Santa can I have a little more time please?

Ok, so just exactly WHERE does time go?  You think you have all the time you need; I planned lovely craft mornings, afternoons by the fire, movies, hot chocolates, and enjoying the excitement in the build up to Christmas.  For one reason or another, we haven't achieved that, and my little plans haven't evolved. Still, with 7 more sleeps to go, there might still be time.............

Finally finished! 

We have got quite a few things done however, including the letters for my fire place; I started these last year as a gift for someone, but they were so time consuming and fiddly (and ok I did procrastinate a little) that there is NO way I am giving these away!  I am feeling quite relaxed about Christmas, however I would just like a little more time to enjoy the season as its totally our favourite time of the year, and it's all passing just too fast!  Here's what we've been up to.....

Enjoying Crispy Creme (yum)

Finishing Christmas Pressies

Amazing photos by Lily

Frosty mornings!

Knitted a coffee cosy for a friend 

Tucked up my new baby

Have eaten LOTS of mince pies!

All that glitters

The past three weeks have seen some new challenges come into my life - they're not really for sharing on this blog, but let's just say that events and surrounding emotions could easily have been from an EastEnders episode.

A couple of the things I have learnt from these experiences however, are firstly, facebook, blogs, twitter and such only allow people to see a tiny part of what is really happening in our lives - and only the bits we want them to see, and secondly, it really is the little things that matter: laughter, sharing, wine, good coffee, cuddles, saying sorry and most importantly - time with friends and family.

The past 18 months has been a real journey for my family and it's not always been easy.  Homeed is the road that we are currently on, and I am having to learn (and un-learn) so much; using the blog helps me to see not only what we have done, but to formally process (lots of) the thoughts in my mind.  When you choose to step outside of 'mainstream' choices, it can be a lonely and scary place; I still have the same concerns as parents with children in main stream education (will they be ok? am I doing the right thing? am I a good parent?), but I am certainly not questioning the choices of others - I am too busy worrying about my own choices for that!  This blog gives you a snippet into my daily life; I don't tell you every-time I cry (well sometimes) or when my wobbles have me googling local schools, or when I actually miss the school run.  I tell you what's going well, what we are up to, how we have reflected on things, or changed things, or learnt something amazing together.  Those are the bits I want to share as that is what keeps me going: even on the really bad days, sending them back to school is not necessarily the answer (we've tried that one).

This time last year, I was not in a good place with homeed and I have realised that whilst we have had some tough times of late, actually we (I) am in a much better place; we still explore the option of school, and we still change regularly how we work our weeks.  Homeed is not perfect - but then again, neither is school.

So in-between the tears, angst and working things out, today we officially 'started' our Christmas holidays with a trip to see Peter Pan on Ice followed by hot chocolates and cake.  We have also started on those Christmas Crafts............

Snowmen Nails!

Glittering snow flakes

Tree hearts

A festive robin

 angela x

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions” 

Leonardo da Vinci

How to make unique/vintage shorts.

First of all you need a pair off shorts what ever kind of style you want but it looks good with denim,I choose some old high waisted shorts. Then you need to pin the shorts of how high you would like to cut them, I also then ironed along the bottom to create a clear crease to cut along!

 Next I sketched a quick design of how I sort of wanted them to look (this is a very bad sketch but its just to give a quick idea!!). My design is a bit of a twist on the american flag!



Thirdly I cut just under the creased line , then using  the sewing machine we sewed a line a bit above the crease all the way around the leg so that when we frayed the bottom it doesn't fray all the way up the leg! (if you don't have a sewing machine you can hand sew all these steps).

Fourthly I cut a square shape out of material that would fit in the pocket then after pushing it in  I sewed a lose running stitch to hold the material in place ready for sewing it with the sewing machine! (if you are sewing by hand you do not need to do the lose running stitch!) Then we sewed it on the sewing machine.

Then I cut out another piece of material that would fit in the main section of the leg, we then again sewed a lose running stitch and sewed it on the sewing machine.



After the step above its fraying time!! To do this you make small slits as close or a far apart a you would like at the edge of the shorts below the crease and stitched line. then using your finger just pull where the slits are to make the strings become loss they should become frayed after a while. If you want to shorten the frayed strings  you can just trim them with some scissors.

 Finally I put them in the wash on a quick wash and they came out like this! They will be fine being washed agian and agian! if you would like the back pocket detail to please scroll down!

First the back pocket look first you need to cut a line along the side you would like to be open as you can see I have cut along the left hand side. Next I chose a piece of material and cut a square then tucked it into the pocket! I then sewed along the sides of the square on show and sewed back the flap. 

Thats all the steps thanks for reading and enjoy making them!!!!! If you would like the fabrics they are from tatters in staines. 

Lily xxx

Baby it's cold outside!

My lovely log fire

Brrrr.... its cold, wet and windy.  I love this weather when I am tucked up next to the fire, but am not so keen when I need to go outside (which is proving tricky when you need to try and toilet train a puppy!).  I feel our home education for December is going to be focused around two main activities: Christmas Crafts in the morning and XMAS 24 (the Christmas Movie channel) by the fire in the afternoon.  These combined with our mince pie tasting challenge sounds like a good all round curriculum.

Last week I hosted a Sewing Workshop; we made Christmas Hearts with all the children having the chance to use the sewing machine.  I also took time to help a home-ed mum clean up and oil her old machine, followed by a quick tutorial on using it.  Since the workshop, Lily has got the sewing bug and has made some beautiful hearts to hang on our tree;  we also picked up some lovely fabric and will be making some Christmas Bunting (details to be posted later).  The local library had some lovely books on different craft ideas and we found one aimed for quite young children but with beautiful (simple) ideas to make . Over the next few weeks we are going to make some of the projects and I have also downloaded a calendar of ideas from the brilliant Nature Detectives website; we will keep you posted on our different projects.

Busy at the workshop

It's in the detail

Finished hearts

Last year we did some lovely Christmas activities including a Victorian Servants Christmas Workshop,  a day trip to London to see the lights and a visit to Richmond Theatre to see Cinderella in panto.  This year will be a lot more low key; not working for 6 months has meant a lot less money and the puppy also prevents full days out.  We don't mind having less money (mostly) as it means we are becoming more resourceful and creative, and personally I think there is something really lovely about home made gifts and decorations.  We feel more appreciative of what we do have, and afternoons snuggled together with hot chocolates, a board game and home-made laughter are just as enjoyable.

We started of the countdown to Christmas with a festive Carrot cake made by Lily......

angela x

Puppy Power!

This week we have been learning some very important skills: infection control and behaviour management  (AKA clearning up puppy poop and trying to toilet train our new Puppy Chester).

Earlier this year we had our very sad and difficult time with Bodhi, our rescue dog.  Bodhi was welcomed into our family, but sadly had so many problems he had to return to Battersea; we were heartbroken, and Bodhi very very sadly had to be put down.  During the difficult time afterwards, our friends beautiful dog had Puppies, and we tentatively thought about whether we wanted to try again: as soon as we met the teenie tiny pups we new that we wanted to welcome Chester into our home and the family consensus was YES!  This came with the caveat from me that everyone had to de-clutter and down size (I also wrote about this) so that I had less to manage and life could feel less 'cluttered'.

Chester arrived on Sunday and it has been great fun (apart from night time when he cries) - my instinct as a mother is to go get him and cuddle him, but for his benefit and ours as a family he has to be bottom of the pecking order (Pack mentality) and we have to leave him to get over it.  It's so sad. The basic rule is if you see the pee/poop you have to clean it, and the children have been really great at this; they love to play and teach Chester  and they are having to work really hard at not arguing around him as the books indicate that aggression breeds an aggressive dog.  This is an unexpected benefit as they can tend to argue quite a bit!

We still miss Bodhi, and loosing him was very tough for all of us; hopefully Chester will bring something special to us all.  And hopefully we will get our full nights sleep back very soon.

angela x

Try Try Again!

So I decided to take a small break from blogging - just a couple of weeks holiday as I took some time back for myself.  There are many brilliant things about home ed, but one of the biggest challenges is carving-out time for myself.  When the children were at school, I could go for coffee (without a self-imposed curfew) and my day was pretty much my own to work, think, tidy, shop, run errands.  Now my days are filled with the company of three others and 'my own time' is limited.  Fitting a blog in started to feel like a chore - and a burden - instead of something that I enjoyed doing, so over the past two weeks I have been re-evaluating where I focus my time and what my priorities are; writing is a priority for me and something I love, but not at the expense of my sanity, so I signed up to an e-course on making time and it has been really helpful in seeing how and where I can take time back.

During my 'mini-break', we have been busy at home with the new 'half-term'; the children have signed up to Ice-Skating lessons and we have decided to structure our learning a little again, so the Maths and English books have come out.  When we tried this at the start of our home ed, it was a disaster and we shunned the books whilst we de-schooled.  We all still have a lot of de-schooling to do, but everyone has taken a keen interest and is enjoying challenging themselves so I guess it was the 'right' time to come back to them.  I have re-visited some of the homeed books I brought, and The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas: 500+ Fun and Creative Learning Activities for Kids Ages 3-12 (Prima Home Learning Library) talks about 'school mind' and 'education mind'; school mind works like this:

Compulsory attendance + Curriculum + Focus on lack of meeting existing

standards = schooling

education mind works like this:

Time + Purpose + Focus on what is being achieved = Education

So whilst we are doing 'work', it's actually being led by the children, who are only comparing themselves to themselves and are enjoying it.  So whilst I do miss my own time, one of the best things about Home ed is it gives us the flexibility to keep trying different things................

Pumpkin Carving

Visited Ham House

Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

Learnt about Lewis Carroll (Guildford)

Visited Guildford Castle and Grounds

Climbed to the top of Guildford Castle

Constructing Lego

and practising measuring at the same time!

Making 'Minecraft' characters

a 'minecraft' buddy!

Making Poppys at The Poppy Factory

Poppy Making

angela x

Mr Lautner and growing old

I had aimed to write a lovely reflective piece about how our de-cluttering and down-sizing is going; how it felt to clear Lily's room (sickening, as she had so much stuff that I had wasted money on), how it felt to walk past shops (liberating, but ohhh there is some pretty stuff out their), how I was feeling inside (much better thanks), but the truth is, I am feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment.  I am feeling old.  Now, I am not expecting any pity here (I can do that for myself, thank you) as I am in good health (mostly), and I am still closer to 35 then 40, and I still (hopefully) have many years ahead of me, but this week has been one of those 'light-bulb' moments that we sometimes have.....

Something for sore eyes

Friday nights, are film  night in our family; this week we settled to watch Abduction [DVD], an action movie starring Taylor Lautner.  Now, if you haven't come across Taylor before, he is quite attractive (British tone) or Pretty Hot (American tone).  My mind, which tends to work in that slightly restrained British tone, is leaning more towards the American (pretty hot) attitude when it comes to Taylor.  It's more relaxed, if you get what I mean.

Mr Lautner

Anyway, Taylor is the main character in the film, and is all kind of moody and actioney, and YOUNG!  Oh my, how young.  And here in lies the problem that is making me feel old; Mr Lautner is closer in age to my teenage daughters than to me; and my teenage daughters also think he is pretty hot.  Somehow, over the past 14 years, I have grown up: I have raised three children to double figures (and the're not too damaged, well done Ben & I!), qualified in a profession, made friends, lost friends, laughed, cried, and got older - even though in my head I am still 20 something - I have got older.

Apparently, if I am attracted to someone much younger, or who is now closer in age to my daughter's, then technically, I understand that makes me a 'cougar', an older woman chasing a younger man.  Or then again, maybe it just makes me someone who feels young in-side, who can still dream, who still has a whole life ahead, who likes to window shop (after all, I am downsizing and not 'buying' stuff any more).  Perfectly acceptable then?  I think so.

I know one thing that this 'light-bulb' moment has enabled me to see, and that is my children are growing, and my eldest will not be my 'child' for much longer, but a young woman with her own hopes, dreams and life.  I can not choose her dreams or live my own 'failed' ones through her, but as her parent, I can only hope to prepare her for her own exciting, challenging, changing journey.  I have to have the maturity and wisdom to let her go - and that is something that can come with getting older.

Several years ago, I came across a book called 'The Prophet'; this beautiful collection of prose poetry shares wisdom in a simply profound way.  My favourite, is the one on Children:

enjoy
angela x

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." 

And he said:


Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.