five on Friday


It is Five on Friday day over at Amy's, a perfect opportunity to list five completely random things that occupied my thoughts and time this week.

The Christmas Fair. This is our largest PTA fundraising event and has been long in the planning. The thought of it makes me break out in cold sweat. There are more people than I am comfortable with, particularly over exited children (including mine). There are toy stalls and book stalls, a memorabilia stall with key rings with photos of all the children, craft stalls, games, tuck shop, tombola, raffle, silent auction and of course Santa is coming, too. Santa's elf can't make it this year and Annie was roped in to take the elf's place. My role as the PTA treasurer is to check on stalls, raffle ticket sellers, Santa and all the games, collecting their monies and keep these safe. Everybody also nags me for small change. I also need to make sure that James and Alistair don't buy the toys I put towards the toy stall. In preparation, I put cash floats together and after the event, I count the money. This year I will have two lovely helpers and I must remember to put a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge! 


Working full time and children's homework. It is not compatible. Indeed, working full time and having four children is kind of incompatible. I am struggling. We pay Sam good money to look after his younger siblings and he does a good job but he tends to ignore all but the basic homework (reading and spelling). He is not so keen on the  'additional tasks'. I don't blame him. These are usually time consuming. This month it is all about the sixties because the school is celebrating their 50th anniversary in January. How many 7 and 8 year olds are interested in the sixties? I mean, really? Maybe mine are weird but they really don't care. We have to research old money, old school uniforms, make a Warhol piece of art, model a class room from the sixties using recycled materials, plan a sixties school menu, listen to sixties music and rewrite the lyrics, and generally compare then with now. I wrote a note in James homework diary saying that December wasn't exactly a great month for lots of time and labour intensive tasks. Richard said that my note should say it is never a good time for such tasks. He was so annoyed that he wrote an email to the headteacher yesterday.

Wednesday dinner. All of us except Sam were in the Byres Rd area around dinner time, me finishing work, Richard and three kids at the dentist. I got a text saying 'meet at Jack McPhee's?'. This is our favourite fish and chips restaurant and is actually called Mario's Plaice'. It is a very friendly tiny place where every now and then we indulge in the deep fried delicacies that Glasgow has to offer. I had smoked sausage (fried of course) and chips with curry sauce. It was nice. Even nicer was the fact that there was no cooking mess to clear up at home. We brought Sam a fish supper so he wouldn't feel left out.

Alistair's Birthday. It is in ten days. Birthday party invites have been sent out last week. He is going to the Scottish Mask and Puppet Theatre for a puppet work shop. There have been hardly any RSVPs. How hard can it be to type a quick text, or make a quick phone call? Maybe the invitations still fester somewhere in the school bags, maybe people don't want to commit until the last minute in case something better crops up at the last minute. I always think if people don't RVSP they are not coming but there seems to be no correlation.


Christmas decorations and other Christmas preparations: I am taking it slowly. I did buy a few lovely decorative items last weekend at the Parade Artists Christmas sale. I bought a little glass Christmas tree that is now adorning the mantle, two glass stars with colourful points and a few little glass tree ornaments. These are forlornly hanging on the corners of the hallway mirror, waiting to be placed somewhere more suitable. I am itching to make some new colourful stars for the windows but this will have to wait until next week. I only really like a hint of Christmas in the house. The exception is of course the tree, which is randomly colourful, slightly mad and always always real. I do love the smell of a fresh tree.

I made a Christmas cake. I usually make traditional Swiss Christmas cookies, too. I have shared a recipe here before. This extra special cookies are a must and I am compiling a shopping list for ingredients in my head just now. The baking will have to wait until later this month.

How has your week been? Are you all organised for the imminent festivities or are you leaving it until later? 

I noticed a trickle of new followers. Welcome to my blog, I am glad you found this place. I hope you'll come back often and that you enjoy my collection of random posts. 

Have a lovely weekend my friends! x


Comments

  1. This was indeed a colourful and busy week. Homework for primary school children, urghhhh, is all I say and totally agree that at this time of year if there is to be any homework then it should be Christmas present making or decorations or something to help out the family!!!! I am with you on this. x

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  2. I love the colourful collage at the beginning of your post. We've had the school fayre this week, one night after school. It was my first christmas fayre at this school and I was shocked how rubbish it was compared to the sort of school fayres I've experienced at my lovely old school. It's an area of "high social and economic deprivation" so attendance was poor and the donations for raffle prizes and the like were shocking!

    I hear you on the homework situation! I don't have children but working in school I've seen the amounts some schools send out and have met many parents who simply refuse to do homework! At my school, the parents won't even do ten minute reading a week, due to the types of families, but we send out basic homework - reading, spelling and something like practise counting in Xs, and also 'topic homework' in which the children are give tasks like the list you mentioned above and asked to just choose one or two to do. It gives families with the time and inclination to do all of it if they wish (as we do have a couple of good families), but takes the pressure off!

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  3. Good lord that homework sounds dreadful. Maybe you could channel the sixties by dropping out. Well done on the school fair, you're such a star organising it all along with everything else you have to do. The birthday party sounds excellent, I hope he has a lovely time, and that you all have a good weekend. CJ xx

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  4. Goodness you've had a busy week. I hear you about working full time & dealing with homework, lucky I only have the one child in school now but it's still hard. Is the puppet workshop your sons present or is it his actual party? Either way it sounds like a wonderful thing to do x

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  5. Well done you for getting so involved with the school fair along with everything else. I am so glad that I don't have to worry about children and homework these days. I am in awe of how you juggle everything and manage so well. The birthday party sounds great. It is my Grandsons birthday party tomorrow, he will be 3 and is having a Peter Pan party.

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  6. You're doing well, I though I was, but our trip to Memphis wore me out and now I'm way behind.

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  7. the homework sounds ghastly.
    I had a weird RSVP conversation with my son about next weekends party. "How many people are coming?" "don't know" "can you find out?" "why?" "so I know how much food to buy...." "buy lots, if there's any left over I'll eat it anyway............."

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  8. Brilliant comment above on channelling the sixties and dropping out :). It is even crazier in New Zealand at this time of the year, as the entire school year is finishing, so throw in major exams, end of year class events, teachers moving classrooms, end of year events at scouts/dance but then the goodie of 6-8 weeks summer hols. And Christmas too. And schools finishing all over the place - 4 in this house with end dates of Nov 10; dec 4; Dec 8 and De 15 - of course the mother finishes the last date... I hope the school comes to sense over the amount of homework at this time of the year!

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  9. I think it is hard to be a Mum and work period, I know because I am living it. I wish I had Sam over here to help, do you think he would like to move to Florida!

    Hugs,
    Meredith

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  10. I love the idea of a last minute dinner of fish and chips. Things sound busy at your house!

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  11. It sounds like totally the wrong month of the year to be researching and doing so much work about the 1960's! Surely it should all be Christmas related things during December, what about Christmas in the 60's if they really have to go there for some reason.... I am on your side, you have enough to do with the school fair and the upcoming birthday party. I hope that the other parents let you know soon who is coming! Thank you for joining Five On Friday. I hope that you have a great - and at least sometimes relaxing - weekend! xx

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  12. I love that you have code for that restaurant. Sometimes they change their names but not for everyone :) have a fab weekend

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  13. I used to be a School PTA Treasurer, waiting til the end of the fayre to collect the money, then counting all the money in piles of coins - takes ages. Good luck with all the homework, parties and Christmas things it's such a busy time of year. :-)

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  14. It all sounds a bit chaotic where you are! I remember all the homework my kids had in elementary school, and it would sometimes just take the stuffing out of us all. Some teachers would even assign huge projects over the Christmas break! So inconsiderate. Sounds like your Christmas fair was a great success. You're getting a good start on Christmas preparations too. I'm slowly getting things together that need to go out in the mail (probably last week, but it just ain't happening!). Enjoy your weekend, and I hope it's not too crazy.
    Wendy

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  15. Good luck with the school Christmas Fair. That bottle of Prosecco will be much needed I think but I'm sure everyone will have a great time. I think it's not fair at all to the children and their families to have all those extra projects and homework to do at this time. Everyone knows how busy it is during the festive season. Good on you and your husband for letting the head teacher know. Good luck too with the birthday party. Hope you get replies soon. Have a lovely weekend!

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  16. I may be a teacher but I totally agree with your view on this ridiculous school project. Last weekend my sister made two Tudor houses and a papier mache rat for her kids' homework. Madness! But feel sorry for the poor class teacher who is probably only doing what he/she is told. Christmas spirit largely absent chez nous but aiming to change that this weekend.

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  17. I am a teacher and when I was primary teaching I hated homework. I hate it now I am a parent too! But I love Christmas cake which I am going to make tomorrow, I remembered to buy oranges today because I kept forgetting last week,. Jo x

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  18. Homework is painful. After teaching all day, the last thing I want to do is pend 3 more hours helping my own kids learn. My favourite is when they think that it will only take 10 minutes so they put it off until right before bed, and then it takes an hour. Ugh. Gosh - we need the Christmas holidays to start so we can have a little break, don't we?

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  19. My weeks are still totally at work and art stuff. I have no time to do other things. Besides reading about you paying your older son for looking after the siblings make me wanna call my parents and ask, where are all my money for years watching and feeding and than helping to do home tasks and other stuff with my little sister?! I always helped them without any money paid.

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