Three decades, and some dolls

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] I recently hit three decades. I spent most of the actual day finishing up the coding for the site that’s going on the kiosk Sprat and I are doing for the Christmas Island Tourism Association and cleaning for the party on the following day. 4yo requested the whiteboard so I took it down for her, and little arty girl knocked herself out drawing on it.

Good day, "bad" day

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Yesterday was an awesome day. To counter, I had a rather average day. Compared to yesterday it was bad, but seriously in the grand scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse. Good day I went to bed at a reasonable time the night before. Slept in a little bit, woke up chirpy, had breakfast and did the usual morning computery stuff.

Organisational skills? What organisational skills?

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] What’s been happening at Wannabe Farmstead? Feels like a lot. I was out with the dogs at the oval when it occurred to me: I can sort out and adjust training “schedules” in my head fast from observing the dogs while working with them I can work out learning styles and interests of the kids from observation and interaction and work out where to go and things to do that they might find interesting I can work around family stuff with minimal dramas I can do things for clients on time (provided they get me what I need when I say I need it by) I cannot organise my own way out of a paper bag I should probably do something about that last point.

Painting lessons

when you have autonomous big kids who can set themselves up, poke head in every so often make sure they know that the glass jar the brushes stand in is the paintbrush rinsing jar and that they shouldn’t use drinking glasses ditto palettes, so they don’t substitute food bowls choose non-toxic paints in case the above happens never leave toddlers unattended. Ever. All post clean-up. The projects are stuck fast to the table due to having been quite wet.

Basic literacy and numeracy sans formal lessons

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] Pocket money and birthday cards. And that’s just two of an infinite number of possibilities. 5yo has recently started writing the names of his friends from !school group on the backs of envelopes. It all started with the first birthday party of one of them a couple of months ago, in which both 5yo and 3yo, with a little help from me, wrote “Happy Birthday from [their name]” on a piece of paper, decorated it, and then stuck it into a similarly decorated envelope, and wrote the child’s name on the front.

Sound of the Universe

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] Last Saturday (1st of May), the parents-in-law took us to the Gravity Discovery Centre in Gingin. It is well worth a visit. Once they got over the toy corner, the kids, especially 5yo, had a great time checking out the exhibits in the main building, particularly the chaos balls, the “pod racer” (big metal sphere with two magnets being held just off it by wires), and the giant gravity funnel that you can spiral tennis balls down.

Rejigging flux

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] It’s probably a good thing I’m used to constant flux, it has on occasion driven me mad but I think I need it, considering several attempts to have anything above the most basic of basic routines results in more chaos and me actually going mad. Considering the amount of Stuff going on in my head I’ve decided to relegate logging of the banal crap and reminders to do Stuff to djinn (my iPhone, yes it and both my computers and my car have names and personalities) which seems to have left the part of my brain I’m aware of using more room to do some really weird stuff.

Catchup, Tapfish economics, cartography and Lojban

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] [this post got a lot of interesting/amusing comments mostly about people apparently annoyed by my decision to use Lojban as the IAL (international auxiliary language) for AEfter Ragnarok - bit sad to lose them] Catchup No posts for a whole year. That might have something to do with being slightly manic with what I calculated was roughly the equivalent of a 24/7/365 on call full time job and two contract/casuals.

Statues in Kenya

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] Today Tiny was spinning a tale about a house a bit bigger than ours with olts of people. Then he starrted talking about golden statues. I asked him where, he said “somewhere else”. I said somewhere could be anywhere, could he be more specific? He said he thinks Kenya. Then asked me where Kenya was.

Individual learning styles

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] [imported from livejournal and backdated] Again with the attempt to keep up recording. I have a funky silver Smiggle diary which I’m going to be using for homeschooling notes, and if I remember I’ll transpose them on here and point the relatives at it, as well as anyone else who’s interested in homeschooling or unschooling, just on the offchance :)