It's nice to have time

I had my hair cut on Thursday, I was LONG over-due for a hair cut. It'd been 8 months since my last cut and I even resorted to trimming an inch of split ends off before camp - I was desperate and had no time to get it cut*. I went in thinking I would chop it all off into a bob (as normal), my hair dresser (who never agrees with my suggestions, but is normally right) convinced me to keep it long. He was right, again, he did a great job as usual. What do you think?

While trying to get a photo of my new hair cut, there were a few out-takes. Enjoy :-)

*too busy at work, barely anytime to eat and sleep let alone get hair cut - remember?

I fear I'm becoming a Londoner...

...before you panic, no not a fully fledged London yuppie, but too much of a Londoner. This weekend, I've come up to the midlands (where I lived prior to London) and the 'Londoner' changes have been in my face obvious. Evidence 1: I stayed with a friend one night and was astounded by the fact that you could go outside and hear nothing - there was no noise: no road traffic, no drunk people shouting down the road, no neighbours (it was a house, not a flat with thin walls), no sirens, there was just silence and nature. Evidence 2: (Same friend's house) I could not get over how big the place was - it just kept going and going. It's a decent sized house, but I was amazed. (I put this down to the fact that I basically live in one room (my lounge / dinner / kitchen) and this house was 5 bedrooms, with several reception rooms.) Evidence 3: Yesterday I went out with a friend and when buying us a couple of drinks was shocked at how cheap they were - half the price (at least) to what I'm used to. Evidence 4: I went to the movies with a couple of friends last night and the parking cost £1.50 for (around 2 1/2 hours) - £1.50? seriously?! I can barely park for a half-hour at that price!!! Evidence 5: I can park my car for free without fear of a parking ticket most places I go, but yet I still look for parking signs to tell me how much time I have and how much I have to pay. The evidence just keeps building. Oh dear. I think I need to leave London soon before I become a yuppie.
So.... I've come to the midlands this weekend (as stated above) on Thursday.

Thursday
I hate driving out of London. I hate being stuck in traffic. But I power through this hatred. And keep motoring (pun intended). When I left London the sun was shining brightly and it was wonderfully warm weather. The further north I got (keep in mind I only went 135 miles north), the worse the weather got. In fact there was a point the traffic slowed from 80-90 mph to about 40 mph because the visibility was so poor. I of course had to take a picture for you.

See how dark it is?! This is around 12 noon.

This picture is solely for my mother. My lunch on the journey north. I thought she's be impressed that I made a sandwich that was mostly green. This is her kind of sandwich.

I had my hair cut and my eyebrows re-shaped (they were getting a bit out of control again).

And stopped that night with a friend who was at their parent's house dog sitting one of the cutest dogs ever! Holly is a very energetic dog with lots and lots of hair. That night I decided she might like to see, so I pinned her hair back. If I had a pink bow, I probably would have put it on her, I'm sure Holly's glad I didn't have a pink bow

Friday I went to a Tapas restaurant with Nick and James and stuffed myself. I left with food all down my shirt and on my trousers - grrr. I guess I need to re-take the "how to eat with a knife and fork" class.

There was a pesky wasp that thought our food was lovely too. As I'm allergic to wasps / bees / flying things that have a nasty stinger thing, I kept jumping out of my seat and running away. The sun also decided to come out and shine in James's face. He tried out my stylish sun glasses. Nick commented that he looked like Elliott Gould from Oceans 13. What do you reckon?

After lunch I had an hour or so before meeting up for a drink with my old boss and friend Shirley. Shirley managed to get away without me snapping a photo - how'd that happen??!

Then I headed to Susan* and Ashley's house. We ended up getting a Chinese take away and going to watch Hancock at the cinema. Handcock wasn't what I expected of a Will Smith movie. It was ok and had some good parts. The filmotography (which I'm sure isn't a word) was hard to follow - a bit like watching Cloverfield - camera angels everywhere.

And that brings us to Saturday
Saturday morning was a lazy start. I headed over to Castle Donnington (the village I moved to London from) and visited with the family that now lives in my old house. They're soon to be moving from the house and are finding it a sad thing too. I'm telling you - it's a great house!!!

Then I headed to Heanor (30-40 minutes north of Castle Donnington) to visit with Ken. Ken's been and out of hospital having surgeries on his ankle. His last surgery was only a few weeks ago so he was being very good and staying off his leg. (I tried to entice him out of the house for some fresh air, but he resisted.)
John was there when I arrived, soon followed by Patty.* They had arrived back home late Friday night from a wedding in Portugal. Here's John and Patty showing Ken some wedding photos.

I left Ken's for Ilkeston (15-20 minutes away) to have dinner with Patty and John and a good natter. I ended up staying there till after 10 and then headed to Susan & Ashley's for the night. (They only live around the corner.) Susan was out with some friends Saturday night and Ashley was watching a film when I got back, so I joined him. Somehow we ended up playing with the cameras on our phones. I have no excuse. It was late. It was funny at the time.

Sunday morning was church. I went to my old congregation in Stapleford (15 minutes from Ilkeston). I was tickled by the adults doing actions to children's songs. It seems that each week the adults are being taught children's songs, complete with the actions. Here we're doing "I'm all wrapped up, tied up tangled up in Jesus". After church I was meant to head to Lincoln, about an hour and a half north of church and spend the afternoon with a friend, but the friend was poorly. Poo! Luckily I was invited out to lunch with Simon, Pam and their 2 little girls (who aren't so little anymore). It was good to catch up with their family as it'd been soo long since I'd last been able to spend any time with them.

After lunch I headed home. Through the traffic. Boredom. But got home at a reasonable hour (something like 6pm), and decided to work off the Chinese I had for lunch and do an exercise video. Now that was just plain silly on my part! And I suffered for the next few days :-\

*For those who don't know, here's the brief summary. When I came to England a family sort of adopted me, meaning they took me into their family like one of their own. They look after me and check up on me. They're called Patty and John - my "English" set of parents (I even brought some laundry up from London once to do at their house - true parent figures :-) I normally stay with Patty and John when I come up to the midlands. This week they were on holiday till late Friday night. Bummer. I really wanted to catch up with them as it's been so long since I was last up, but this is the only week I was able to take off work. Susan is Patty and John youngest daughter and she and her husband, Ashley, live around the corner and have kindly let me crash at their house. Clear as mud?

Am I seeing things?

One day last week as I left work there was a large bin outside that caused me to do a double take. This is what I saw as I walked by

I said to myself, "self, what is that, take a closer look. Okay, so it is a leg. Interesting."

I thought I'd share this odd-ness with you. It was obviously a manikin, or a leg of a manikin, that someone throw out. But the bigger question still looms in my head: why do we have manikins at school?

Seperated at birth?

A few months before school ended, a young unsuspecting South African came to do some temporary work as a learning support assistant (someone that helps the special needs students). Now Meghan came during the time I was over-seeing cover which meant I was seeing her regularly (as I was signing her time sheets :-)
I barely had time to sleep and pay bills, let alone socialise before school broke up, so Meghan and I decided we'd meet up in the summer holidays. And so we did. We met up for a "coffee" this afternoon (which ended up being 2 smoothies, a cup of tea, a bowl of chips and a sandwich) and had a good old natter. Then we came back to my flat and watch a good ole Rom Com, Definitely Maybe, before she headed back to hers.

This is Meghan on the couch shoving some toffee popcorn in her mouth before I took the picture. I'm sure she won't thank me for this picture :-\

Meghan watching "Definitely, Maybe"

During the course of the evening it was revealed that Meghan and I are uncannily similar. Are humour was pretty spot on the same and we enjoyed making fun of the same thing, such as the Chinese I ordered from, get this, "Wok-u-like". On the walk back to mine it was raining and my flip flops had no grip so I decided to walk home barefoot. In hind-sight, this wasn't a good idea as I got a fairly sizable bit of glass wedged in my heel. I said to Meghan that she could look at my blog* while I preformed minor surgery on my foot. She wanted to watch me extract the glass first - I would have done the same! Weird, slightly disgusting, but true.

My poor foot with the glass shard in it

You can just make out the glass on my fingertip, my camera doesn't do close-ups so well.

Anyway, I had a great evening and it was good to make friends with someone who is so similar to me ... I know I know - the world can't handle more than one Karen G...watch out world, there's 2 of us!!!!

*I had mentioned my blog to Meghan earlier in the evening and suggested it would be a good idea for her to blog while she was away from home - it's a good photo journal and a great way to share experiences with your family and friends.

Back to civilisation

Just a short post to say I'm back in a warm bed, with dry clean clothes. Oh how I love electricity and modern technology! I'm still in Northern Ireland, I fly home late Sunday night and I'm back to work on Monday.

This was probably my favourite year at Camp Shamrock. Considering I had a rather trying tent full of girls that tested me to the limits and there was a moment that I thought that it was going to be my last year, I came away loving the camp. I have some fun pictures and memories I want to share with you and post so that I can look back in future years, but you'll have to wait in suspense for now.

P.S. Some really good news: I'm relaxed, unstressed, happy and hopeful again. Thank you God! I was really down on life when I left for camp this year, so it's been more than just a great experience, it's put me back on track!

Don't say you've haven't been warned

I'm burnt out. There's no more of me left to give. I have no more energy.* All gone. I don't even have the energy to appear to be coping. If you have the misfortune of visiting me in my office this is what you are greeted with:

"Seriously? You're interrupting me? Have you seen the bags under my eyes?"

"Obviously not because you're still here. I'll make an attempt to pay attention to what you're bothering me about"

"You're still here?"

Obviously I've made up fun captions for my pretty pictures. I'd like to say that although I've lost my sanity/ will to live/ drive, I've kept my humour - this statement just isn't true. The truth is that my sarcastic and sardonic nature is still alive and kicking. No humour, just sarcasm. I'm sure my mother is so pleased.

*This might make one wonder how I'm going to survive 10 days in a field with 50 screaming, over dramatic, energetic girls. Ho hum, the things we do to ourselves.

Deep thoughts? ... don't worry, they don't happen often

Have you ever taken a look at your life:

where you are,
what you've done,
where you thought you'd be,
what you expected,
who you've become,
who you were,
what you've been through,
what you've accomplished,
what you've failed at,
what you've learned,
what you're doing with your life,
how you're filling your days,
what's important to you,
what you want to be doing,
where you want to be in the future,
and if you're "happy" with your life?

you know - that sort of looking at your life?

For reasons I won't bore you with, I've been thinking about my life recently. Ten years ago I graduated high school. Oh how different life was. My "whole life" was in front of me. How important my teenage dramas seemed to be, and how unimportant they actually were. In the last 10 years my life has taken paths that I wouldn't have even imagined when I was in high school. It makes me wonder where the next ten years will take me, but it also makes me wonder about my current lifestyle: in ten years will I look back and be happy with how I chose to spend this time or wonder what I was thinking and why I wasted so much time being stupid.

Does any of that make sense?

Happy Birthday 80s child!

My friend, Clare, had a belated surprise party thrown for her on Friday

The theme was 80s, and I took the theme and ran with it. I think my inspiration had to come from footloose. Clashing bright colours. Lots of them. Purple head band, neon yellow over sized earrings, lime green tank top / vest, fluorescent orange tube top and fingernails, hot pink trousers and toenails, and multi-coloured toe socks made into leg warmer type clothing to tie all the colours together - I'm a genius! (As a side note, it took me quite a long time to get the tangles out of my hair from the enormous amount of back combing going on there....how did people do this on a daily basis?!)

Clare and I

Clare, me and Vicki - so it's not the best portrait, but I thought it was too funny not to share

A funny antedote for you: I was on empty when I left my house, so had to stop and get petrol on the way to Clare's. Can you guess how many stares I got while filling up my car? Poor planning on my part!

Nothing's over the top for Americans!

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

This is outside my office window at work ... I my American Flag stuck up (obviously the flag and sign are the right way round looking at them - just not when you take a picture!). I have worn this shirt (and endured the mockery of it from the British) since I was around 14? So although it's 14 odd years old, I've only worn it around 14 times so it's practically new - right?

Tea Party date

On Thursday I got invited to the NQT tea party after school. It was a nice break from work and quite a few laughs were had.

Mary (guest) Clare, Kate (my invitee), and Gen (the host)

Mary had a bit of fun in the tepee Gen had in her classroom. It's fun to be young :-)

Thanks for the invite Kate!

*NQT = Newly Qualified Teacher. In England the first year of teaching, you are classed as a NQT. There is a teacher at your school who "looks after" you and helps you get through your first year. From what I've heard, Gen is a brilliant "looker afterer".

A news-worthy event

For the first time in SEVEN YEARS, I wore a dress*. (The last dress I wore was a white fluffy one with a 9 foot train!) I think I pulled it off quite well!

*I probably hadn't worn a dress for 2 years prior to my wedding and it's been at least 4 years since I wore a skirt.

Look at the time of this post, then ask...

why is Karen STILL at work?!!!

Then have sympathy for me and be thankful for your job and the hours you work. Woe is me!

Another working weekend.

It was an odd weekend, but a weekend with much accomplishement.


I had the pleasure of working from home on Friday which meant I actually got work done instead of being interrupted. I was able to get Draft 1 of the timetable out today. There's still loads of work to be done, but this is a huge milestone passed. Let's hope the head teacher approves.



On a non-timetabling front...
I got sick of the clutter in my flat so I spent several hours on Sunday clearing clutter. A flat you cleaned (or tidied) always leaves you feeling like you accomplished much. I cleared clutter partly because I was looking for something, partly because it was starting to really annoy me, and partly cause I was really tired of working and needed a break. Those who know me / have lived with me - you know how much much I was sick of working if I preferred to clean instead of work!

Emotionally this weekend was, well weird. Perhaps I can blame coincidence or hormones or the stars mis-aligning, but there was some odd stuff happening. On Friday I watched an episode of America's Got Talent and someone I used to know and worked with was on it and made it to the next round - super weird! And while clearing up I ran across all kinds of weird stuff from my past. Without going into laborious and boring details, the easiest way to describe my weekend is, well it was odd.

And interesting distraction

Today went as most days at work these days go - busy and stressful. That is until around 5:30 when I was interrupted. A colleague of mine is in the process of taking over the role of Cover Manager (in which I am SO very pleased), so she's quite often in my office arranging cover. This is no big deal and not much of a distraction, except the occasional chair crash when we move. At 5:30 one of the premises staff came in to change a light bulb that I'd been moaning about. He came complete with ladder and equipment.

So to my left there was the lady taking over cover

and to my right and directly above me, the ladder and guy changing my light bulb. This was an interesting 10 minute distraction. I litterally couldn't move.

Super Karen to Stupid Karen

If you didn't guess, my "impressed with myself" feeling has turned into a "I want to kick myself" feeling. For those of you who aren't timetablers (which I'd say would be all but 2 of my readers*) the simple explanation is that I forgot to put something in the timetable that is important and impossible to get into the timetable at this late stage. This means I have to back track and loose several, several hours if not days of work. D'oh! is putting my feelings lightly.

* If you're surprised I have more than two readers, so am I! I think the number of readers might stretch into double digits!

Super Karen Returns!

Do blog entry titles such as

161 to go

367 to go and 5 days

11 to go

32 and counting

or Timetabling
ring any bells? Does it give you a deja vous moment? Well if not, click on the links above and reminisce back a year.

This year I started timetabling very very late. 1 month late to be exact. Timetabling season is my busiest time at work. I have no social life - I live, eat and breathe the timetable until it's done.

On top of starting the timetable late this year, the head decided to give me another very busy job to do because someone left. If you have thought to yourself lately, "Karen seems very stressed / unhappy / not her normal cheery self recently" work is why. I work. That's it. I get up in the morning and come to work. I'm here most days until the premises staff kick me out. Then I go home and work. I work. No social life. No fun. Just work. And stress. I don't even have time to update my blog! That's just wrong.

I reached my breaking point on Friday and instead of going home to work, I called a friend and said "I need a friend". Thanks H for being a good friend. Saturday I woke up and started timetabling. I ended up timetabling through the night - till 7:30am Sunday morning. Crazy, I realise, but I did it. I woke up 5 hours later and timetabled till 1:30am Monday morning. I got very little sleep this weekend, but I was feeling quite impressed with myself yesterday and today at the progress I'd made over the weekend. Super Karen had returned. I rock!!!!

PS I realised a fatal flaw in my efforts and have had to back track quite considerably. I've very irritated with myself for this. My deadline's not till Friday - I can make it ... right?

No good very bad day ... again.

This is how I left work feeling

Why does time go so quickly? Where does it all go?

I blame the time piece equipment we have. A good kick to make time stop should work, no?

Failing that, I can always add more hours to the day, right?

Why did I have a bad day? Politics. and cowards. That's what it boils down to really. Some people complaining and other people not standing up for what should happen, but backing down because they are cowards. This effects my day and makes me very frustrated. Some of the people in my life are so ridiculous and petty it's just sad.

Tragedies

Just a quick post, I don't really have time to blog at the moment, but I'm neglecting my blog and I have pictures to share that I don't want to forget about. So here's my quick post for you.



Friday night after finally getting to leave work (after 7pm) I headed down to join some friends at the local. The candle in the centre of the table started to fall, not wanting it to go ALL over me I tried to stop it's fall. I did. Stop the candle falling. I did not stop the wax from splashing out all over my arm. Not as painful as I expected it to be (by the next morning I was as right as rain) but still not the most pleasant thing ever.

It kind of looked / felt like I had a cast on.

Later that night I got home, ready to crawl into my nice, comfy clean bed and was greeted by this on my pillow:

EW!!!! It's was the size of my thumb! Gross!!

I'm home

I got home safely. I had a lay over in Chicago for several hours and the plane was over booked. They asked for volunteers to take a later flight. Just as I had decided I would (as the compensation would have been a free flight to the back to the States) they told me they didn't need me anymore. I guess God knew I needed to get home and rested for work today. I've decided I don't "do flying" very well. I fell ill every time I land, I don't think I "depressurise" very well. I left Tyler (and my mom) around 11am Texas time (6pm London time) on Saturday. I made a quick trip to meet Kanyon in Dallas and then on to the airport. (Can I just say that I have no problems with coping with London traffic, but Dallas traffic I HATE! It wasn't even rush hour.) No problems getting checked in or with any of the flights. I got the window and aisle seat all to myself going from Dallas to Chicago, but the plane from Chicago to London had every seat full. Chicago to London was the first plane trip where I've been cold in the plane - that was new. Landed in London and was thankful I had a taxi booked - I was tired and not feeling well. Got home, had a nap for a couple hours (interrupted by a brief call from my mother). I went back to bed at midnight and haven't really dealt with jet lag yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm just anticipating the sleep deprivation hitting me soon like a brick wall.

I tried to post this picture in one of my posts from America, but it didn't work. This is me "blogging" in America on Thursday. Notice the overly cheesy smile - what's up with that?!

Today's been back at work as normal - hitting the ground running with not enough time in the day to get it all done. On the positive, I've had SO many people compliment the way I looked. Something was different and no one knew what. I've not lost weight, I've not had my hair done, I've not put make up on, nothing's different but I still got lots of "you're looking good today Karen" compliments. I think I figured out what was different - I'm not as stressed as I was a week ago. This trip to the States id me more good than I knew. I also needed a break more than I realised!It was good to see my family and spend time lovin on them, and it was sad to leave them. But it's SO good to be home and sleeping in my own bed!!