A new chapter begins

Tomorrow is the start of my 'new' life.

Ok, maybe not that dramatic, but things are changing, and it seems September is the month in which these things happen in my life.

First thing in the morning, the new playgroup starts. Not sure entirely how I got roped into this, but Nikki and I have taken over the Thursday morning playgroup in Bawtry. We're going to run it along Waldorf lines, and try to figure out a way to incorporate the homeschool kids in once a fortnight. We have a basic outline plan but I think for the first session we're just going to wing it, ask lots of questions of all the mums who'll (hopefully) come along and see what kinds of things they'd like us to do.

I'm also going to get Tea and Piglet a place in the local pre-school. I think I may have blogged this awhile back, but my intentions are to get them in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, which will give Myf and I some much needed one-on-one time to do 'stuff'. Not entirely sure what kind of 'stuff' we're going to do but it'll be a start. I'm thinking timelines, a little British history, some Celtic myths, some basic maths (we've slipped alittle in that department) and building on her reading, which has suddenly developed a very strong foundation. I'm hugely proud of her reading. I've also got this Sonlight science thing, and a whole bunch of Krampf science project emails I'm dying to get started on. It's the kind of thing, though, that doesn't need a 2 year old dismantling everything as we go along.

And on that note, I'm going to have to start getting some sleep. Tea has given up her dummy, voluntarily, about 3 weeks ago. After several months of me telling her she was too big for one now (she's 4 in December), we lost the last one on a Tuesday nap time. So we persuaded her to go to sleep without it. An hour later, she was still awake, but not crying, which is what she'd always done before when I'd tried to take the dummy (known as sookie) off her. I went up, and she was complaining she couldn't get to sleep without sookie. I tucked her in, gave her her fleecy blanket and her baby doll, which, I pointed out, didn't have a sookie, and left her to it. 5 minutes later, she was asleep, and she's slept fine without it since! And there was me thinking I had a huge battle looming.

Thing is, I'm so used to be woken up to find sookie, find bunny, drinka water, etc etc that I'm waking up on my own two and three times a night, and that's after it's taken me an hour or two to get to sleep...

Time to start switching this thing off before 11pm, I think. Even before midnight would be a start.

And then there's the smallholding I've found in Wales...

My Gullibility Factor

Your GF score is 91.

(Out of a range of 0 - 100, where 0 = mind slave, and 100 = free thinker.)

Mind slave

Free thinker

0

(You)

100

Free Thinker

Welcome to the top 5%. You're a true free thinker and a person who is well informed about the reality in which you live. Although you may have been easily manipulated earlier in life, you eventually gained lucidity and developed a healthy sense of skepticism that you now automatically apply to your observations and experiences. You are endlessly curious about human behavior and the nature of the universe, and you have one or more lifestyle habits that most people would consider odd or unusual. You are not only of very high intelligence, you are also extremely creative in one or more areas (music, art, software development, inventing, etc.)

If you were in The Matrix, you would have taken the red pill, completed the combat training, and started fighting (and beating) agents from day one.

Your architects: You have cast off reality distortions taught to you by your parents, schooling, corporate advertising and government propaganda. You create your own beliefs based on what serves you best, without much regard for what the rest of the crowd is doing. You are guided by your own internal code of ethics (which may or may not agree with politically-correct ethical codes) rather than any pre-set system of ethics (such as from any one religion).

Check out Crawford's Snippets page and click on 'Take the Gullibility Test' to find out your Gullibility Factor

Thanks Jax

Must stop following these links...


Visual
13

Aural
15

Verbal
17

Physical
13

Logical
18

Social
11

Solitary
15

Edited to add Especially when I can't figure out how to display the results. :( However, have at least added the numbers now! :)

For the Smart car set

Animal attraction?

Veggies and knitting

Had a lovely day yesterday (Thursday) - went round to Nikki's for a day of knitting and talking and just generally socialising in a most civilised manner. Jax and Kirsty came along, with offspring, and all ten children ran around and played quite happily. We were all very impressed with them, and mightily pleased too!

Today I spent running long overdue errands, as my white Disco has been off the road for a while (missing reverse gear). We did supermarket shopping (urgh), but only after we'd been to the Fieldgate Centre. What a little find! Now I'm by no means vegan, or even remotely vegetarian, but I do do 'healthy' and most vegan cafes I've been to do healthy very, very well. We had beans on toast and vegetable and lentil soup, which were both lovely (Whole Earth organic baked beans - I swear there's cinnamon in there). Myf's only complaint was that she didn't like the 'butter'. Um, probably because it's not butter...

Stocked up on organic veggies and the like before doing a Sainsbury's shop, and then heading home to find my washing had been rained on and not a builder in sight. I did make pizza for tea though, from scratch and it was lovely. And distinctly not vegetarian. ;)

Must stop doing these quizzes...

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

That's me

Your Mood Ring is Yellow

Imaginative Wondering Thoughts Peaceful

Mood Ring Generator

Does that translate as 'offically a space cadet'? :)

Had to do it

Are you Addicted to the Internet? 76% Hardcore Junkie (61% - 80%) While you do get a bit of sleep every night and sometimes leave the house, you spend as much time as you can online. You usually have a browser, chat clients, server consoles, and your email on auto check open at all times. Phone? What's that? You plan your social events by contacting your friends online. Just be careful you don't get a repetitive wrist injury... The Are you Addicted to the Internet? Quiz at Quiz Me!

Chaos

Am thinking on this education lark.

How, precisely, are you supposed to be able to do anything with your easily-distracted 6 year old, when your 2 year old has a shriek that can shatter glass at 100 yards and your 3 and a half year old loves nothing more than to torment the 2 year old to the point where the shriek is one continuous ear-splitting noise?

That's without taking into consideration the fact that the 3.5 year old has to do whatever it is her big sister is doing, except with none of the finesse and twice the enthusiasm, but only for 2 minutes at a time, by which point the 6 year old is throwing a full scale strop refusing to do antying as the 3.5 year old is 'spoiling everything' and the 2 year old in the meanwhile has been in the freezer and found a forgotten bag of frozen broccoli and strewn the contents all over the kitchen floor.

Boarding school has never looked so good.

Cheesecake finally popped

peekaboo, originally uploaded by Poledragon.

Peekaboo!

Mini Moose

running, originally uploaded by Poledragon.

This one is just like his Daddy - he's got wavy fur and even his whiskers are crinkly!

The Fantastic Four

fantastic four, originally uploaded by Poledragon.

How cute are?

Look what I got!

huddle, originally uploaded by Poledragon.

Four little baby guinea pigs born today! You can't quite see the grey one under the huddle.

Visitors

It's lovely. My two cousins are vising from Birmingham and it's wonderful having the extra 'help'. Charley is nearly 10, and gets ordered round by Myf and followed like a puppy by Tea. And Vicki is 19, soI get someone to talk to and also, lots of help with Piglet who adores her.

And to that end, we've had a tidy up in the living room, blitzed the kitchen and are even seriously considering having a stab at the dining room... drum roll please!

Yesterday we all went to Bradway, courtesy of Sarah who drove all the way from Chesterfield up to Bawtry to collect my extra passenger. Seeing as how the titchy truck only had five seats... oh, all the trucks only have 5 seats now. :(

And speaking of trucks, James has decamped in the titchy truck to take it back and collect the orange one, that is working perfectly on gas but refusing to fire on more than 3 cylinders on petrol; and I finally put the green one in the Autotrader yesterday. Must sell that.

Today's Jax-style to-do list reads:
computer off, laundry out, more into machine, kitchen floor to mop, living room to vacuum, children to chase (although the cousins are doing an admirable job), large pile of 'stuff' to chuck into skip before it's collected this afternoon, guinea pigs to clean out, feed dog, dig out frozen stuff for making lasagne, water toms/chillis/egg plants in greenhouse

Ok, shall stop there and go prepare for James' imminent arrival - he's just collected the orange one from Guy Salmon, and apparently it's running like a bag of nail still. Even on gas. So they lied. Doesn't want to start on petrol, and once it's onto gas it's lumpy and bad tempered and gutless. He's not a happy camper. Duck'n'cover folks.

G4 update (or 'I told you so')

They took the orange one away on a low-loader on Friday morning, and left me with a titchy little Freelander. Myf only barely fits between the two car seats in the back. However, it's quick, and I can fit into any darned carpark I please.

And todays update? They spent all day today (being Monday, they didn't touch it until this morning) faffing around with the engine, testing various inputs and outputs and pressures and flows and so on and so forth et cetera et cetera ad naseum. And guess what? They still don't know what wrong with it. But the best bit is, it's running perfectly on gas.

Not totally sure how James managed to keep a straight face when he was told that, but he did. They cannot get the thing running properly on petrol, but once they pick up the revs enough to switch over to gas, it runs just fine.

And to think, I very nearly became a mechanic.