Do not squander time

One of the things that I say to the kids at school is: 'Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of'. It's apparently a quote by Benjamin Franklin, but my knowledge of this comes from the Gone with the Wind film. The contradiction for me is that at the moment I would really love to squander a bit of time and do nothing. Doing nothing can actually be a really good thing sometimes.

With two grandparents in hospital at the moment mine and Ezzie's time has been taken up by that. My grandma is fed up. She is incredibly independent at home and is finding being in hospital very frustrating. She manages a couple of steps a day with a walking frame, but it's painful and she is making slow progress. We don't know what is going to happen yet, but it's clear to me that it will be a while before she is back home and will have to have some sort of respite care when she leaves hospital.

Ezzie's grandad is feeling similarly frustrated. They have found some polyps which they are doing a biopsy on and we are awaiting the results.

Work continues to be as crazy as ever and the webcasting project starts in earnest next week. I'm starting to feel quite worried about it and hope that everything works out. There have been press releases about it so we should have some local media coverage, which is exciting but also daunting.

Mandarin is proving to be slow progress. It is incredibly difficult. I knew it would be because it is so removed from our own language, but I'm really struggling with pronunciation and the four tones. You can have a word and say it with four different tones to create four different meanings. I've been practising the tones with my neighbour who speaks Mandarin and he just laughs! I'm going to stick at it, but I'm wondering about getting a private tutor so that I can make greater progress and practise what I'm learning in class. I've bought alsorts of CDs and books but I need to practise with a person for it to click.

I have managed to do a little knitting recently, and today we even have photos. Back in May I showed you this wool which Esther bought for me.

They have knitted up into some lovely warm socks which should come in this winter. I had only a little wool left at the end of the second sock, which was luck rather than judgement. I was worried I would have to knit the toes in a different colour, but in the end I pulled it off and am really pleased with them.

These were a particularly enjoyable knitting project because they were the first socks I knitted on my recently purchased Knitpicks needles. I bought these at The Wool Baa and they are nothing short of amazing.

This photo does them no justice; it must have been the light at 5am this morning because in the flesh they are stunning. They are the most beautiful needles ever and I think I am going to buy the set of straight needles I also saw at the 'Baa. A knitter needs a bit of bling from time to time and they are divine in the hands.

At the weekend Ezzie and I also went to buy the stuff for our new bathroom. We chose the suite and tiles a couple of weeks ago and have now made the deposit and are waiting for things to arrive. It is going to be gorgeous and I cannot wait. It's amazing how crazy you can go with a bathroom, but ours is so awful that we want and deserve something nice. I wanted a 'bat cave' with dark slate coloured tiles but I've had to compromise with lighter grey tiles instead. It will look really nice and it looks like it will be fitted when I'm on holiday from school so I can keep an eye on things. I'm really looking forward to it now.

As you can see, no one could accuse me of squandering time and being a layabout but sometimes it would be nice to do nothing. I think when the holiday does finally come some lazing about is definitely in order.