This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...looking after this little piggy:
Yup, Emily is the first of our household to succumb to the dreaded swine flu. Doesn't exactly look ill does she?! But she has all the symptoms and is just doing what kids do and getting on with it. She was much worse yesterday, today we seem to have her fever under control and she's downstairs playing, though she won't eat and has a horrible hacking cough. I'm hoping though that she's got away with the mild dose and will be right as rain in a couple of days. She's got all week off school, you have to stay isolated while you're on the tamiflu, but hopefully she'll be fine by the weekend.

I really hope she is (and none of the rest of us catch it) as we have Rob's family reunion on Saturday: posh hotel, lovely meal and me and my SIL Zo staying up till the wee hours putting the world to rights over whatever we can get from behind the bar! Fingers crossed we make it as we couldn't go last year due to illness (but that's tomorrow's blog post!).

Other things this week: I am oh so close to finishing my last assignment. In fact just come online to make the last few edits then just need a bibliography and Rob to read through it, then work out how I get it to the post office when Emily's confined to the house!

This afternoon I have a job interview. It's at a school I had an interview at back in May but I was pipped to the post by someone with more experience. Anyway, another position has come up so they gave me a ring! Fingers crossed!

Just want to send some hugs out as well.

Firstly to my friend Gilly who is having her heart valve replacement op today. Well hopefully she is, they've cancelled it countless times recently. Obviously I know all to well the feelings you get just before an op and what it's like to recover. Gilly, I'm thinking of you all day and will be in asap to stop you terrorising those young doctors! :P

Also a quick hug to my BIL Dave who lost his Gran on Saturday. Hope you're OK big bro. x

Right, assignment time, wish me luck!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

... doing pretty much exactly what I did last week!

Still on with the assignment but it's coming together. Have written the main body of the text so am just going through and adding more references. Then I need to write an intro and a conclusion, then it's proof reading, bibliographies, finding some poor sod to read it through for me (Rob, you know it's you!).

I will also be carrying on with the job applications, though it seems pretty fruitless. They just don't believe that when you've got a degree you want to go work as a TA for tuppence ha'penny an hour! But, I will keep trying. Tomorrow I'm going to a meeting to see about applying for a Primary GTP (Graduate Teacher programme) next September. It's where you do teacher training but on the job. It's very competitive but you don't know if you don't try right?!

On Saturday we have a wedding to go to, Rob's friend from work Rose. I also know Rose as she's a fellow heart patient so we've talked quite a bit. It was supposed to be an 'all day drinking, staying in a hotel' job as we're going with our friends Mandy and Nick. However, after yesterday's hangover (drinking with Gem's best mate Adele; should have known our Gem only has friends who can attempt to keep up with her and Dave!), I've decided a hangover 2 days before the biggest assignment of my life has to be posted off probably ain't such a good idea! So it's a 'save £50 on a hotel and drive' do now!

On Sunday, I have plans for this:

With the Autumn cooler weather coming in fast now, I decided to make Sundays 'Harry Potter Sundays' where we spend the with curtains drawn, get the blanket out and veg infront of a Harry Potter film. We started yesterday on film 1 and so have another 4 weeks until we're done (unless number 6 comes out on dvd before then) then I will change it to something like Toy Story Sunday. Was going to go for LOTR Sundays but the chances of either of my kids sitting through 4 hours of Orcs isn't too promising!

So there you go, hopefully a queitish week. Hope everyone else has a lovely week!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...forgetting to post this on a Monday it would seem!

Still on with the assignment this week, coupled with filling in these:
Piles of job applications for positions I probably won't even get an interview for, but you don't know if you don't try.

Then more job hunting, more essaying and hopefully a bit of time playing with Xander's new toys!

Must fly, dullness awaits!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...getting stuck into this:
The deadline for the examinable and last assignment of my degree is due at the beginning of Oct and so I have reserach and analysis galore to do this week. I need a good mark to secure a 2:1 so need to throw everything I've got at this one!

However, the big news for this week is that this little fella turns a great big grown up 3!


So, party preparations need finalising, presents need to built and wrapped and I need to get this head on...

...and make the requested 'car park' birthday cake (yes, my son wants a car park for a cake!).

Xander's very excited, he keeps saying "birthday...party...presents!" and running round like a giddy kipper!

However, for now it's on with the assignment before I start worrying about icing and food colourings!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...learning new stuff!

Definately going to be a big learning curve for me this week. First of all, I've signed up to this Shimelle class. First time I've ever done one of her classes, a September isn't exactly the quietest month to take on a project, but it seemed relevant for all the happenings this month and I thought it would be good to journal them. Marie and I had a cybercrop on Friday night and made our journal covers:

And I got 30 pages made up ready (complete with white-washed novel pages, sent in the lovely Shimelle kit); 30 pages takes a long timr to white-wash believe me!

The main new thing I'll be learning this week is how to be a working girl again. On Wednesday I start my new job as Maths Learning Mentor in high school. Not only do I have to remember how to work full-time (it's been 4 years!) but also how to teach high school kids and relearn Maths as I'm sure it's different to 20 years ago when I was at school! Add to that the joyous task of dealing with 1100 hormonal teenagers on a daily basis; it's gonna be a big old curve!

As for the rest of the week, I've no idea! I seem to be unable to see more than a couple of days in the future at the moment. May be a good thing, not sure how much more will squish in this head of mine!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...going to visit this fella:

Later this week, the Garlics will be decamping to Paris and namely Disneyland! Why I chose to spend a few days with even more excitable kids is beyond me, but down south we will be heading!

We've never driven to France before, especially not with the munchkins, so we'll be breaking up the journey with a few visits. On the way down we're stopping off to visit Rob's Grandad for some lunch. Will be lovely to see him and spend a few hours with him. Then on the way back we will be stopping in London to see Zoe. Not seen her since my birthday so will be good to catch up. We're also hoping to catch up with Marc and Lauren (who are down south waiting for work visas to come through) while we're in the area.

Also assignment time yet again (think it may have to come to Disney with me). Good news is though that all the coursework is now done, phew! This next assignment is quite a bog standard one but then I have a massive end of course assignmnet to do before I finish.

Still on with the same book (UKS mini books kept me from reading quite a lot last week!) but hoping to finish that and re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now I've seen the Half Blood Prince it seems like a good time to re-read the last book, read it in a bit of a hurry last time so will be good to take my time over it.

Still mini books this week, plus am in the middle of making some dolls for birthday pressies.

Oh, and I suppose I should pack....

Watch this space for 300+ pictures of the munchkins chasing Disney characters, pen and autograph book in hand!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

...sat here (hopefully!).


I got the grand total of 45 minutes sat here last night. I was hoping for longer by watching Sunday night TV on the pooter (2 hours of House AND scrapbooking? Bliss!), but Sky obviously think that £25 a month subscription isn't enough so wanted me to pay! Er, nope! So I decamped to the sofa and scrapped there. Can't show what I was doing as their Xmas gifts (yup, I said the 'X' word again!) but here's a sneak peak:

That's all you're getting!

Anyway, this week there is a minibook challenge over at UKS. Every day there's new mini book project to do. I doubt I can get them all completed but if I can get the basic books made that would be good! There were some taster classes last week and I made this to send to Lauren:

It's called a circular squash book and opens out to this:

So, last week's TWIWBM was to finish Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer, which I did last night. The original deadline was Friday but with assignments etc, that didn't happen. However it was finished in the week so a success me thinks! This week I'm reading A Bit of Earth by Rebecca Smith, which is a bit of a shorter book than last week's!

There's still plenty of uni work this week but the pressure's off a bit after my assignment result. And of course belly dancing (which I checked off last week's list). No play dates (thank goodness!) but lots of rain so joyous days in with the kids instead!

At the weekend we're heading off to see Ally, Steve and Elise who we haven't seen for ages, then maybe a trip to The Deep on Sunday (which we didn't do last week due to a case of 'can't be ar*ed'!).

I did check off the crop on Saturday, here's what got done. The first LO was for the UKS monthly challenge where the subject was 'Last':

I stole, er I mean lifted, an idea I'd seen over at Marie's blog to make this 3D effect:

I then did the UKS weekly challenge from UKS which was to use a travel theme, purple and ribbon. This picture from Antigua was perfect for it:

Right, so I suppose I'd better crack on with my list, watch this space!

This Week I Will Be Mainly...

A new little featurette for a Monday blog post. In an aim to be super organised and look to the future, I'm going to be setting myself little goals every week to try and help me cram it all in!

So, first up is this week, my goal is to get this finished:

I'm halfway through the last in the Twilight series and I'm so excited. It's at that stage where anything could happen! I'm also on a bit of a deadline as I borrowed the books from Marie, who I'm seeing on Friday, and would like to give her them all back (Marie can read a book in an hour so I'm sure she is not quite sure why it's taken me since May!).

Also this week I will be having another shot at this:

We have a new recruit too so hopefully I won't feel so uncoordinated on my own!

This week I also have a super top secret crafty project to finish. Started it last night and so looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

This week I am also hoping to at least make a dent in the jeans quilt (that was started, ahem, at Xmas!).

This week we also have playdates with Mandy and the girls, then on Friday this motley-looking crue (there's the rock chick coming out!) are getting together:

However, as it's been 2 1/2 years since we've all been together, there is now the addition of this little miss:

3 mums, 7 kids? The odds ain't looking good for any form of sanity to be left by the weekend! Luckily I have a day of scrapping on Saturday to ease my frayed nerves!

And if that isn't enough, I'm debating a little trip to The Deep on Sunday! Sitting down? Sleeping? Over-rated if you ask me! ;)