Putting the joy back in

For a week I have been noting down things we do and conversations under formal categories like RE/Art/English etc. I have become hugely frustrated that a chat about holidays would have to go under Geography when that wasn't the gist of the conversation at all, it was more a wondering about what would be fun and what would suit people's personalities. PSHE? Adult life? Nature? Current Affairs? Science? My head nearly exploded. 10 mins of chat led onto 30 mins of confusion for me later.

So I'm putting the joy back in and going back to my previous way of noting stuff down. I'm doing it for me and so I have rough data to use when I write up my Home Ed review each month in my own way and for my own purposes. It takes 2 seconds when I choose to do it and is in no way a burden.

I put an * beside each brand new event. It's lovely to se how many new things there are each week. I do this for both T and H because it's more interesting. I do a separate column for each and just one page per week, stuffed full of notes like 'Qi' , 'looked at ducks' and 'asked how to spell leprechaun'.

Sleeping

..like a teenager. At peace, still, on and on. While the body and mind sleep the transformations happen to both. No one goes around pestering caterpillars once they are all wrapped up in their cocoons, so 'Leave those sleeping teenagers alone!!' is my motto.

When they are awake they have intermittent teenageritis which requires food, drinks and general care. When it is over they head off to do fun things until the next burst of teenageritis hits.

Middle aged people have odd ailments too: extreme grumpiness, odd attacks of nature worship, peculiar longings for order and a love of old TV comedies.

I love this book

'In between times, she played cards with her grandmother. They both cheated shamelessly, and their card playing afternoons always ended in a quarrel. This had never happened before. Grandmother tried to recall her own rebellious periods in order to try and understand, but all she could remember was an unusually well-behaved little girl. Wise as she was, she realised that people can postpone their rebellious phases until they're eighty-five years old, and she decided to keep an eye on herself. It rained constantly, and Papa worked from morning to night with his back to the room. They never knew if he was listening to them or not.'

The Summer Book - Tove Jansson

Early Valentine's Day Poem

'They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.'

Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat

For Lent

I shall be having a bit of a media fast this Lent. So I will spend my time very wisely when I do get online, in front of our TV and tangled up in the newspaper.

My mother in law asked what I would do with myself instead, and I laughed. I will find out as the days go on. I really don't know how this will change things for me and everyone else.

I'll be doing some silence too. Maybe I will be able to report on that too.

I'm sure there is a home education angle in this somewhere.

Bit of a poem

'She's a-big. She's a-mean. She's a-wild.
She's a-fierce.'

from Alligator by Grace Nicholls

Try this

'And you look up at that unbelievably high bridge and feel death and for a good reason: because underneath the bridge, in the sand right beside the sea cliff, hump, your heart sinks to see it: the automobile that crashed thru the bridge rail a decade ago and fell 1000 feet straight down and landed upsidedown, is still there now, an upsidedown chassis of rust in a strewn skitter of sea-eaten tires, old spokes, old car seats sprung with straw, one sad fuel pump and no more people-'

Big Sur - Jack Kerouac

Multi-reading

Rather than read one book at a time I have developed a multi-reading approach. For the moment I absolutely love it. I look forward to resting on the sofa with a hot water bottle and a duvet. The children are busy and chatting elsewhere in the house. I pick up one book after another. I read 1-3 pages, just enough to dive into each book again and taste it. Then I put the marker in it and move on to the next one.

For the record my heap of wonders is:

Dr No - Ian Fleming
Big Sur - Jack Kerouac
The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
A Classical Education - Caroline Taggart
Big Book of Unschooling - Sandra Dodd
Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare (confess I'm really struggling with this, even though it is super beautiful, maybe because I can't mark where I have got to each time, writing this has given me a thought, a post it note would be easy to move to the right place.)
Peace is Every Step - Thich Nhat Hanh
In Person 30 Poets - Neil Astley
Handbook of Nature Study - Anna Botsford Comstock

Maybe I'll divide my mountain so I have a smaller heap beside 2 different reading places...decisions, decisions!