A real day off
Mood: Good
Listening to: National Programme
Friday, 10.43 am
Here I go, straight into the blog box - what happened to my safety routine of entering stuff in a document and pasting it here? Hmm, must copy before I press The Button.
Well last Friday I did have a day off work, but it was dedicated to cooking, shopping and preparing for the Open Tournament at squash -probably worked a darn sight harder than the regular job! It all paid off though, the chili con carne and pumpkin soup complemented the chips, toasties, burgers etc we do very nicely. It was a 2 day tournie this time with our traditional Rangitikei Roast on Saturday night - had a larger than usual 'family' for tea, fifty-three I think - and it was great to be able to stay afterwards and socialise and not have to worry about playing the following day. Brent won Men's 4th Div, got himself a George Foreman grill. Haven't tried it yet, but it will come into its own at weekends when everyone is feeding themselves - not big enough for a family of 5!
What am I doing with my day off? Weeeelll..... it's supposed to be my day for catching up on housework but so far that's only extended to a complete wash of all dishes on the bench, including last night's pots and the night before's roasting dish; and washing and hanging up another load of clothes. This joins the 2 loads done last night, and will eventually end up on the Mt Everest of clean stuff pulled off the clothes horses and line but not yet folded and put away. NO IT WON'T! I will tackle Mt Everest straight after this blog because it's the most obvious eyesore that hits you as you walk in the front door.
I have also (foolishly) weighed myself just to confirm that my bulk has increased, then downed half a block of chocolate to get rid of it so that it won't be around to tempt me, and I can get on with being good.
Also crossed swords with the principal at Dunx school, he's an arrogant twat and I'm old enough and ugly enough not to bear fools lightly these days - I tend to feel that school is one place to stick to your guns and not be ho hum if things are bothering you because your kids only have one chance and I'd rather be off side with a headmaster over stupid policy than fuming and stressing over it. As long as I am happy and confident with the teachers, and I am, I have no concerns for Dunx learning. He had a first year teacher but I have full faith in her and like her methods. I also feel comfortable in the classrooms and with auxilliary staff, try to help where I can e.g. I complained that there was no road patrol in operation this year - especially at the beginning of the year when kids were new or getting back into routine - and finally, in last week's newsletter, there was a paragraph about how road traffic and pupil numbers have decreased to the point where it wasn't consideded necessary to have a road patrol but if parents wanted it then they could volunteer to do it themselves. This morning I volunteered to help on Fridays (day off) - but reiterated that I believe the school should be doing this especially seeing as we have Y7 & 8 pupils now. I have had the comment that "the kids don't want to do it" - SO WHAT? Responsibilities should be encouraged. And that "only the caretaker ever used to do it and its not his job" - again, SO WHAT? It's the school's responsibility to keep our children safe. Don't they have duty teachers any more???
Wow, I must be more fired up than I thought. Ooops.
Have been to the Dr for BP checks twice in the last week, and both times its been up 140/95. Disappointing because it had been good lately. The first time the nurse tut tutted and was very concerned and insisted I return a week later - and when I did and it was the same, she more or less shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. For God's sake, be consistent woman! I was really worried after the first time - she's the professional, do I worry or not???
Oh I feel like I've got verbal diarrhoea and can't shut up. Never mind. What next?
Spent a few hours last Sunday at A&E with Greg - he'd been to a 16th birthday party on Friday night and sometime during the night he'd jumped off the tramp and landed awkwardly, hurting his foot. Didn't get much sympathy on Saturday cos we were all busy at squash, but when I saw it still swollen on Sunday and him hobbling like an old man I thought we'd better go and get it seen to. We would have had to have gone to The Doctors in PN as they were the duty doctors anyway, so skipped that step and went straight to the hospital where they xrayed him and declared that there was "an irregularity" in one of his foot bones. Not a crack or a fracture, just an irregularity for whatever that's worth. No strapping, plaster or anything, just "wear sensible shoes" i.e. not bare feet or socks. Oh and take pain relief as needed. OK. The up side is that he gets out of doing the Road Race at school (running many kilometres around the streets of PN). The down side is that he couldn't do rock climbing in rec sport yesterday. Still managed to scoff pizza though - the kids ordered from Pizza Hut and got it delivered to City Rock. School was never like that in my day!
Oh excitings - I've got a new computer printer! Daughter's one gave up the ghost so I thought I'd shout her a new one and was looking at real cheapy cheap ones before the penny dropped and I decided to get us the new one and pass our old one down to her. Duh, it took a while!! Got a Canon iP4200 (for all you technofreaks that understand these things), and now owe my boss a chocolate cake in gratitude at his giving it to me at cost, bless him. (The pay might be peanuts but things like that make up for it.) Managed to get it installed last night and printed out a couple of photos - just on plain paper but now I'm dying to have a go at photo paper. I can see our ink cartridges running out real quick, all 5 of them. Why does it have 2 black ones?
Arrgh the time just beeped, I'm rationing time off from housework and now I've got to get back to it. I have enjoyed this. Much quicker than writing in the journal, and my hand doesn't go numb - just about given up on catching up there, will have to write "see blog" or something. Am also itching to do the Fiji trip in journal cum scrapbook cum photo album. So much to do, so little time. We're going to Waihi Beach for Easter, probably leaving Thursday night. The Colemans are coming too, and Mike, Julie and I have to be back for work on Tuesday but Brent, Alan, Dunx and Greg will stay on for a few more days as it is school holidays. The big boys will go out in the boat and fill the freezer, and the kids will look after each other, at least that's the plan.
Right, time to tackle Mt Everest.
Cheers,
Jaybee
