T-Bird Anni Rides Again

need to get the ranty bit out of the way first really….

EIGHT HOURS??????  Now, I know that 8 hours includes the person traveling to and fro, and their paperwork once they are back at the office etc but really, 8 hours????  What on earth do you talk to an LA inspector about for that long????

And don’t get me started on it being okay for parents to waste our precious time preparing our year in advance plans and other such crap rather than educating or caring for our families or the fact that they arrogantly assume that these annual inspections will instantly cause our children to get better GCSE results than without their interferance….. No, am stopping right there, it’s all already been said, probably much more elequently and besides, it’s all pie in the sky because if there is any justice in the world, they won’t get it passed into law before this bunch of imcompetents get voted out.

Moving on… I played out at Oulton yesterday whilst Duke and Aprilia had a quiet day at home, aparently she Ed City-ed a bit and did some other stuff (don’t have a shrugging smilie so please imagine one here)  I was very busy and you really don’t want the gory details!  

Today I had a bad sewing day, one downloaded pattern produced a very dodgy result which got lobbed petulantly into the rag bag and the (not very) little black number looked something like okay-ish when I finished it but wasn’t "hanging" quite right but figured a good wash would sort that.  Alas, although it did soften the fabric to a much better drape, half the ***** seams frayed out because I forgot how badly this fabric frays and didn’t do a good enough job on the sewing (bad girl, that will teach me to cut corners won’t it!)  I’m hoping it’s salvagable and that throwing it back tghrough the wash a few more times will beat it into submission without it falling apart!  It’s back to the drawing board for a dress for Aprilia though.  Aprilia, meanwhile, watched Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus on TV and proved to me once again that she can actually read reasonably confidently these days as long as there aren’t too many lines at one time.

I was speaking to one of the owners tonight where I clean and he has asked me to pull together my CV.  You see, he had asked me last week if i could go into the college where he works part time to give a quickie first aid demo for the kids and when he mentioned it at the college they asked if I would be interested in a part time position as their current first aid trainer is leaving.  Now, the thing is, I wouldn’t mind doing it, in fact it’s the sort of job I would quite like doing in the future when Aprilia is big enough to be left alone to get on with stuff (so teenager I guess) but she’s not a teenager is she.  She’s a rather over-sensitive child who is quite obviously too small to be left for a day on her own and definitely not in any way "ready" to integrate into any kind of flexi-schooling arrangement (unless I could find a Monte elementary school close enough by but even then I’m not sure I’d trust them to get it "right")  Now, obviously the answer is that she goes to Harley and Lola’s house and plays there, apart from the fact that they aren’t family so would need to be registered as child minders, which isn’t going to happen as they both smoke and I can’t ask them to jump through all the bloody silly hoops that child minders have to go through to register.  Or there’s Nelly’s family but then again no, because much as the 2 of them get on fabulously, she only manages it for  few hours, then she needs a break as Nelly’s aspie tendencies to in-you-face-ness become more than she can cope with.  Or she could go to some stranger who has all the right bits of paper but probably signed up to child mind babies and tots not big girls (and I’m not sure how she would cope with the noise of a houseful of babies and tots anyway)  Which leaves me with that "primary care-giver" angst of knowing that the money would make a huge positive difference to our lifestyle and provide a bit more security (where Duke works is so quiet they have resorted to competitive facebooking to keep boredom at bay) balanced against the huge risk of putting Aprilia in a situation where she will suffer in silence somewhere she isn’t happy with all the emotional damage that could do.  Bugger.

Of course, if I could just set her up with a laptop in the corner of the room everything would be fine, you see, I’ve discovered that she will spend hours learning if it’s on a screen!  Between Moshi Monsters, Education City and the financial and planning stratagies of various FB games, she’s stretching herself in all directions at the moment with very little input from me.  It’s not really the education I had envisioned for her, but it seems to be hitting the spot for her so who am I to interfer?

First to answer questions from previous posts….

Helen, yes, of course you can pass on my thoughts on the book.

Jan, the course is Sports Massage.  After this one there is a Sports Injury one, a Remedial massage one and a couple of other ones I fancy too….. so much for taking a year out then!  To be fair, these are at a way, way easier level so all I’m doing it keeping in the study habit without having the stress levels.

Caroline, where have you been????? Have a look here….  

Moving on!   On Friday Aprilia managed to twist her ankle yet again, leaving her feeling very fragile and nervous of doing anything that may hurt it further.  Have investigated how to approach this and it appears that the best thing seems to be to provide masses of support to the wobbly joint for "high risk" activities (so that’s soft play, Kung Fu etc) and then a set of exciercises that gradually build the strength back up again.  So, excercises printed out and being done very gently and some ankle supports with springy bits that are designed especially for this kind of thing bought at half the normal price off EBay (gotta love EBay!) 

Yesterday we Kung Fued and came straight home then spent the day snuggling.  I think we both needed it.

Today I was at Oulton and managed to create mind maps for the first 2 assignments of my course, I’m assuming it gets more detailed as it goes along, if not then really, this isn’t going to take too long!

Aprilia has been "under the weather" for a few days now, not poorly exactly, but not well either really.  So she’s been indulging in rather a lot of Cbbc and Citv and even a bit of Cbeebies here and there.  Lots of nature programmes on at the mo so she’s had a fairly extensive "science" education this week

Where babies come from has also come up, thanks to the country-wide excitement over the birth of Jax’s little pretty miss.  I’ve got 2 books from SonLight about babies, aimed at differeent ages so I pulled them off the shelf.  She’s seen one of the books before, a few years ago but didn’t remember it, it’s aimed at children a little younger than her but seemed just right.  the one for her age didn’t engage her at all so I shall stuff that one back on the shelf for when Merry’s little chick puts in an appearance and we go through it all again

I’ve spent some time curled up with books that I don’t have a deadline to read by which has been pleasant.  Shadows of the Workhouse was a book given me by MIL who didn’t like it but wondered if it would interest me "what with you liking history and all that"  I loved it, but it did make me cry a few times!  It also made me laugh.  I’m sorely tempted to put her other books on my Christmas list!  And now, I’m a good half way through Oceans Apart of course, which is a lovely read.  I have always avoided "that sort of book", you know, boy meets girl, falls instantly in love, everyone feels happy for them…. bleugh…. but actually this is genuinely a lovely book and I’m almost reluctant to finish it as I don’t want it to end!!!!!  Oh, and I have a few Terry Pratchett audio books on the go too, gotta love Calibre audio books!

My new course books arrived today, it’s not as glossy as I’m used to with the OU but it’s good stuff and I’m itching to settle down to that too.  I suspect I may rattle through this one a tad faster than the OU ones, it’s very much read the section then answer the questions from the text with a side order of keep a scrap book of stuff related to the course and a portfolio of who you have practiced on.  Am sort of tempted to do the sports injuries course alongside it as they would work well together and give me a few more oportunities for stuff I could do with it in the end (and there’s a 10% offer on so I’d get it cheaper…..)  Grin, it’s no good, Im sort of adicted to this learning business…. I suppose it just took me longer than usual to de-school

Whilst looking for the cover things for the trampoline springs, we notices taht some places sell tents that are designed to go on them but for lots, and lots of money obviously!  But then, we have a pop up tent which is a perfect size…. so we have popped that up and had SonLight in the bouncy tent for the last 2 days!  Funny how she will listen to hours of stuff if she can fidgit and wiggle but can’t listen to 2 minutes if she is sat "normally".  Just another reason why home ed works

Other good things in the past few days include being told by my boss that I’m "too good" and thus am getting a pay rise, no idea how much but every little helps and actually, being told I’m good is worth quite a bit to a daft sod like me! In a similar vein, I’ve been nominated for an award with the Red Cross, which I won’t be there to collect at the annual mutual back slapping event as I’ll be at the Christmas NicCamp (phew, being told I’m good is nice, having to stand up in front of lots of people is embarrassing…) And we have traced why our bank account was £700 worse off that it should have been - that would be Duke forgetting to put in time sheets for his casual work for the last 4 months then   So we are going to be in a much better position come pay day and may even be able to afford Christmas after all

Aprilia has asked for more practical science.  I am being sadly negligent in this area at the moment (in fact, you may ahve noticed a general air of negligence in many areas recently…..) but as I am now expecting her to do "work" for me, I need to return the favour and provide fun stuff for her.

So here are some science links I want to follow up with her, recorded here because my browser’s bookmarks are in such a state just now that I’ll never find them again if I put them in there!!!

Fizz foam and flubber - thanks Michelle for the link to this one

Steve Spangler Science - an on-line shop (take the credit card off me NOW!!) but with loads of experiments to try that you don’t need special stuff for

Planet Science - as a "newsletter" for under 11s with a simple weekly experiment and lots of bright and flashy stuff that will keep my shiny girl happy for hours!

I’m sure there must be more but really, there’s enough to keep me on my toes here for a while!

random stuff, really.

Got the new smoothie maker - went for same one as last time in the end for various reasons.  Still like the look of the really cheap one (and yes, Jo, I did consider buying 2 of them!) but on looking around the internet, the Hinari seems to be the most robust, adn it needs to be robust!

Signed up to Graze to see if healthy snacks could become a habit.  Will post up my "tell a buddy code" when I rediscover where I put it safe.  It gets you £1 off a box, adn the same for me too.  We liked our first box (came today) and, although they aren’t cheap, they aren’t bad value all things considered.  I may consider getting stacks of small tubs and doing similar once we have tasted our way round all the various delicious mixes but actually, it would be an awful waste of money to buy packets of all the different bits and bobs to find we don’t like some - this way we get nice little tastes of different stuff.  She has rather got a liking for yogurt covered peanuts it seems.  Not to mention a fondness for "picasso nuts" (once she realised you don’t eat the shells!!!!!) but she wasn’t keen on Japanese crackers - and I can take them or leave them to be fair - so we’ve crossed them off our list.

I’ve written pages of notes that I need to convert to mind maps as part of my revision process.  I’m never sure if it’s the making the maps or the looking at them taht does the trick.  Either way, they work.  Still think it’s not quite right taht I needed to pull out a text book from a previous course to make sense of one big chunk of this course though.  And it’s not like the other one is one that you need to have done before being allowed on this one.

Aprilia has done learning stuff of various kinds.  She offered to read me a bedtime story about 2 hours ago but I was in a revision chat (whilst chatting to Duke on FB) so I had to decline.  Will be glad to get my evenings back.  ONly 1 week to go.

Had the pleasure of a visit from Uncle Curly yesterday.  Very unexpected.  Very pleasant to see him and chat in comfort  rather than  it being at the side of a race track!  Aprilia cuddled him damned near into insensibility, she really does do good cuddles!

Have had to admit defeat and put heating on, house just too damned cold when it’s damp - the downside of tiled floors throughout downstairs laid straight onto concrete.  Who stole my summer?

We started the day with doll clothes making.  We have an almost done "kimono" style night shirt to show for it which just needs lace sewing round the edges and eitehr poppers or velcro attaching and it’s done.  There was very little hand holding on this one and I’m looking forward to posting a pic of the results as I think it will look pretty damned good for her first flying solo project (at a good few years younger than I was the first time I was let loose on a machine!)  She also cut out, very neatly, a care bear pre-printed thing that you sew round the edge of to make something loosely resembling a teddy.  It was free of freecycle, I suspect it cost someone an awful lot more money than it can possibly be worth.  There are a lot of curves on it but she has managed one with a bit of hand holding before so she can have a go with less hand holding from me tomorrow all being well.

Then we ambled off to get the final book case I want for the bedroom.  So that’s 3 trips to Ikea to get a total of 1 desk, 2 bookcases and a CD tower.  I could ahve had the lot delivered next week for £35, I suspect that, on balance, it would have been good value, not least since I now have a sore back from mauling the damned thing into the car today.  My car’s loadbed is not long enough, not by a long way, so there was much mauling to do to get it at the right angle over the back of one seat so it was secure, I could close the back door and no one got brained by it.  We may have managed to pick up a few other odds and ends too.  Hmmm, yup, delivery would have been much cheaper.

This afternoon there was random TV for her whilst cutting out paper people for a Brownie badge (World Traveller or World Culture, they all seem to blend together at the moment….) whilst I tried again to make some sense of revision.

This evening she has Moshi Monster-ed whilst I had a "chat tutorial" on the very useful OU student forum thing the result being that she ended up doing lots of puzzling and brain work whilst I got a handle on one poem.  One.  Well, I suppose it’s a start. And it is ‘To Autumn‘ which I do really love.  So that’s okay then.

Was in work this morning and got home to find Aprilia developing a deep and meaningful relationship with Zoombinis and Spelling Blaster and Duke playing with his mid life crisis bike.  Lunch was a gourmet delight of chicken dippers with garlic bread (blush) and whilst Duke and Aprilia continued as before, I did a bit of a brainstorm on one of the plays from the course and pleasantly surprised myself with how much of it I actually remembered without looking.  Feeling slightly more hopeful that I can do the plays question in the exam now, just need to brush up on a couple of novels (give me a bit of choice in case I don’t like one question) and get a grip on a bit of poetry.  15 days to go before the exam.  Just 15 more days then it’s all over, one way or the other. 

Back in the mists of time I used to blog multiple times a week, sometimes even multiple times a day!  Now all I can claim is a few times a month.  Life. It gets in the way you know!

So, this last week then….

Work is ticking along, it’s rather nice actually to have that hour or so doing something fairly brainless, uninterrupted by family and away from the house. 

The Outwell is still up in the back garden, but I think I’ve worked out how to make the kids pod work… I’m going to cut the groundsheeting off it and use it like curtains within a normal pod (will have to sew loops inside the pod but that should be an easy job)  Am still truely hacked off that I was so badly mis-sold with the damned thing but life goes on and in the grand scheme of things a dodgy kids pod is piffling really.

Rainbows is on hold.  I have too many balls in the air, Rainbows is one I can put down for a month with little or no pangs of concience.  We will start after my exam and have a 7 week term.  Final straw was that "a number of parents" phoned the county commissioner to complain that they had expected Rainbows to start and it hadn’t.  No, they didn’t phone me first to find out why.  So stuff them.  They can damned well wait until I’m good and ready to start back  am not flogging myself or risking stuffing up the exam on their behalf.

Educating is going in fits and starts.  We did loads of schooly stuff yesterday, finishing off the waifs and strays of old workbooks and revisiting the first NVR papers book - I’d scanned the whole lot last year which she ground her way through at agonisingly slow pace so we started again, in the book this time, which she doesn’t know is the same one, and she rattled through an entire paper in 10 mins.  She likes NVR now!  Monday she spent the whole day self-educating on the PC with a mix of Zoombinis, Spelling Blaster, Moshi Monsters, Magic Schoolbus and Cbbc website games.

Revision is also going in fits and starts.  I’m happy with the plays part (I know which play to revise, I know it will be an extract to do text analysis on, that’s easy)  I have 2 novels I’m blissfully happy with, which should give me a few options on the prose question.  But then we get to poetry.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually rather like poetry.  But the selection we have is pants for the most part.  A few corkers in there but for the most part it’s pretentious or feminist (and don’t get me started on being force fed feminist issues on this damned course….)  Sigh.  I think my trouble is that the first course I did was so well produced that everything afterwards seems like utter dross.

It’s that time of year when we re-qualify on First Aid too.  Irritatingly all the really busy stuff at Wombwell can’t be counted towards the re-qual (you are supposed to be able to count stuff you have actually done so long as all the criteria are met) because I didn’t have my paperwork with me (it wasn’t issued out til the next day) when all hell was breaking loose so no one could stand there and tick bloody boxs.  Calm blue ocean be damned, I want blood…..   or maybe even

By the way, I keep being accused by people at Kung Fu of being too nice.  Was even accused of being a lady on Saturday.  See?  I can still fool some people at least some of the time