Peculiar Gift?

In honor of Birthday Week here at DSP, I'm going to (try to) have birthday related prompts for the rest of the week. What's the most peculiar gift you've ever received? Describe the scene when you opened it and your reaction.

It is very difficult to remember a peculiar gift. I received a gift from my parents in law last year that they thought I might think peculiar & on the surface it is.

It is a nice white cup with blue flowers on it.

Why would a person with a stash of cups need another one? As with any present though, it is the thought that matters. What was the thought process behind the cup? It was that sometimes we just need to take a break in our day & relax & drink a cup of coffee in a pretty cup. What a wonderful sentiment.

I have to say I love this gift & there is nothing better than a freshly brewed coffee in my nice cup, the sound of silence & a good trashy magazine to read. Ahhhh bliss!

What's in a name?

Is the name you have now the same name that's on your birth certificate? If not, what's changed? If you could change your name (first or middle, no last names for safety please!), what would it be? Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?) Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why?

Nothing but my surname has changed. I think that my name is a mouthful now, with way too many syllabuls but I don't want to change my name to fix that problem.

As my mother tells the story it goes along the lines of she wanted to call me Kirsten. Dad said that only a blonde haired girl could be called Kirsten & with our family's colouring there is no way I was going to be blond. So I wasn't allowed to be called Kirsten. That's as much as I know about how I got my name. I don't know who chose Katrina, it's not a family name on either side of the family. I must ask mum who actually chose my name.

I don't really have names that I love or hate. The name I was going to call my childen if they were girls was Kaitlyn. I thought it was a nice merging of Katrina & Lynette.

Unlucky things

I am taking part in this challenge.

http://thiseverydaylife.com/?m=20070325

Challenge #1 is to list your unlucky things.

A few things that I find unlucky.
- not getting my first cup of coffee until after lunch
- stepping in dog poo when going for a jog
- starting to make dinner (late) & then finding out that I don't have everything I need to make it.
- I don't walk under ladders. I know this is superstition but I still won't do it.
-making breakfast & finding that the milk has gone off.
- one that has been happening frequently is making sandwiches one day before the bread's expiry date only to find the bread is mouldy. This is really starting to hack me off, why do the manufacturers put the wrong use by date on the bread?

Frustrating Week

I think that covers what the week has been like.

My major frustration has been with James & his total inability to be attentive in class. I don't know if he's bored, tired, being led astray by other boys or what, but it is really starting to annoy & worry me. I am wondereing if I should take him to the doctor but the strange thing is that he can sit down & concentrate on doing something when it suits him. He drew this picture of me on Friday night.

The other frustration has been my computer. Ever since we had it fixed it has been giving me strange messages. Then last week I was trying to listen to music, on my computer, & use PSE4 at the same time & I got a blue screen saying something along the lines of major technical fault so I've closed down. As you know I have ScrapCamp this coming weekend so I have a lot of layouts sitting just needing photos, so I thought I would print them off & the regular sized ones I would send out to DigitalMax for printing. Well on Saturday I tried to upload my regular sized photos to Digital Max only to find out DigitalMax wasn't working. OK I thought I would print them off myself at home. Opened up PSE4 & pressed print only to have blue screen messages again. In the end I got so frustrated that I called Scott & he rang the Dell helpdesk which wasn't really all that helpful at all. They told us to run some diagnostics & if it came back clean then it was a software issue & we would have to clean out the hard drive & start all over again. Of course the diagnostics came back clean. We decided we would get the machine to go back to before the first major problem happened. Only problem is that there was nothing for it to go back to. We left it for a night & then what do you know, yesterday I was able to print my photos off just fine in PSE4. I should be pleased, & I made sure I have them all printed out, but the question keeps coming to me, why? Why did the computer not do this on Saturday when I first asked it to. Could the diagnostics changed something?

Well thankfully it's the start of a new week, I'm hoping it won't be as frustrating & at least I know the weekend will be wonderful.

Have a good week everyone.

G words.

This week my dd, Emma, studied the letter "G" in kindergarten. For homework she (we) had to write or draw as many G-words as she could think of. Let's use G-words as our prompt.garbage, gate, goat, girl, green, giraffe, guitar...... Add your own and start writing!

Ha ha that's funny, James had the same letter this week. We didn't have to make a list of as many as possible but we did have to draw some. So he drew green grass. I suggested a garage & Scott suggested a gate. After doing so well with his homework earlier in the week he went to pieces on it on Wednesday & it got to be more like scribbles than drawings of anything. It's a bit sad really because just the week before he had got full marks for his nice neat homework & we had rewarded him with eating off the red plate. He seems to do everything in extremes. He's either tidy or an absolute mess, he either takes ages to do something because he is trying to get it perfect or it's a slapdash, don't care attitude.

He really is becoming infuriating & he lies very well when he wants to too. Wednesday night he told me he had no reading homework & I didn't believe him so I looked in his homework diary. He was correct the teacher had written "No Reading!". I thought it odd & asked him why there was no reading homework. James told me it was because he was going on a trip the next morning. I get to school the next morning & his teacher comes up to me & asks if I saw the notice about no reading. I said yes & she asked if James told me why. I said because there was a trip & she says no that's not why. I just wished the ground would open up & swallow me, & then it got worse. I asked James why there was no reading & James said he didn't know & then his teacher said that on Wednesday James spent more time in time out than out of it. There was no reading for him because instead of sitting on the mat like he was supposed to he was running around the classroom. That's not all, earlier in the day when he was suuposed to have been doing story writing, he & another boy were atanding on seats & saluting people. Honestly I just wanted to get out of the classroom & disown him. He's really making me pull my hair out, I am so sick of his behaviour.

Thank goodness scrapcamp is next weekend I really need a break from this madness.

Home improvement

Home Improvement Shows:
--Home What's the one thing your dream home must have?
My dream home must have a room to scrap in. Luckily my house already has that. If we are talking about things that my house doesn't have that I would like, I think that a garage connected to the house would be it. I would love to be able to keep dry while walking to & from the garage.

--Improvement What's the one thing you would change about your current home? New bed, couch? New carpet or wallpaper? Or something major like an addition?
It would have to be new carpet throughout the house.

--Shows Do you ever watch home improvement shows?
I used to, when I watched the Living Channel on Sky but I got bored & switched to Food Network & just seem to watch those food programs now. I haven't managed to catch one of those kitchen improvement shows on that channel yet, obviously I'm not watching it at the right time of day for that.

My mottos

What would your motto would be for the place you're at in your life right now? Is it different than it would have been five years ago? 10? 20?

My motto right now would be "take the time to be me." I have been stuck in the "mum" rut for what feels like a long time (really only 7 years) but it is time to take some time for me. This includes making time to exercise, taking Friday mornings as mine & doing what I want to do. I am hoping that by doing this I will finally get to the motto I have always wanted to live by "love yourself flaws & all." The first step to loving myself though is finding out who I am. I have played a lot of roles in my life but I am really not sure that I know who I am.

My motto five years ago would have been "one day at a time". Keep plodding onwards & soon I'll get time to myself.

10 years ago I was probably still adjusting to having another person permanently in my life for better or worse, in sickness & in health. I'm not sure I had a motto back then.

20 years ago I did have a motto though. I had just left home for the first time to go to university. I was a shy person (I still am, but to a lesser extent) so I made this motto to help me get through the meeting of different people & living a totally different life in a city 400kms away from home, "you are worth knowing". I had to say that motto to myself everytime I went down to the dining room of the hall of residence that I was living in. If I didn't say it to myself I would sit very quietly & eat my meal, not saying a word to anyone & then leave as quietly as I entered, like a ghost.

In some ways I think I need to have that first motto in my life again because I am finding that I don't think I am worth knowing at the moment. I don't do anything exciting in my life, I don't work outside of the house, I don't bring in an income every week. I'm starting to feel like I have nothing of interest to say to anyone.

Take time to be me. Take time to know myself. Take time to learn who I am.

Dreams are free!

You have just won one million dollars!
Who do you call first?
I would call Scott first.

What is the first thing you buy for yourself?
The first thing I would do is pay of the mortgage on this house.

What is the first thing you buy for someone else?
I would buy a first class ticket to Europe for Scott & me.

Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?
I would give a portion to the Child Cancer Society & the Cancer Society.

Do you invest any? If so, how?
I would be creating a trustfund for my children & putting about 200 - 300K in it.

Rule Breaker.

Write about 5 "rules" you break with some regularity.

1. I had a rule that I would get all the housework done before I got to sit down at the computer, unfortunately the computer seems to take over sometimes.

2. There is a rule no yelling inside the house. I don't seem to be able to follow this rule myself at the moment as I end up yelling at the boys a lot. They seem to be out to press all my buttons at the moment & I really have come to the end of my patience. Yippee for ScrapCamp at the end of this month.

3. I had a rule to have a load of laundry going in the washing machine before I even left the house for school dropoff. Unfortunately that rule has been broken nearly everyday. It might have something to do with having to be always on at the boys to get themselves ready to get out the door.

4. Another rule that I can't seem to always remember to do is to take my multivitamin with my breakfast. I wish I would remember not to break it because invariably by the time I remember to take it I'm doing so on an empty stomach & I get quite queasy for quarter of an hour.

5. Another rule (which sounds like it is going to be a law as well) is that I seem to have to resort to a smack at the moment. I know that you aren't supposed to but sometimes it's the only thing that will make James pay attention to the task at hand. So it's official not only am I a rule breaker on this one very soon I will be a criminal too. The problem is I can't find the thing that James is strongly attached to other than his thumb & I can hardly cut that off his hand can I? If I put him in time out he just sucks his thumb, if I take a toy away he just laughs & finds another to play with. He doesn't watch TV except at dinner time when we are watching the news so I can hardly take that privilege away, he doesn't play on a computer, he doesn't read. I just can't find that thing that will make him pay attention & everything is solved for him by sucking his thumb. I don't know, I'm at a loss, maybe Sue Bradford can come & show me how to discipline him, Dr Phil would be a good help too, come to think of it.

The week that was

What a busy week last week was.

Wednesday I had lunch with Dad & Janet at Hidden Secrets. Thursday morning I had coffee with the other year 1 mothers. The big event though was the school swimming sports on Friday.

Brent was in the 7 & 8 year olds 25m freestlye & the 25m backstroke. There were 8 boys in the races & Brent came 5th in the freestyle & 4th in the backstroke. He wasn't the only one who didn't jump or dive into the pool so that really wasn't a handicap for him. He did really well.

James was in the 5 year old backstroke & freestyle with 2 other boys. He had to wait a long time before his races & he was sitting sucking his thumb in his own little dreamland. So much in dreamland that he almost missed swimming in his freestlye race. He swam very well & came 3rd in both races.

On Sunday we went geocaching & found a couple of caches & found all the clues to get around to doing another cache.

Tuesday was the parent teacher interview. We had Brent's assessment first & Brent is doing really well. He is reading at the level of a 10 year old. His comprehension is also at the level of a 10year old. Miss Flynn was very impressed with his listening & he got 76% on that which apparently is up at a 10 year old level. His numeracy is not as bad as we thought, he is at level 4 which is what he has to be at at the beginning of year 4, so that is wonderful but there is still a lot of room for improvement in his basic facts. There also has to be some work made on his presentation & printing skills, so now he brings home a worksheet of letters to print out every night for homework. He is quite happy with it because yet again logic has worked with him & we said that if he prints neatly & correctly he gets to move to the next level, "linking", the start of writing in italics.

After such a good interview it was time for the one about James. We knew it wouldn't be good & Mrs Williams can't believe how like chalk & cheese the two boys are. James is apparently immature for his age & has distraction issues, in that he is easily distracted. Where we thought he was learning his words to read it would appear that he is not as he could only read one word in every sentence in the book. So we have to start trying to get him to learn one word a week, previously we were trying for 7 words in 2 weeks. This is going to be a very long & slow process. Mrs W has pinned him as having avoidance issues (I've been calling it lazy) & says that really we just have to tread lightly & slowly & hopefully everything will click in his brain soon. The good thing though is that despite his distracting behaviour & being easily distracted he actually isn't a bad boy. He doesn't fight & doesn't retaliate to anything thrown at him by the two bullies in his class. On that front it looks like the bullying situation has finally settled down & both those boys seem to have calmed down a lot.

Being sick

Which is worse, being sick or having sick kids/loved ones?
I think having sick husbands is worse than having sick children or being sick myself. It really annoys me how Scott sort of retreats into himself & then becomes grumpy as a bear. It always takes a while for him to say he is sick so I have to use those two clues to guess that he is sick. I am lucky in that he doesn't harp on about how sick he is but he just becomes a sullen grumpy bear.

Which is worse, throwing up or having sick kids/loved ones throwing up upon you?
This is such an easy answer for me. It is worse to have someone throwing up on me. I have this horrible thing where the smell & look of vomit makes my whole stomach turn & makes my gag reflex start happening. Sometimes I can end up chucking up myself even though I am not sick. I am trying really hard to get better at it & using mind over matter.

Which is worse, being up all night because you're sick, or being up all night because someone else is sick?
This is a tough one. Both of them are bad but I really think being up all night because someone else is sick is worse. I never get back to sleep because I constantly worry about them, whereas if it is just me being sick well I don't need to worry about anyone else but myself.

Out of the Loop

Out-- Are you getting out and about lately? ...or is school/the weather/work/illness keeping you cooped up inside?
It's autumn here so I am getting out everyday. Usually it is just out into the garden to do weeding. My exercise has been to swim in an outside pool & to go jogging, both of which are outside.

of the-- Blue? Does the Winter season 'get to you'? ...or do you handle it as well as you do Summer?
I don't like winter much, especially if it is one of those dreary rainy winters. I prefer to see the sunshine. I don't think it is the cold of winter that I don't like so much as the lack of sunshine.
Interestingly a woman from Scotland came over here & suggested that New Zealanders aren't getting out in the sun enough so we are vitamin D deficient. It has caused an uproar because the Cancer Society are always telling us to stay out of the sun due to the high melanoma rates.
Personally I know I have to get into the sun I seem to have a craving to see it at least every second or third day. If I don't see the sun for 5 days I am a very miserable person.

Loop-- Hey, Autumn is coming; do you have a loop you drive or walk to check out the scenery? What do you see when you're out and about?
Yes I have a route that I always drive along to drop the boys off at school & to pick them up. I have a slightly different route for my jog. At the moment the trees are starting to drop their leaves & we are starting to get the lovely autumn colours. I hope to go to the botanic gardens soon to see what the colours are like in there. It's about time I took some more atumn photos.

Bad inventions

What are three things you wish were never invented?

I wish cellphones hadn't been invented. Yes I have one but it certainly isn't a state of the art one, it doesn't play music & it doesn't take photos. What annoys me most is when people are texting away on their phones & bang into you on the street because they are too busy texting to watch where they are going. Not to mention the number of times I have seen people texting while driving, that has just got to be outlawed. It is bad enough that people talk on cellphones but to text & read texts while driving, not even stopped at lights has got to be dangerous.

Another thing I wish was never invented is the nuclear bomb. What a waste of energy to create a bomb that can do so much destruction. Yes I know it helped stop the war in the Pacific but really what a awful way to fight. I almost wish wars & battles could be fought in the way the were in the very old days, face to face. Maybe then people would actaully take in the horror of a war. War is pretty faceless when it is bombs getting blasted at you from afar. It is easier to kill something that is faceless, maybe wars should revert back to bows & arrows or even spears.

I also wish that high healed shoes were invented. They could only have been invented by a man surely, what woman would invent such a torturous device. Unfortunately my knee can't stand being in high heels for long now so I rarely wear them.

It's been one of those weeks

Begin your entry with "I wish someone had told me..."

I wish someone had told me that there would be days when you love your children to bits but then the next day you really just want to put them on the side of the road with a "free to a good home" sign.

I assume I am normal feeling this way. James especially has been pushing every boundary, pushing every one of my buttons & I really feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I am not known for my patience (it's not one of my virtues) but I have really come to the end of it with him. He doesn't listen to a word I say, he thinks everything is a joke, constantly talks over top of me & seems to be intent on causing trouble. I really have had enough of this behaviour. He's not doing well at school because it would appear that he doesn't pay attention in class either. One of the good bits of advice that came out of the year 1 mothers coffee morning on Thursday is fish oil. One mother had a problem with her son not focusing on the task at hand & not paying attention & she put her son on fish oil tablets & apparently they helped. So in the grocery shopping this week we bought some Omega 3 fish oil capsules that taste of fruit & James had one yesterday afternoon & one this morning. I hope this will make a difference to his behaviour as well. I can only hope.

Thank goodness I have a ScrapCamp coming up I can't wait to get away for a girls weekend of scrapping, eating chocolate (I know I gave up for Lent so I'll try to be good) & chatter.

Wanted: People for a deserted island

Your cruise ship is sinking and the one and only small lifeboat only holds 5 people. This life boat will take you to a deserted island with no hope of rescue. On the cruise ship there are people of all different professions. What professions would you want in the boat with you in order of priority? If you and your spouse on in the life boat, you can only bring 3 other people. If you are single, you can bring 4.

I would bring myself & my husband then I think a doctor would be going with me as well. If it's a deserted island I think I would want a carpenter so that he can help us build a shelter. My last person would have to be female (unless the one of the other 2 were female) so that I would have to be surrounded by testoserone all the time. I don't know that I mind what she did as her job because we all know that females can adapt to most situations the only requirement would be that she was someone interesting & not morose all the time.

Cropped

On Saturday I went to a crop. It was wonderful to get out of the house. It feels like such a long time since I have been out for a day cropping.

I really only completely finished 2 layouts, although I have another 2 that need som titles or journalling for them to be finished.

Family Happenings

Last week the boys had a junior swim week at school. Both boys spent 1/2 an hour each school day having swimming lessons. The teachers then graded them for the swimming sports. Swimming sports are this coming Friday but Brent came home very excited yesterday because he is swimming the length of the main pool at Jellie Park (25m) for both the freestyle & the backstroke. I can't believe they have him swimming a length of the pool because I don't think he can breathe properly through the freestyle. It will be interesting to watch. Jo saw him swim yesterday & said that he really struggled. Brent is proud as punch & I couldn't be more proud of him (tearfully proud, which had Brent worried for a moment until I explained I was having one of those "mummy moments" where I was not really sad at all.) James is swiiming in the training pool but he is doing the arm movements for freestyle so he has really come along too. When I think back to 2 years ago & he would not swim by himself for love nor money & now he is happy as a fish & is doing freestyle arm stokes, another proud mummy moment.

It was an interesting morning tea with the other year 3 mums on Wednesday. There were only 8 of us there, 3 of which were some of the new mums. All of them are still unpacking boxes because they have all come across from England. Why? Because they think NZ is a safer & nicer place to live. One has moved out to Sumner & i expressed surprise & asked how she found the traffic. Of course driving 25 to 30 minutes to drop children off at school is nothing compared to England, so she thought it was wonderful. I wonder if she will say the same thing in a few years once she has got used to the NZ traffic.

Tuesday night I had Scott connect a UPS to my computer. We had been having problems with the waste master blowing the kitchen fuse & also the fuse in my craft room. I decided to run the waste master after getting Scott to attach the UPS. Unfortunately the UPS did not work as it was supposed to & ended up frying my computer's power supply thingy. The smell of burning plastic was horrible. That meant that my computer was not operating from Tuesday until Friday night when Scott brought it back home all fixed. I was a bit lost without the computer for those few days however I am now back on line & happy again.

We had R & P up to stay with us for the weekend. The boys just loved it & of course were very wound up after they had left. I think we have no got them settled back down again. It always helps having them go back to school. Thanks for all the baking P, we are enjoying our afternoon teas at the moment. I cut into the pineapple this morning & it is just delicious.

The week ahead looks to be fairly busy what with a lunch with Dad tomorrow, morning tea with year 1 mum's on Thursday & then swimming sports on Friday. Next tuesday we'll be having parent/teacher interviews & I am really not looking forward to that, maybe I'll just let Scott talk to Miss Flynn.

Have a wonderful week everyone.

5 things important to me.

Name at least 5 things in your life that are important to you that begin with the same letter.

Criglington family
Coffee
Computer
Camera
Compassion
Church Bay