ferrousland.com - daily news archives
Thursday, January 11, 2007
sharing the love - 12:43 PM
(filed under 'linky lurrve')
i have an idea for sharing the love with random strangers. i've started a group at flickr to try to collect a whole lot of specially printed moo cards to hand out to people in the brisbane city mall. the back of the cards will have just the words:
you are beautiful
.. printed on them. the idea is to make someone's day. make people feel happy about themselves. share the love, you know? one happy person will make another happy person & another happy person .. & so on.
some members of the new group which i created at flickr have suggested that it would be cool to have more than just me doing it in the brisbane city mall, but to have others around the world doing it, too. yes! that's exactly the way to share the love! i really hope this takes off.
so this is the 'sharing the love' with moo cards group at flickr.
if you're a flickr member, maybe you can tell your contacts about it. if not, maybe you can join flickr (it's free) & help spread the word or take part in the discussion or something.
anyway, i thought i'd plug it here to help spread the word. i know i don't get huge numbers of hits, but every little bit helps, right? 
child care - 10:21 AM
(filed under 'smiley')
yesterday, my sister (& her two girls) came out with smiley & i to look at some child care centres which are possible places for smiley to attend a couple of days a week. as well as having been through it twice with her two girls, monica was a child care centre director before she had her kids, so she knows what she's looking at & knows the right questions to ask.
we looked at four places nearby. the furthest one was about a ten to fifteen minute drive away, but the other three were within five minutes or so.
we started at the one furthest away. it was excellent. it's a c&k child care centre. monica told me that i should look for one of those because they have a well deserved reputation of being the best. apparently, c&k (i think it stands for creche & kindergarten), a not-for-profit organisation, have been around for one hundred years now! they seemed pretty good. they didn't have a very big range of play equipment in the yard, but what they did have was very good quality & the yard was large. the staff were lovely & have all been there a long time. they're also all trained to a fairly good level & regularly attend extra training.
the second place was well fitted out with lots of very cool equipment, much of it quite new, it seemed, but they'd just had a change of ownership & the comment from the "at the moment" director about how there'd been a high staff turnover recently but that she's been there for two yeras because tends to "stick it out no matter what" wasn't exactly comforting. the place smelled & the staff didn't seem overly welcoming or even happy.
the third place we walked out again straight away because we saw that they'd been recently taken over by abc learning centres, but just hadn't changed the signage yet. i've not heard anything good about abc learning centres from either staff or mothers, so sending smiley there wasn't an option. they're a publically run company (i think that's the right terminology. they have shareholders) & from what i've heard, they're more interested in keeping their shareholders happy than they are the children or the staff. not interested.
the fourth place was one literally just down the road from where we live. a walk away, we don't even have to cross a single road to get there. it seemed quite nice, & even though the director said that they're managed by abc learning centres, it's only the payroll & some other mangement thing they do, not the actual running of the place. she said that the only thing that's changed is where she sends her paperwork. we arrived around about when it was nap time & the staff seemed very sweet & caring, sitting there with the children & stroking the hair of some as they went to sleep. the yard wasn't huge, but it was a decent size & had some good quality equipment.
so there are two places which i'm considering: the first one & the last one we saw. i'm going to make a list of pros & cons of each. i was going to do this anyway, so why not here, hey? if you're not interested, you don't have to use the 'read more' link.
far place, pros |
far place, cons |
near place, pros |
near place, cons |
even though there are more bad things about the far place than the near place, the good things on the far place hold a bit more weight than the good things on the place that's near & the bad things on the near place hold more weight than the bad things on the far place .. if that makes sense.
hmm. have to think more about it. there's no huge rush to decide, because each one has enough places to fit him in, but i do want to make a decision fairly soon. he needs the extra stimulation of other kids & adults.
input from any of you is more than welcome.
mouthful - 08:34 AM
(filed under 'smiley')
while eating some egg on toast for breakfast ..
"mummy?"
"yes, my darling?"
"mummy?"
"yes?"
"mumeeeee."
"yes, darling!"
"i've got a mouthful, i can't hear you."
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