For my sanity

It has been a long time since my last blog but my life has been hectic which is not an excuse. I need to get back into the habit as blogging gave me much needed time to reflect about my day, take a moment to relish the good moments and understand why the bad ones happened. I don't necessarily post on these but it is just the time to disconnect, look at my photos from the day and chill. I have missed that.

How I feel at the end of some days! I took this picture when I visited the MOMA NY

The weather has been so glorious over the last month but school has made many demands on my time and I haven't had the opportunity to enjoy this weather as much as I should, hopefully I will be able to do so next week during the midterm holiday. I know Mr. farmer down the road is desperate for rain though as his field is looking decidedly brown. Maybe we can compromise with rain at night but sunshine during the day.

Good night

x

How time flies...

Apologies, apologies, my most humble apologies for neglecting this blog. This past month has been so hectic I don't honestly know where it has gone. 

First of all some pictures from our first attempt at making dumplings. The afternoon was so much fun and it was great to work with the boys and produce something so delicious. The surreal moment of the afternoon was when one of my pupils was talking to his mother in China via Skype, asking her for instructions and showing her the quality of our chopping, which according to her left a lot to be desired. It really is a small world.

Dumpling no 100

The one perfect dumpling

The half term break bought my sister and her two lovely children to England and what a lovely time we had. On the first day we visited the Craft, Hobby + Stitch International show at the NEC in Birmingham. We spent a very long time admiring the fabric on show, especially the Kokka and Echino. They had a fabulous quilt on show and some really cool bags. This filled us with inspiration so a day of the holiday was dedicated to sewing. I will post some pictures of our creations tomorrow as the pictures are at home and I am not.

It was great to see my sister and spend time with her and the children and hopefully I will be seeing them again soon!

Bed time rounds call.

Goodnight

E

Beautiful Sunshine

Today was winter at its best. A crisp dry day, sun was shining but with enough bite in the wind to warrant a scarf, simply the best. I just love days like today.

The view from my classroom was the best it has been in months. It was so clear I was able to see the neighbouring village across the mere.

Not much time for anything else as life seems to be hectic at the moment. Looking forward to half term with my sister and her gang. Hopefully quite a bit of sewing will happen during this time as well. 

Good night

E

The ahhh factor

I'm fed up with verb tenses, complex structures and pronouns that refuse to stay put so I thought a bit of chillaxin time before putting the older boys to bed would be nice. They are supposed to be getting ready now but from the noise coming from above it sounds like a game of hallway football is going on. I'll give them ten minutes and then shout!

The UPS man was busy today as he bought me several packages in the post. The most exciting one contained some leggings I ordered on behalf of my sister for my nephew. The ahhs going round the staff room were surely heard on the playground. They are just too cute for words. See for yourself:

This is the back of the leggings. The front is just stripy. This pair are called Owl on tree stump. 

I also had a little virtual stroll around Ebay and found a fabric shop called fancy moon fabrics and just had to part with some money. I bought three fat quarters. These two fabrics were designed by Alexander Henry:

and this one by Kaffe Fassett

I think they are lovely especially the Mexican Calavera print. 

I still need to get a start on the embroidery I need to do before my sister arrives in 18 days. I have got as far as transferring the pattern on to the fabric, I now need to get the fabric to the hoop and the thread into the needle! Hopefully this will happen this weekend. 

Chinese New Year is on Thursday so I will be celebrating it in style with my Brownie pack. One of my Chinese students has agreed to come in and teach them how to write Happy New Year in mandarin, we will gorge on spring rolls and prawn crackers and learn a bit about the traditions that accompany this important feast. I'm looking forward to it already.

Must go as those boys really should be in bed by now.

E

an apology

This is an apology to myself for neglecting me! One of the reasons for starting a blog was to encourage myself to try different things. I have a list of projects I want to undertake, I have visions of what I would like my house to look like, recipes I would like to try and new experiences I would like to, well, experience  but they all seem to require enormous amounts of time, which I can not quite seem to find. My weekends seem to pass by in a blur and no matter how hard I try I can not quite get on top of things at school. I would love to be able to freeze time just for a day so I could catch up on those little things that get in the way of life - like that pile of ironing I can see out of the corner of my eye.

Well that is my rant of the day.

E

Positive Friday

As some of you may have guessed already I am a teacher. I teach languages at a through school (2-18 years) in rural England. Apart from teaching I also have a tutor group made up of 10 twelve/thirteen year olds, who as you can imagine, can really take some motivating at times. We have tutor period every Friday afternoon and at the beginning of the school year we decided that Fridays would become "Positive Friday". During tutor period each child tells the group about something positive that has happened to them that week and we take pride in our successes and in our small victories. Louis might have remembered his planner every day, Abbie got her maths homework all correct, Nick scored the winning try in a match, etc. You get the gist. In return for such positive vibes I bring in a treat. I like baking and this gives me an opportunity to try different things out without having to eat all the spoils by myself. 

This week I decided to try a cookie recipe from a book I bought a couple of weeks ago. The book is called The Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits written by the owners of Biscuiteers. I fell in love with it as soon as it arrived in the post. I baked the vanilla cookies and used a foot cutter that I have. I iced the biscuits and I must say that I think they look pretty good. The kids were very impressed and are looking forward to next week's contribution.

This weekend I have quite a few projects to get through. I have to make some netball bibs, which should be simple enough and then my new craft light has arrived so I plan to get cracking on some of the embroidery I need to get done. 

Have a good start to the weekend.

E x

Busy, busy, busy

Quick post before I retire for the evening, I just wanted to share some new fabric that I received this week.

I bought it in the Sew Mama Sew fabric sale. I love all of them but my two absolute favourites are the safety pins, which I think I will use to make a travelling sewing kit. There is a tutorial on how to make one by Dawn, creator of the uklassinus blog.

I am going to use this material to make some bibs for two colleagues at school, who are both expecting babies in a few months. I think it is so cute and also gender neutral as neither one of them knows what they are going to have. 

The staff room is full of baby talk and I must admit a small part of me is jealous. My baby, all nineteen years of her, is getting ready to start university in September. I am very excited for her.

Goodnight

E x