Most in-love Aunty Eva. ;)

I am not quite sure how it got this far in my blogging life to write about this, but today's Blog is about one of my favourite people in the whole entire world. 

My Niece. She is actually the most gorgeous thing of my existence. I am obsessed. It is almost to the state of ridiculousness, but we just let that slide as I also buy her the most gorgeous outfits. Exhibit A: white polkadot raincoat above with matching headband. Matching gumboots were also bought, but she is currently too little - major inconvenience. As is the fact that she has already out-grown the matching blue top and jeans I bought her previously. *sigh* I will just have to but her more. Exhibit B; a gorgeous pink and flower ballet dress that I got for her before I knew Helen was pregnant with her. Obsessed, I told you. (don't worry, photos are to follow when I have some of her wearing it...) 

Today is her first birthday. I am flabbergasted, astonished, in a state of unbelief and so forth. I cannot get over how much of my heart she has stolen in just one year!! and nine months... ;) 

As today is sunday, we celebrated her birthday yesterday with a zoo trip and then a dinner that evening with family and a few friends. 

Disclaimer: We did take (some) photos of the actual animals at the zoo, but who wants to see photos of giraffes and zebras when you can look at the adorableness that is my niece? So, I will tell you what we were looking at and then show you a picture of my niece. hahaha, makes you feel like you were there. ;) 

Disclaimer 2: I am a horrific photographer. It has never been a skill I  possess, so I have been working very hard to improve it. Not difficult as I really could only go up. So have patience. 

Disclaimer 3: My nickname is 'Ling', 'Eva-Ling,' 'Linglet' - this will make the following pics make SO much more sense. 

Start of our adventure - the opening of the first present from
Aunty Ling: matching winter set: raincoat, headband and gumboots. 

Matching mum and daughter - my two favourite people. ever.
This was at the entrance getting excited about going to the zoo and the bizarre mosaic lizard. 

Flamingoes: she thought they looked so funny.
Had to share her amusement with her mum. 

The Tiger: kept pacing right by the window - she was honestly  a couple of centimetres from her face . Naturally not the most calming of experiences - luckily Aunty Ling was there to give cuddles.  

Lions: waiting for them to come out and eat . 

Exploring local-wildlife first hand. 

The elephants: When she is unsure of something, or is trying to figure something out, Ella Brea (pronounced Bree) will narrow her eyes and stare at it. 

Feeling special closeness to the 'Ella'-phant

                                                

Waving at the monkeys

AT the big monkeys. they were making the funniest, nosiest sound.
Needed mummy-cuddles to make everything better. How fetching cute are my girls!!  

She loves her Uncle Emil - we have a photo of him on his
first birthday on this elephant, so had to keep the tradition going.  

bahahahaha

Exploring with her daddy

She got so spoilt and was so good and was just so cute. I fall more in love with her everyday. She even tried to blow out her candle that night . 

I am so excited to see her grow up even more. and she what new words she learns. She so far has the most hilarious vocab. apart from dad, she says 'duck' and 'quack' and can put these into many everyday situations. she says 'dot' 'yessssssssssssss' and 'watchaaaaaa' thanks to Aunty Ling. she days 'done' and 'shoes' and 'socks' and 'ha-ha-ha' - complete with arm waves - of something is hot. She also says 'ha-ha-ha' when she is being a kangaroo and is hopping around. and she says my name. She learns so much every day. oh how I love her!!!!

One of those Life lessons...

I havent written in a while and so when today presented me with an opportunity of something to blog, I was rather excited. Mel (one of my fabulous cooking partners) and I decided that we would make a relatively special dinner tonight. The basic idea was fairly simple, just home-made burgers but being who we are we were going to make it impressive. The blog was going to be great. I was going to talk about how when I make dinner I make it not just for the food but for the experience; How the feeling is just as important as the ingredients.

We cut potaoes into  fries, and made with individual pockets for each person to serve them in,and had red and white checkered table-clothes to complete the look. We were even taking photos as each step






The product of meal was going to be colourful, crisp and delicious.I love cooking especially when I get to show my impressive domestic-goddess skills, and this was going to be no exception.

And then reality set in. I wont go through the painful step-by step process of what went wrong, just the finished products.

2. The chips were boiled into oblivion and
wouldn't fry or roast, so we had to mash them.
Not even kidding. horrific.

1. The patties would stick. 

3. All I managed to create was the smell of buring, have the kitchen under water and dirty nearly every dish in the house. Mel and I ate soo many burger 'patties' before dinner even started. They were absolutely delicious. Just were not, by any stretch of the imagination, aesthetically pleasing. To anyone. 


We finally managed to, after adding bread-crumbs and egg and all manner of other things in our attempt to make them stick, create a tray of burger patties. Definitely not what I was going for.







I did manage to take a pic of the few fries that werent mush, and create a burger that wasn't falling apart in order to have a picture of the would-be dinner. I wasn't even able to arrange everything nicely so you could get the feel of it... probably because the feel of it wasn't there in the first place.
The only thing that turned out even close to the 'colourful and crisp' part of it was the salad, which I didnt even end up cutting.

To see how the burgers can and are meant to look this is where I got the recipe. They really are the most delicious burgers ever!!!
http://missionarymums.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/beef-and-sweet-potato-burgers/


So, all in all, tonight wasn't how I intended it to be. My culinary skills took a beating as did my domestic-goddess image. And my ego. But that is life. It is something that I learn from uni, home and what I will learn everyday as a teacher and future mum. Things will very rarely go as planned. I will also very rarely be proved a genius or impressive. Life will show me my weaknesses, even when I thought I had converted them to strengths, every moment of my life. What matters is how I deal with that. I can either get mad and sulk. Or I can laugh and enjoy the fact that although it didn't turn out as expected, there are still good points. In this case it still tasted good. and when is mashed potato ever a bad thing?

Tonight I learned (again) to laugh at myself and remember to not take myself so seriously. Somehow its a lesson that doesnt seem to get easier, no matter how many times I have to learn it.

a tad OTT

Any body that knows me will attest to the fact that I love celebrations. LOVE. sometimes, too much. But really, if there is a reason to celebrate, go with it. No, Why stop there?  Take it and run with it and go crazy!  And make it something to remember! Luckily the majority of my family is the same, so apart from my older brother rolling his eyes and telling me im going over board, celebrations are pretty good. To illustrate here is what we did for Mothers Day today.

My sister and I started a tradition long ago of making the meal part of the gift, especially for my mom. This means that for mothers day, anniversaries, birthday and whatever else comes up, we create a meal. "Creating a meal," you say, " That sounds pretty straight forward, everyone makes their mum dinner on mothers Day." But as with everything, we take it to its illogical conclusion. This involves brunch, treats and for dinner, a three course meal. Sometimes life would be so much easier if we didn't love food so much. In the past, we have done Meditteranian Pasta Salads, an entire French themed meal, blueberry and hazelnut cheesecakes, German pancakes, Baclava, and the list goes on. There is nothing quite like creating new meals out of several different recipes and seeing where it takes you!

We kept it pretty straight forward for brunch, starting off the day  with French toast and Banana Berry smoothies. I don't have a photo of this, but use your imaginations... And then came dinner (obviously several hours later...) This is what the table looked like at the end. I love cooking with colours!!

 First, the roast vegie salad. You can add anything and just cut them up into chunky sizes.  We had pumkin, kumara, potatoes, red and orange capsicum, carrots, corgettes, onions, fresh garlic and then just rub them with oil and rosemary seasoning. Roast until soft and then allow to cool before adding feta and spinach leaves.

One of my favourite things to make and eat and inhale, is bruschetta. Meant to be the entrée, but really becomes the best part of the meal...  It made its début at our 'Julie and Julia' inspired French meal for Mom's birthday a couple of years back. There are many recipes but I use tomatoes, red onion, yellow capsicum (adds an amazing colour), fresh garlic and fresh basil leaves. and oil. The smell, the colours, the taste! Oh. my. goodness.

\The main part of the meal was changed half way through making the dinner. I am still determined to try it though so I wont share what it was meant to be, but this turned out rather fabulous also. This is a cheesy creamy chicken, mushroom pasta dish. Yes,  the title does need work, but it explains what it is. As does 'delicious...'

Dinner was delicious and hopefully helped the two mums that were celebrated feel extra special! I am so grateful for these two wonderful women in my life!! They are such an example to me and are always there for me. I really cannot cook enough food to show them that - altho I do try... ;) 

For anyone who is worried that I didnt do anything that will last, I also go over board with gifts, so I really tried to do something this mothers Day that would mean a lot to my mom, instead of my bank account... My mom is the type of person that collects people. She is a mom to so many people - our friends, and anyone who comes through our door, really. And she loves them all probably about as much as she loves us, so I thought it would be nice for her to hear from them as well. I sent an email for some of her 'kids' and got some gorgeous letters back - really made her Mothers day! 

We really should never pass on an opportunity to tell people how much they mean to us, or how grateful we are for them. Maybe thats why I love celebrations. I also hope, however, that people dont feel like they arent important to me unless it is their birthday or something. I want to make sure that I show and tell people how much I love them, every day, through the little acts of service. And I guess that is the thing I have learned through my mom's example.

 Thank you for everything and Thank you for being mine, Mommy! I love you, and Happy Mothers Day. 

What reason

So, I have been trying to stay off the blogging bandwagon, but here we are. Especially with an original  name like 'What Eva.' But as my brother pointed out, with a name like that, you just need to embrace it. And this blog is about me and WHAT is important to me. I guess it is with that in mind that I start this blog.

For background information purposes, I am training to become a teacher - while some of you will turn off now and start snoring, I absolutely love what I am doing. Even though It drives me crazy, I have so much fun.

Something rather wonderful happened this week, something that reaffirms why I am becoming a teacher.
But before I can write about that,  I need to start my story about 8 years ago. This makes me feel old. and rather dramatic - but I can work with that.

 Anyway, 8 years ago, I was in my last year of intermediate. It was a really tough year for me. My dad got really sick and... well, yeah. my dad got really sick, I think that explains it enough. But this story isn't about that, it is about the teacher that was with me at the time.  I don't even know how to describe her. She was tiny - probably just taller than me, - but she was...

She was tough, and expected the best out of each of us and would never be satisfied by anything less. She taught us to question and dig deeper and treated us like adults. But the most important thing is that none of us ever questioned that she cared. We all knew that she would do absolutely anything for us, and she did. She supported us through what turned out to be a crazy year for all of us. And she did not have an easy life, she was going through some really, really hard times. But she used that to strengthen herself and in turn, her class.

I was reading through some old emails and I found some that she had written to me up to a year after I had left intermediate. Kind, interested and supportive, even when I wasn't under her care. My time in her class still remain as the hardest, but fondest memories.

Fast forward 8 years and I am uni. Even though we haven't been in contact for more than seven years, I still think of my intermediate teacher a lot in my journey to discovering who I am as a teacher. I even sent an email to her old email address (I don't think she got it) explaining how much I appreciated her, especially after a lesson we had had at uni where we had discussed the qualities of our most effective and influential teachers.

And then, about two weeks ago, I received an event invite on Facebook from an old intermediate class-mate. He proposed a class-reunion which immediately got us to thinking how we could try track our old teacher down. After about a week of all of us searching, using some 'high-level  detective skills'; which sometimes bordered on creepy, we finally got a current email address. With slight trepidation, I sent off an email this morning which had been approved by our class.

 As I was reading through our class' discussion in our attempts to finding her, I was amazed by what came up. Here we were, as 20/21 year olds, doing everything we could to find our old intermediate school teacher. Someone even joked about using apples to lure her in - she absolutely loved them and even had it as her numberplate. Another student remembered that she had some food-allergies and was trying to find a place we could meet up that suited  that. Many commented that she had been 'by far' their most 'influential teacher' as well.

This evening I got a reply. There have been few times where I have felt that excited to see a name pop up. Even with the short message that she wrote, she again made me feel important and that I made a difference. We will hopefully be able to organise a time for our reunion that suits everyone soon.

 In sitting here tonight, staring at the next 6 weeks of crazy uni assignments and classes and feeling slightly overwhelmed by it all, I realised why I am doing what I am doing. If I can be even  half as influential on my students lives as this teacher has been for us, my teaching career will have been successful. If my students, after nearly a decade of being in my class, try to find me so they can catch up with me, I know I have done my job.

Sometimes I get discouraged thinking 'what effect can I have on my students when I only have them for one year?!' But it doesn't take long for someone to make a difference. It just takes some faith and for someone to care.

And this is probably why I haven't started a blog before now - it comes out as a novel... But here it is. Something that means a lot to me - and if you don't care, then...

What Eva