Feeling inspired

For a number of reasons, I feel inspired to do a bit of blogging today. Life has not been so enjoyable lately, or for much of the last year if I'm honest, but I am gradually coming to the conclusion that I can't let my job rule my life. Blogging was always something I enjoyed doing, so I should really start doing a least a little bit of it again. So I thought I'd start uploading some of the pages I have been making. The majority have been done as Design Team work, and so may have already appeared over on the Papermaze blog, but it will be nice to have everything on here as well.

This page is recording a very lovely day last April when I went away with my hubby's family to the Peak District for a weekend. The sun shone beautifully on our last day there, and we were treated to spectacular views over a valley (which we then proceeded to climb down into, but that's another story!)

I like a bit of paper-piecing now and again - it appeals to the child in me who used to enjoy making pictures and collages from pieces of paper - and I've been using the technique a few times recently.

Who knows, maybe I'll blog another page this week - I do most of my blogging via Picasa now which appears to have an annoying four photo limit, but is infinitely less frustrating than uploading photos in blogger itself, which always seems to crash part way through. I guess you can't have it all. I'm also planning on sharing some of my knitting projects as well - they are many and varied in terms of success and closeness to completion, but are probably my main creative outlet at the moment so are worth sharing anyway.

In fact, I'm off to do a spot of knitting and relaxing and not thinking about work now, so I'll close this short and sweet post here!

Still learning...

I think I have to resign myself to the fact that I am never going to be a regular blogger during the week. Especially by the end of the week when the majority of my lessons are timetabled, I come home so tired it's enough to actually be bothered to cook dinner and load the dishwasher, let alone scrap and blog about it. But one blog post a week is better than nothing, and I need to share most of last week's lessons.

First up is a lesson I think everyone should have in their book, because it's one that I think too many of us (certainly the kids I teach) forget. I was reminded last Tuesday that I am valued for my contribution at school and my work, no matter how often I am overly critical of myself. There is always room for self evaluation, but you should never underestimate your value. If you don't believe in yourself and your capabilities, noone else will.



The lesson for last Wednesday was a reminder to myself for the rest of the year. My Wednesdays are absolutely manic - I teach every period of the day, in lots of different rooms and from year 7 to year 12. It can be really hard to keep track of what you are doing - planning is absolutely essential for these days and I will have to get used to spending Tuesday evenings getting ready for it.



Day 16 is about a lesson when I felt totally out of control - I hadn't felt so frustrated with a class (not just an individual pupil like last week) for about 4 years, even more surprising because they were year 7. I was a bit shell-shocked, and it inspired one of those dreams at the weekend when you wake up crying. (Bizzarrely in the dream, the kids had run riot in the classroom and broken my bedroom mirror. God knows what my bedroom mirror was doing in the classroom, but that's dreams for you!)



Day Seventeen is about sometimes forcing yourself to make the effort to go out and socialise, even when you are knackered and feel like vegetating in front of the TV. It was a friend from work's birthday and she had organised drinks at a local pub. I ended up having a nice evening, and was glad I had got myself into gear and gone out in the end, even though my eyes were a bit droopy all night!



Saturday was a very frustrating day. I have been doing a Developing Leaders course for the last two years, and the last assignment is due in this Friday. A 4000 word assignment. You can't just conjure one of them out of thin air! So I had to give up most of my Saturday to write it, and I wasn't happy to say the least. But I got on a did it, and have so far managed about 3300 words. Just a few finishing touches to put together during the week before I submit it in a few days. My lesson was that however much you want to, you can't leave an essay to the last minute - there is no way I'd have been wanting to write this on Thursday night!



Finally, we have my page for yesterday. Apart from a trip to the supermarket, I spent quite a lazy Sunday catching up on some scrapping, while Ed cooked a gorgeous roast dinner. He really is good at cooking a roast, and it really made for a lovely Sunday evening when I normally get the Sunday blues really badly.



So, all caught up again. I'll probably try to do today's page this evening, but after that we'll see...

A plethora of pages...

I apologise for not blogging my pages for a few days, but as this post will prove it doesn't mean I haven't been learning something new every day. My mum and dad came up for the weekend, and I spent a lovely couple of days catching up with them after various holidays/honeymoon meant we hadn't been able to see each other since the start of August. However, I managed to craft a few pages while they were visiting and finished the rest off this evening. So I'm now totally caught up again!

First up, we have my lesson from last Thursday. It was our nephew Luca's first birthday, so we went round after work to see him and give him his present. Unfortunately, due to my appalling school timetable I teach the majority of my lessons at the end of the week, so by Thursday evening I was exhausted. A couple of glasses of wine and I was nodding off on the sofa at my sister in law's! So my lesson - don't get drunk on a school night. I just can't cope with alcohol during the week!

My page for Friday reminds me of a very important philosophy which I had started to lose sight of last year with my new job but I'm determined to keep in mind this year. I don't live to work, I work to live. Therefore, I stopped myself from marking books at 4pm and gave myself permission to go home and enjoy the weekend. I need to make a concerted effort to chill out more this year, I was so tense by the end of last week that my shoulder was totally knotted up and it took a whole weekend and a lot of Deep Heat and Nurofen to sort it out. I might have to keep looking back at this page!

My lesson for Saturday was a simple one - it's important to spend time in the company of family and good friends, as these are the best times, even when you aren't doing anything particular. Mum, Dad, my friend Corey and me spent a whole afternoon enjoying lunch and coffee at a local bar. It was so nice to chill out with them. I miss my parents terribly and I need to make an effort to get down to London and see them more often, because it makes me happy.

My lesson for Sunday was 'Try not to give into the Sunday blues'. I felt so down yesterday after my parents left as we had to go and do the food shopping, then I had to spend several hours planning lessons, it felt like a bit of a come down. I got a bit weepy, but it doesn't make you feel any better really. In the end I got my lessons planned, Ed cooked dinner and we enjoyed a bit of TV and I did some knitting. So it wasn't such a bad Sunday after all.

Finally, my page for today. When I got home and opened the front door to find Ed had cleaned the house and was making me a cup of tea, my mood lifted considerably and I felt quite cheerful. I love coming home at the end of the day. My house is my refuge during the week, once I'm in the door I hate to leave it again. I have to make sure I go out at the weekends to avoid being transformed into some kind of hermit!

Ups and Downs

I've been a teacher for more than five years now, and the first thing anybody says when I tell them what I do is 'I couldn't do that', or 'I bet that is SUCH hard work' or 'The kids must drive you mad!' And while it IS hard work sometimes, the majority of the time I really enjoy my job. You have to be pretty patient and definitely thick-skinned, but working with kids can be one of the most rewarding things you could ever do. And contrary to popular belief, most kids are not evil or uncontrollable. There are some who are very difficult to teach, and some who are downright rude, but fortunately they are in the minority.

This makes it all the more disappointing when you have a bad lesson. The kind that makes you leave the class wondering why you put yourself through it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about kids running around, throwing things and generally causing chaos. I'm talking about a kid you thought you knew and had built up a relationship and understanding with suddenly deciding to disrupt at every possible opportunity. It is VERY wearing, and leaves you feeling exhausted and a bit of a failure. So yesterday, when I had a lesson like this, I came home feeling disinclined to do anything creative. I moped around for a bit, until my hubby reminded me that these lessons are few and far between and that most of the time my lessons are well-received (or at least not actively sabotaged!).

So I set about sorting the problem out. I planned a decent lesson, I talked to their pastoral manager and I set a few detentions. And today I went once more into the breach and faced them again...

And they were a different class. We had a successful lesson. They all learnt what I wanted them to. I left work feeling a whole lot better and feeling like I WAS a decent teacher after all. I had learned from the experience. So today I set about recording it in these two pages. First up, the page for yesterday, with the words of wisdom(!) that Ed used to cheer me up:

Second, the page for today, which reminds me to pick myself up after a fall and find a way around the obstacle, rather than sulking like one of my pupils about the problem!

So, lesson learned. All's well that ends well. And I have managed to catch up with my journal again...

Taking Stock

Just a quick post today - I want to get off to bed, but I didn't want to break the run of scrapping and blogging or I'd never start again. It was very tempting - as of 10pm, I had just finished watching Who Do You Think You Are and hadn't started to scrap my lesson of the day! I doubt I'll be this determined later on in the week.

Anyway, my lesson of the day is a simple one, and one we all too often forget. I'm not a negative person as such, but I can tend to dwell on the potential difficulties of life. I have been fretting over whether we should be selling our house and moving up the property ladder, or staying put for a few years where we are happy that we can afford the bills whatever happens. Ed and I realised after a lot of discussion and investigations into mortgages and property websites that while moving up is always the 'advisable' thing to do, there is a lot to be said for being content and comfortable with what you have - there is no 'right thing to do', as long as you are happy.

So my lesson for today was to take time to appreciate what you have and how happy you are, and to avoid the pressure of what you think you should be doing. Gorgeous Sassafrass paper for this page, same format as before. Now I'm off to get some shut-eye!

Please don't vomit!

Anybody who knows me will tell you that I am NOT a hopeless romantic. I don't go all gooey at romantic films. I don't cry at weddings. I don't get upset if we don't do anything for Valentine's day. It's just not me. So I can only apologise for the unashamedly loved-up nature of this lesson - please blame the fact that I am recently married and have spent the best part of the last four weeks more or less solely in each other's company.

Ed is in a marching band and has been away in France for the weekend, blowing his trumpet and marching around French villages (as you do). So I've spent a weekend without him. I'm not normally too bad in my own company. I've spent weekends without him before, and have happily filled my time slobbing round the house, going shopping and watching DVDs that he would hate. But this time, I have seriously missed him. I actually cannot wait for him to get back this evening. So my lesson of the day had to reflect this. And to make it all the more romantic (and vomit-inducing), I phrased the lesson using the words of a Labi Siffre song, which was one of the ones we had playing at our wedding ceremony. All together now: bleeeurgh!

I thought that while I was blogging, I may as well start sharing some of the layouts that I haven't documented on here. There are quite a few, and the majority haven't had their photos taken yet. But there are a couple from the Papermaze blog that I can share here too. Today I'm sharing this one, The Ruin of the West Pier. This layout is really simple, but I actually adore it. I'm very sentimental about this pier. I've spent a lot of time in Brighton during my life. Ed calls it London by the sea, and to be fair there are an awful lot of cockney accents apparent as you walk along the seafront, mainly due to its easy accessibility to much of South London. So I have slowly watched the degradation of this pier until it has become not much more than a few struts of rotting wood emerging from the sea. I think it's really sad, but that's the history teacher in me.

The layout is using Girls Paperie, I really liked working with this range, it was new to me when I got sent it but I will keep an eye out for their stuff in the future. The little paper flags were really fun and easy to make, and just perfect for the theme of the page.

I have no idea whether I'll have time to make my page tomorrow, but I will certainly make every effort as I'm really enjoying putting this little book of life lessons together. Even though there are no photos, it'll be good to look back at a month of my life and remember what I was up to each day. And I really need to start scrapping some of my wedding and honeymoon photos too, so here's hoping my mojo really has been kickstarted by this.

A cat-based calamity

As people who have followed this blog over the last few years will know, I am a bit of a cat lover. I have three cats - Bert, Ernie and Elmo - who are now, unbelievably, four years old. Time really flies doesn't it? Anybody who owns cats will know they have their own little foibles and fancies, and behave in totally different ways. One of my cats is very motivated by his stomach, and will come into the living room to announce to the world and his wife very loudly that he is hungry and needs feeding, right now! He is nothing if not persistent. Another one likes to perch himself on the shoulder of my hubby like a rather heavy parrot, if only Ed's back could take it.

But Elmo, the baby, is a total housecat. She only ever wanders as far as the garden, and is often to be found on the kitchen windowsill catching some rays. Which is why it was very odd when she disappeared last night. Odder still, when I got up this morning, she still wasn't around. By midday, I was getting very suspicious. I took a wander down the garden, she wasn't anywhere to be seen, so I thought I'd get the washing out of the tumble dryer which is in our garage at the end of the garden. I opened the door to be met with plaintive cries, and Elmo appeared, absolutely covered in cobwebs and thoroughly traumatised by her night of accidental imprisonment!

After phoning hubby to berate him for not checking the garage before he locked it last night, I set about spoiling her all day to make up for her ordeal, but not before picking all the cobwebs out of her fur. Here she is enjoying a bit of a fuss on the sofa. I think she has just about gotten over it all now.

So my lesson for the day was an obvious one: Don't lock the cat in the garage! I also got to make use of some of my gorgeous cat stamps, which are from a set by Inkadinkadoo - I bet they would make lovely images for cards too.

I've had a pretty lazy day today, though I did manage to fit in cleaning the bathroom. Sometimes you need a total chill out day. Tomorrow I'll have to make up for it though by doing all my lesson planning for the week - great fun. I'll make sure I fit in a page for this book though - four days and still going strong!