An open door

Something has been niggling at me.  Before Christmas I received an email that was a 'reminder' of some things that the NUT champion.  I am a member as I have a vague sense that it is a good idea, however I am against any sort of strike action so they probably would see me as a poor excuse for one!  Anyway, one of the things was (roughly speaking as I deleted the email) that no teacher should have to allow another teacher to just wander in and observe their lesson.  Now, I do this all the time.  Just to get good ideas really.  I am not doing it to try and catch teachers out doing things they shouldn't be, or to 'spy' for SLT (seriously I think some people think this).  I just want to improve my own practice.  My door is always propped open with a huge mass, and anyone is free to wander into my lesson if they wish.  I am also happy to chat about what is going on too.  I can't get my head around not wanting others to watch you teach.

Actually most of the time I will ask first, particularly if there is something specific I am looking at.  I had a tricky class and wanted to see them with other teachers so I arranged suitable lessons to watch them.

But really, what have you got to hide?  Let's share good practice by showing it in action to anyone and everyone who wants to see.

#teacher5aday pledge

I had a little wobble this Christmas holiday.  I worried that my juggling teaching and being a mum was spectacularly failing.  I worried that I was rubbish at both things.  So I thought, ok I can quit (teaching, not the mum thing!).  Trouble is, part of the reason I became a teacher is because I am by nature not good at being a stay at home mum.  I do not think my children (or my husband!) would thank me for quitting.  Also, quitting?  I am too stubborn . . .

The alternative then is to bite the bullet and get good at juggling both.  For goodness sake, I managed to complete a masters degree in Physics while pregnant and constantly needing the loo, this is nowhere near as difficult as that surely!  I also once managed to breast feed, drink a cup of tea, and sign for a package from the postman all at the same time.  These are the actions of a superwoman no?

The honest truth is that I get this wobble relatively regularly, and then I get myself out of it with the aforementioned reasoning.  The problem is, I never actually change anything, so the wobble returns.

So my #teacher5aday pledge serves this purpose, to eliminate the wobble.  Committing to this blog (something I have never been able to do) is my change number 1.  My hope for it is that reading back over past successes (and failures), things I have done, fun times with the family, will nip that wobble in the bud.

My #teacher5aday pledge is thus:

#connect
Wednesday afternoons is a lovely time for me, as after school me and my girlies visit my Granny (who almost always has yummy stuff ready and waiting!).  We chat about the week, things that have happened things that are planned etc.  I realised though, that because I see my mum almost everyday because my girlies go to her house before and after school, I never actually spend any quality time with her.  This is a situation I need to do something about.

As far as work is concerned, I am going to take a deep breath and try to step out of the shadows and join in with the conversations on twitter.  I already get quite a lot out of just reading, so I am sure actually participating will be even better.

#notice
Evenings can be rushed in my house.  By the time we get home and have had dinner, I am exhausted and if I am being honest just want to be on my own.  After the girlies have gone to bed (my husband has always done bedtime, I am very lucky) every day I feel guilty because either I realise I haven't actually had a conversation with them, or listened to them read or practice spellings.  Not all days are like this, but I am aiming for NO days to be like this.  My girlies are growing up so fast, I do not want that guilt to become permanent.
A few years ago I bought 'The Happiness Project  One Sentence Journal for Mothers'.  The book itself by Gretchen Rubin is worth a read.  I am determined to fill it in this year, all you have to do is write one sentence a day about something that has made you happy.

#learn
I keep seeing courses on OpenLearn that I would like to try.  I think I will set myself a target of one this year as trust me there is so much about teaching I still have to learn!

#exercise
Yesterday I bought some jeggings, size 12.  When I got home, I realised that they had been put on the wrong hanger and were in fact a size 14.  I tried them on anyway and they fit.  After feeling sorry for myself and wanting cake to feel better, I looked up the swim timetable for my local leisure centre.  I work part time, three days a week, so on my days off I am going swimming.  There, I wrote it down so it must be true.

#volunteer
I try to help out on school trips at my girl's primary school when I can, and I shall keep on doing this.  I do feel I could do more, they are always asking for helpers so I shall try to say yes more often.

That will do I think.  I am also starting a bullet journal this year, but I shall save that for another day,

Happy New Year!

p.s. Reading this back I realised that it is quite . . . honest.  I don't quite know how else to write so, tough I guess.

An emotional end to the week (or thank goodness for knitting)

So Thursday ended up being a day of it.  My Grampy passed away in May last year, and Thursday would have been his birthday.  I took Granny and the girlies after school to his gravestone and we placed some lovely pink and yellow roses there.  I feel extremely lucky to have reached the age of 30 only having lost one grandparent, but his loss is felt greatly.

Later on Thursday evening I received a text message from a friend joking that she wasn't going to let me do any science practicals with her son (I tutor him) after what happened at the school I work at.  I didnt have the faintest idea of what she was talking about but quickly discovered there had been a fire, and a bad one at that.  I can't say much as there is now a criminal investigation taking place, but luckily no-one was hurt.  However "back to normal"  will not be happening for some time.  Everyone was quite emotional on Friday but there is huge community spirit and we will come out the other side.

Of course what does one do when silent contemplation and relaxation are needed - knit of course!  This week I have managed 28 loops on Miss Winkle, and almost finished my girlie no.2's bolero - but get this - I ran out of yarn with 14 rows to go!  I realised I had only bought enough for the short sleeve version not the long sleeve.  Never mind - hopefully the dye lots wont be too different when I get round to ordering another ball.

I have sort of begun my vegetable garden - meaning I have bought things but not done anything with them as yet!  The potato planter you can see in the pic below was a jumble sale find for £1 yesterday - I was well chuffed with that!  Still, seeds are ready, pots are ready, compost is ready so there is really no excuse to not get going.

Well, no excuse apart from my lovely collection of magazines and a nice hot cup of tea just made by my husband waiting for me!

Party! (and a KAL)

My youngest girlie turned 5 on Sunday, and to celebrate we had a circus party which was fantastic!  Thank you to Nick from Circusseen who was brilliant with the children.

After much discussion about the cake (which at one point was going to include both Batman and Barbie!)  I ended up making this masterpiece:

Quite obviously homemade but as my daughter described it as "the best cake in the whole world ever!"  I think I did ok!  I found the number 5 sparkler in Tesco which worked really well.

On a different note, I joined in with the Crafts from the Cwtch knit-a-long that started on saturday.  The pattern is called Miss Winkle and can be found on Ravelry here.  I am using 'Amitola' by Louisa Harding on 3mm needles.  I love, love, love the colour changes on this yarn it is just beautiful.  I cant wait to finish it and start wearing it!  When I have finished it however I really must finish all the other projects sitting in my basket!

Anyone that is into knitting really should join in with this project it is so relaxing just knitting away in front of the tv now that the repeating pattern is firmly wedged in my head!  

Garden colour

I was late picking the girls up from school today as I forgot I didn't have the car seats in my car (oops!) so I had to pop home again to grab them.  To make up for it I took them to the garden centre on the way home for icecream.  While there I may have accidently bought a four tier greenhouse thingy and some vegetable seeds . . . (money diet fail!)

We spent the weekend gardening, both at the girl's school and at home, and although our garden has a long way to go (having only been here since july last year) daffodils have sprung up everywhere which is great because I LOVE daffodils!  They are my absolute favourite flower ever in the whole entire world.

Daffs outside and . . . 

daffs inside!

We did get some primroses to add some more colour to cheer us up while we are working out there, and I popped them in a small border around the patio that I cleared of ivy (for the record - I hate ivy with a passion I do not understand why people purposely buy it).

I have so many plans for the garden in my head and I am adding to pinterest all the time ideas that will probably never materialise, but I am determined to grow veg to eat in the vain hope the girlies may actually eat some!  Some of my favourites are shown below (sources on my garden pinboard).

Messing about

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  It has just taken me FOREVER to redesign this blog.  I am however happy with it now so should actually start posting!  The sun has finally come out and with it oodles of inspiration that I am desperate to record so I dont forget it all.  However it is now late and so that will all have to wait until tomorrow.  I was reading through my resolutions and I am happy to report that family time is happening!  We have started to go for a walk on a Sunday and they have just been fabulous.  It has been so muddy we  have had endless squelchy fun.

As for the other resolutions . . . well one at a time dont you think?

Day one

Err... so the money diet (and actual diet come to that) may not have started off too well with cut price Christmas food in the supermarket tempting me.  Still at least we shall eat it and technically I have saved money (yes I can hear I am trying to convince myself!)  There is much rain and wind outside to start the year but actually I quite like snuggling up inside while Mother Nature does her thing out there.  I am off now to take down the last of the Christmas decorations and 'de-toy' the living room so that hopefully normal service can resume tomorrow.  I intend to try and embrace the spending more time with my family thing over the next few days as it is back to school/work on Monday.  So if this weather could tire itself out tonight so we can actually go out to get some fresh air tomorrow I would be very grateful!