T-Bird Anni Rides Again

In amongst me faffing about and pondering food I did actually manage to provide some education!  We are sort of finished with SL for a little while, we still ahve a few weeks of history to finish, we are with the Romans at the mo and she likes the Romans so it’s going well.  We do appear to have managed to not buy one of the books though so I’m not reading "Detectives in Togas", I’m reading yet more Roman Mystery.  We are up to The Gladiators of Capua now.  I’m also reading The Hobbit to her (Smaug has just smashed up the Back Door in a fit of temper) and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we have the version illustrated by Helen Oxenbury which is really rather lovely.  She also did 3 very simple sudoku puzzles, I’m hoping to get her going with those as a means of developing a bit more logic and as a sneaky way to keep a pen in her hand for more than 10 seconds!  There was a little bit of reading and then she did a section on Spelling Blaster before attacking a bit of Study Dog 2, moaning that I didn’t get Study Dog 3 and how unfair it was that it wasn’t available yet (not that she’s finished SD2 or anything….) and then finished off by completing the last bit of Learning Ladder for 6-7 year olds.

I spent a while printing off activities etc for the rest of the month.  I want a bit of a change from her just sitting passive for most of the learning so I rummaged through all the stuff I’ve downloaded over the years and settled on doing some stuff about Martin Luther King Jr as it seems remarkably relevent not only to it being the month that marks his birthday but also to the fact that there is the first ever non-white president stepping up to the plate this month too.  I also printed off a chunk of Montessori type activities which I need to spend a few evenings cutting out and laminating then finding suitable ways to present and store.  In amonst it all there is the multiplication board which I’m hoping to be able to fudge to make the division board out of as well (they aren’t too different) and some 3 part cards - phases of the moon, continent cards and landform cards.  I’m toying with the idea of doing something like the continent folders but as lapbook-ish things with her contributing to the content and creation of them.  I’m sure the good Dr would aprove of my addapting her materials to suit, she did a lot of it herself over the years!

I’ve also been giving a lot of thought to Sonlight.  I’m rather cross with them dropping the cheap postage for overseas.  $35 shipping for any order below $50 is not funny.  I cancelled the order I was going to place and am considering moving over to Winter Promise after next year (I got the next core a year ago whilst the exchange rate was so very favourable) as it’s a similar format but with more input from the child in the form of notebooking pages which I’m hoping will mean that more of the information is retained.  But of course, I could change my mind again in the next year now couldn’t I?  If I even mention ACE please shoot me though…..

Life is ganging up on me, I keep getting prompts to plan our meals from lots of different sources.  So here’s a sort of Home Economics Orgo-Planning type of mind dump…

Things we really like to eat regularly

Spanish Omlette and garlic bread - bit heavy on the cholesterol but at least it has lots of onion so it’s a rare vegetable portion for Duke!  Goes down nicely cold the next day so is often our meal of choice for Friday as then Duke can take it with him on duty next day.

Corned beef pan-hash - not quite so heavy on the cholesterol!  Also heavy on the onions!  Nice heated up the next day too.

Pizza - a new addition to the repertoire, I make it without tomato paste so Duke will eat it, it’s cheap although it’s nicer if you use organic flour (I’m not normally snooty about brands etc but I was really surprised how much nicer bread made with the expensive Dove Farm flour is!)  Aprilia has tonnes of sweetcorn on it usually and has agreed to try sliced tomatoes too this time, Duke has yet more onion   and maybe some meat with the cheese, he has mushroom too sometimes, does that count as a veg?

Chicken strew - Duke makes a fab stew, in a huge stock pot, it feeds us 3 or 4 times which means I get at least 1 easy meal a week so long as I remember to hoik a tub of it out of the freezer.

Bacon butties - mine come with lettuce and tomato (and a lemon and olive oil dressing) but theirs are just straight.  

Mince and tortillas - need to make up another vat of this!  It’s something that will reliably get a few veg portions into Duke as he can’t see them so he can pretend they aren’t there.  In case anyone doesn’t know, Duke is my husband not my son by the way…..

Roast dinner - will ALL the trimmings!  Aparently veg "go" with a roast whereas they don’t "go" with most of our other meals…..

Sausage and mash

Scampi and chips

Fish and chips

So, not a lot of health foods going on there!  And an awful lot of "oh, it’s Friday it must be tortilla" which doesn’t inspire me to enthusiasm in the kitchen (which goes back to me pondering attitudes to chores etc doesn’t it)

I need to do more vegetables by stealth for Duke (Aprilia munches on raw carrots, cucumber and fruit so probably gets her 5 a day) and remember to get the runner beans into pots in time this year so I can stock him up on a year’s worth of green veg during their season!  I suppose I also need to pull out the myriad recipe books on my shelves, where, lets face it they don’t do a lot of good, and start picking out one or two to try a week (with an easy standby on hand in case of refusals) and get a bit more variety into our lives.   Hmm, didn’t I say that me and Aprilia were doing cooking more this year, right then, I’d better keep my side of the deal!

So, if you had one fail safe recipe to suggest, what would it be?

“We hurry though the so-called boring things in order to attend to that which we deem more important, interesting. Perhaps the final freedom will be a recognition that everything in every moment is ‘essential’ and that nothing at all is ‘important’.” Helen M. Luke

What would the next hour, the next day, be like if we saw no task as important but everything as essential?

Priorities hey?  So what would looking at housework be like if I didn’t see it as something hateful that just has to be done and started looking at it some other way?  What about all the other "chores" that "get in the way" of my fun?  I suppose they would still be the same tasks, you can’t make them dissappear, but if I change how I look at them would I loathe them any less?  Would I resent other people’s devil may care attitudes to my just mopped floor/just cleared space less if I didn’t regard it as such a martyr-creating task in the first place?  Probably!  But how to re-program me is another thing, isn’t it?

This year I’m aiming at more creativity in my life and my home.  I’m looking at creating a more calm, less cluttered home as part of that creativity.  Creating space.  If that’s not going to turn into something that creates resentment and anger then I need to get a grip on this whole attitude to housework etc.  If nothing is more or less essential than any other task then I need to concentrate equally on every task, not just doing enough to get by whilst my mind is on something else. 

This is even more random than my usual ponderings isn’t it!