February Homeschool Miscellany

I had asked J to book the Aboriginal Astronomy thing at the Gravity Discovery Centre for this month's excursion but as he had a lot of work on he kept forgetting/not getting around to it and finally booked it for next month.

Probably just as well as February has its own level of chaos with term going back in and having to settle into term routines. 18yo started back at TAFE with much more enthusiasm or at least tolerance than previously. 16yo and I started work back at gym. 14yo did not start at school as J (who is handling everything to do with that, I have completely refused to deal with anything to do with that side of things) decided that he hadn't put in enough effort into going to bed and getting up on time, improving his writing or making sure he was on top of stuff that he "should" have from year 8 to be ready to go into year 9 to start this term, so he'll have to actually start putting in the effort so he can start next term. An issue we're having there is that he claims that he will do all that when he needs to but doesn't see why he should bother til then, so they're at loggerheads.

It turned out to be all about food annd beverage this month.

16yo started baking more cookies again as she occasionally likes to take them in for her class for after their training sessions.

On one of the nights where we had salmon for dinner, J was trying to think of what to do for 16yo who is the only one in the house that doesn't like salmon.  I suggested that if he did sushi rice we could have deconstructed sushi and 16yo could have canned tuna (which she does like).  

Little did we know that poke bowls were actually a thing til I told 16yo named it as such.  J set it all up and everyone got their own.  16yo's was the best presented of the bunch.

We had a birthday and 14yo excitedly made mudslides for the occasion, which was one of the more interesting cocktails he'd been wanting to try out for a while, and that we'd specially gone to buy glasses and vodka for.

They were amazing.  It got shown off to pretty much everyone and apparently Pop has decided he wants one for his birthday too.

14yo asked if 16yo was allowed to have some as there was a tiny bit left, and I said she could have a mouthful if she wanted (they're allowed a small sample what someone else is having from 16).  There was about a shot left and 16yo was interested in trying out what amounted to an alcoholic milkshake and 14yo being ever diligent and conscientious in his presentation decided that just giving her the last mouthful wasn't enough, he was going to make a mini version for her.

She did get a straw as well but as it's a normal sized straw it wouldn't have stayed put for a photo.

14yo is usually wanting to make desserts too late at night or too soon after dinner for me to say yes to them when he offers but we eventually got the timing right one night and he did his usual great job.

The liquid bit is a chocolate infused Bailey's thing he had made earlier and kept in the fridge. It was pretty good though he dumped the whole thing on there, the next time he made something like this he used much less and it was a lot better.

Neither child did their assignments this month, I'm assuming they both completely forgot without me nagging reminding them. 16yo at least had the excuse of having a lot on as she got given a group earlier than expected due to one of the groups she was assisting with growing to the extent that it needed to be split in two so there was sudden lesson planning to do. Lesson planning had been her biggest concern with running a group but after she did her first one she decided it wasn't that hard (she doesn't take nearly as long as I do as she's pretty good at organising) and is just enjoying it now. 14yo has none.

16yo's is getting rolled over to this month and 14yo can just move on to the next one as I do remember him saying that it was too varied as ideal measurements (one of the things he was supposed to do was take measurements of the glassware) depended on who you talked to.