It's nearly the holidays!

Last day of term. Hurray!

We're heading up to Tauranga for a few days so hopefully we'll snap lots of lovely Dom photos. Alas many of his recent antics have been too high speed for me to even grab the camera in time. Hence there are no photos of him turning the baby monitor on and pressing it to his crotch in an attempt to broadcast the sounds of his groin to the universe or giggling hysterically as the cat twitched her tail across his face whilst they were sitting together on the couch.

There are, however, these:

 

Dom loves his new plastic guitar (not quite as much as Dad's real one though).

So cute! Dom takes a brief break from rampaging by having a rest on his Dad's butt.

Goal met!

Less crazy?

Product Placement

 Dom has displayed a real affection for stealing empty bottles out of the recycling. There's nothing cuter than a toddler sucking at a bottle of Swine Brew - the offical ale of the Drunken Pig.

Visiting the park

 
 
 
 

And playing with my new camera :-)

Tough Thursday

Not promoted. Insanely busy at work. Broken sleep last night. Got to go home at lunch time and see family. Yummy tuna and cheese toasted sandwiches for lunch. Weight almost back to three months ago level (have eaten too many snacks this term, but not so many in the last week). Will probably have a chance to go for a walk to the park with Debbie and Dom between my last class and my after school meeting today! Two exams to set up/supervise tomorrow. Weekend follows. No exams next week, no seniors either. May get chance to take sick day. Holidays at the end of next week. It's traumtastic! Fanatic! Wait, that one doesn't work. Wondawful. Awfderful. Exhaulirating. Splendire.

New Blog

Debbie has started a new blog for the purpose of blogging about writing. "I shall keep this one for photos and tales of the rampaging adventures of wee Dominic. Should anything blogworthy occur in my life that relates to neither writing nor family, the walls of my world shall no doubt coming tumbling down in a tirade of angst and confusion. :-) If you want to read about my writing thoughts, processes and opinions, go here:"

Sage Fashion Advice

 Style tip for the day: Remove the '2 for $35' sticker from the front of your shirt before you go out in it.

New Blog

 I have started a new blog for the purpose of blogging about writing. I shall keep this one for photos and tales of the rampaging adventures of wee Dominic.

Should anything blogworthy occur in my life that relates to neither writing nor family, the walls of my world shall no doubt coming tumbling down in a tirade of angst and confusion. :-)

If you want to read about my writing thoughts, processes and opinions, go here:

The Event Update

 My part four is now up here.

Eat Candy Day and other news

 

So as Matt has already mentioned on his blog, neither of our cute photos of Dom eating fruit placed anywhere in the World Oral Health Day Photo Competition. Naturally, I was filled with bitter rage and indignation so I decided to declare Monday 'Eat Candy Day' and spent most of the weekend munching on sugary delicousness for practice*. Take that NZ Dental Association.

I am also investigating my new writing theory - haircuts make you more productive. After a sluggish week where my daily averages were dropping below the usual, I went out and got a Dorothy Parker-esque do. Thus far results have been promising. I churned out most of my part of the Event yesterday and got a fair portion of my current novella 'Mother of the Baskervilles' done today. Have not yet noticed an improved quality (was secretly hoping for a boost in the ascerbic wit department with said haircut) but I remain optimistic.

* Losing competitions, it turns out, is not something one becomes better at with more practice.

Father's Day and Shoes

  I got lovely, lovely presents for Father's Day this year. A cool new camera, socks (5 pairs!) and smellies. Awesome!   Oh look, some shoes.   They're a pretty good fit.   Slightly heavy, but I can lift them! PS: Debbie's part 4 of The Event is up - Wellington suffers some more...

Writing

13291 / 15000 words. 89% done! Two weeks to go, 1,709 words. Looking plausible :-)

What the duck?

 
 


Lazy cat took all of three steps towards these ducks to shoo them off before collapsing in a sunbeam :-)

Busy busy BUSY!

Have posted my Part Four of The Event. Not sure it moves things forward terribly but it was fun to write. In a horrible kind of way. Children in peril is much more traumatic to read about or see now we've got a Dom of our own. Have applied for a (small) promotion at school, will have an interview next week. Joys. Have arranged to get a new roof put on our house in the holidays. Old roof has many holes, rust and so on. Also getting new clear plastic covering for the deck. Will be watertight for a change! Sadly cost is much $. Still, that's what savings are for, right? Well, that and buying cameras and new bedroom tellies and paying the rates... Prizegiving work has started, so that's a whole bunch of time and pressure. Still, I'm on track so far which is good and it's a satisfying project to work on. Uh, looks like I'll meet my modest writing goal with the novel I'm writing this term. Will be past half way by the end of term. Will also aim to write a bunch during the holidays (another 10,000 words maybe). Have moved into my new office at school. It's a lot nicer than the crazy rabbit warren we used to have. Must photocopy exam papers for next week too. And organise a day during exams for students to come in and do catchup work. Busy busy busy!

He eats fruit!

 
 
 

And hopefully wins prizes in healthy smile contests ;-)

 
And he loooves the swing at the moment!

Look - pictures of a toddler!

Just for variety :P

Took a week off

But with some encouragement from Debbie I'm back at the keyboard.

12196 / 15000 words. 81% done!

Advantages of being an aspiring writer

On cold mornings when the power's out you can burn your rejected manuscripts. Good for about 1 minute's heat per chapter.

Ducks - they know where you live!

 Dom and I hadn't been to the park for a few days. It's been windy and he's shown a disinct preference for the joys of the playground over the joys of duck feeding (that is he turns around and runs out of the park as soon as we walk in).

The ducks, however, were not going to stand for this.

A couple of days ago I saw Dom pounding on the window and when I looked out there were a couple of ducks on our deck.

They were only a couple of feet away from our cat door (the cat, a once fierce and enthusiastic hunter, remained asleep on the bed throughout this visit).

Dom thought it was fantastic, I thought they were cute so I fed them. We then went and hung out in the backyard together with the ducks before they waddled off down the driveway.

They returned the next day and made their presence known by loudly tapping their beaks on our glass ranch slider (scaring me half to death - you don't often expect pushy ducks to be rapping on your window).

I gave into their quacky demands and fed them again but instead of loitering around the backyard and waddling off, they started sitting around on the deck.

"Dis is our home now!"

The unfortunate thing about duck squatting on your deck is that they poop everywhere. Duck poop is gross.

I must not feed the ducks again or they will never leave.

Austie would be laughed at by every cat in the neighbourhood if the entrance way to her catdoor was lined with duck poop.

New camera

I now have a new (2nd hand) camera - a Sony DSC-H2. It's pretty cool. Easy to use, good zoom (12x), aperture/shutter modes. Lots of fun. As long as the shutter button doesn't fly off randomly (a fault on the latter end of the production run aparently) it should provide hours of snappy entertainment :-)      

Tea party!

Dom got a plastic tea set from his Granny today so that meant afternoon tea party fun. (His morning play with it had been very wet and splashy so I decided to leave out the water and stick with fruit and 'make believe' tea).

 

Dominic and his pals enjoy their fruit platter.

Dom is a grape fiend. There were eight grapes on the plate and he tried to cram them all into his mouth or hands at once. Impressively he can fit two grapes in his mouth at a time and hold two or three grapes in each hand.

Panda is awesome enough that Dom gave him a grape (although it was only a green one, purple ones are too nomtastic to share, even with pandas).

Dragon had to content himself with a piece of apple.

Cowcon

On Saturday a bunch of gamers came over to our house for a day of lazy conversation, kicking beach balls around and gaming. It was a lot of fun and, though tiring, is something I'm keen to do again :-) I played in a quick game of Zombie Cinema with Luke, Margie and Steve. It's a very simple game and I like the time it takes to run - an hour long game is pretty good for my current attention span. I put a few things into my character's background that could have been quite serious - she was a middle aged woman whose husband, daughter and son had all died recently. She was trying to pick up the peices in a positive, independent way (by singing in a talent show at Coastlands mall). I figured there was a strong element of personal tragedy there which could be played against the general tragedy and horror of a zombie apocalypse. As it turned out the family angle mostly played out as bizzare and twisted, rather than tragic. Although my character's zombie daughter being hacked to pieces in front of the stage whilst Total Eclipse of the Heart blared out through the sound system and my character tried to stoically keep singing through running mascara was on the tragic end of the spectrum... In the afternoon Dom and I kicked around a beach ball with Luke and Steve, went to the park, went to the library then went for a walk with Giffy. Dom fell asleep in the pram after his busy day. Debbie played in a Scarlet Pimpernel Best Friends game with Svend, Celeste, Steve and Margie which was, from all accounts, very plot twisty indeed. I shall leave it to people who actually played the game to comment on how awesome it was, but it sure sounded good when DOm and I rampaged past between excursions. On Sunday we had a quiet day to recover which was very nice, and we picked up a 22 inch telly for the bedroom which was also very nice. A huge improvement on the 14 inch TV we'd had (what with most of the stuff we watch being widescreen, and therefore letterboxed on the old telly). Is pretty. Now - ERO in the hizzouse. Off to print out unit and year plans I go...