Currently... 13.02.22

It's Sunday morning, a few weeks into the school year. We are having glorious weather, though today might be a bit hot as the high is 34 degrees. I'm feeling tired; Ollie visited us a few times in the night. Our days of sleepless nights are mainly a thing of the past, but of course every once in a while one of the kids has a restless night. I'm thankful that it doesn't happen often! 

We've had a good, if busy, start to the school year. Ella is now in Grade 1, and what a difference between this year and last year. When I used to drop her off at the before school care program, I would have to stay with her for the first 5 or 10 minutes, helping her make breakfast and getting her settled in. Then she would stand at the window and wave at me while I walked away, staying until she couldn't see me any longer. This year, on her first day, she just waved bye and confidently walked into the school, before turning back for a quick hug as an afterthought. I still get a big hug every day, but drop off is a much more efficient affair this year!

Ollie has started 3 year old kinder, as preschool is called here. It is run through his daycare, so no big change for Ollie, but he is in a separate class with the 3-5 year olds from 8:30am - 4:30pm. Last week he told us about Chinese New Year and dragon dances, this week it's been all about pizza shops. A bit random, but as the kinder teacher explained to us at an information evening last week, they make loose plans for topics to introduce the children to, but they follow the children's interests and will go off course if need be. So pizza shops it was this week. 

Andy started at a new school this year, a large independent all boys school in Melbourne. The best part about it: it's only 5km from our house. Last year Andy was commuting for about half an hour each way, driving on toll routes and having to make sure we left by 7:15am in the morning so he could beat traffic and not be late for school. This year our mornings are already much less stressful. We can leave later and as we both work within 5km of our house, traffic is not such an issue anymore. Andy is really enjoying his new school so far, and after quite a few years of disruption for him work-wise, I think he feels like he's found a school he can settle in to for the long term.

I am back at my old school, the same place I've always worked in Australia. I'm still Head of Maths, but this year I've taken on an additional role, which is overseeing "Academic Extension" across all four of our campuses, from Prep - Year 12. It's a new role in the school, and I've been given the year to do some research and planning into a program for our high achievers. It's really exciting to be doing something new and outside of my comfort zone. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with taking on something I know very little about, but then I saw this Richard Branson quote:

And I thought "Yes! That's what I'm doing!" and felt much better about not knowing how to do my new job perfectly yet.

So that's an update of where we are all at, just over one year into our move back to Australia. 

Here's what else I've been up to currently...

Reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. I'm trying to read one non-fiction book a month, and this was the January pick. It's really good! I'm not quite finished, but the book explains a lot about the psychology of habits, how to break bad ones and how to start new good ones. 

The last fiction book I read was How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue, which is about a (fictional) African village who's land has been poisoned over many years by an American oil company. I wanted to love this book, and I did enjoy reading it for the most part, but for some reason it was just a bit unsatisfying. The story was told from different points of view, and one point of view was "The Children", a group of children a similar age in the village. I found that when reading these chapters I felt really disconnected from the story, as opposed to when it was just from one person's point of view, so that might be part of the reason I didn't love it. A friend of mine gave me Mbue's first book, Behold the Dreamers, which she says is much better, so I’ve added it to my (very long) “to read” list. 

Watching we just finished the first part of season 4 of Ozark. What a show, I love Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, and Julia Garner as Ruth Langmore is just superb. Definitely a bit of a stressful show before bed - when I'm looking for something lighter I turn to And Just Like That, the Sex and the City reboot. I was obsessed with SATC in university and I am enjoying the new series. It's gotten some criticism, and sure, there are some cringy bits, but if you want a bit of escapism this show fits the bill!

Listening to I always turn to Armchair Expert when I have a chance to listen to a podcast. The most recent episode I listened to was with Bradley Cooper. Him and Dax Shepard have a bromance that goes way back, and listening to their very authentic sounding friendship was delightful. They are both very vulnerable and reflective and the interview was not what I was expecting at all, in a very good way! I also loved their interview with Ed Sheeran, he just seems like the coolest but most down to earth person ever, that you'd love to be friends with. (Side note: Ella loves Ed Sheeran. She's getting really into his music and requests songs in the car. How fun is it when your children start getting into real music!)

I also just started The Trojan Horse Affair, which is a Serial/This American Life produced podcast, and it is super interesting. It's about an anonymous letter received in 2014 by a city council member in Birmingham, England, about an Islamic plot to infiltrate schools. The letter created a national panic, many people were investigated and had to leave education, policies were changed... and no one knows who wrote the letter. In fact, many people believe it was a hoax. So who wrote it? A British Muslim journalism student teams up with Brian Reed (of the S Town podcast) to try and find out, but many people in power do not want to answer their questions. It's very intriguing. 

Eating lots of veg, due to our our veg box delivery from Farmer's Pick. Every week we get a huge 10kg box of seasonal fruit and veg. They promise to include at least 14 different varieties, and so far I've been blown away with what we've received.

Cooking some new recipes, based on what we get from Farmer's Pick. Last week I made beetroot falafal, which I had in this Mediterranean Bowl, which was so yummy. I also made this cauliflower pumpkin salad with quinoa and feta, another winner. 

Playing Wordle, like everyone else in the world. How nice is it to have a game that limits you to one play per day, so you can't get addicted? It's a shame the NY Times bought it, I'm sure it won't be the same (or free) soon.

Deleting all the apps on my phone that you can scroll. Well almost all. Facebook and Instagram are gone (though I can't quite bring myself to actually delete my accounts), and I'm so old that I don't actually have other social media apps like Snapchat or Tik Tok. I've also deleted real estate apps, as we are not looking to move, and browsing through them just gives me house envy. I've deleted all shopping apps, if I really need to order something I will go on their website on my laptop. The only apps I've kept that make me look at my phone are YouTube (I do all my yoga on there!) and a few news apps, like The Guardian, ABC News, Atlantic and NY Times. But I usually just have these for any interesting long form articles I come across. I'd love to read in print instead, but it's just not practical (or possible in the case of the overseas news outlets) for me to do this. Anyway, it's definitely decreased my phone usage... I still have that urge to pick it up and scroll, but usually I just put it back down once I remember that there is nothing mindless for me to do!

Loving the family photos we recently had done at Verve Portrait Studios last month. Here is my favourite picture of the kids, which I cannot stop looking at!

Dreading Year 7 camp, which I leave for tomorrow. Four nights of camp, two of which are in tents. The camp itself is not so bad, it's more the sleeping arrangements that I hate: bunk beds with other female staff or a tent... basically it's going to be a week of terrible sleep!