September - December Homeschool Miscellany

I had bought The Art of War in very recent history (can’t remember precisely when but I feel like it’s been at least a year by now) as 14yo had expressed a desire to read it. He didn’t get around to actually reading it until recently, when he suddenly went on a health kick (both physical and mental) and on advice of J and 18yo, started trying to get in at least a little bit of exercise, eat a healthy breakfast (the kids and I don’t really eat breakfast as we never feel particualrly hungry for a while after waking up) and read a book every day.

January Homeschool Miscellany

One of the good things about The Big Reset (although the kids don’t really feel it at the time) is the slow and very limited internet (my parents actually have a quota as they don’t use nearly as much internet as we do or more specifically as the kids do), which means they tend to spend slightly less time on their devices. The boys actually spent a few nights playing chess against each other and JJ, and Sprat taught them how to play a game with a Chinese name somewhat similar to Poker (the similarity that I could pick up being that you had similar collections of cards you could use).

December Homeschool Miscellany

I usually don’t do December and January unless interesting things happen as December is usually write-off month (too many end of year things happening for anything to be effectively planned and even if it could be planned we’d be exhausted as normally around the end of year things we just want to chill) and January is planning month (because my organisational skills are that atrocious that I need an entire month to plan).

Massive Christmas Island Photopost 2014-15

Minimal text, many photos, some videos. Mishmash of scenic, happysnaps and homeschooling stuff coz that’s how we roll. Grab a drink and a snack before commencing. First couple of weeks… The airport wait wasn’t terribly exciting but at least there were planes to watch being loaded, taking off and landing. Big asam tree across the road as seen from my bed. It’s always good to be home. Kids helping Nanny and Aunty Sprat put together loot bags for Carols by Candlelight

Christmas Island: long photopost and fyn's bad luck saga

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Back in Perth now and this post is going to be a long one. The holiday has been great because I was home and crap because in the second week, I got a swollen gland or lymph node that pressed onto the nerve of one of my back teeth and caused a LOT of pain and made eating difficult, and the kids got sick.

Christmas Island: first day at the beach

It was slightly overcast and we almost didn’t go thanks to a (relatively) minor allergic reaction I had to lunch, but we got there and it was good. Epic shot! Or at least one that I was really glad turned out good Threw this one in just because it’s cute We got home and had fried banana (except 6yo who doesn’t like bananas). There was an epic battle between 8yo and Sprat for the last one but 4yo had dibs as he’d just come out of the bath when it was served up and he’d only had one.

Photos from the surprise Christmas Island visit

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Recently, in a mad jumble of chaos and confusion well coordinated and executed attack, my sister and I surprised our parents for their 60th. I took a bunch of photos but didn’t put them on my laptop due to the constant dramas I’ve been having downloading photos from the camera (keep losing connection, and the closer I get to finishing the import the more it breaks) and also the internet connection on Christmas Island is so agonisingly slow that photos would have taken aeons to upload anyway.

Well laid plans

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] My plans rarely go according to plan. They do usually result in a desirable (and sometimes even the desired) outcome though. The latest one worked a charm, considering how many factors, unknowns and randoms got involved. My parents are 60 this year. When we were up for Christmas in December, I made some noises about attempting to come back for the big birthday bash they had planned in the middle of the year if I could scrape the money together.

Massive Christmas Island photopost

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Everything that happened after the dangers of parking your ship next to a cliff, which I would have posted if my sites hadn’t been playing silly buggers. Everything is okay now, which means I’ll be posting about as much as I was inclined to post before. Weird looking spider Have I scared off the arachnophobes yet?

The dangers of parking your ship next to a cliff

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] If a storm rolls in unexpectedly (or just unexpectedly fast), it could get battered quite severely. This was taken a bit earlier today by JJ who raced down with his camera as soon as my parents came back from church and informed us that the waves at the Cove were knocking the cargo ship that was in about the place.