YeeeeeHaaaaaa!!!!!! It's official. As of 3.00pm EST today, the kids and I are on holidays. No more twice a day school run to two different bloody schools!
The festival of the end of year concerts is over:
Matthew in the middle being the world's most uncomfortable shepherd...
No more harping at the kids about homework. No more ironing and washing of fecking school uniforms. No more turkey sandwiches and interesting biological experiments in the back of the car (you know, food container escapees, that somehow manage to extricate themselves out of a sealed lunchbox, out of the school bag, and under the car seat). Wonderful experience that, opening the car door on a hot summer's Monday and getting a lungful of two day old dead yogurt. Yummy.
So, we now have until the first week of February 2009 to savour each other's company and clean up the house so we can get a cat!
At the moment, the various impending bead-lanches, book-lanches and craft crap-lanches are a threat to most life forms. To say nothing of my poor long suffering husband and the kidlets. So, the mission, clear the crap! See the floor! Regain the table for eating! GET A CAT!!
I am so lucky that the kids are still at the stage where we get along very well indeed. It's not all perfect. They tend to fight with one another - sometimes very badly - around week three to four of said holidays. But I have a cunning plan of both inviting their friends over for play dates, and hiving them off to their friends place if invited. That and the book of passes to the newly refurbished and re-opened Swimming Centre not three kilometres down the road! Yay the Lakeside Leisure Centre!
I had the festival of making something handmade for the kidlet's classmates. Why do I do this every Valentines Day, Easter and Christmas? Can't I just let go and throw chocolate and candy canes and ready made cards?
Nooooo.
I had to make 63 of these little suckers:
And then put them into these:
And then there was what to give the teachers?
Since I couldn't very well measure Matthew's teacher's wrist, I decided to make a watch on a necklace, so:
Jo, my former wirework teacher would have several fits of pink if she ever sees this. I hope she never will 8-o !!
For Mrs Brown, Matthew's beloved music teacher (and a real asset to Canberra Grammar School), I went with a bookmark:
I hope she likes it. It's much nicer in real life. Unfortunately, I can hear Michael Kors screeching, "It's pooping beads!" - I have been watching far too much Project Runway...
I know why I do it. I do it because I love it. I was reading on Ampersand Ducks blog (book artiste extraordinaire) where she was described as a 'tradition bearer'. How I love that term. Despite not being craft-centric, it so describes to me the importance of the handcrafts.
I have to make things. I need to create. What I do create I am usually fraught with thoughts like people won't like it, its not good enough, it'll fall apart etc etc. But I still make things and pass them on to unsuspecting recipients...
It's the whole hand made thing going on. If we don't share our crafts, if we don't imbue kids with a curiosity and passion for crafting, well, the world will be even more screwed than it is now. Anmpersand Duck's work is so important. We cannot lose these skills. We can't lose the tradition bearers. I am not so egotistical to consider myself good enough to be a tradition bearer, but it's still important to me.
It seemed to work well today. Matthew said that the kids really loved the bubble wands. Some of the girls said they wanted to hang them from their Christmas trees, as they were too pretty to use in bubble mix. (I thought that was very sweet). Some of the boys apparently bent them around their wrists, as they preferred them as bracelets.( I thought this was very inventive!)
The teachers seemed to like their gifties.
So all in all, I am one very happy camper tonight.
Uh Oh!! Bargain Hunt Time!
