocks and it was 7.4! Just as we were getting to the dog, cricket and swimming this summer, it was time for his dinner so he handed me over to the No 1 son whispering to him "it's your Mum on the phone". Had to have a chuckle at that. He (grandson) is still taking lots of photos with the camera I left him at Christmas so who knows, we may have another Peter Jackson in the making, lol. He told me his Mum had bought a video camera that is brilliant because you can twist the screen and see youself being taped as it is happening so doesn't need to borrow my one now!

Have put some photos here that I took a couple of weeks ago. The heron I spotted in the river/estuary over the road from the residential home. It felt a bit wierd taking photos of wildlife in the middle of town, lol.




The two above are of a lizard found in the garden - a gecko. I spotted it out of the corner of my eye when it moved as I was hanging washing out on the line. I managed to tear back into the house to grab the camera and get some shots before it disappeared and got some more the next day when it was out around the same time of the day again. These were taken from one side of the section to the other side so as not to spook it - thank heavens for 20 zoom, lol.

It is the school holidays next week, woohoo. I have made no plans as am not too sure how I am fixed workwise - will not get paid for two weeks from school, so have to take that into account. It would be nice to think I could go out Tardun way for a drive at least to check out the wildflowers this year, but will have to see.

Big news on the TV here at the moment was the announcement by Oprah (at the opening of her final season last week), that she is bringing the entire audience that was at the show that day to Australia for 10 days in January next year. As the crowd was going wild, the back walls of the stage parted and a Qantas jet wheeled in and who should step out of the plane as pilot, but John Travolta, who is going to fly the 400 audience here. Oprah is going to do two shows from the Sydney Opera House which they have already nicknamed the Oprah House, lol so this is huge. The boost to tourism is likely to be a major spinoff from this and though the Govt has put up over a million dollars towards this event, it would be cheap at twice the price for the exposure that her program will give to audiences around the world.

And on that note, I shall sign off for the night and get some sleep. :)

And just for a change - more work!

Have been feeling like a hamster on a wheel somewhat over the past few weeks. Thanks to all of those who have sent emails and have skyped me recently, who have been concerned at my absence on the wires. Work has continued to keep me in its thrall doing 50 hrs a week most weeks over the last month if not more. I actually threw caution to the wind today and took the morning off school, as I had no work at the home this evening. I think this makes it my first complete day off in maybe two months. I did sleep until 8am before making it to the couch to watch morning tv, and dozed again. Around mid day decided to have a shower, thinking I would luxuriate under a good hot spray without haste. Wrong! Had barely covered myself with soap (ok,a job in itself, lol) when I noticed the temp wasn't that hot. Cranked up the hot tap which would usually have the skin scalding off me and the water kept getting cooler. Turned the cold tap off completely and still the temp was dropping, so just as it was about to go hypothermically cold, I turned the tap off, sluiced remaining water draining out of the shower to rinse the last of the soap off, turned the hot by now cold water off and hurriedly got dry and into warm clothes. I wasn't sure what the cause was but thought oh well, maybe if I leave it a couple of hours, it will heat up again. Wrong, lol. Poor Jude came home from work, jumped in the shower to refresh and it was still cold. Not sure if it was on gas or what (only house sitting so have taken no notice of the finer details of the inner workings of the house) we walked around outside, finding a ?gas or water heater outside. Jude made a comment about electricity and I had one of those Eureka moments and zoomed inside to the water heater switch, and yes, (thank heavens as I was imagining dollars flying out the window) it was switched off. Jude had turned it off thinking it was a light switch early that morning. Go figure, the light switches are actually in the door frame of the front door and the hot water is just inside where you would put your hand to turn a light switch on, and in the wee hours of the morning, poor Jude had mistaken it for just that. I am happy to report, the water is now hot enough to scald the bristles of a hog again, lol.

After lunch, I decided to tackle the back lawn, as in mowing it. I had given it a trim two weeks ago without the catcher so put the mower down two notches and remowed again without the catcher. The lawn is kikuia grass so doesn't grow much, but is very springy and therefore a pain to mow. I miss good NZ grass on a lawn I have to say, though do not miss the speed that it grows, lol. When Jude arrived back from I stopped and caught up with her before she headed home and thought I would check the letter box as she left. There was a letter from the real estate agent and next Thursday I have a house inspection. There is a list as long as your arm of how they expect to find the place - right down to cupboards wiped out and cleaned, to say nothing of the stove, floors, shower etc etc. The added kicker is that the place has to be weeded outside, gardens maintained and lawns done. Mild panic attack ensued. I have done some gardening out front but the back has been neglected somewhat, grass has grown down the drive way and it is a bit of wilderness at the back of the garage. Nothing like an incentive to get things done. I ended up by spending several hours outside and have weeded the gardens down both sides of the property, one in front of the patio and have trimmed nearly 3/4 round one side of the lawn, pulling weeds out of the path as I have trimmed. Midges were starting to come out and I needed to stop to ring sister Kay in NZ for her birthday.

Last Friday spoke on Skype to the Principle of the Learning Centre (school) and my contract is to be rolled over for next term, and it is likely I can continue next year as well. The big news is that the Workmates Husband has resigned as of the end of term to take up managing the brand new Maccas that is to be built and opened in town by Dec 8. It was one of those offers too good to refuse. Ads have gone into several papers and on line to replace him so it will be interesting to see what eventuates there. The big boss is flying in on the 6th Oct for a meeting so may know more then.

It has been full on at school - should have checked if it was a full moon, lol, as we have had more than one pupil cooling their heels at home over the past week. We have had a challenging two weeks with several things impacting on our students. Two weeks ago a boy in yr 11 from Nagle (Catholic school that the workmates three eldest go to) went home from school and hung himself. As per the usual in todays world, the eldest daughter heard it by txt as she was home sick. She rang here to tell her Mum who then rang the DP at the school to check if it was true, which unfortunately it was. The lad had been to the spring dance two nights before, and had appeared happy and was also laughing and in good spirits (outwardly) on the Monday at school, but something seems to have gone wrong that afternoon so the school was in deep shock as the news started to ripple through on Tuesday. We were just mentioning it at morning meeting at our school the next day as one of our students had known the lad, when news came in that a family friend of one of our girls had gassed himself - mid thirties with small children left behind. Without knowing anyone concerned, I felt the impact myself seeing how others were affected. It gave cause to some discussion during of our morning meeting to say the least.

As all of the students at school have been at odds with mainstream schooling - for one reason or another, so we have some interesting dynamics. One of the boys told one of the girls not to touch his jumper as they were cleaning up the classroom and when she picked it up and threw it at him, he shoved her and she went for him. This all happened in front of me and as I am standing there yelling at them to leave each other alone, they moved apart, he shoved her again and she went for him again, this time with her hands around his throat. I am now watching a fight happening in front of the projector and yelling at both of them to get out when the lad moved to go outside, picking up a chair throwing it across the room in anger, nearly taking out our brand new stove, then kicked the door open before heading outside. Got them separated and calmed the girl down as the WMH took care of the lad which led to him having a few days off. The girl apologised to the rest of the group (something she had never done before) I left for work at the home, and she finished the afternoon off at a sporting activity with the rest of the kids. The following day, amongst the girls there was talk of a party they were going to have in the weekend. This resulted in a conversation in another morning meeting as they had spoken about drinking (they are underage) and had to be told, they cannot talk about stuff like that in front of us as we have to do something about that information eg tell parents etc. The short version is, two of the girl's lied point blank on the Friday to the WM and I re permission to be dropped at the one girl's home and one of them lied point blank again when challenged on the Monday morning which resulted on said girl marching out plus the WM copped a mouthful of swearing for good measure. The one girl we had dropped off at home, had gone to the party and never went home so we had her parents looking for her as she also took off on the Monday, being picked up by the Police later in the week for being in a car with a drunk driver who was unlicensed to boot. That is to say nothing of the boy who abused another boy's girlfriend on facebook and nearly got thumped before I headed that off at the pass. Forget being a youth worker (which is my job title) - I am now thinking of bedcomming referee for serious boxing/wrestling matches instead of soccer, lol.

And for light relief ..., there has been work at the home. Again, not without challenges. Two weeks ago, one of the boys decided to have a meltdown after I stopped him riding a scooter at speed where two toddlers were playing. After two warnings I went to take the scooter off him which resulted in a total explosion where he tried to punch, kick and bite me (9 yrs old). He also threw stones hitting a staff member and then threw plastic furniture about the back lawn at the glass sliding door and the staff member who went out to talk to him before he calmed down and came back inside again. It is a pattern of behaviour he has learned, to lash out when he cannot get his own way, or is thwarted in some way, so as you can imagine, we have had some interesting interactions. He has thrown furniture about inside, yells and swears, and has broken two CD players's in the last few weeks. On the plus side, he hates being ignored, which is what he gets from me when he kicks off. After making sure everyone is safe, including him, I pay lots of attention to the others and take no notice of him until he makes good choices and behaves appropriately. He has begun to manage his temper much better during the shifts I have worked with him over the past two weeks and go figure, the last three shifts, I have been his favourite person!!!! - his other modus operandi is to play staff off against each other if he can. As I do not work like that, he is having no joy there either and slowly he is working out, if he wants something, he has to come halfway to get it. The two little ones that I mentioned last time have left and we had another two littlies come and go since. The coming and going is hard on the three who remain especially the 9 yr old who has been at the home since last year. (The other two arrived just before I started work four months ago).

I was rung by the home yesterday and have been offered a permanent part time position, but it would mean doing mornings and working nights which would mean I could not manage to do the school job as well. As it is only 37hrs a fortnight, I can not manage on that so will stay a casual which gives me more flexibility and will think about amybe looking at a full time position if one comes up there instead.

Midst all of this, I am happy to inform you that I do not have bowel cancer!!! Not that it has been an issue before anyone gets concerned on my behalf. Over here there is a program of 55yrs and over being tested so a testing kit arrived in the mail some weeks ago. Will not go into the details but the samples sent away were all clear. I guess this will happen from time to time which is very proactive in my opinion.

Since I last wrote, the election has been done and after a torturous 10 days, two independent MP's and one of the Greens decided to throw their lot in with the Labour Party headed now by Julia Guillard and the new govt was sworn in yesterday. I think she has 76 to 74 MP's so cannot afford a single bi-election in the next three years as it will mean going back to the polls for another general election.

I have caught snippets of news about the earthquake in Christchurch, NZ and could not believe the damage I saw. It was great news that there was not a single death in the 7.1 quake and I have to say, Christchurch!! who would of thought. It is always Wellington or Rotorua that I thought the big one would hit as in Rotorua (where I lived for some years) there were frequent tremors. I was in Christchurch four years ago at a boarding school conference and got to see a bit of the city on the tram ride that I took and it is difficult to comprehend how much damage there has been.

It is now two days since I began this - got called back to work at the home twice extra this week and have a twelve hour shift on Sat night to Sunday morning and am off again shortly. Apart from the staff member who left yesterday, another one has pneumonia and another fell badly and hurt her leg so things are a bit stretched to say the least. Am going to post this as is and hope to surface again some time next week. :):):)

Pinch and a Punch for the 1st of the Month

(This was begun, well, on the 1st of the month, lol, but has languished in the drafts section for want of time to finish it , so will post it retrospectively).

OMG it is September, the ninth month, three and a bit months to Christmas!!!!! and the first official day of Spring. I know this because one of the comprehensions we have been doing at school used the months of the year and the seasons. Remembering that the kids we have range from 12 yrs to 16, there were some who did not know how many days each month has, nor when the seasons fell, or even the entire list of the months in the correct order. This is all stuff I knew by the time I was 7 yrs old. We had lots of information printed on the back of our exercise books, - the times tables, weights, 30 days hath September, measures eg 22 chain makes a furlong how many feet to a mile etc etc. It is scarey the deficits these kids have in general knowledge but rewarding at how much they are learning and how their world is expanding. All are aware now that a federal election has occurred, and are even asking has the government been picked yet? The answer to that one is no - Julia Guillard and the Labour party are still in office and she picked up the representative from the Greens party today, but there are three independent representatives who have yet to agree to either party. Watch this space, lol.

Have continued to be extremely busy with no complete day off, though this week I have had three half days at school with free afternoons. The first two I pretty much slept through catching up on working all weekend and have finally come up for air today. We have two new students at school - a boy who has hardly attended for the last five years but has been a reader of books at home, and a girl who has been in bother at her last school and looking for a fresh start. Both seem to be settling in well and have altered the dynamics in a positive for a way. Several boys chose to have time out for not managing to be working under the four principles of the school, being honesty, safe and legal, respect and participation, and had various amounts of time off ranging from overnight to several days. Each time time out happens, it requires a re-entry interview with parents or guardians in attendance so it was a very busy week in that respect. Our lad who holds the record for attendance is up to his 32nd day of continuous attendance which is awesome. The next closest is 28 days with one of the girls holding that position. We started reading a class novel today and it was so good to hear the lad mentioned above read out loud the first twelve pages and laugh at some of the funny bits, thereby reading for meaning and comprehending what he was reading as well. He put himself up a level in spelling some weeks ago, so his vocab has grown and the best part is, he has no shame in asking what a word means now. Shame is a very indigenous thing, close to whakama in Maori I think but conveniently used by all over here. Can't do that Miss, its shame, though said shaaaamme, lol.

It was a busy week at the residential home last week with the two mentioned last time leaving and two new little ones arriving. Our lad with the broken arm also had an operation at the hospital to remove two more teeth at the back so he was not in a good place over the weekend. After mainly dealing with boys, it was a nice change to have a little girl about the place. It took me back to when I used to look after my niece Laura, doing hair in pony tails and plaits and working out which outfit suited the day. Two of the older boys had sports days at their respective schools and both returned with ribbons that they had won in various events so there was much excitement over that.

I have had friend Jude stay again for a couple of nights. On Monday we had both worked in the morning and had both worked the weekend so after having an afternoon tea visit with the workmate and her family, we looked at each other and thought, blow it, we would have take aways for dinner. The Noodle Box was suggested - I didn't even know there was one in Geraldton, and we had a feast. Jude chose Nasi Goreng, I had garlic prawn noodles and decided we would get lemon chicken noodles as well. We both had two bowls of every thing and there was still enough for me to eat last night for dinner and it was delicious. I have a sneaking suspicion I will go back again, lol. I had tried Noodle Box food in Hamilton (NZ) and remembered it was excellent value for money then too. Am sleepy so hope to finish this tomorrow.