bird watching

I noticed recently I have a bit of a collection I didn't know about. I looked around one day and realised, and once I noticed it I kept finding more and more-in my house, in my wardrobe, and in my jewellery. 

Birds. They are everywhere. Not owls, which I know some people collect (although I have one or two thrown in), but more like swallows. I have had some of the things for 5 or so years. 

I have ornaments.

I have necklaces.

I have bedding.

I have lots of Christmas decorations, which are packed away.


I have clothing.

I have cushions.

The thing is-I hate birds. Loath them. 
They are flappy and unpredictable (I definitely see the irony with relation to my job...). 
I think they are dusty and dirty (which is probably untrue for most birds)-like rats of the air. 
I had bad experiences with swooping magpies as a child, my 20 minute walk to school could take 45 during swooping season due to detours. You know how if you look at them they aren't supposed to swoop you? Well I have definite memories of looking right at a birds beak as it flew directly at me. 

In recent years I had a horrifying experience with plovers-evil cousins of magpies with sharp horns on their wings. I had to run towards the plovers, after my student who thought it was hilarious-until the birds started swooping us, and I had to tackle him to the grass to protect him. I don't know who squealed louder-me or him or the birds. 
Plus they have beady eyes... I can't even bring myself to watch Alfred Hitchcock's movie. 

Source

I really don't like them. 

Yet they are everywhere in my home. 
Do you have a collection that you didn't know about? Do you hate birds too?

something very close to my heart

April is Autism Awareness Month, and is a cause really close to my heart. I teach kids with disabilities, and over the past few years half the kids I have taught have had an autism diagnosis.

Source

Whether due to environmental factors, or better diagnosis, the incidence of people being diagnosed with Autism or Aspergers is growing at an alarming rate (it is defiantly NOT caused by immunisation). Around 1 in 110 people is diagnosed with Autism. At that rate you will likely know someone in your life who is affected by autism. 

Autism is incredibly misunderstood. It affects peoples social and communication skills, and often people with autism react differently to sensations. They may require a lot of sensory input to get a response, or they may be very sensitive to light, to noises, to smells.

The autism spectrum is a scale-and I have experienced kids who are very high functioning, to those at the other end of the scale, who are non verbal, have severe intellectual impairments and-whether through frustration, anxiety or due to sensory needs-can be violent to themselves or others. 

Source

I'm incredible lucky to have found a job I love so much. The kids I work with every day are amazing. It isn't without it's challenges-it's often loud, always busy and can get a little crazy most days. I take my hat off to the parents of all kids with disabilities.It's my job to help these kids-and all the kids I teach-become as independent as they are capable of being, to learn to handle their emotions in a positive way and deal with what life throws up. 

The kids I teach are incredible. The world doesn't make sense to them, and is full of things they don't understand. They are made to do things that they don't want to do, and rules are broken all of the time. Things are unpredictable. Yet they develop relationships, they play games, make me laugh, they are CHEEKY. They come to school-most days at least-happy and WANTING to learn. 

Autism Awareness Month isn't about 'curing' autism, it's helping people living with autism in their lives feel less alone, less like they need to hide their child, their sibling, their disorder away. It's bringing autism out from behind closed doors. 

Source -a blue Opera House for World Autism Awareness Day

bits and pieces

After 3 and a half solid days of painting, we've taken a break. We haven't quite finished the tricky bit above the stairs, but we had some other things to do, and were a bit sick of painting.

Chocolate coconut cake-yum!

I baked L a cake-such a sweet tooth. Didn't stay whole like this for long!

I've managed to buy 7 vases in the last week or so. I found four glass ones that I picked up at an op shop for a steal, and also got a gorgeous cake stand. That I should have put my cake on! Duh. I also bought three white ceramic vases too, on two different days at different shops. Now just need some flowers.

Two of the white glasses are on the top left of the shelves-in front of the pictures and the big one is down with the teapots

My new cake stand-I brought it out specially!

A close up because it's so pretty!

I've been drinking my green smoothies almost every day. They aren't too bad! I've been having berry and banana in with my greenery, so that sweetens them up. I won't show you an after-lets just say it doesn't look green once it's all blended-red and blue berries plus green equals brown. I've been adding some extra goodies too-chia seeds and goji berries at the moment. Might add a few more good things in the coming weeks too.

When it still looks nice! Before that colour mixing!

Our wedding is starting to seem much closer! I think our invites are pretty much sorted. Just have to get L to confirm bus times for the ceremony, and we should be set.

Did anyone see the cover of last month's House and Garden. I think I gasped in the middle of Woolies. I love it. Everything about it.  The grey, they crisp white windows, furniture and pots, the deep green of the plants. Just gorgeous. Would love to paint our place that colour, but (especially after the weekend!!) think it would be just too much work to drastically change the colour, so we will probably go to a blue/grey with white trim. We have navy poles that we can't really change anyway, so I don't think a true grey would work quite as well.

almost there...

After three days of painting we are almost done.

Before

Before-so many power points!The phone plug-centre back-is now gone!

4 plugs, a light switch and a telephone port in this picture alone. That isn't even all of them in this room-there is another plug and ariel port behind me and one in the hallway. There is also a double light switch at the bottom of the stairs. one next to the french doors, and another double switch in the hallway. The phone plug-centre back-is now gone!

Before

The first two days were fairly straightforward-cutting in the ceiling and walls with under coat, then cutting in and two coats of ceiling paint, and cutting in and two coats of Antique White USA on the walls.

Goodbye green...

Ceiling painted, 1 coat of undercoat, cutting in of paint

Today was a bit trickier. We had to take off the stairs to paint the wall behind. They were too close and too far away from the wall to try to paint around. There were also lots of fiddly bits on and around the stairs that needed painting.

Sorry for the dodgy pictures-I didn't have my camera downstairs today, so took a few in the dark tonight.

Stairs removed

Just saw a little bit of green!! Grrrr...

L also started patching up a hole-there was a telephone plug there that wasn't connected in an off white. After we painted we decided it looked a bit funny so ripped it out. It would have been better to do it before we painted the wall, but what can you do?

Tomorrow is another tricky day. We have the small part at the top if the stairs. It's not a big area, but it's quite awkward. Some of it is vjs, which means cutting in between each board, and our upstairs ceilings are 9 foot, which means some of the areas we need to paint are 12 foot. It will definitely be L up the ladder doing that stuff! The green is quite strong too, and shows through any lighter areas.

Last bit-12 foot ceiling 

Funny angles above the stairs

It looks amazing though-so much brighter and cleaner. So glad L had 4 days off work and I was on holidays so we could just get in and do it! It would have taken months otherwise!

just keep painting...

I have that annoying song that Dory sings in Finding Nemo in my head, but instead of swimming, it's painting. Just going around, and around and around. 

We've finally finished painting the downstairs bedroom, and have started the room under the stairs. That makes it sound like a tiny closet, but it's not. It is just an empty room at the moment. One day, when we have kids it will be a rumpus/family room. Until then we will just keep living upstairs-saves us having to buy new furniture! So we will have two beautifully painted, empty, Antique White USA rooms. Also, I'm sure if we got another tv and couch, we would both just watch our own tv and never spend any time together-I've just got back into Mad Men-how good is it?, and L is into Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy at the moment. L often works nights, so at the moment he watches in the day time, and I'll watch at night. 

Say good bye to the green...

I get the colour they were going for based on the other colours in the house,  but they didn't quite get it...

L ended up with a four day weekend out of the blue (time in lieu for having to work both days next weekend-boo) , so we figured we would put in a few days to get rid of  the awful green. I'm not hating painting actually. It's a bit annoying, but it looks fantastic once it's done, it isn't too exhausting, and doesn't take too long to make a difference. I'll be back once we have something finished walls. 

This is how I spent the start of my week. My little man has gone home now, I miss him. 

Look at that sun-perfect weather. I love where I live. 

roof's broke, you fix it?

I have decided my little two year old nephew needs to stay here all the time-he gives the best squeezes, he's super fun, he's good for my muscles-you should see how toned my arms are!-and he guilts grown men into doing things!

He told L his 'truck' was dirty, so it got cleaned. He told L the grass was 'too big', so it got mowed. Best of all, he told L that the roof was 'broke' and 'fix it?'. And it got fixed. Love my little man!

Our awful hole

Backing up a bit-when we bought our house we knew there was a small but persistent leak in the eaves above the front door. One of the many joys of an old house!! We had our building inspector look into it, and the roof was dry, there was no other sign of damage. It would take a good 40mm of rain for it to start leaking, and was just drip that would leave a small puddle, but some of the wood in the eaves was rotten. We siliconed (by we I mean L... entirely) every screw and nail. Didn't work. We tried everything to try to work out exactly where the leak was coming from. Eventually L and his mate S, the chippy, pulled some of the front eaves down to get a better look up in there. 

Hated it

We (L...) would do something, then we would have to wait for rain. It wouldn't work. We had 2 plumbers come to look, they did stuff. It would rain, and then that wouldn't work. The worst part is, it was right above the front door, on the front verandah, so having big gaping hole in the eaves looked awful. We (L...) eventually narrowed it down to the valley, on the roof join. He was afraid that it was too shallow, which would mean quite a big job to fix. 

Littlest forman trying to creep out

Just as we narrowed it down it stopped raining. For almost 6 months. So we were in limbo-we didn't want to fix the eaves until we knew the leak was fixed. 

In late January one day, L got back up onto the roof, and pulled a bit of the sarking (a type of insulation) out from around the edge of the valley. He noticed that in a few spots it was hanging out a bit. 

Australia Day weekend came, we had over 200mm of rain-and no leak. We had a few hundred more mm of rain over the next two months, and no leak. Such a simple, quick, cheap fix in the end and solved! We think that the sarking would get wet and start absorbing water, and when it was wet enough it would run down the inside of the roof out onto the eaves. 

Progress

Progress

Anyway my littlest man told L that the roof needed fixing. L and S went and played golf this morning, and came back and decided to fix the roof. Today. They started straight way. My nephew was soooo excited-he loves L and S and their 'trucks', and then there were tools-nail guns, circular saws.... he could not contain himself! Unfortunately, they were a board short, so we will pick that up this week, and S will drop back in one day and put it up. Already though it looks so much better! It was such an eyesore right at the front of the house.

Finished for now

Then we will need to sand and paint, but it already looks so much better. So happy that job is (almost!) done. 

resolutions

I know it's not January first, it's not even the start of a season (in fact, it's a bit of a fluke that it's the first of April). And no, this isn't an April fools. Eating my body weight in chocolate today probably didn't help too much. 

We are less the five months to the wedding now, and I want to make some changes to my life before then-mostly to be the best and healthiest person I can be. I try pretty hard at the moment (mostly), but can be a bit hit and miss. And I think some of my bad choices negatively impact other choices, making a cycle. 
My skin has been terrible the last few months, I've been stressed, and just haven't been at 100%. 

Yoga at least 3 times a week.
I currently usually do yoga once, sometimes twice a week, but I want to up that. I do quite a strong vinyasa type of yoga, so it's good as a supplement for fitness, and I definitely notice an improvement in my tone, but mostly it is a mental thing. My job is loud, busy and oftentimes crazy, and it gives me time to quiet my brain. I have been doing yoga for almost 2 years now, and have NEVER regretted having gone, but I do regret when I don't go-if I am too tired, or busy. Unfortunately when I don't go, it is usually when I need it most. 

Link - not me, but one of my favourite poses....

Bed at 9.30
I often find myself up late. Not doing anything, just wasting time on the net, or watching rubbish tv that I am not that interested in. My alarm goes off at 5.45, so going to bed after 11 doesn't work for me. 

My amazing bed... 

Walking at least 2 times a week
I currently don't do any exercise other than yoga, apart from the running, swimming, lifting and dancing I do at work (in my defence I do get quite involved in these activities-partly to encourage the kids to participate, partly as I know it is part of my exercise. I live in a hilly area, and I live in one of the most beautiful places in Australia-I should take advantage of the beautiful beaches and headlands around!

This isn't where I live unfortunately, but was taken on one of my favourite
ever beach walks-Cinque Terre in Italy, Easter 2009

Improve my diet
It's mostly pretty good, but needs a bit of tidying up. I'm interested in trying out some green smoothies to up my greens intake, need to spend some time preparing some healthy, easy lunches (I usually eat on my feet, writing in books or while dealing with kids-often peeling an apple-or all of the above). When L works night often I just eat toast, eggs on toast, takeaway or homemade pizza, so I'm going to start cooking s vegie stir fry on those nights-quick, simple and healthy. I also need to quite my Ferrero Rocher habit when I go to the supermarket. :(

link

4 simple changes, that should make a big difference. I've put it out there now-to all of you-so I have to be accountable!! Will let you know how I go!!! Are you having any mid year resolutions????