20 October 2014 - part 2

In the States, 'midterm' has connotations of terror and tests and far far far more stress, and everyone breaths a sigh of relief when it's over so they can go back to the normal craziness of a regular schedule.

Over here, they have it so cushy!  Instead of a week of tests in a row, teachers and kids get a week off during the 'midterm holiday' - airfare to exotic destinations triples in price, students (and teachers) catch up on sleep and real-life activities and everyone moans around the 20th October because we go back to the normal craziness of a regular schedule.

I've always loved October.

First, I loved it because I loved having my birthday at the beginning of the month - October meant presents!

Then, I distinctly remember going to the State Fair when I was about 6 years old.  It was thrilling as it was the first time I could wear jeans and a jacket *for real* because the hot weather finally broke.  October meant blessed relief.  Summer heat does not last forever.

Now, I look forward to October because the weather here is so weird!  It gets rainy and cloudy and gloomy here more often than not in May, June, July, August and the first part of September, aside from a few days of sunshine.  Then, we tend to get a wonderful Indian summer where we get at least 2, if not 3 weeks of beautiful blue skies.  The architectural lines of the city are decorated with avenues of fireworks as the leaves change dramatically.  The skies soar and you even get the lighter shimmery blue near the horizon that only happens on a really bright day.  On the west side of Edinburgh, you get the smell of the hops in the late afternoon near the brewery.  On the east side, if you're close to the shore, you may get a tang of the sea.  October air is alchemy of sunshine, decaying leaves, swirl of freshness and a smudge of an early chimney-fire.  Last week it rained all day Thursday, but after a week of sun, I didn't even mind - we huddled down with our tea together and set our fireplace to work.  I inhaled and pretended it was Christmas -very very cosy.

It will be getting even darker soon.  The clocks change this Sunday, I think.  Once you accept that the darkness will happen, it's easier to persevere!  Just make sure to set the alarm clock in the morning as the dark mornings have a way of lulling you into sleeping too long.

 I have also planted white cyclamen in the front yard - I am cheered by the effect.

It's a blurry picture, but I like the silvers and whites in my front garden.  Looks sophisticated to me as the silver is found in the purple sage, the curry plant, the lavenders and the cyclamen leaves.  I planted bacopa at the end of the summer (on clearance - woot!) and it is still spreading itself out happily,  If I lift the bulbs and keep them dry when they die in the spring/summer, the white cyclamen will come back next year.  Most people just use them as an annual though I think as they are ubiquitous at garden shops this time of year.

Last Wednesday, I totally scivved (played hooky) all day.  F went over to play at S's house and while I probably should have cracked on painting and varnishing upstairs, it was such a lovely day, I just took myself out and did only what I felt like doing!  well, after a few essential chores like taking F's prescriptions to the pharmacy.

On the Mound looking down to West End of Princes Street.

Mom's apartments in front of the castle.

After meeting Simon for lunch in Meadows (remembering our pre-parenting, pre-job dates) and popping in and out of charity shops (got a whole new autumn wardrobe refresh for about £25!), I walked back to Leith via the Scottish National Gallery.

Not allowed to take pictures in the gallery, but I visited the Impressionist rooms and saw the Trees by Cezanne and the Olive Trees by Van Goth.  I saw 4 people looking at their smart phones, including the room monitors, and I inwardly laughed at a group of seemingly highschool students who were arguing in ridiculously posh English accents about the quality of one artist or other.

This is what I saw when I left the gallery.

 This is a photo of St. Andrews' Square.






































So after playing all Wednesday in such nice weather, Thursday was a return to a more normal existence.  But I got this pretty picture of the front of our house with the completed dormers on the roof!

G had had to take the day off work, so we met up and took F and S over to Gorgie Farm in the morning.  They had a brilliant time and were sooo tired out by the excitement.

F was picking out one pellet of food at a time and carefully offering it to the animals while S was grabbing loads of food and letting the goats gobble it up all at once.

Little girl by the gates.  She's lovely.

Ride 'em cowgirl!

Because it was so cute.

And then we saw Dr. Who!

'Nak naks' as S calls them - snack, snacks.

And then we opened a box and found a tea tray!  (she wanted to wear her tutu that night too.)

Finally, a house update - tada!  We've been working really hard on the painting and we are really pleased with the way it is shaping up!

Felicity's room is pink, but a grown up enough pink for her to grow into.

Bathroom painted.  Not yet fully put together,

So much light on a sunny morning!

Hallway, no paint yet.

Another bonus October scene from the B&Q parking lot!  Such lovely colors.

Okay folks - that's a massive post.  Time for me to go to bed.

20 October 2014

I have been dreading today a little as I had to go to an inservice and they are never very fun after a week off of work.  However, as inservices go, it was not too bad.  We were learning about how to support mental and emotional health of our students which included a lot of research about early childhood development, brain function and how to communicate with someone struggling mentally/emotionally.  

I found the early childhood development part more interesting as a parent - the emphasis was on reinforcing 'resilience' in children - the ability to bounce back from adversity as shielding forever from adversity is impossible. And indicators of how to tell if particularly children have either a healthy mental/emotional state or difficulties.  

The thing I took away from the brain part was the fact that teenagers' brains are provenly different from young peoples' and adults.  They're more 'adventurous' 'risktaking' (ie., rash, reckless), more dependent on social interactions, less aware of consequences, more forgetful, more tired, for a reason.  A huge mental shift happens in teenagers where brain synapses are quite literally pruned away while pathways used more often are strengthened.  They showed a baby's brain map, the map of a 6-7 year old and the map of a 15 year old.  The baby's was blank except for a few synaptic lines, the 6-7yo was so spidery-webby you could hardly see the white background for all the black brain synapses and the 15yo had stronger lines, but remarkably less of them.

A person's brain isn't fully developed until they reach 22-25 years of age as well - good to keep in mind when dealing with the youngun's!

Communicating with someone struggling with mental and emotional stress - they suggested 5 guidelines.  If you notice an indicator of stress, just observe 'I've noticed that.....' they may not want to talk about it, but it gives them permission to bring it up with you later and it shows that you care. Next, listen without giving your own opinion or trying to fix them.  Sometimes, people don't need advice, they just need to be acknowledged and heard.  Next, ask them 'What is one thing that would make your situation better?'  It's important to ask this rather than 'How can I help?' because this question empowers the person, rather than implies they need to be fixed.  Finally, summarize just what you have heard them say and thank them for sharing their thoughts with you.  In a school situation, depending on the information learned, there is the added follow-up of if the situation needs to be referred to another person in the school for the childs' safety.

The afternoon session was about collaborative learning - how to engage all children in a group - tactics to get them to self-teach and peer-teach.  There's an opportunity for one or two people from the service to attend a 2 day conference in Stirling about collaborative learning.  I asked for details after the session as I think those general teaching strategies are amazing.  I hope they choose me to go in a way, as I could see the knowledge and experience to be really useful when giving presentations, managing any groups of people - even teaching Sunday School!

But enough of a summary of today's thinking - pictures of last week on holiday in the next post!

October 5 2014, part 2

Cafe interlude - 

We've been going out to eat a lot with the stuff happening in the flat.  Man, we're going to have some serious un-training to do when things get back to normal.  

Cafe at Dobbies

We went to a store that had a cafe on Friday.

Felicity dragged me by the hand to a sofa in the cafe and said:

MOM! I wanna eeet sum svfood ee-rah! 

Cheeky Blueberry muffin!

This is the bathtub in-situ.  (Isn't it gorgeous??)

Plaster up the staircase walls - not looking forward to sealing and painting this baby, I tell you!

Plaster in the hall upstairs.

More master bedroom plaster and door.

The plasterers are doing a great job - really smooth and reinforced corners.

OK, more pictures as I take them later!  Actually been painting the bathroom today.  Knackered now though and gotta get some sleep before the week hits!

5 October 2014

Picture update!  (Finally.)

Okay, so the building work is just a series of minor confusions and emergencies, each of which we are dealing with as we go.  Having said that, the work is visibly taking strides forward this last week - even to the point where we could start painting in the bathroom!

But here's one of the problems we encountered last week:

*wah wah wah waaaah* (descending minor 2nds)  Smashed toilet pan!  Let this be a lesson all you DIY novices - always check the return policy online before you buy!  We weren't allowed to send this back because we didn't notify them within 48 hours.  (Victorian Plumbing, if anyone is interested - don't use them!  Extremely slow customer service and snobby!)  So I found another toilet and had that sent 'post haste' (to use a Eugene-ism).

Interlude:  We did this last weekend -

Round to the swan pond on the other side of Holyrood Park.  I had had to be at a school function in the morning and we took a little picnic to the pond afterwards.  SO many pigeons as well (as usual) and Felicity was so excited.

OK, back to the house.  Have I posted pictures of the stairs?  If not, voila!  The stairs.

So, this should have been a window between the rafters, but there wasn't room for one, so they installed what's called a 'sun tunnel' instead.  Not the prettiest thing, but we'll take some natural light over no natural light any day!  And I think we'll be disguising the whole modern 'porthole' look when we find the right piece of stained glass to fit over it.

Looking up to the sun tunnel.

Plaster in the hall!  Looking down the hall from the master bedroom to the top of the stairs.

OK, so they were going to poke the sink into this bathroom canyon crevice, but we got them to change that!  The towel rail will be in the crevice instead - this is also where my bathroom cabinet was supposed to fit!

Decadent bay windowed bathroom!  (But it was the best way to get the head height to open out the room.)

You can almost see here the diagonal-crevice they closed off.  We asked them to bring the toilet into the room as opposed to being poked under the eaves!

This is going to be F's room.  Again, windows and plaster help flesh out the idea!

This is the cabinet in the landing that was made when the toilet got moved forward.  Yey for storage space!

This is looking into the master bedroom - the little room behind will be a dressing/painting/sewing/storage room.

The other side of the master bedroom. - can't wait to paint this thing!

The dressing/sewing/attic/painting room - we got them to put in a window here as well!  Woohoo!

End of chapter 1 - chapter 2 forthcoming...