That's a Wrap

Reflecting that many bloggers out there do a wrap up post at the end of the year, neatly cataloging all their makes, or highs and lows to look back on in the future, I lamented to Steve that I can't do that since I've got so many things that I've made in the last six weeks that are as yet, un-blogged, my list would be pretty incomplete, or at least not a good reflection on the year. I guess people who blog for work can be a little more planned about things and maybe they are working in advance, but not so much with me. Even though I've been at the blogging for nearly 20 years now....

Anyway, in lieu of a "Here are all the things I made in 2024" I thought I'd do a little wrap up post with the fun things that have happened in the last six weeks that have helped the year speed to it's ending. Things that are just small and fun but special to us and I'll want to remember. 

The girls made boats. 

With an eleven week term to finish the year, the teachers at the girls school got creative and ran a bunch of activities to make the final week interesting and fun. One of these was a boat race across the school pool. Students were invited to make their own boat and it had to carry a ping pong ball across the eight metre pool. Both Sophie and Rachel were interested so we got into it. 

Inspired by the Pop-Pop Boat in Ponyo, they investigated different engines. Rachel made her boiler from a beer can and straws which was powered by steam when the heat from the candle did it's job. Sophie tried a variety of different designs - variations on the same theme - the most complex of which was bending copper pipes to be the boiler. Unfortunately her boat couldn't take the weight of the pipes and we had to try again. 

There was so much trial and error in both the boats. Loads of fixing one thing to have something new break. Sophie's especially which went from wood, to two layers of wood, to wood with balloons (supporting the weight of the pipes), and then to a variety of different milk bottle designs (when the balloons caused too much drag and we needed to nix the pipes in favour of a more compact boiler). After we finally gave in with the boiler, we switched to fan powered and Sophie did all the wiring to make the fan work from a 9V battery, including a switch in the circuitry. Thanks to girl guides for teaching her how to do most of that! 

Rachel, testing the Carmelita 3 in our neighbour's pool.

In the end we learnt a lot and had two functioning boats to launch in the pool on race day. Neither won, (or even made it all the way across the pool), but neither did they sink, so we still counted it a victory. The boats were named after we finished reading and watching the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events,  the Carmelita 3 (Rachel's boat), Beatrice 2 (Sophie's pipe boat) and The Persistence (Sophie's final fan boat). 

Sophie has been given the leadership role of Library Captain for 2025 at school. We are pretty proud of our girl, and think the role suits her to a T. Both girls actually signed up as Library Helpers this year and were very serious about turning up for their "shifts". In the last week of school when the kids were loitering around classrooms getting given jobs by teachers, both girls were requested at the library to help catalogue the new home readers. Hilarious. 

I came to school in my staff week to find this little beauty on my classroom door. I rescued him, took this selfie and he promptly jumped on my head. Managed to get him into a nearby garden to hopefully live out a full and happy life; it honestly made my day. 

Even when my school year wrapped up (a week earlier than the girls), I wasn't resting. Typically, I volunteered to help coordinate the Community Carols event hosted by the girls' school. It was a lot of work, easily twice the size of last year, but it made my heart oh so full to see the churches of the area coming together to celebrate Christmas and serve the community. 

After that, I spent the week packing things up and sorting things out and then Steve and I went off to Bundy for a quick one night (the girls started their holidays with sleepovers at grandparents) to celebrate Steve's sister's 30th. 

I got to make the cake. Which was a lot of fun. 

We had thought we were going to miss our Street Christmas Party (being in Bundy) but the Saturday night in Brisbane was so rainy they ended up postponing until the next day. Hooray! Steve and I could make it after all. The girls had made oreo truffles and my contribution to the food was this mango and avo sushi platter. 

Mango sushi - so delicious! 

Speaking of food, the following Saturday my family got together to celebrate what would have been my Pa-Pou's 100th birthday but also, 100 years of the Greek Faros Family in Australia. We all made greek food and had a lovely evening together. I contributed this bread which was just delicious. 

It was really lovely to be together sharing food and memories. I heard a language teacher recently mention that they feel bi-cultural, and I think I often feel that way. Growing up in Australia but with a strong connection to our Greek heritage. It's even more confused now with how influenced we are by my Japanese experiences, but I think it's something to embrace. What is God's vision of the future if not a city where every nation and every tongue is represented?  

Steve has continued sweating it out at Jiu-Jitsu each week, despite some injuries this year to level up to his purple belt. It's been over four years of training and he still loves it. Sophie had a six month break but has decided to give it another shot and now we can't keep her away - even in the heat of summer. 

Both girls helped to paint some Christmas decos for Church this year and Rachel is pretty proud of her little cow in the nativity scene. 

I have sewn so much - lots of presents and then just lots of little things. Actually looking forward to cataloging those as well (it kind gives January an easy start having all these things made and ready to blog about :P), just have to find the time. 

I'll finish this post of somewhat random collection of things with what I consider to be the Quote of the Year from Rachel. Last week, the girls had come with me to grab some groceries and we drove past school. I mentioned that the playground was dismantled (the P&C are funding a new one next year). Rachel says: "Oh that playground. I didn't play there much because it was always infested with children."

Organised School Painting: Ninja Skills

Organised as I am, I finished this school year by preparing for an activity that's happening in March 2025. Since I've taken over as Japanese teacher, I've run a full day of "Cultural Festival" activities, otherwise known as the 文化祭 (bunkasai). It's a pretty huge day, with all students from years one to six participating in 12 round robin activities. When I ran it earlier in 2024, we had a group of Japanese students visiting, so there was a mix of Australian and Japanese culture. Next year is all Japanese activities. 

I was inspired by another Japanese teacher to have a ninja-skills station and needed some resources to make it work. Luckily I had a bit of budget left this year and the school groundsman was willing to help me get what I needed from Bunnings. Largish pieces of MDF, a bunch of extra pine beams, some hinges and screws were the main part and then of course - some paint! 

Even more amazing than being this organised was that when the kids finished school and the staff week rolled around, I was ahead on my paperwork and had the time to spend getting this done at school in office hours. One of the groundsmen also helped me out by cutting these big circular holes in MDF. 

These ones are for the kids to throw bean bags through the holes. They will have support beams on the back to hold them up on the oval. I was pretty stoked with my ninja - especially the green one who looks very invisible from the right angle. (Notice that pink goes good with green? If you know, you know.)

My other two boards have yet to be finished - I need to add dowels to the balloons in the Pikachu one for the kids to throw quoits at. Poor Pikachu is a little fat in the face, but I think he does an alright job of being iconic and recognisable. 

I knew I'd be going for an "up in the air" theme with the Pokemon boards, so I quizzed a bunch of grade five kids in the last week of school to get ideas for who else I could put in the air with Pikachu. "Dragonite", "Charizard!", "Areodactyel".... The replies were enthusiastic but also way too tricky for me to paint. 

So I went with Butterfree, who is chasing away a Charizard through the clouds. I'll add dowels to the clouds on this board. Not too bad for ten hours of work if I do say so myself. And I got to listen to podcasts and loud music while I did it. Now to keep going with my tedama production and another activity so I'm ready when March rolls around. Teacher life! 

Onigirazu Bento

Some days I'm still nailing the girls lunches. 

PJs for Sophie

My oldest daughter has spent much of this year growing; mostly upwards. She's nearly as tall as me (though that's not too hard). I'm noticing her long lanky legs more and more as her shorts seem to get shorter and shorter. She was dancing around the house one day in PJs when I realised something had to be done. New PJs were needed. 

I traced the general shape of the ones she most frequently wore, added length to both the top and bottom, and then got to work. Sophie picked out two fabrics from my stash that I only had small amounts of and was happy to donate to the cause. The first, a green with little white floral designs, was just enough to get a pair of shorts from. I even pieced the waistband to get it out. 

Not great lighting - cutting these out at night time.

It was a good trial run, and though Sophie thinks they are perfect, I think they have a little too much flair, so I took out some at the sides for the next round. 

Colour is closer to the top pic in real life, but oh so cute!

Second fabric choice was this lovely mustard-yellow floral which I had just enough to get the shorts and a top out of for her. And I mean just enough. Originally I asked her if I could leave the sleeves off to give myself a bit more wiggle room, but Sophie said that sleeves were very important. 

Another dodgy night time photo. The top right is where I cut the other sleeve,  and the small half circle in between the main pieces on the left along with the little bit at the bottom was where I got the waist band. Talk about efficiency! 

So I pieced bits together to make two sleeves and again used all the scrap bits I could to get a waist band out. It was really satisfying to turn all the off cut bits that would usually go straight to my "small enough for quilts" box, into actually usable parts of the garment. The second pair of shorts are much less flouncy but still fit great. 

For the top, I used the pattern from my own PJs, just did some shortening (though not much, that was more because I didn't have heaps of fabric!), and then cut it without seam allowance added on. It worked out ok, even without the collar (absolutely no spare fabric for that lying around!), but I noticed it falls strangely, so I think the shoulder slope must be off somehow. I just bound the neckline with a tiny scrap of the gold mustard fabric I had left from making my sister's classy bunting in August. Colour matched perfectly. 

Anyway, I did intend to add buttons to the front, but when Sophie tried it on, she could get it on and off without, so I just ended up sewing the front closed instead. Lazy? Maybe. But I did just make two sets of PJs in less than a week, so I can't be that lazy.