Weekend Shift - Friday night so far...

It seems that it doesn't matter what I wear to my new job - I'll spill tomato sauce on everything anyway.

Good thing I bought a change of clothes!

Aside from my clumsy messiness my shift is going well. The girls are quite sweet and very helpful. Some have come to have chat and a giggle and another came to remind me of something I had forgotten to do then helped me do it. Very pleasant. Although I could do with out some of the music I'm hearing! Oh well, they can have it on til 10pm then will have to find something quieter to do.

Wow - they just turned it all off. Peace! Hopefully they're not all doing naughty things...?!!

Jose Villa

When I grow up I want to take photo's like Jose Villa. And have a beautiful website like his too. Until then I'll enjoy looking at pictures that inspire me and taking lots of my own.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Clothes Concern

In 35 minutes I will be getting in my car, driving for half an hour and arriving for the first shift of my new job - Boarding parent to 35 teenage girls.

Right now I think I'm feeling a little apprehensive, a little excited, a respectable amount of calm and a decent amount of - "Let's do this thing!". I reminding myself that I wouldn't have been hired to fill in for a term if the boss didn't think I was capable. Then I remember - teenage girls don't care very much who thinks you're capable, they have their own rules. So my biggest panic about being a boarding parent?

What to wear????

Boarding girls are casual in their attire - track pants, ugg boots, riding clothes, wind cheaters. BUT. Big but here... the first, second and third visual impressions still count about as much as any other other interaction. Do I go casual/daggy? Casual/smart? Casual/cute? Casual/old person? Casual/sporty? Casual/city?

You see my dilemma? I don't mind if they don't love me. I don't mind if they think I'm odd. I do mind if they don't take me seriously. And, being teenage girls, they'll decide this in about 2 seconds after seeing me in their space by what I look like. It's complicated stuff people. And I know it's important because I'm 27 and it's my main concern!!! The rest will be easy. There's nothing like the judgement of 14 year old girl.

So I've decided on my old favourite jeans, a lightweight grey knit hoody, a navy blue vest and my hiking shoes. No make up, a high pony tail and sleeper earrings. I feel it's a uniform for success! I hope....

What would you wear?

Book 22

I have just finished reading this book, the fifth in the series and added it to my 'Have Read It List 2009' (which you can always find by click the button on the left panel).

Here's what I wrote about it...

Ok, so my comments on these books are not very helpful suffice it to say that I am one whole leg over the line for being a nerd about these books. The first one came out when I was 11 years old and I read it straight away. The second and third came out in 1997 and the fourth came out in 2000. This book, the fifth, was released this year - 2009. It's along time to wait to hear how a story ends only to discover there is still one more to come (possibly September this year but with 17 years between the 1st and the 5th who knows!). I've grown up knowing and loving these people and their adventures and always wishing I was the main character. I've read them so many times that to say anything other than that I love them is not enough. I'm so glad Joel loves them too!

Until the next one comes out I'm going to have find some other things to read!

Isabelle Grace

The last week of my trip away was spent in Sydney with my dear friend Anna, her husband Luke and their 2 month old daughter - Isabelle. You might remember that I took some photos of Anna during her pregnancy... well now I've take a few pictures of the result - a stunningly gorgeous little girl. She is just adorable- so smiley and relaxed and with a beautiful dimple to boot!

Unfortunately I enjoyed their company so much that I only really thought to take pictures on the rainiest, darkest day so I have very few good pictures... :( BUT her mummy has taken some lovely ones as have the rest of her doting family which means there will be no shortage of images capturing this precious little one.

It was such an honour and a blessing to see these wonderful friends thriving in their new role. Just lovely to see how they work as a team, how they love on Izzy and how she looks for them when she hears their voices. Thank you for welcoming me (and Joel) into your home and lives. We had an awesome time and miss you lots.

P.S. The 'I' & heart were a gift from me, made by... me! Nothing like a bit of soft baby sculpture.

Our Library

We are finally getting somewhere with our house - at last! The first room to be fairly complete - as of today (!!) is the Library. There are still little touches that I want to make like buying a whole lot of books to fill up the massive built in shelves and doing a new painting for above the leather couch. And I'd still like to get a bigger desk one day so Joel has some home office space too BUT for now I am happy with it and can move on to another room. It is very cozy and I really love it how it is. A huge thank you to Adam & Hannah J, my parents in law and my wonderful husband for helping me put 4 coats of paint on the shelves and one on the wall - I would never have done it with out you all!

How did we do? What do you think?

Abbey Medieval Festival

A major highlight of the Queensland leg of my trip was a day spent at the Abbey Medieval Festival. I took a ridiculous amount of photo's because there were so many fascinating people, events and things to look at - I wanted to remember it all. (If you'd like to see some more there's an album full over at Flickr)

High points included:

• Tasty food!
• Incredible music
• Costumes - so many different and wonderful costumes
• seeing that people were genuinely living there for a few days
• The dancing
• The tasty smells (probably vastly different from how things would've really smelt)
• Time with my family
• Perfect weather and
• people expecting to have their picture taken

Low points were mostly limited to:

• Very slow traffic
• Stinky portable toilets
• major, major camera envy (some of the hired pro's had lenses I would've tripped them for)
• not a big enough belly to taste everything and
• being too tired to stay longer

I would take any opportunity I had to go along again. I will never dress up though! I'm happy behind the camera thanks.

Family

These are the ones I spent my first two weeks with. Mum said to me before I went up there "No-one ever takes a nice photo of me. Can you please bring your camera with and take one?" I did remind her what usually happens when I point my camera in her direction... but she asked so nicely and I naturally had my camera with me so I figured we'd give it a go.

I think I got her good!

(Jes, we didn't deliberately wait til you weren't there! It was just that they were dressed so nicely for church! I'm not in them either...!!! You're still family- promise!)

Home!

After 18 nights away from my house I am so glad to be sleeping in my own bed again. Not so glad about returning to the poor excuse for a shower but am prepared to let that slide for now because it's about the only thing I can whine about.

Over the next few days I'm going to be camped out at my my computer - yes, definitely missed it - sorting through photo's, writing emails, filling out our finance records, catching up on news and sharing stories with you here. Because I can, and I want to. And I want to stay out of the way of the men building, scraping, drilling, making mess in my kitchen. Not long now!

Don't log off......

Busy, Busy

Why is June always such a big month? Last year in June my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. This year my dad has been diagnosed with heart problems (obviously not the officially terminology!). He was at the doctor for bronchitis and his heart stopped. Just for a few beats but enough to need a battery of tests and a meals worth of tablets. Much stress. We think he'll be ok - as long has keeps taking the tablets!

The rest of June has included:

• a 5 day visit from sister Jes
• a 3 day visit from brother in law Andrew which overlapped with
• a crazy eventful evening with Opa, Helga, Wolf & Ushi (Joel's grandfather and his wife and their friends)
• a week long visit from Tamara and Zaylia (obviously)
• a new puppy!
• 2 shadow shifts for my new job
• and connecting flights to Brisbane.

Now I'm up in Brisbane with my folks sharing a bedroom with my littlest sister for 2 weeks. I'm enjoying sharing a room with her except she has warned me not to drink water too loudly because it wakes her. Never mind the fact that I had to throw one of her many stuffed toys at her last night to get her to stop snoring!!

We've been crafting like crazy as usual. I've had some cute ideas that I wanted to use mum's sewing machine for. My machine needs some serious attention before it works better than the wind up machine it's currently working like. They've all turned out as planned which I'm excited about. No photo's until they have made their way to the recipients though - can't be spoiling the fun! All four of us girls had a card making day yesterday with Jes taking the record at 17 cards to my measly 7... far too much singing along to Phil Collins to concentrate.

We had a pre-birthday dinner for mum last night which was the standard delicious lemon chicken and dark chocolate fondue for dessert. Tasty!

What else.... Oh! Caught up with one of my oldest friends - more about that later though.

Lots of chatting. Some knitting. Some movies. Some shopping. Naughty treats. Late night conversations. Borrowing Han's clothes and trying to coordinate 5 peoples lives! Good family times and I've got one more week.

I just wish Joel were here too.........