Changes

26th August, 2012

I have come to the relisation that if I were to wait until I have the photo's that I want to share with you all, then I would never get anything written in this blog, so for today its just my ramblings.

Well we have had a few changes. Our family has relocated 92km away in a new home and part of Australia. Our previous landlord's decided that they wanted to retire off the farm and move back into town and that ment they wanted to live in their house. Unfortunately that required us to move. With nothing in our price range and suitable we extended our search. 

I guess that is one of the joys of homeschooling. We don't have to worry so much about changing schools and all the expenses and stress that goes with that. Having Hubby work from home also gives us a certain amount of freedom as well, with not having to worry about travel.

So God has supplied us a new home. We have been blessed with a larger, cheaper house, surrounded by farm land. It will require some changes as we are now on tank water and we don't have a road side rubbish collection either.
We are also going back to no tv reception, so the good old dvd collection will be getting a work out again as well.

With no street lights or other houses around, I can't wait for an electrical storm to have a go at getting some more lightning photo's.

Anyway, hope life is going well for you where you are.

Bec.

All Aboard

12th July, 2012

We have had a really busy week, but have you ever noticed, that its at these times that the kids can really step up and show you what they can do.

My parents have rented a house not to far from me after spending the last 3-4 years in a caravan and traveling around. This however, is some 440km from where they have had all their furniture and belonging's in storage.

So on Wednesday Nan & Pa picked up Master J and myself and we set off on a whirlwind trip to collect their stuff. This left Hubby and the 2 girls at home.

We collected a truck, Wednesday at 12:00 and traveled all afternoon to arrive at our destination at about 5:30pm. Thursday at 7am, we were on the road around to the storage shed to load up the trailer and the truck. God held back the rain until we just had the trailer packed. We got a bit wet putting on the ropes, but at least we could reverse the truck right up to the shed doors and lower the ramp onto the concrete floor. There was only a little bit of open area that got wet, but overall we and the furniture stayed dry. (until when we were unpacking on Friday morning we discovered that the front of the truck leaked like a screen door on a submarine). We got everything packed and was on the road by 12:30pm arriving home at 6:15pm very tired peoples. Friday 7:30am on the road again to the parents house to unpack, so they could return the truck by lunch.


Ok so the stepping up part happened for Miss Z. You see Thursday 12th was my hubby's birthday. Normally we have a meal out or take away and birthday cake. This was not going to happen with what I just informed you about. So Miss Z, armed with a birthday cake recipe book, baked a cake on Wednesday and then proceeded to decorate on Thursday so it would ready for us all to have a cake for when we got home. She also then made the evening meal for us and had it ready for when we got home. What a wonderful thing after traveling and packing to be able to walk inside have a shower and sit and eat with family. I do say shower first as three years of storage and the occasional dead mouse and the not so occasional amount of mouse poo, will want to make you shower as soon as possible.


So I know you have all been hanging out to see her creation so here it is......

And yes it was very yummy. So I can now tick off that my daughter can make a birthday cake, and she can cook ( That's her yummy pasta dish in the background) for herself and others without me being in the house. Well done Miss Z.

Just for Fun

15th July, 2012

Well I was tagged, and after finding out what that actually ment, decided that I would sort of play along. I figure that Deborah from "Paper Maid" could change the rules to suit, so could I.

The Rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. Post a photo of yourself and 11 random facts about you.
3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post.
4. Create 11 new questions and tag new people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they have been tagged.

 11 random things about me...........


1. I've lived in 22 houses that I can remember, soon to be 23. 24 if you count  the time that I moved back home, just before I got married, for 4 weeks.

2. I love MacGyver.

3. I wish I could solve all my problems with a swiss army knife and a roll of duct tape.

4. I hate housework with a passion.

5. I think the 80's had the best music.

6. I was married a week after my 18th birthday and not on my 18th as I wanted my husband to remember 2 dates.

7. I'm wearing black and purple socks.

8. I'm struggling to think of 11 random things to share with you.

9. My bank account details are.......well obviously I'm not stupid. I know that will be a shocker to some.

10. I love not having the morning rush that comes with having children in the schooling system. Homeschooling is great.

11. I'm a St. John volunteer and think that if you have the chance you should become one as well.


 Questions to Answer>>>>>>>>

1. What are you reading at the moment?
     
"Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

2. What blogging advice would you give a new blogger?

I still consider myself a new blogger. For sure I might have started this blog in 2010, but I have no idea how the blogging world works, so my advice, google your questions.

3. What is your idea of a perfect day?

I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a perfect day. But if there was it would be a day where I didn't have to do any housework yet it still gets done.  

4. Do you use a curriculum and if so which one?

I am very very eclectic in my curriculum so here are some that I am using at the moment. Christian Light Education - Maths, Common Sense Press (LLATL) - English, Hands of a Child Lapbooks - science, history. Plus what ever else I can get my hands on and fit in with what we want to study at the time.

5. How do you do it all and find time to blog?

Well I don't. That's why I don't blog that much and when I do there is normally 3 or so posts in the one day. Its something I want to improve on and maybe one day it will.

6. What are your top three traits in a friend?

Honesty, Loyalty and Humour

7. Do you use Pinterest?

Nope, not even sure exactly what it is.

8. What are the top five homechool/school blogs you visit?

The Paper Maid 

  Defying Gravity

Hip Homeschool Moms

Well I only have 3 that I check on a regular basis, but Hip homeschool moms is a lot of different blogs normally. 

9. Do you join in link up parties? If so which ones?

Never even heard of them, maybe its something I should look into.

10. Do you use Notepook pages? If so where do you access yours from?

Not really, but when I do I normally google for something.

11. Do you do Nature Journaling? If so have you blogged about your methods?


Nope and nope.


Now if your reading this consider yourself tagged. Below are my 11 questions that you can copy and paste. If you choose to play along please leave a comment with your name and blog link.

Bec.

1. Do you homeschool?
2. what is your favourite subject?
3. What is your child's favourite subject?
4. Do you follow the school terms?
5. what do you do to relax?
6. whats your favourite food?
7. what is the best movie you have ever watched?
8. Is there a book you started reading and never finished?
9. What is one time saving tip you would like to share?
10. What is one money saving tip you would like to share?
11. If money was no object where would you like to go for a vacation?
 

Miss E's hand sewing

13th June, 2012

Miss E is a crafty girl. Normally she is painting and drawing, but today she pulled out the old socks and decided that is was time to do some sewing.

a pillow.

a mattress. I know the stitching needs some work but not bad as a first attempt for a 7 year old, doing it all by herself.

A night cap. I loved the tassel that she included.

A teddy. Yes the arms and legs are strips of material stitched on and she drew on the face. Stuffy for all things is the ever very handy tissues.That reminds me, I must add that to my shopping list, box of tissues.

And who is this all for you ask? Why Cream her stuffed dog of course.

 And the blanket, I can't forget that. Shhhh. Its bed time.

A Basket Case

26th April, 2012

I know 26th April, is a long way from 22nd June, but hey better late than never. 

So on the 26th April we had a lesson in basket making, well weaving actually.

We used paper cups and baling twine. Not sure if I have called it the thing there, but its the string that farmers use to tie up their bales of hay. After you know the steps, you can really use what ever you find. I'll post some photo's further down that the lady leading the class has tried. Paper, wire, plastic milk bottles.

So first things first. The show and tell of how to do it. 

This was a large milk container that she cut up so we could all see.

Take you string and find the half way point. Move you hand down a bit so that it is no longer even and place over your fist spike as below. The reason for it being uneven is that towards the end of the weaving, both ends wont be finishing in the same spot.

Take the piece of string on the left hand side and bring it across the front of the first spike moving towards the right side. Put the string through the slot above where the other end is coming through and take it around the back of the next spike, bringing it out on the right side of the next spike.

Now take the piece of string that is on the left side and do the same thing as you did with the previous piece. But moving towards the right again.

You continue to alternate between the two pieces moving you way around the container, until you have about 10cm of string left. To add in a new length, put it over the spike that you are up to and then weave both the new and old string at the same time. When you have about 5 cm left on the old string let it stick out and just continue on with the new string. Once you have finished you go back and with a needle thread the sticking out bits under the weave and trim. Sorry don't have photo's for that bit. So always leave the sticking out bits on the outside of the container or it can make it very tricky to tread it through the weaves.

So we used paper cups. Cut the paper cup into strips, but don't go all the way to the base.

Push down on the cup to flatten it out, this helps to be able to wind the string through the spikes.

This is what it will look like.

Our cups had been pre cut, so the first step for us was the flattening.

Then the tricky part of the weaving. You can see that our string is very stringy. The twine is a bit like your cross stick cotton that you only use 2 or 3 strands out of the 6. We untwisted it and used thinner strands.

We decided to change colours.

Completed. We were able to change the shape by how tight you pulled on the strings. So this is Miss E and my first attempt.

Master J efforts. He got tricky with his ending bits and instead of just threading them underneath the weaving, used them to make a pattern around his blue bits.

Miss Z effort. You can see here what I am talking about the sticking out end bits. This is before she uses a needle to thread them in behind the weaving.

This is with after she has done the treading.

Looks much neater.

Now these are the other creations from the instructor, just to give you some more example and ideas.

Imagination at work

Its always good when one's child has an imagination. Miss E loves pulling out the train set and making a railway line. Nothing compared to what Dad has, and certainly not the same without a remote, but it gives her a chance to play around with track layouts and to work out out to join everything up. Todays track has been confined to a small area. I got sick of having to step over train track to walk from the lounge to the kitchen. Not a bad effort for having to stay on one side of the room.

How ever, its not long until the transport empire has been laid to one side and an agricultural empire has been made.

Home made carrots, tomato, lettuce and cauliflower can be seen in the above photo. On the vegie patch is one tiny orange seed, there are more coming. After all you need the seeds to be planted to be able to produce the crop.

A small pond for the water, complete with lilly pads

She even made a rake to be able to work the vegie patch.

Amazing what some coloured paper, sticky tape and scissors can do. OH and an imagination.

a Promise is a Promise

Tuesday 27th March, 2012

Miss E is now officially a girl guide.

Today she made her promise:

"I promise to do my best:
To do my duty to God,
To serve the Queen and my country,

To help other people, and

To keep the Guide Law.

Well done Miss E.