Shocks and feathers

Today I dedicated the day to cleaning. I spend far too much time visiting my virtual friends and I knew that if I did not get stuck in Malcolm was going to have to put his foot down. This would be more uncomfortable for him and a slight irritation for me. I dusted, I vacuumed, I washed the kitchen floor and then decided to treat myself to a cup of coffee. Now, what goes better with a cup of coffee than homemade baked goods? You guessed it, a visit to my friends. First up was EM, and I laughed at her Lips and Arseholes post, left a comment and then was about to move on when something made me scroll down. Phew, lucky for me, she had done an extra post..she was nominated for the Irish Blog Awards, brilliant news, I love reading her blog and she certainly deserves it. She went on to tell us about a few other nominations, many of whom I enjoy that cup of coffee with, see I drink LOTS of coffee. And somehow in there my name appeared.
EM This is when I got thrown for a loop, knocked down with a feather and found myself in an absolute state of shock. I swear this was not something I even considered, I am pleased as punch to have received a nomination, just in a total state of zombieness at the moment. The list is LONG and my nomination was for the category "Best personal blog". I shall gather my thoughts and attempt another post later...for now congratulations to all nominees, would not even know where to begin to see them, that is why I need to pop back over to EM's place.

What's what

I was just over at K8's and was reading her comments when I came across one about the different words Americans use for different things, it was funny because just this morning Kirstin and I had this conversation:
Out of nowhere...as Kirstin is prone to do: "Americans call a f*nny a bum and a bum a f*nny."
Very matter of fact too by the way, if I did not know better I would have believed her.
"No Kirstin, they only call a bum a f*nny, I am not sure why but otherwise all the bits are the same."
"Well what do they call a f*nny then?"
"They probably call it a v*gina, I DON'T know!!"
I understand how she got to her conclusion and trying to explain it away was a bit of a confusing task, I have a sneaking suspicion she thinks her mom doesn't have a clue. Oh well.
Excuse the stars but I would rather not have weird google searches being directed to my blog!!!

A bit much?

Yes perhaps it is a few too many posts in one day, but so much inspiration and I just had to share the fact that it is SNOWING!!!! For us Southern Hemisphere folk this IS a big deal. I nearly had a heart attack and missed the whole thing, Kirstin was gazing out the window as she is wont to do when she is doing her homework and next thing she was shrieking her little head off, I thought there was some strange person at the back door. I leapt off my chair and did a confused pirouette thingy to look out the window just to see rain beating on the glass. And then I noticed that mixed among the rain was all this fluffy stuff, not enough to stick, anyway it is too wet, but I got some pic's and we jumped around like loons for a bit, admiring the snow flakes on our fleecy tops ;)

Just thinking...

Sometimes I second guess our timing at coming to Ireland. One of our major considerations when moving was the school system and what year the girls would need to enter.
If we had waited until September this year Jess could have gone straight into transition year and Kirstin into First year. This makes a lot of sense to me, but unfortunately we were not really too clear on the whole system and Jess is basically repeating a year. Luckily she is not bored, all the work is new to her and she has the challenge of learning Spanish added to her many other obstacles. Well hindsight is 20/20 as they say and we could have waited another year.
But then I think of all the good things that happened when we moved here in July 2007, we found our house, have fantastic landlords/neighbours, Malcolm got a job and we bought a car all within a week, is that not a sign that it was meant to be?
I had a look at a South African website this morning, it now ‘costs’ R11 to get E1, when we left South Africa it was R9.20 or somewhere around there. The power outages are horrific, there is an electricity crisis in South Africa and it does not sound pleasant. I wonder if that will affect the price of houses? All in all I think Malcolm and I can sleep at night knowing that all our forward planning worked this time.

A week late...

What a busy week! I won't bore y'all with the details, let's just say it all passed in a blur of school uniform, labels, new text books and plastic covers. At least I got to run around chasing a little ball around the hockey field on Friday evening, knowing full well that the reward was probably a drink at the bar, bliss.
I also had my first fall, a wonderful roll and tumble skid sort of thing that had me sprawled at the feet of the opposing team’s goal keeper. Thank goodness I was playing in tracksuit pants... slightly bruised ego and very sore knee. Of course the pain in the knee only made itself known when I awoke on Saturday morning but I was actually pleased about that because I wasn't hobbling around on the astro!

Jessica went out for dinner with her friends on Friday night, a farewell kind of thing and afterwards they all walked back to our place. Luckily I was home when they all arrived; I think Malcolm was doing the lesser known wife come home dance with his sticks around the fire. Unfortunately I had just got out of the shower, the temptation was very strong to embarrass the favourite oldest daughter and greet all her friends in my headpiece and strapless, just out of the shower number but common sense prevailed even though it was a matching towel set. After all Jessica had given me the speech before she went out about how not to embarrass your 14 year old. Her biggest worry was that I would “give out to her” in front of her friends, me???

Well I think we passed the test and slowly but surely they all trickled off home until there were two. Then out came THE expected question… “Please can they sleep?” Luckily we were prepared for it and had already decided that two was a manageable number so we sent all manner of linen up to the attic with a warning to Jess: “If you don’t want us to ‘give out’ to you, do not let us here you up there”.
On Saturday morning we made pancakes and the girls played Buzz followed by Monopoly and Cluedo. I absolutely loved having the extra bodies in the house, nothing beats watching the other personalities in your children come out to play when they are with their friends and they don’t know you’re looking. Jessica’s friends finally went home at about 18h00 and we made dinner and watched a movie with the kids.

Sunday was a day of ironing on clothing labels and covering text books in plastic and not much else, nice relaxed day to the end of a hectic week.

Conversations around the house

Malcolm: "This lettuce is brown, shouldn't we throw it away?"
Kirstin: "Is it a ball of lettuce?"
Malcolm: "Yes"
Kirstin: "Well then dad we just have to take the brown outer leaves off, the rest of the lettuce is good!"

Growing pains

Jess started at her new school on Monday. I am not sure who was more nervous, I had a ball in my tummy all day. I fetched her from school and studied her every facial movement as she walked towards the car, trying to figure out how her day was without having to ask. I think she sensed what I was doing because I got NOTHING. Of course the minute she got in the car the questions started. The result? "It was very overwhelming" and she has asked us to wait until Friday, by then she will have a better feel for it all. My baby girls is almost all growed up...

Stella

Husband and wife are shopping in Tesco's when the man picks up a crate of Stella and sticks it into the trolley "What do you think you're doing?" asks the wife
"They're on offer, only £10 for 12 cans", he says
"Put them back. We can't afford it," says the wife and they carry on shopping...
A few aisles later the woman picks up a £20 jar of face cream and sticks it into the trolley."What do you think you're doing?" asks the man,
"It's my face cream. It makes me look beautiful," she says. The man replies... "SO DOES 12 CANS OF STELLA AND IT'S HALF THE F*%KING PRICE"

Search and Rescue

About 2 months ago I volunteered to help make sandwiches at the secondary school. Today was my first of two consecutive sandwich making days. Why I decided to help out is beyond me, I detest making school lunches, in fact I hate it so much I celebrate enormously when my kids are on school holidays.
Nevertheless I found myself having to be ready to leave the house at the ungodly hour of 08h15, now I have certainly left the house at that time before…in my pyjamas or trackie bottoms because it is a nip down to the luas etc and the only time I get out of the car is the mad dash back to the house, praying all the while that the neighbours don’t decide to use that nano second to look out of their windows.
I digress. Traffic in Dublin can be atrocious and this morning was no exception. This led me to believe that Kirstin’s safest option for getting to school on time was the luas. We were in traffic, the luas station was right there so k jumped out of the car in the middle of the mayhem and made a dash for public transport. Five minutes later I realised that I had left my cell phone at home and K always calls me when she gets off the luas. I placated myself with the fact that she has known me for 11 years, so chances were good that she would realise this when she could not get hold of me.
To make matters worse traffic eased and I actually made it to school just before 09h00 so I felt wonderfully guilty that I had booted my daughter out of my car. I even looked out for her in the vain hope that I could give her a quick cuddle and explain the phone story.
I reported for duty at the secondary school and next thing there was a tear stained, blochy eyed, frozen little girl on a scooter in the hallway. I held her while she sobbed out her sorry tale of the lost phone. She had called me from the luas, put her phone in her pocket and zipped down to school on her scooter. Upon arrival she tried to call me again (so much for knowing me so well) and realised that her phone was no longer in her pocket. This started the proverbial needle in a haystack search, retracing her steps in the icy cold. Alas no phone to be found. Anyway…I consoled her, wrote a note explaining her tardiness and sent her to school.
I made rolls and made rolls and made rolls. Finally I went home and searched for my phone (found it in the pocket of a jacket) and called Kirstin’s number. No answer, but at least it rang, which meant it had not been turned off, either it was lying all alone, wet and cold in a bush, or somebody was waiting for the owner to call.
I had promised to fetch her from school after the traumatic events of the morning and I devised a brilliant plan of search and rescue for her phone. We would retrace her steps and I would keep calling her mobile so that if it was in the bushes somewhere we would here it. This involved me remembering my cell, which luckily I did. Kirstin came out and I started telling her my cunning plan and she looked at me and said “No”. I looked straight back at her and said, “Your phone is in your school bag,” and she smiled.

Ch ch changes...

Changes are afoot in the Rule household…AGAIN. Just when things start settling into something close to normalcy I have to shake it all up again. A decision needs to be made tonight, and a very big decision indeed. We spent the afternoon having a tour of a school, we met the principal, saw the different class rooms, fields etc and Jessica has been offered a place.
We have a dilemma, the book list looks alarmingly different, the uniform is different, even the shirt cannot be recycled and she has to take a new subject as Home Economics is full, there is a place in musicianship which she has said she will take as she has done theory of music and piano for a few years. It is also the middle of a school year, and it is a BIG move for Jessica. She is up for it; I have given her what I consider the worst case scenario, being left out, having no friends and eating lunch alone. The up side of course is that she can then tuck into a really good book every break…I am sure she would agree with my upbeat take on being a loner? Of course some people are happy with their own company and that is fabulous and my tongue is NOT in my cheek, but my daughter does like to have friends and the thought of her coming home and crying on my shoulder will keep me up tonight.
The decision is difficult, but J has said that she really wants to move, even though she has not been unhappy where she is. The extra curricular activity list is extensive, the science block has some amazing opportunities, especially during transition year when they do forensics which is something J is very interested in. There are many sport choices and the practices seem to take place up to 4 times per week.
Kirstin will stay where she is, but we have put her name down for September 2008, she is the lucky one as it will be a new beginning for all the kids in her year which will make the transition a lot easier for her.
Of course all of this will propel me into an unsuspecting work force if I can find someone who will have me.
My C.V is varied and may be a great conversation starter in the office. I am a jack of all trades (master of none….shhhhh) from window displays, to banks, nursery schools to bar administrator and more. I am fairly sure my C.V gets filed under ‘desperate times call for desperate measures/when we can’t find anyone else’ when I send it in to agencies, of course this is a travesty of justice as I KNOW that I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to…don’t we all?

The Mom Song Sung to William Tell Overture with Lyrics

The sweats

We went to Dundrum yesterday; Malcolm wanted to do some shopping. He also needed to return the shirts I had bought him from Esprit for Christmas – as he said, “I am not a skinny Frenchman!” We also needed to get the David Attenborough Blue Planet series, I had got him the HD set for Christmas, but as we do not have a HD DVD player and are not in the market for one we had to change it for the regular series. As you can see I did not do a great job of playing Santa baby this year. In my defence, we do have a TV to view HD….and there was lots of food about at Christmas so the shirts may have fit…once upon a time.
A pair of tracksuit pants for soccer was on the list so off we went to the sports shop where a sale was in progress. My man tried on a few pairs, the ones he liked were not on the sale, another pair was, at E12 worth every cent, so he decided to buy them and then have a look at the other sports store before deciding on the favoured pair. The queue was long and I stood outside the store patiently waiting for 15 minutes. Eventually he came out with his purchase looking a little concerned. The cheap pair of sweats were not actually on the sale, he had paid E40 for them! Our roles reverted to a parent child type scenario…I berated him, pointing out that he should have explained that he thought they were on sale and seems as they were not he did not want them! He had just paid full price for a pair of pants he did not particularly LIKE. I sent him back in with a withering look and told him to get the pair he liked. Another 15 minute queuing session ensued and he came out triumphant, and I wonder WHY I don’t like shopping…but I do still love my man.