Whats going on this week?

It was another mad day, well morning. I had everything planned to the minute to fit it all in. Started all wrong when Issy limped about yawning saying she couldn't go to school 'cos she hurt her knee and her leg felt funny. She fell over yesterday and has a minute cut on one knee. You really need a magnifying glass to see it. She was then up 'til gone midnight. So I rang and made our excuses - again!

By now I'm well behind schedule, and we had to print Hetties work out for our HE group's library display. We did have to do this because we hadn't done the book review either, which she must do for the children's competition on the SHE group. We had all the writing typed up but needed to add some pictures of tigers. They're raising money for endangered animals. I googled for some pics and this took forever while she ummed and aahed about which pictures to use. I feel like I looked at a million pics of tigers. I had to be in work for a meeting in 15 minutes and Issy and I were still in pjs.

I ended up half an hour late, but better late than never. This in turn meant we left late for the HE meeting. Not usually a problem, but I was the mum with the stuff for the wall display! It poured with rain, you know when you can barely see with the wipers on top speed, and so couldn't even 'hurry along' a little. However we eventually arrived and got sorted. The children had their book club meet, and we got a smashing display up, well we like it anyway.

We drifted home, fortunately I didn't need to return to work after and went to nanny P's for a cuppa and a sandwich. On returning home the girls decided to play shops. While my back was turned this involved getting play food and tea set out, a variety of toys for sale, my birthday cards, and a lot of stuff back out of the re-cycling bin.

It was a pretty good department store but by now it was 7pm and I was beginning to think I'm never going to get all this put away, but as they both clearly pointed out to me 'this is maths'. So that told me.

Just a quickie tonight ...

'Cos I'm tired. I spent the morning trying to log in online to my bank account. When I finally rang she wanted details of transactions, and I explained I was trying to get to my bank account to look at that and basically she cut me off. Eventually I got in and then paid all the tax for our business for the year. Fortunately we'd earnt enough to pay it, so thats good.

Hettie in the meantime got bored and so got the modelling sand out. I think she threw it around the lounge.

Then I had to go and buy stationary stuff for work, so we rushed out before lunch and got that. then we came home and had lunch. Then we remembered the library has given us a huge display board for the home ed group and we should have done work on endangered animals, so we started that. Time to pick Issy up and by the time I'd chatted in the playground realised I had 10 mins to get home & iron Brownie uniforms and get them to the fire station for a trip. We now own 3 pairs of Brownie trousers. They put them on - No swop I screamed wrong trousers, No swop back even worse I screamed, - we need to label everything and Hettie needs bigger trousers. Rushed to drop them off and came home remembering I was having a staff meeting at my house. Mmm sand everywhere, in fact it looked like a beach!!

Hoovered, picked up girls, got their tea and had the meeting. Dh arrived home at 10.30pm tonight so I didn't moan at him about anything tonight!

I've stuck to the diet for two whole days now. I'm starving but I feel thin already!

One of those Monday mornings....

The weekend wasn't too bad.

On Saturday I spent a lot of computer time on our local HE group uploading links and re-arranging the yahoo group files section, organising bits and pieces. Dh took Hettie to buy a spray suit for sailing, to go over the wet suit and all the other kit she has. No sailing though because it was the wrong type of wind - sounds like a British Rail announcement! Oh and I had a little play about with my blog.

I decided the time to diet is way over due, must be my age! Plus I have a ladies day thing to go to in June and I refuse to buy a new dress when I have a lovely one, I've only worn once because now it doesn't fit. So I planned Week 1 weight watchers. I've only got 12lbs to loose, well 19lbs would be fantastic but lets be realistic here. I started today - for some reason I have to start a diet on a Monday - and yes I'm starving, possibly because I've used some points for a glass of wine tonight instead of food.

Sunday the wind was 'OK' for sailing, but it was really cold, so Hettie extremely well wrapped went off sailing with dh, his mate and brother and her cousins. She did quite well for a first trip although apparantly it was a bit of a rough ride. Still she wants to go again, so thats good as dh has bought her a full kit! Issy and I stayed in the warm, cleaned through and generally didn't do too much.

So one of those Monday mornings. We were up late to start with, as usual Issy wasn't asleep 'til gone 11.30pm which meant we were both tired this morning (I know Ruth, sounds like an early night for you LOL!) This led to her stuffing toast in her mouth as we ran out the door. Dh forgot to sign a cheque for dinner money and I didn't have any money. The car was as dead as a dodo - nothing. No money so we couldn't jump a cab, or even a bus. Dh miles away. Fortunately my friend rushed around to collect her. She now has a late mark against her name - do I care? No not really. My diet started so I felt hungry, even though I wouldn't normally. Hettie is having what we call a 'dyslexic' week, meaning maths was impossible, handwriting long and laborious.

But Hettie and I have started reading The Apprentice by Pilar Molina Llorente which is great and we're both really enjoying it. It's about an artists apprentice in Renaissence Florence and led nicely to us spending an afternoon looking at Leonardo Da Vinci (not very Walsorf I know). So we read a lot of that today. We also started A Child's History of the World by Hillyer which Hettie liked so that was successful. So although we struggled with our Waldorf main lesson, we did get it completed and spent the afternoon with Leonardo and our Book of Time which seemed to click with her once a timeline was laid out in front of her and she was actually filling it in herself.

Still 'tomorrow is another day' and I think we'll skip maths etc and just read and carry on with Leonardo! Hopefully the car will start.

Birthdays Come and Go...

I had a biggy birthday yesterday - 40!! Everyone wanted to make a fuss, which was nice. I woke up to some lovely pressies. Two chickens from my girls, now named Henrietta & Isobel, in lieu of the real ones (chickens not daughters). Think dh is hoping these will do!!

Dh has arranged for us to stay in a lovely hotel in the middle of Bath, in September, for the Jane Austin Festival My mum is having the girls for 4 whole days while we're away. Aren't I lucky!! Don't think we'll go the whole hog and dress up, although a real regency ball at the assembly rooms sounds very tempting. They also have a costume promenade you can take part in.

We went to my mum's for dinner with all the family. My friend S and her dh came as well later in the evening, which was lovely. All over now!

Home school as usual though. We did some work looking at temperatures from a solar power kit Hettie has, fortunately the sun was shining.

And we got on with our buildings and shelters work, Hettie wanted to put something about Teepees in.

We've moved onto house building with Hettie drawing her dream house and a floor plan neatly into her main book. We also had a look at architects and what they do. Our Singapore maths (not very Waldorf) is going well and giving us some structure on that front. She's moving pretty quickly through the book and I can see some progress at last, although we're still behind.

We still start our mornings ball throwing and times tables, followed by verse or tongue twisters. Then do 20 minutes maths work before our main lesson work. I've found she's wanting to do more in the afternoons now so we've added the solar power it which should last a couple of weeks or longer if the sun goes in! We finally finished On The Banks of Plum Creek Laura Ingalls Wilder today and both girls have listened to Stig of the Dump on audio CD.

I'm off to read my new 'How To Raise Chickens For Eggs & Slaughter' or some such title, which my sister bought me - and no I don't intend to slaughter any of mine!!

At last ...

... I managed to drink several cups of tea without my face falling off. Ok bit of an exageration but that's what it felt like. I still can't close my mouth properly, dh pointed out this is an ongoing problem - ha ha. Anyway hopefully the antibiotics have kicked in at last.

Not much to talk about today, cos I've been to work. The girls have been to Brownies and Issy has her Brownie Promise to learn. Not sure she'll actually stand up and do the promise but we'll just have to see.

Pop over to Thea's and have a look at her lovely new Chinchilla babies - 3 this time, wow!

So here's a pic of where we're staying in August. I can't wait.

More than....

...one child is more tricky! Well when it comes to home ed that is. My friend came today and disappeared upstairs with her OU assessment to complete, leaving me with two extras. As this was a bit of a last minute arrangement we weren't very organised but muddled through Ok. Hettie got going with her buildings & shelters work. She wanted to include Native American teepees before going onto housebuilding. A (11) and F (14) joined in and drew and wrote about teepees, so Hettie finished hers as well. F decided to start a chapter from Galore Park English and A decided she would do the same. So as they could pretty much get on with that, Hettie and I started her Singapore maths. More on that in a minute. So I was jumping from table to table a bit, with 'can you just explain', 'I can't quite get this' etc etc, but we all managed to get a mornings work in and after lunch they disappeared off into the woods until it rained. So then we rounded the day off with popcorn and TV. Those of you I know who HE 3+ kids, I take my hat off to you ladies!

My Sonlight order arrived this morning, four days from shipping to arrival, pretty impressive. We had some nice reading books, timeline books, a book about Leonardo da Vinci, A Child's History of the World, Maps & Globes and Singapore maths. So coming back to the maths, we've started at 1b which is way below where Hettie should be but there's not much point ploughing on until she's got it and it will be a good starting point for Isobel. She completed the first 5 exercises fairly easily although less than, fewer etc still cause problems.

I love Waldorf maths but we really need something to back it up, and more regularly. I struggle a bit myself with maths so find it a bit difficult to teach without something solid to work through. We'll give it a go and see how we get on.

Isobel went back to school reluctantly this morning only to find her teacher who has been off sick has in fact not returned, although the children were told she would be before the break. She didn't have a particularly good day either.

As for the tooth, despite having taken 3 days antibiotics it's still driving me mad. Thanks C for the tip about Anbesol which is helping and alongside pain killers & hot water bottles I'm getting along. If its no better tomorrow I'll have to have another emergency appointment - no doubt having to pay an extortionate price for the privilege of going back early!

Teeth...or rather a tooth!

The last couple of days I've had a niggling toothache, which by lunch time today turned into full blown facial agony. So I had to ring round for an emergency appointment, 'cos we can't get an NHS dentist where we live. Fortunately I struck lucky and found one. Not only that they took the girls on the NHS list although I had to pay £90 just to be seen! So no more ordering of anything because the treatment followed which was Part 1 of root canal. Part 2 follows in a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately it's also infected so I then had to pay for a prescription as well for antibiotics. Which leads me to how I feel now - which is horrible with a fat face following 3 injections. However the girls have now gone off to bed so at least its peaceful at last. Obviously today they decided they fancied doing some 'work'. Isobel worked on a spelling book and Hettie carried on planning her dream house ready to copy into her main book next week. They played with modelling sand for quite a while although nothing in particular was built.

Not so lucky on the bird box front as a big crow landed and started hopping about, and then he went and stuck his head in a starling nest on next doors roof. Neither blue tits or starlings have been seen since. Oh well, at least we had some interest.