Heh heh heh

Worth it for the giggling. :)

Elastic Baby

Seeds - again... last try [EDITED AGAIN]

aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh





Paypal account holders can click on this link to pay directly into my paypal account.

How to order Seeds - part 4 edited

edited to say...

I give up with the lot

Send me your address to poledragon at yahoo dot co dot uk, and I'll send you seeds. Then we'll sort it out from there. Bloody so called modern technology...

And I've fiddled with my email addy, so I should be able to reply sooner rather than later... bloody yahoo.

Grumpy day. Sorry for grouching. But why, after having a 4 hour damned bloody blizzard, is there LESS snow in my garden than there was this morning??? Why won't the snow stick? I have three small children clamouring to go outside and make snowmen etc etc, and the soggy white wet stuff is just falling out of the sky and vanishing on contact with the even soggier grass.

They're making bloody snowmen in Chesterfield, for goodness sakes, and that's only Derbyshire... :P We're in bloody Yorkshire here. I have a 4x4 I want to go play with. lol

This morning's view out of the dining room window... how gorgeous is that! Makes the chaos seem less - well - chaotic?

How to order seeds, Part 3

Let's try again, shall we?

Now... that should work! :)

Quiet Sunday

James went shooting this morning (air rifle at targets), so we had a nice quiet lazy day, doing odd jobs and a bit of ironing. I've read more of the Sonlight curriculum and really want to get started on it, but it seems next week is conspiring against me as I've got two lots of stuff organised for mornings, and I was intending on doing most of the stuff first thing before we left the house...

However, tomorrow morning, we have D's friend Charlie to play. Actually, Charlie should have gone back to school, but the RC primary he attends is having an extra day off, 'teacher training'. And Lisa has to go to college. And so, for some bizarre reason, I said, 'I'll have Charlie for you'. Like 4 kids could be any worse than 3 eh? lol

But, fingers crossed, as long as Barbara and her lot aren't too poorly tomorrow, we'll all be heading out to Sheffield for a playtime session at the little softplay centre. It's a great little place, small and just right for a dozen or so little ones to go manic in. And, on a Monday morning, it's nice and quiet too.

Have just been plotting Wednesday morning's entertainment with Jax and Sarah too. Add to that James' day off it Tues and we always do something with him... suddenly that's half my week gone.

However, I've started putting T and F down for a nap and letting D stay up (yes, my 5 year old still has an afternoon nap - maybe for no more than 45 minutes, an hour max, but it makes a world of difference to her temperament). And we've got some good work done in that hour or so her sisters snooze for. T will go for an hour and half, and sometimes I have to wake F up after a couple of hours. D and F love their sleep! T isn't too bothered, and if she misses her nap, it's not overly noticable. Then again, she's spaced for most of the time anyway! :)

Forgot to blog yesterday that Barbara, E, B and R came over. Barbara and I sat and drank tea and read through lots and lots of Sonlight stuff. :) The kids trashed the living room and D's bedroom, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time doing so. D and E seem to get on really, really well. Fingers crossed it continues!

Sonlight

Well, colour me impressed. I ordered a batch of curriculum stuff from Sonlight last week - and it arrived yesterday. :o

I'm so pleased with it too. Have spent a big chunk of this afternoon sorting out all the paperwork into the relevant binders and am now going to sit and read through all the instructor guides and suggested reading and flick through the books... Now all I need to do is get to Ikea to buy another bookshelf for all these gorgeous books. Heh heh

Spent the last two days down in Birmingham, helping Mom move. My step-dad, Terry, isn't very well, so I figured Mom could use a helping hand. DH - no, let's call him by his proper name, shall we? much better - James had the kids for me and I left the house at some stupid time on Wednesday am. Let's just say I drove 20 minutes to the m-way junction, filled up with fuel and a McMuffin breakfast and was on the M1 by 7.15am. And what a morning to chose to leave - the frost was so thick on the hood of the truck, it didn't melt until I'd been on the road an hour.

So, we packed, sorted, loaded, shifted, taped and stacked on Wednesday, and then packed, sorted, loaded, shifted and taped some more on the Thursday, as well as lifting, humping, moving, shoving, untaping, unpacking and collapsing by 7pm. Oh, and then I drove home. ::: sigh :::

But at least I had a nice surprise once home. There was a cup of tea and a hot bath waiting for me - as well as the Sonlight stuff. And James had done 5 loads of washing (plus dried and folded it all!), mopped the kitchen floor and vac'd the dining room and living room. :) Maybe I need to go away more often.

How to order seeds, part 2

Right - those who have paid, no I don't want the extra 50p. Those who haven't, the 50p is to cover postage and envelopes and Paypal's exhorbitant fees and nonsense like that.

Email is poledragon at yahoo dot co dot uk if you have any questions, queries etc etc. (edited to change email addy - say it aloud as you type it :)

I'm back off out into the garden now to do some more digging. :-D

edited again to say - here, try this button!

Seed packets

Ok - have done a bit of scribbling on bits of paper and adding-up-type sums, and have realised that these seed packets are a tad more expensive than I thought...

However, I'm going to send them out at £2.50. Does that sound fair? There are 10 packets of seed, of various types (see previous posts) as well as a couple of pages of instructions. I've made the packets up myself - printed out little envelopes and filled them with between 3 and 30+ seed. You always get far too many seed in a regular packet for the average garden.

I'm also going to put together a brief 'Square-Foot-Gardening' blurb too, in case anyone is interested in that. Although, tbh, I should just point people in the direction of January's Organic Gardening magazine - they have a great article in there on the subject.

To make seed packet ordering easy, I've been playing with Paypal {she says optimistically} and have generated this:









I wonder who'll be the first to try it and tell me if it works or not? :-D

Driving day

Seems like we're going to spend most of today in the car.

Last night, I bought a rabbit hutch off eBay. :-D And this morning, we all piled in the car and went 30+ miles to collect it. It was out past Gainsborough. Luckily, a friend lives about 5 miles from where the hutch was, so after picking it up, we called in for a cuppa and much needed loo break. Which means we now have broody hutch for hen - wonder when we're going to pick up the hen & eggs?!

Now, we're eating lunch and then it's off to Bradway in Sheffield - about the same distance in the other direction. Ho hum. Never mind, they should sleep on the way to the meeting, which means I'll get a bit of peaceful thinking time.

I can always hope anyway.

Chickens?

I've just been offered a broody hen with 6 eggs...

Anyone got a spare rabbit hutch or the like? :)

It's Barbara's fault

I blame her completely.

I just spent over £300 on Sonlight curriculum stuff.

Well, I did say I needed to replace her Ping book...

Apologies

...for the previous two grouchy posts.

I'm much better now. Mainly because we've been out of the house and I found my nice kids in the car. Funny that - you take three horrible bad-tempered whiny children out and strap them in their car seats, and by the time you've retrieved your bag, locked up the house and started the engine, they've been miraculously replaced by the cheerful, bouncy, slightly-too-loud offspring that you thought you'd lost somewhere along the way.

Doncaster Rovers are playing today, so town was absolutely awash with police. Riot vans, bobbies in body armour and flourescent vests and jackets, and we counted 8 police horses. F was thrilled with them, and shrieked 'hoss!' at regular intervals the whole time we were out. D was a bit perturbed by all the official looking officers, and asked me, in a not very quiet voice, why were there so many police around? I replied that they were there to help keep her safe. "But why would they want to keep me safe?" she asked. "Because that's their job. It's what they do," I replied. This little exchange took place right next to a riot van, whilst we were waiting to cross the road. As the lights changed and we went to cross, I happened to glance into the open window of the vehicle, and got a broad smile and a nod of approval from the copper who I hadn't noticed sitting there. The fact he was a very good looking copper cheered me up enormously. :)

That, and I did my good deed for the day. Found a purse lying on the floor in a busy little shopping arcade. Picked it up, noticed the bus pass on the back and had a quick look round for possible owners - no one who matched the picture. So, as we were on our way back to the car anyway, I took a detour to the police station with it. I did check inside to see if there was any other kind of ID in there, but all I could see was a Nectar card and a £20.

And I know this sounds really daft, but it was the harrassed, pregnant desk sergeant who made me feel pretty good about today. She took my name and address, filled out the log sheet and then, as I handed the purse over, she looked me in the eye and said 'thank you so much for doing this'. It was the sincerity on her face - like I'd gone 20 miles out of my way to do something extra nice for her. Fair made my day. :-D

and it's not getting much better

Have spent a relatively peaceful hour reading through blogs, catching up on not a lot of news (waiting for all those returning from Melrose to post!). Followed a few links to various recommended books (Getty Dubay, FIAR), curriculums (Ambleside, Sonlight etc)...

Which was probably not the best thing to do in my current state of mind. Am now in an 'omg-I'm-useless' train of thought. Ok, so the past couple of days haven't been brilliant, but I'm sat here tapping away at the puter with the girls happily and independantly playing in the front room, and it's the third day in a row it's been like that. Whenever we're in the house, this stupid machine gets switched on.

It's not like there's a huge amount happening at the moment. There are a couple of people I talk to every so often, and the blogs to keep up to date with. If I were working, then fine. But all I seem to be doing is browsing and reading and looking at home-ed stuff, instead of actually doing it.

Barbara lent me a lovely FIAR book, and half a dozen stories to go with it. We've read those stories (I may need to buy her another copy of Ping as it's been loved to death), but I don't feel like we've actually done the stuff in the FIAR. Before I've hardly finished reading, the two little ones have decamped to destroy something, and then D wanders off whilst I'm talking to her about it. Then T comes back and wants me to finish the story, but insists on me starting again from the beginning.

Arrgghh - just had a spat with D whilst trying to get my thoughts down here. Kind of along the lines of:
"Please go pick up the four jigsaws you've scattered all over your bedroom floor. When you've done that, we'll go into town and see Daddy for lunch."
"Don't want to."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I don't want to."
"You will pick up the mess you made young lady."
"No."
"Don't you talk to me like that, it's very rude. Go."
"But it's toooooo haaaaard."
"It was easy enough to throw them all over the floor."

Now, this might sound a little draconian, but it's well past 11am. We've been having this conversation on and off since 9.30am.

And yes, I have resisted the port... but only because I have to drive into town at some point today. :P

One of those days

Having an 'off' day today. Full of doubts and questions and feeling a tad down.

Having half a dozen people tell you you've still got post natal depression, within the space of a week and independantly from each other kind of makes you sit back and think.

And D is a nightmare. Wanted to do some workbook stuff today - I said, ok, but only if you want to. We did 2 pages each of 'maths' and 'english' last week, and that's all she has to do a week. Then she sits there with the book in front of her and starts moaning about how it's too hard, etc etc... So I tell her go do something else.
"But I want to do this."
"So pick up your pencil."
"But it's soooo difficult."
"So go play Brio with T."
"But I want to finish this page."
Tears, tantrums.
I point out which words to circle and where to write them underneath.
D stares at page for another 5 minutes whilst I make a cup of tea and eat something full of refined carbohydrates.
"We're going shopping in half an hour, D," I tell her. "Why don't you go find me a hair brush instead?"
More tears.
"Sweetheart, you don't have to do your workbook if you don't want to. In fact, if they're so awful, we'll just throw them all away and do something completely different next week. How's that?"
"Noooo, Mommy, no, don't throw them away! They're my favourite thing in all the world. I love my books!"

At this point, Mommy retires to the kitchen with tea, Classic FM and a fervent wish she still smoked. After checking the time, she also figured 9.10am was too early for a glass of port.

Another good day....

.... am I beginning to see a pattern here?

We got up at a reasonable hour, were breakfasted, dressed and the television was off, all by 9am. So I sat D down at the table with some workbooks and we did a little maths for half an hour. T wanted to do some of her work too, so I set her up and we had a few moments peaceful scribbling. Of course, the page that D so desperately wanted to start wasn't the one she wanted to finish. However, I sat with her and made sure she did it.

Ramble alert :)

Now I know this probably goes against the grain of many a home-ed philosophy, ie, not making the child do what she doesn't want to, not forcing her to do 'school' work, 'school'ish subjects etc etc. But my take on the whole autonomous work ethic is mutating as I watch her go about her life.

D would spend her entire life in front of the tv for starters. It's a calamity when I switch the damned thing off. However, she has slowly (albeit unwillingly) adjusted to the lack of Tweenies in her life. And it's been so much nicer.

And when she starts doing some 'written' work with so much enthusiasm, and then just tails off halfway through for no apparent reason, I'm puzzled. And irritated. She can do the work. I know, because she's done half a page. More than half, actually. I think she enjoys my reaction when she announces three quarters through doing something that it's "hard work" or "boring" (interchangeable phrases in her vocabuary). Translated, it means she can't be arsed. Now I know we all have CBA days. Some of us more than others, to be sure. But it's that sly, sideways look she gives me as she says it, and the way T immediately announces that her colouring-in is "too hard work" as well, that infuriates me.

However.... today I changed my plan of attack. After doing 7 of 10 'colour in the balls to make different combinations of ten', ie colour in 4 and leave 6 plain then write the numbers underneath, she announced that it was too hard and could she go watch tv.

"Nope." I said. And continued writing my garden planting plan. (I've also made a point of switching this damned device off when she's working, and sitting with her to do some 'work' of my own).

Then followed the scowls, pouts, flicking of the hair [note to self: always tie hair back], and then the pleading started.

Everytime she asked, I said no. Offered to help her, pointed to where she should write 4 and 6 and which balls to colour in. T got the message after a couple of minutes, and carried on happily colouring-in another 2 pages before she asked to go play with the Brio.

Eventually, D realised I wasn't going to let her leave the page half finished. All the tears and pleading and tantrums in the world would not persuade me to switch the television on for her.

So, she finished the page. In about 45 seconds. Said "oh, it was easy, wasn't it?"

And started the next page.

I will never understand small Cancerian girl children. Ever.

We spent the rest of the day out - took Daddy his lunch into town, as he'd fogotten it this morning. Borrowed a friend's trailer and went to collect some very well-rotted manure for the lottie (see Muddy Musings for the rest of that ramble), and then went for a cuppa with a friend in the village. All in all a pleasant day.

Once home, the smaller two were put down for a snooze, but D was given a choice. Do some literacy or go nap. So workbooks won again, and she did a full page with no complaints. And her little face, when I said, "ok, you can have half an hour's tv until the others wake up" was an absolute picture. See, I can be Nice Mommy too... sometimes.

Chesterfield meet

Well, we managed to get out of the house at about quarter to 11 this morning - after we'd told Sarah that, yes, we'll see you there between 10.30 and 11am...

Oops - we forgot about the nearly three quarter of a hour's drive from south of Donny to sunny Chesterfield. And oh, did I mention the bloody stupid mapquest directions that dumped me in the middle of the damned hospital carpark??? No, not for any A&E treatment, I assure you - but I followed those directions to the letter and was somewhat puzzled when the final instruction stated 'turn right and arrive at your destination' and I found myself nose to tail with an ambulance.

It's the first time I've been anywhere with just internet-generated directions - and I'm not bloody doing it again. I shot into the middle of Chesterfield, (hope there were no speed cameras, as I was a little irritated and may have overlooked the speed limits by a couple of mph here and there), found a garage, purchased an AtoZ and found myself at the old brick building in the middle of a pretty pleasant park type space in no time at all. Only 11.45am. Durrrrrr.

However, we made another kind of concertina dragons, so D was pleased with that. T got to paint some Chinese letters, and F's day was made by the appearance of a very cute spaniel who tore up and down the parquet flooring skidding slipping and sliding all over the place. No traction control on that dog. No rules at this home-ed group either, and my three seemed to enjoy themselves. And hopefully it won't take the better part of an hour to get there in future.

After that, we all decamped back to Sarah's, where Dino and my three disappeared into the garden to empty the playshed and make an inordinate amount of noise outside, whilst we sat inside drinking tea in a most civilised (eg, adult) fashion and talking cloth nappies, soap nuts and Alien movies. :-D

All in all a good day had by all. lol

The Disco at the Allotment... totally superfluous photograph, but I like it. The girls were using her as a climbing frame whilst DH and I had a good dig. We managed to get almost half the plot (albeit a half plot) dug over in a couple of hours, thanks to the super azada.

The finished product - most impressive!

Yes, T got to make bread too.

The dough ready for proving

The busy bakers - E (left) and D

Baking buns and seeds and stuff.

Barbara E and R came over earlier in the week and we spent a happy time making bread buns with the older girls, drinking tea and talking about all kinds of stuff -some of it was even nothing to do with children!

Have just posted some photos to go along with the bread making session - and realised that I'm supposed to post them in reverse order, so they make a little sense. Oh, what the heck... you get the general idea.

I've also spent two days digging in the garden, and one day up at the lottie, prepping the ground in readiness for sowing. Details will be put up at Mud & Mischief as soon as I've been outside to sow my broad beans. :-D

Oh - and the veggie growing project is in it's final testing phase. I've six sets made up, with instructions, that I'm going to post out to various people to get their opinions of. I'm thinking £2 a packet ought to cover postage & seed costs. Does that sound about right? 10 packets of seeds, with between 3 and 20+ seed in each of - winter squash, courgette, carrots, lettuce mix, peas, beans, calendula (english marigold), sunflower, tomatoes, and a mystery veg. :-D Plus growing instructions.

So three of the six sets I've got have already got names on them (Barbara, Jax, Sarah)... who wants the others? :) Email poledragon@yahoo.co.uk. If the demand is big enough, I'll make up some more.

Spring madness

I just created another blog... a Book Blog. Is there no hope for me? :)

Surreal start to the month...

+
You just know it's going to be one of those months, when practically the first words you hear coming out of your mouth are "don't dip donkeys in your breakfast". And then you follow that up by walking into the kitchen, muttering "and you definitely don't suck milk off their heads" before dropping the offending plastic animal into the sink, and then apologising for the water being so hot.

.