School

Can you believe that I am thinking about going back to school?

I can't believe it myself, but this time it is directly related to job training.  I really hate my job.  I really LOVE my little nursery singing group, and after a short talk with my volunteer supervisor, it was realized that I would be really good at teaching music to nursery children.  He said that he would love to hire me, but the government doesn't want to fund me (the reason I have this volunteer position in the first place). Unfortunately, short of getting £6000 for a music franchise or passing out fliers, the best way of doing this would be to get some kind of Childhood Education Certification.  The certification takes about 2 years, and the tuition all depends on if you study on-line or at College (between £450-£6000).  In either situation, you also have to do around 400 hours of work in a childcare setting which is allot, but fair.  So far I have undertaken about 16 hours with my class, so I am on my way.

What I find so funny is that I have always wanted to do teaching.  I have always been good at music.  This would have made so much more sense to have done 15 years ago, but no.

Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, rain. That is all this Summer has been. July 4th began three days of intermittent downpours that brought a seasons worth of rain all at once. Floods everywhere.



On the plus side, I have been doing allot of dancing in the rain. The air has been quite warm, but doesn't reach above 70 degrees often.  Our back garden is a swampy jungle, but this has not been a good year for the garden I had started.  The strawberry plants are huge and trying to produce strawberries,but they rot before they turn red.  The peas were successful, but then the snails got to the pods before we did.  Our corn is tiny and the leaves are shredded.  We have two corn plants growing inside to see if we can get something.  I am still waiting on the success of a cauliflower plant and some slow growing onions.

My sunflowers, on the other hand, are blooming and are at least 5 feet tall.  Our fushia bushes, which were tiny last year, are huge and bushy, and the roses are finally full of blossoms.



But let's talk about snails.  I am amazed at the quantity and size of this years snails.  Today I found a snail whose home was 1 inch in length. and about that in height.  I do not come from a place where snails are common place.  I am used to huge slugs in mass quantities, snails are almost a welcomed guest.  My mom is an amazing slug hunter.  I have this vision of her in her garden impaling slugs without a second thought.   Last year, after dark, I would go snail hunting.  I would smash any snail of a small to medium size and throw large snails over the fence into the road.  I felt awful.  So this year I put out poison.  The only problem is that you are left with hundreds of snail shells all over the garden and then I still feel awful.  The recent rain has made it difficult to keep the poison around, so the Sprout and I routinely scour the garden collecting snails and throwing them over the fence.

This Summer has been a total bummer in terms of weather.  It is a good thing that so many cool things (the Jubilee, Wimbledon, and the Olympics) are happening to detour us from the weather.

4th of July pictures

 

 

 

 

 

Rosebery Gangs

The 3-9 year olds in the neighbourhood are looking for new recruits.  The warmer weather has brought all the boys out to the street to ride their bikes and have water fights.  The Sprout looks longingly at them all.  You can tell he wants to play, and they can tell he is watching them.

We keep getting little ones coming into the garden (without asking may I add) to show the Sprout things and asking if the Sprout can play.  I am very uncomfortable with the situation because I do not come from a neighbourhood background.  I don't know how to interact with other people's unsupervised children and I am shocked by the shear number of little boys who want to play with the Sprout.

The Sprout still doesn't communicate through speech very well, and though the majority of the children are from households of 3-4 children (so they know what it's like to have little siblings), I don't like that he can't fully say what he means. I also don't know these children, but I know the kind of parents who are raising them, and though the wars between the parents of the children don't keep the boys from playing together, I am still wary of the kind of people the Sprout may be interacting with.

This is all the next stage of single child mom jitters.  It doesn't help that this is not the way that I made friends when I was little.  It also doesn't help that the children play on a road that taxis use as a shortcut.  More than that, the age range really freaks me out.  The Sprout is 2 1/2 and I just don't think he is ready for playing around in a group of boys ranging from the ages of 3-9.

Recently there has been an increase of birthday parties.  We went to one last week and we are attending one this Sunday.  This is more like it.  Children the Sprout's age, from his nursery class in fact, running around together for a set amount of time surrounded by their parents.  The only thing that would make this perfect would be if it was outside my house.  I am not a fan of the "playdate," but it would be nice for the Sprout to be able to play with other kids.

The Sprout singing

http://youtu.be/D0k6StM3IRc

 The Sprout singing along to Bob the Builder Theme





http://youtu.be/2PCgsXwj3sM

He also likes to change his elephant.

Hands up

It's been two months since my last entry.  This was not intentional.  I just didn't have anything to say.  Now enough has piled up.

I am enjoying my Mini Music Makes group.  At the beginning of May I took over the group because of cut backs in government funding.  I felt very strongly about the cancellation of the group, even though the Sprout and I had never attended it.  I instantly volunteered to head the group and it has proven to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.  Every Wednesday I go to the library and sing with 20+ toddlers and their parents.  It is really fun.  If anything, I get to sing and be the centre of attention for 30 minutes.  The only thing that makes me sad is that the Sprout does't come with me.  The Sprout sings, but on his own time.  He isn't much for large, structured groups and he certainly doesn't enjoy sharing me.

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee was really special.  Although we had to watch it on TV, it didn't take away from the festivities.  I have really enjoyed seeing England be patriotic.  There is bunting and Union Jacks everywhere.  Everyone is dressed in the red, white and blue.  I hope this continues though the Olympics.  The Sprout loves his flag flying monkey shirt.

Yesterday I had Carpel Tunnel Release surgery on my right hand.  It has been a challenge not to use my hand, but the pain keeps me in check.  On the plus side, I got to sleep until 11 am today.  I don't know when I did that last.

On the Sprout front, he is growing by leaps and bounds.  He is talking more and more, some of it still complete gibberish, but he says enough to get his point across.  One of his more important developments is that he has begun swimming solo during his swimming class.

Easter Fun

I forgot to mention my Easter projects. 

My Seasonal Tree is still going strong.  We were able to decorate it appropriately for Easter.  Now I have to think of how to decorate it for a period of time with no holiday.  I was thinking fimo and felt.  Caterpillars, peas, strawberries, gardening tools and lady bugs would be good decorations to make.

Another item I have begun making obsessively are these little felt birds.  They are so easy and once I was able to feel my finger, I wanted to be able to make something simple.

Easter

Another candy holiday is upon us, Easter.  Easter and Valentine's Day seem to be "sugar holidays" in my mind.  Mixed chocolates, jelly beans and (in England) HUGE CHOCOLATE EGGS.

In England, it is customary to give everyone a huge hollow chocolate egg that is filled with one kind of candy or another, like a huge chocolate egg filled with M&M's or a huge chocolate egg filled with smaller Cadbury eggs with the goo in the middle).  This is a far removed tradition for me, as because I am American, any hollow chocolate item means really bad tasting, cheap chocolate.  In England this is not the case, they take their chocolate seriously and therefore all these chocolate eggs are worth eating.

The thing is, when you are a little kid, you may end up with 3-4 eggs (or more!), because EVERYONE gives you one.  When I was little, my Easter Bunny gave me a basket full of plastic eggs filled with jelly beans and M&M's, some of the little solid chocolate eggs (yummy chocolate), and maybe a Cadbury Egg.  There was also a soft toy, a little bit of cash (the GREEN egg) and the hard boiled eggs we decorated.

This is the first year we have taken the Easter Bunny on board.  Knowing that the Sprout would get at least one chocolate egg, I had to steer away from the chocolate.  I went with some jelly beans and gummy candy in plastic eggs (it is hard to find plastic eggs here).  We also got a stuffed toy and a spade for the garden (the Easter Bunny wants the Sprout to plant him some lettuce).  Of course, within an hour all of the jelly beans and gummy candy was gone, and the chocolate hollow bunny his great nan gave him (Smatries) had been gutted.  Needless to say I have a pixi on crack running around the house.

What I would really love to do, is make my own hollow chocolate Easter Egg as our holiday tradition.  it would be a fun thing for all of us to do and to give them to each other.

Road trip essentials

Past blogs on the road and me being alone and what i can't live without

I won't lie, I like to road trip alone. LOVE IT as a matter of fact, and I know that I have blogged on this before, so this will not warrant a large answer to the Plinky.com question. This list is based on the many a lone road trips I have made.



Besides all the safety car check list stuff:



1. Camera



2. Music, including back up music for when your radio decides to die in the middle of nowhere.



3. Tent and camping equipment.



4. Good old fashion map. No GPS for this stuff. I have never gone in for a GPS for a road trip, it ruins it. I would rather be fighting with myself than with a stupid machine.



5. Water and nibbles and a plastic bottle...trust me.



6. The ability to not care if you get to where you were going. That is my favourite part.







It has been so long since I have been on a lonely road trip that I might have to force one on myself, however I think my husband might object.

Big boy

We have taken the plunge into potty training.  In the past few months we have been doing it on and off, but yesterday marked the beginning of "hardcore" potty training.  The Sprout is helping by refusing to wear a diaper, which is a bit annoying.

Yesterday, he spent the whole day naked and did quite well.  He even pooped.  Last night he refused to wear a diaper to bed, so I loaded up his mattress with towels and cloth diapers.  He was dry for most of the night, which was impressive and when he woke up, the bed wasn't as wet as I had expected, or at least the layers had done their jobs.

Today was a bit different.  The Sprout had to wear clothes as we had to go out in the morning.  We went through 3 pairs of pants before we had a poo and then he refused to wear clothes any more.  It seemed that when he was wearing clothes, he had no interest in using the potty.  It seems that we need to work on wearing clothing, at least underwear, and using the potty.

Again tonight he refused to wear a diaper to bed and before he fell asleep, he had already wet the bed, but I don't think there is a need to push it.  I am just happy we had to buy a new washer/dryer, which is the most awesome thing ever.


Other big boy things:

I must also add that the Sprout has become quite the little helper around the house.  He loves to sweep up messes and help with the vacuuming.

We have been keeping up our seasonal tree and have just started decorating it for Easter.

The great dilemma

My first local organic meat box

I watched Food Inc. on TV the other day, and it had an effect on me.  All documentaries about food have an effect on me because it is one of those issues that surprises me.  How can the government get away with letting companies wash our ground beef in ammonia?  How can the government justify allowing junk food to be cheaper than fruit and veg? And the biggest question, why do we tolerate the horrible treatment of pigs, cows and chickens (and farmers) so that we can have cheap meat?  The answer, because the people don't know about it, or think about it.  The consumer lets it happen.  I am completely guilty of this.

A couple of years ago ordered veg and fruit from Able and Cole, a box scheme that delivered to my door.  All the items were locally grown and organic.  It was not cheap, but I thought what the heck, it will also allow me to eat seasonally and make me eat vegetables I never eat.  Eventually I got tired of throwing away veg that I didn't eat and I was tired of the cost.  But instead of buying seasonally and organically from the supermarket, I went back to buying the bargain veg, fruit and meat.  I even went back to buying non-eco friendly soaps because, I will say this, they work better and could get my new baby's clothes whiter and softer.

Now I watch a documentary explaining the horrible factorization of our food and it makes me angry.  The way that a few huge corporations can swoop in and put the farmer under their thumb is amazing.  There was only one woman who bucked the system to let the film crew into her chicken farm because she decided she didn't care anymore.  It was awful.  The documentary mainly focused on meat because it is one of the hugest shocker, but they also mentioned corn and the way it is farmed and utilized.

For this week's shop, I decided to go back to the box scheme.  I was surprised that Riverford Organics had a Meat Box.  It was pricey but I decided to give it a try and opted to get the Quick and Easy Meat Box for £29.  It came today and I am excited to eat it, however, I cannot buy this every week.  I got onto Supermarket.co.uk, my favourite shopping site, and decided to see what this box would cost at the supermarket.  Tesco was the cheapest (not ASDA.  I tend to stay away from Tesco but if it's cheaper, so be it).  I could get everything but the pork for £10.  One problem with this is that I don't know if the meat comes from UK farms and whether or not they are "ethical" farms.  These animals may still be on a feed lot, but are fed organic corn.  I know that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has had problems with Tesco and the fine print of their organic meats.  Never-the-less, next week I may venture into the world of supermarket organic foods.

Bumpy Ride

Wearing Wellies

Not wearing Wellies

Everyday is a roller coaster with a toddler.  There are many times of awesome fun, funny, cute and horribly frustrating moments.

We are coming upon 28 months (or about 2 and a half) and lately the fun moments have been out-shined by the horribly frustrating moments.

The Sprout, like any toddler, is a handful and I fear it is bringing out the stressed and frustrated side of me that I really don't like.  We have been struggling for power for awhile and my little Sprout is a worthy adversary.  He is one of the most head strong people I know and would rather not go outside than put on his jacket or boots.  All of these battles make me furious and frustrated because I know they are upstaging my enjoyment of this period or the enjoyment of 5 minutes ago.

It finally snowed, meaning it is cold and wet outside.  The Sprout usually sports his skull Wellies proudly however, for some reason, he wants to wear his canvas space shoes (also beloved as we have them in 5 sizes now).  Wearing these shoes would mean cold, wet feet.  After 20 minutes of me trying to sound like a calm social worker who is stupidly trying to reason with a 2 year old, admittedly, I gave in.  Richard had his Nan on the phone, who now thinks we are degenerate parents who lets their child do whatever he wants.  I just wanted to go outside and play in the snow.  I figured, when his feet get cold, he will know what I meant.

I guess his feet don't get cold, because later that night, he still wanted to wear his canvas shoes for moon gazing and a snowball fight.  We fought and I held firm and he took off his hat and shoes and sat in the living room.  About 5 minutes after the stand-off, he brought in his boots.  We could now enjoy the moon and a late night snowball fight (he didn't have a coat on, but I didn't feel like making it a big deal).

Here is the question I pose, do I have to stand firm when every fibre of my being doesn't care or even doesn't believe in the fight at hand?  If no one is going to die and I don't really care, why do I have to pretend to care.  If I know his arms won't fall off from frostbite, why do I care that he doesn't wear a jacket?  I can get one for him when he realizes I was right.  More than that, why should I fight when it makes me a worse person?  Why should I ruin the moment if no one is going to get hurt?  Why should I end up the mother everyone stares at in the Supermarket because I have just called my child a horrible brat and the on lookers aren't sure if I'm going to give the toddler a smack (this has never happened as we don't go to the Supermarket. However, I have seen these parents many times and now I know why they have acted this way in public.  People without kids...shut up, you don't know).

To me it isn't exactly about letting him do what he wants.  He is still sent to his room when he hits, his pens are taken away if he uses them inappropriately.  If he decides he wants to be carried on a walk, we don't get to stop at the park (we actually did this, it was the most horrible thing to stay strong on). This is about the little things.  If I know he will wear his coat when he gets cold, why should I care he doesn't want to keep from getting cold by wearing it?

Should I be allowed to parent the way I want?  Most of the people who have had kids say no, and I hear you.  But I am tired and I am especially tired of these toddler years (which everyone says I should cherish because they don't last long) being ruined by small things.

Redundant writing

I love this.  The Daily Post prompt was about redundant writing errors, and I love this because my blog is full of them before I edit, and even then, redundant writing errors slip in.  It made me realize how wordy our everyday speech.  Richard always says "basically" before he describes something in less than basic terms and it always drives me crazy.

The Daily Post wrote:

An added bonus of blogging on WordPress.com at the present time is that occasionally your blog will come under close scrutiny by an Automattic staff member, who may choose to reblog one of your posts at a time when he’s in a rush and short on ideas of his own. He might not even collaborate together with you, choosing instead just to provide an example of the point you make in the blog post in question. Of course, one of the basic fundamentals he would need to keep in mind is that when using another blog’s content as a source, it’s polite to refer back to the originating blog.
How many redundancies did you find in that paragraph? Count them and then compare the ones you found to the neat lists Lisa J. Jackson, who writes for the scrutinized blog in question, has written about here and here. Did you find them all? Can you come up with others?

I went to Ms. Jackson's site and read about common redundancies and it amazed me how common those mistakes were made and how, at first glance, they seem perfectly acceptable.  That is until you think about it.

Why would you say "added bonus," or "close scrutiny"? They mean the same thing.

Anyway, this was just something to think about and another thing to worry about as I write.

Imbolic 2011

How are your New Year's Resolutions going?  Mine are going; getting there.  I have decided that resolutions are to be eased into and hopefully by the end of the year they have integrated into your daily life.  Almost every customer at my work who began ordering Skinny Lattes, which have 115 calories (no one thought to move to a skinny cappuccino with 58 calories), are back to their daily Latte, which have 128 calories.  I can rant on and on about dieting, but I won't (right now at least).

I love taking the Pagan out of Imbolic and just thinking of it as a Resolution check point (I thought I had wrote a blog on this last year but as it happens I only did in 2010).   Only part one of my resolutions are important at the moment.  The rest of my list were things that would be good to do, but weren't really resolutions per se.

I am going to try to change my laziness.  In order to do this I have a couple of resolutions that are directly related.

• Stop walking over crap on the floor.  If I come upon something on the floor that shouldn't be there, I will pick it up, throw it in the bin, or put it away.  At least get it off the floor.
• Stop throwing clothes on the floor.  This includes my jacket when I walk in the door.
• At night, do a basic pick up and get the Sprout to help.

I am doing a much better job of not walking over things that need to be picked up.  I am still not perfect, but I have always been a believer in my Auntie Lish's advice,: "If you pass something more than three times, the item becomes invisible".  At the moment I may pass something two times but will pick it up on the third.  I am hoping to pick up the "never leave a room empty handed" habit, but first I need to get organized.

I am finally on my vacation, which I was forced to take as the tax year ends soon and "if you don't use it, you loose it".  So I closed my eyes and picked a date, and then my boss said "no, you can't have that date" so I gave another date, and so on, until we worked it out.  Anyway, I am hoping to get some low budget organizing done.

I was doing really well not throwing my clothes on the floor, but I recently hit a little bump.   I will start again tomorrow when I do my weekly upstairs deep clean.

The basic pick up thing has yet to start.  I usually put the Sprout's toys in a box at night, but not always.  And he usually isn't around to help.  He will help if asked though, it is very cute.  During my break, I am going to go through all of his toys and clothes and sort it all out.

I know that to most people, these resolutions look easy, but they aren't to me and my personality.  As my mom always said, I leave a "slug trail," and boy is this true. Before the Sprout was about, I had turned into quite the good house-wife, but I easily turned into a cluttered mess and now I can't find anything and I get horribly frustrated.  These three resolutions are based on bad habits that I easily default to if not checked (kinda like looking at the keys when you type), so if I ace these things, I know I will be much happier.

I finally made it, Barista Maestro.  I am a coffee master for Costa Coffee.  It only took 3 years and the change from a corporate Costa to a private Costa chain.

My Barista Maestro course was awesome and completely nerve racking.  After a little introduction to the day and a bit of review of the Costa brand and standards we dove into the practical test.  20 min to set up our space, grind and dose. 10 min to make a perfect latte, espresso, cappuccino, and flat white.  20 min to clean our space.  It was horrible.  Every day I make any combination of those drinks in well less than 10 min, but I almost didn’t complete it.  In the end I went for the understanding that “any drink was better than no drink”.  Our course director was watching everything we did and we got points for everything, as long as the drink got to the table, we got some points.

I was sure that I had not passed, but we still had 6 hours of the class and a written assessment to go.  During the rest of the class we learned what our new post would entail and how we will be successful teachers to the new recruits.  We learned a little about espresso tasting and a bit about taking care of our machines.  The written assessment ended up being a breeze.

So now I get to wear a double bean and will have my diploma on the wall at the store.  I will also get a name tag that will read Jessika, Barista Maestro.  Aw, it all sounds so exciting.  My co worker and I are very excited to get started on the training.  But then you get back to work and remember all the other crap.  The owners who only critisize, that 1% of customers who are rude and mean, and the annoyance of not being able to redo a crap coffee that you just made because the line is out the door and everyone in line is impatient because they are jonesing for their caffine, sugar and fat fix.

What I love about my home town

Gig Harbor and Mt Rainier

There are a couple of things I love about my home town, Gig Harbor, Washington (State, as I always have to add). I love the water, the trees and the fact that you can live on a 5 acre plot of land but still get to town in less than 10 minutes and the thing I love the most, is the awesome view of the great MT. RAINIER.



I have been away from my home town for 6 and a half years now and SO MUCH has changed. There are things that I used to love that don't exist anymore like the "quaintness" of the Harbor itself (downtown Gig Harbor doesn't seem to exist anymore and has been moved up town where a mass conglomeration of grocery stores, banks and shops are. (They have new terminlogy like "uptown", I don't even know if I used the right place). The population has EXPLODED. Gig Harbor was always a growing, shall we just say it, suburb of SeaTac, but I never expected it to grow the way it has.



When I was young, I always cursed the new houses being built, especially housing developments. I hated all the mini vans, which led to SUV's (wow I have been gone that long that I had to google the term "HUV" because it didn't look right and it wasn't, I was looking for "SUV") that carry soccer mom's and their 2.3 children. I still gurgle under my breath and I probably let out a huge agonizing sigh of depression at the sight of these things, but I try not to let them get to me, mostly because my parent's retain their 5+ acres that are in the trees, near a beach access where there is a great view of Mt Rainier, and is about a 10 min drive to town (and Target and Costco if you wish). We don't even have a view of our neighbours.

A difficult choice I am glad I made

Here is today's prompt from Plinky

Share a story about a difficult choice you're glad you made.

Moving to the UK was incredibly hard, however I was able to do it in baby steps, to a point a guess.

I originally made the move to attend a Master's Course at the University of Bradford. About a month in, I met my future husband. As the year went on, many decisions had to be made revolving around our relationship in order to keep it going.

Unluckily (but a crucial cog in my decision making) my grandmother died. Before I left for Uni, I had been living with my grandmother, so not only would I be returning to no grandmother, but also to no real home. I suppose it made for the perfect excuse not to return. However, I was lucky that my future husband liked me enough to want to marry me. So we got married and we have remained in the UK. I have been here for 6 and a half years now.

I can't say that I love living here, but I guess I have gotten used to it. My preference is to return to the States, but most of that is because I miss my family and hate that they are missing seeing my son and missing seeing me be a parent. I also miss my brother and seeing his kids grow and being there for support. Something I miss allot though, is seeing my grandparents because, let's face it, we all don't appreciate grandparents until they are gone and that's a real shame.

So the choice to stay in the UK isn't exactly perfect, but it isn't necessarily set in stone and I got a loving husband, a kid, a cat, and a job out of it. Not too bad.

Pottery gardening

If you had to make a living by creating art, what would you do?

There are so many things I like to do that could be considered art. I love to knit and sew. I LOVE cross stitch (black stitch is my favourite) but I haven't done much lately. My new thing is patchwork and small crafts. The only problem is that all of these things need hands to do tiny movements and recently my hands haven't been working so well.



I love making a mess. I love puddle jumping with my son. I love throwing mud about and being muddy. I think I could do mud art. Mud...Jackson Pollock style. Mud...living art style.



Oh how fun. I guess I could throw in some gardening and do some kind of landscape/mud art. Gardening and mud art.



Why am I not a pottery artist, that would be perfect.



Oh, there we go...pottery (for the mud) gardening. Make the pots and fill it with a landscape garden. Perfect!

Weekly photo challenge: peaceful

This weeks Weekly Photo Challenge over at The Daily Post is about something peaceful.  Although I can think of many things, at the moment this represents peacefulness; an empty Costa Coffee.  We have been absolutely smashed at work and the sight of no line at the shop makes me happy.

Leaving the house and scissors

Ok, I am posting this again because I forget that thoes who just look at the email can't see the video.
Go here

You really should watch the whole thing