Preparing for Sharing...

In 2 days my new flat-mate is moving in. I've met her once. she seems nice!
My old flat-mate, Helen, moved in with me when I bought this house five Christmases ago. But she moved out 2 years ago. So since then my cute three bedroom house has been all mine...
Um, if you've known me for more than 2 minutes, you will be aware that I am super messy and also a bit of a hoarder (but nothing compared to the hoarders on that show 'Hoarders'... though I think my nextdoor-neighbour should audition for that show...).
So... tomorrow is Cull and Clean Day!
Ah living with someone is going to be so good for me (in the challenging, but growing as a person and also fun kind of way!)

Bigger than Big

This has been a fun Valentine's week. It's been the first one in years that I haven't felt sad or mad about being single. I even got 3 valentines gifts... haha they were from my friend, my mum and a little girl I taught last year (she brought me warm, freshly made vanilla custard & a beautiful poster she had made! So sweet!).

On Monday I had the pleasure of going out for naan and blood with my beautiful pregnant friend. We ate the yummest cheese naan and then she had a blood test (see it wasn't as vampirish as it first sounded). I love being a part of my pregnant friends' pregnancies (but I think I like holding the babies even more).

On Tuesday 2 friends and I went to a free teacher preview at the Sydney Observatory. Sydney is about 90 minutes from where I live. It's still a novelty to see the Harbour Bridge, even though I've seen in tons of times.

The Observatory is in a gorgeous location overlooking the habour. It was such a fun night, even just being in Sydney!

We ALSO got free pizza (delivered on these cute pizza-bikes... ok so I don't get out much :) ) and looked through a telescope at the moon (actually it was clearer without the telescope... but don't tell them that) and there was a cool 'planetarium' that actually showed stars (not planets) on the underside of a massive umbrella & we got to lay on bean-bags!

One of the other highlights of the night was watching the 3D movie "Bigger than Big". It wasn't the best movie ever. But it gave some real perspective to how small we actually are (a bit like the Indescribable presentation). The guy (Carlos, who had a really cool accent) who introduced the movie said that as we watched it we would realise how insignificant and small but how precious we are (I love that word - especially with Carlos' accent...um). I think it's significantly harder to deny our amazing Creator God when you consider the unfathomable massiveness of the universe and compare it to the intricate details of cells, out of which grow whole humans, and other super tiny things we can't see. It is impossible to compare these two extremes.

Psalm 8 has been my favourite passage for ages. I used to lay out on the trampoline at night and just let these words wrap around me while I looked at the stars. I love the way it does exactly what that 3 minute movie does - show you how insignificant, yet how loved and important you are to God.

When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
   which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
   human beings that you care for them?
 ⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels
   and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
   you put everything under their feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds,
   and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky,
   and the fish in the sea,
   all that swim the paths of the seas.
 ⁹ LORD, our Lord,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Consider the heavens.

________________________________________________________________________________
Um... that was the first 2 days. Here's the rest of the week in point form:
- New flatmate (woo hoo!)
- Neighbour's development application (that I wrote the submission against) was rejected (woo hoo!)
- Got to hang with my Hayden - in the past 5 days he learnt to clap, stick out his tongue, use gravity & almost crawl!
- Swimming Carnival!
- Hung out with my Morgan. He has a new voice. So cute!
- Oh I also taught some things, cried a bit and vacuumed. (I love that vacuum has a double u)

The Laundry Frogs

Tonight I caught two sneaky sneaksters climbing my laundry wall. (my laundry is outside of my house so sometimes I get some special visitors). How cute are these guys!

They are soooooo tiny! How amazing is God, to make such tiny perfect little laundry-dwellers!
(I hope you ignored the dust and cobwebs and focused on the cute frogs... I should get to that laundry someday. I don't think it's been cleaned since I was procrasinating from reports once).

oh so cute! The second guy posed for me for ages while I worked out the macro settings on my camera, and then swapped sides so i could get a better look at his face. I think he wants to be a model when he grows up.

Wet.

Oh Summer, you are so hilarious!

This afternoon Louise and I went to the soccer. It was so funny. It rained the whole time (except at half time). We had one umbrella to cover our heads and one like a blanket to cover our legs....and grey hoodies for cuteness.

Unfortunately the Mariners beat the Jets 1-0 in the last 30 seconds :-(
But we had heaps of fun anyway! I love random summer adventures.

Hungry

In the past 24 hours I've hung out with both Hayden & Morgan (& their absolutely gorgeous mums!).
ooooh they are growing up waaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast! Hayden has mastered sitting and Morgan climbed up a step for the first time today. too clever!

One thing I find fascinating about babies is that sometimes they can be super hungry, but refuse to eat. And they can be absolutely exhausted, but refuse to sleep. If you just stop sobbing and eat the hunger will go away small person! I promise!

I don't think we change much as we grow older. Of course, we can recognise physical hunger & tell if we need a nap. But what about spiritually? So often I am so spiritually hungry, all I need is to spend some time with God, feasting on His word. But I don't. Instead of recognising the hunger pangs, I whinge and gripe and wallow in my own selfish pain and sorrow.

Thank you for the life lessons my boys! 

Campaigning

This week Junior School had their annual election. Year 4 students have the opportunity to run for the six 'Junior School Leader' positions. They campaign hard - there wasn't a wall, a window or a pole without a "Vote #1" sign on it (it makes me laugh that they use the # sign). On Wednesday they each had to present their speech in front of all 200 Junior School kids and 30ish camera happy parents. They all did soooooo well! So many promised to tie shoelaces, run to get help if you fell over and play with you if you had no friends (because that's what leaders do).

It was then up to the K-4 kids to vote. Of course our teacher votes counted for more. And our amazing group of leaders was decided.

There is such a great mix of kids on this year's team! I'm looking forward to working with them!
First job - organise and advertise the Disco for Niko (arrgh March 1 is coming up very quickly).

Fond

I've decided I am feeling quite attached to my little class already. They are so sweet.
I've already been given 4 "Miss F you're the best" (or similar...actually one said 'the beast'... but it was decorated with flowers and hearts so I think it was meant to be kind) posters and one amazingly gorgeous drawing of a sunset. maww!
Today a casual teacher was sent down to spontaneously release me from class. We were mid-Maths lesson (a really exciting one about addition of 3-digit numbers), so as I briefly explained the lesson for her to take over, my kids started whining "don't leeeeeeeeeeeave us" "just stay Miss F" "I don't waaant you to goooo" they almost got a "stay Miss F" chant going, haha.
One girl, though, as I was walking out the door said "have a great break Miss F, you deserve it." How sweet! Such undeserved love! I have been super stressed this week with so much paper work due today. I know I have not been the loving, sweet, kind, organised, fun, beautiful teacher that my kids happen to think I am. I am so spoilt to work with such amazing, forgiving, loving, intelligent, hilarious kids. It's going to be a good year!

Saturday.

Ok, this will be quick because I have a million things to do. 

But I just had to share Saturday. 

I'm pretty sure it was the hottest day we've had here ever. (according to some websites this week has broken heaps of records... even one that was 150 years old). Saturday was ridiculous. 

I went to a wedding on a beach. The sand burnt my feet, but  the ceremony was under a cliff so it wasn't too bad. Actually it was really beautiful! Nice, sweet ceremony!

The reception however... there was no air-con. We were right near the kitchen. We were hot.

I love this photo. (that's my sister in the back)
We spent so much of the night fanning ourselves with spoons and mopping our sweat with napkins. gross!
At 11:30pm, after the wedding we went for a wade in the waves. It was still 36 degrees (97'F).
It was a lovely wedding! but I'm pretty sure it will also be remembered for being disgustingly hot.

Also Saturday killed my class pet. Our little axolotl, who has survived 6 years of being poked and prodded and forgotten and over-loved did not survive being boiled in his own tank. Of course I didn't find him till this morning, which made for a smelly (dry retching, bloated-floating, decaying type smelly) start to the week.

Oh and also someone tried to burn down our school on Saturday.

That's all. How was your Saturday?

It's hot.

So, Australia has gone mental.

Poor Queensland has copped the most with the crazy floods last month, followed by the hugest cyclone last night (though it doesn't seem to have been as devastating as they thought it would be - Thank you God! Not one life was lost...and even one baby was born in an evacuation centre!).

Down here we've just had hotness...
It has been ridiculously hot. The past 4 days have been 42 degrees (108ish farenheit). On Tuesday it was still 42 at 6pm. ick!

Hotness has made for an interesting 1st week of school.
Playground duty was absolutely boring today (oh apart from one kid getting his foot stuck at the top of the spiderball), most kids just sat on the verandahs trying to keep cool. I have never seen kids so excited to get back into class (ahhh air conditioning).

 My new kids are fun. I like them already.

On Monday one of my boys realised for the first time that he is left-handed... we were doing a 'human bingo' get to know you activity and everyone was struggling to find a lefty to sign that box. This particular boy was standing there with his pencil in his left hand whining "I can't find anyone who is left-handed!" "um... you are" "Oh really? Is this my left hand?" I love that he's done 4 years of school without knowing that. ha.

I forget every year how much kids don't know at the start of the year. I can't just send them to write an exposition on a given topic... first we need to go through - what a HB pencil is, where 2cm is on the ruler, how to draw a 2cm margin, how to write the long date, where to write it, what's the heading going to be, how big our letters should be, what to do if we make a mistake, how to use the personal dictionaries, oh and what is an exposition!? haha! My 20 minute activity took nearly an hour and a half. But we'll get there! It helps me to realise that I actually do teach them some things over the year. haha.

Ok, time to get some dinner and do some work before my sister comes over!