School's Out!

I love having a laptop. I’m sitting in my loungeroom, by my front window, while typing this - I’m waiting for Master J to arrive home in his taxi. Our neighbours probably wonder about this - a taxi picking up a school kid morning and afternoon - but our closest neighbours are not the sort of people you want to share personal information with. Certainly nothing quite as personal as a child’s disability and transport arrangements. As it is, the father of the ‘across the street’ household feels it necessary to leerily acknowledge me every time I walk out of the house. And as I’m clicking away at my keyboard, I can hear the same man and his wife YELLING at each other from what appears to be opposite ends of their house. I am sitting at least thirty metres (90 or so feet) away inside my own house and I can hear them clear as day. Yeah. Not giving out personal details to those folk!

Talented Hubby has me a bit worried at the moment. He’s about the busiest he’s ever been at work and people keep giving him more work without allowing him the time to finish the old stuff. His job is one where ‘urgent’ matters must be dealt with straight away but this leaves him in a pretty pickle. He goes on a 3 week stint of annual leave in one week but we both suspect he’ll be working a couple of extra days - unpaid - just to catch up. There are certain things that cannot wait until he returns from leave so he’s forced to work the extra. It’s frustrating for me because I can’t in any way help him with his workload. The only thing I can do is minimise craziness here at home (yeah, good luck with that Lizzie - school’s out!) so that when he does walk through the door, he can ’switch off’ more readily. The more he relaxes at home, the better he is able to deal with the horrendous amount of work stuff he’s got on his plate at the moment. Still, I wish I could take some of the burden from him.

Boof and Moo have officially finished school for the year - bye bye Grades 3 and 1! Moo also managed to lose another tooth today, making it a total of three falling out over about a three week period (the third one is just baaaaarely hanging on). Two of those teeth are her top front ones. Christmas pictures this year are going to be just de-light-ful, LOL.

Oh, what kerfuffle for the last day of term/the school year though! Total insanity! But all the kids had a good last day - Boof managed to score a classroom pizza party and a Kris Kringle with the other students in his class today (not to mention a nearly 700 strong school excursion to a fun park on Monday!) and Moo has pretty much been celebrating all week, with a student representative council (of which she’s been a part of this semester) party on Tuesday, her class party on Wednesday and nothing but crafts today. Everyone is exhausted. We gave our teacher gifts out yesterday and Boof’s teacher, upon hearing about Talented Hubby’s photography, asked if we had any spare calendars of his work at home. We did, so she bought one to use as a Christmas present (I don’t know how the man does it. I can’t get a magazine to pick up my work and he keeps selling the same shots over and over with great success! LOL). Master J doesn’t officially finish school for the year until tomorrow but his last day will also prove to be a pretty cushy arrangement, I’m sure. As we have an unexpected extra day off for Boof and Moo, I’m taking them to the movies tomorrow morning while J is still in school - frugal, as it was a free double movie pass given to TH through his work.

And that’s about the time that I’ll get home, collapse, eat some chocolate and alternatively rejoice/sink into a pit of despair over the fact we have 6 weeks of summer holidays stretching out in front of us - probably in that order too. I love my children a ridiculous amount but by golly, they can be NOISE-EEE.

I really hope January bucks the trend and remains in the moderate temps. We’ve had barely a decent ’summery warm’ day so far this late spring/early summer which is a bit unusual and usually means a later start to summer proper, and hotter, dryer temperatures. Last year our city secured a new record - the longest metro 35ºC (95ºF) plus heatwave since they began keeping records back in the dark ages. I thought I was going to DIE.

You Florida and Arizona folk must be made of galvanized steel (for toughness) fashioned with portable cooling systems because that kind of heat on a regular basis would make me want to shrivel up in a little ball and cry. A LOT.