My Journal NEVER Used to Complain!

Blogging my life story is good, because it promises to be more consistent than a private journal, due to it complaining more than a journal. I know, it's been a few weeks and most people don't call that consistent, but it was usually a lot longer in my journal when I got busy. I never got complaints in the journal though, because if anyone was reading it (Bethany?) it must have been in secret.

Anyway, if I could draw a line to represent how my life is going right now (and it turns out I can...), it would look like this:

One day I'm in heaven, the next I'm in the Pit-(*cough*), the Pit of Despair. HUGE ups and downs! For example, last week, was really, really hard. Friday was awful. I had a terrible weekend, because I spent the whole wonderful time dreading Monday morning, and wondering how I could get the world to just stop spinning so I didn't have to go to school. Sunday night I asked James to give me a Priesthood Blessing ('I'm just not coping (sob)- I'm too tiiiiired!! (weep, weep.) I don't w-want to go to scho-o-o-o-ooool (blubbering)'), which was really nice (I'm going to live) - what a wonderful blessing to have the Priesthood in our home. Anyway, Monday was terrible too, but Tuesday, Wednesday and today were perfectly wonderful. On Monday I could not think, of a single reason anyone would EVER want to be a teacher! - What a horrible, ghastly, draining profession that sucks the life and happiness out of you! Tuesday, Wednesday and today I love my job to death, and feel hugely privilaged to be a part of it! I can't imagine wanting to do anything else (in terms of vocation - not motherhood, that definitely wins!), and I love my kids to death.

I sound bi-polar.

I don't think I am! :)

It's just been a steep learning curve. On the upside, I think every week things are getting just a little bit better, and the more confident and settled I get, the more fun the kids have, and the more good learning we're getting done.

Highlights of my teaching-centered life lately:

Last week on one of the afternoons (I can't remember which...) I asked James to pick me up early at about 4pm, and I took a recipe book to school. We went to the shops after school and bought ingredients for our chosen meal, Creamy Bustard Chicken. The recipe is from 'Brenda Kitchen's On the table in 20 minutes'. It took me a LOT longer than this - an unfortunate trend with things I cook taking a lot longer than they 'should', but I'm SUCH a beginner, I don't mind, and it's a long work of love (obviously a beginner :)). To go with the chicken, we cut up sticks of zucchini, carrot and capsicum, and I bought a jar of deli-style olives with yummy oils and sundried tomatoes (yes, this dinner cost almost our usual weekly shopping budget, but we'd just gotten my first pay (yay! - another highlight! - I get taxed about a week's wages a fortnight! But Daddy tells me I'll get it all back in July, so it's like savings! :)). Put the veggies in a little cooking dish and poured the olives and accompanying juices and deli...stuff over, then put it in the oven while the chicken was cooking. And we did mashed potatoes with it too, yum! In the tradition of Tammy's friend Brecken, I'll put in the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 dessertspoon olive oil
1 dessertspoon butter
500g/1lb lean chicken breast fillets
sprinkle MASTERFOODS Lemon Pepper Seasoning
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 dessertspoon MASTERFOODS (can you tell who Brenda Kitchen's sponsor is?! :)) Wholegrain or German Mustard (Go the Wholegrain! - divine!)
2 tablespoons cream (more... :))
fresh parsley, chopped (we didn't get this, because it was at the end of our shopping list, and we decided the $1 it would have costed wouldn't have been worth going any more over budget for..)

Method:
1. Heat the butter and olive oil on medium heat in a frying pan. Add chicken, that has been coated in lemon pepper seasoning and plain flour. You can cook the chicken in strips (DO THIS! :)) or as whole breast fillets.
2. Add wholegrain or German mustard, cream and parsley to create a delicious sauce adn stir frequently. Extra light cream can be used in this recipe, if you want lots of sauce (our cream was NOT light - James forbids it, and I sort of agree :))

If you make it and it's yuck, you must have put in skinny cream, or not put on enough lemon pepper seasoning, or not added enough cream to the sauce, or done something wrong, because it's yummy! And I know this might look lame to you more experienced cookers (you'd only have to have cooked more than 10 meals (i'm including toasted cheese sandwiches and spaghetti with pre-made sauce as well as heating dim sims and meat pies...) to be more experienced...), but we loved it, and here's a photo (yup, that's a bottle of Patriti James brought me back from the wedding he went to in Sydney the other week):

It's really exciting just to be doing homemaker things :) I sewed on a button the other night and I can't tell you what a thrill it gave me!! :)

What else? It was my friend Kate's wedding on Saturday 14th Feb (I got kids books for Valentines, James is sooooo spot on! :) - I got him Monopoly the Oz version and Yhatzee... but instead of buying Yhatzee in the box for $19.95, I bought a refill Yhatzee pad for $4.99 and 5 dice at 50c each, paying $7.49 (happy, slightly scrimping sigh). I was bridesmaid and I looked, in good tradition, awful, while James looked great and sang the first dance song for them, and made me sigh happily and think 'That's my husband!' :)

We went on a date the other week (they have been less frequent due to my psycho school-ness, but we're working on it!) and I wanted to put in a picture or two, because we went up to my favourite spot in Brisbane! It's across the road from the temple. The Brisbane Temple is up on the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, on the opposite side of the river to the city. So when you're at my favourite spot, you've got the city on one side and the Temple on the other. I love Brisbane City, and I love the Temple (I love this more...) and there's a little pagola inbetween, and a little place you can go if you jump over the railing between the path and the cliff, where the cliff juts out and you can sit there. We went there after we were sealed on our wedding day, and for lots of dates before and after. I love it. I took some photos of the temple from there but they're all blurry :(

James just came home from rugby. He's traded his basetball singlet for a pair of rugby boots in the new year, with some upsides and some downsides. Upsides: no cost competition... this may be the only upside. Downsides: James has come home every training session so far, needing an ice pack on his face. I don't like it. I don't like the blood and bruises all over him. It scares me. I sound like his mother. People sustain lifelong injuries in this game, all the time, and they've been known to die. The games are not as interesting for me. In my cheerleading days, Rugby Union was not on my list of favourite boy games to cheer for. I just asked James if it's a lot longer than basketball and he said 'not really', so I guess it just isn't as interesting. Okay no it's the injuries that bother me though. If it was safer than basketball, I'd be all for it!

Anyway, I'm actually sorta sick at the moment (Heavenly Father's been helping me be well enough to go to school, I just seem to come down hard at night!) so I'm going to go eat and sleep.

Happy to be back in blogland! Hopefully I'll keep it up a bit more now that school is marginally less full on/scary.

xoxox