Sept 8th

I am so unbelievably tired, I feel quite incoherent, so please forgive if I start to ramble.

I've read back on a few posts and they really are lacking in any kind of literary lustre.  Not that I'm claiming to be any Ernest Hemingway, but still, I like to think my posts are mildly entertaining.  Please bear with me.  I promise more come October (after about the third or so, as I imagine I'll be sleeping for two days straight after the completion of this freakin' ordeal I have committed myself to).

So I did go to yoga this morning.

After a hideous night's sleep - I think I was terrified the alarm wasn't going to go off.  I kept waking and wondering the time.  I asked Ben to check at 3am (after which he was unable to get back to sleep and got up to work).  I slept fitfully until 5am when he came in to wake me.  I could barely get my arms up to my ears in half moon (let alone behind them).  Energy seemed to pick up once I hit the floor, but boy was I glad when we hit final savasna.  I think I lay on the floor in the dark for about five minutes before dragging my carcass to the showers.

Picking up my button was the highlight of my week - but oh my, do almost five-year-olds have endless energy!  Thankfully she's a stay-at-home kinda gal and I had a house that needed attending.  So we hung out all day at home - and it was marvelous.  There was dancing in between the floor clearing, painting in between the surface clearing, strawberry planting in between the paperwork sorting.

 Dancin', babywearin' style!

And I finally did today, what I have had intention towards doing for months.  LOVE it when that happens!  I began our wall of lovin'.  Cards, letters, poems and mementos given to us from loved ones - too beautiful to dispose of and too inspiring to bury away in a drawer.  

It makes me smile every time I walk past it (which is often, as it's in the hallway between the living and sleeping quarters).

I enjoyed TWO glasses of wine tonight, as it kind of feels like a night off.  Practice tomorrow is a 6pm class - a break my body is very much looking forward to.  In fact, I'm already thinking of ways to bribe my child to stay in bed with me for as long as possible tomorrow morning.... perhaps I'll pull out the big guns and stow the ipad under the bed *smile*.

Oh - and something I was grateful for two days ago, but forgot to post about.

Free protein powder samples, courtesy of Raw Pleasure.

Best stuff on the market, in my personal opinion.

Very excited!

July 10th

I was blessed with an awesome day today.

But my gratuity kudos goes to Candice and Alleira, for their generous, thoughtful, much-squeeeefullness gift.

LED poi.

Cos, there's no chance in Hades Garden I'll be twirlin' with fire anytime soon.

Last time I picked up a set of poi, I was 12 years old.  

I always wanted to join the Maori Culture group at high school.  But I went to a school with many a talented Maori and I felt like an uncoordinated white girl.  So, I lusted from afar and enjoyed the shows when they were performed.  But often longed for the days in primary school when I knew all the words to all the Maori songs we sang and I used to know how to swing a poi.

So, last night, I tried to find that twelve year old girl.

I found her!  And I'm just as bad now, as I was back then! *laugh*

But I now have an awesome opportunity to learn.  And along with the poi set, came a DVD!

Thank you Candice, thank you Alleira.  I am so utterly grateful for your gift.

I look forward to setting down my drum and picking up my poi when it comes to our twirlin' evenings.

And I look forward to adding to the two bruises I gave myself tonight!

July 7th

Freezing cold outside.  Toasty warm inside.

Provides the perfect canvas!

See, many would just see a child drawing on a window with a cottonbud (and cursing the upcoming window washing).  But I see a lesson in chemistry and physics *grin*.

But, all unschooling aside, you wanna know what I'm really grateful for today?

This:

Yep.  Simple pleasures found in a cup of Earl Grey tea, in my favourite mug, delivered to me by the most beautiful man in the world.

July 6th

Such a sad day.

I felt like Homer Simpson eating Pinchy.

(No idea what I'm talking about? )

Lucy and I were wandering through the shops, midway between the post office and the sushi shop, when I came across this:

People were thronging in and out of the store.

I couldn't help myself.  I had to go in.

I have such an insane book obsession, it's quite ridiculous.

Like, when I moved countries (all four times) and every other move I have done in my life (nearly 20 now), the biggest collection of boxes contained books.  In my last downsize, I released all the novels I was carrying - you know, classics, like Jean Auel's foursome (which is now a five or sixsome) "Clan of the Cave Bear" series, everything written by Bryce Courtenay and Anne Rice, and of course, Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series.  So now my collection is made up of reference works under the genres of nutrition, fertility, birth, wholistic health, women's health, parenting, medical science, finance, craft and way-out-there-freaky-hippy-goddess-kinda-stuff (my private not-on-display collection).

Knowing the layout of this store (and every bookstore within my immediate vicinity), I went straight to the following sections (in order) to source some potential gems left behind by the masses before me:  nutrition and health; fertility and parenting; craft; finance; hippy; science.  Lucy took off to the kiddies section and found herself a gem on oceans and whales.  And I found these:

And I am not ashamed to admit, at the checkout, I actually put two books back on the shelf that I *knew* was mere consumerism because I could - not because they were *actually* needed. So all up, I spent just over $40 on six books that should have cost me well over $150.

The woman that served me was bopping to the music as she processed my credit card and all I could think of was "aren't you sad???"  But of course, no, why would she be?  She most likely has another job lined up, because this move has been a long time coming now.  And she is (most likely) no way invested in the prosperity of this store - or any book store like it.

Now, I can't say I'm completely without blame here!  I buy from Book Depository, Fishpond - hell, even Amazon (with their $5 per book shipping costs).  I know that, perhaps, if my peers and I had continued to purchase in-store, this chain may not be going out of business.  Money talks, bullshit walks as they say.  But I'm still sad, nonetheless.  I'm still sad that there is one less chain of bookstores in a town near you, available for hours of luxurious time wasting, page leafing, ink sniffing and surreptitious over-the-book-sneaky-peeking.

A&R, I'm truly, genuinely saddened your doors are closing.

But always grateful for your parting gifts.

And in other news, book depository gets swallowed by Amazon.  Is that the end of our free shipping anywhere in the world? *le sigh*.

June 17th

We visited the second school on our choice of two list, today.

I didn't *actually* think this would happen, but I believe we have found a primary school that will nurture my child's intellectual, social and academic requirements more than her father and I could do alone.

The thing that I love more than the International Baccalaureate primary years program, more than the gorgeous naturally treed environment, adjacent to the park, more than the multi-leveled quirky architecture of the buildings, more than the fact that there is a female principal - is how they structure the early education years.  I may have mentioned before, the necessity within the schooling system for children to fit into boxes according to their ages and then learn predetermined curriculum *appropriate* for their age, shits me.  Children are not carbon copies of each other.  They don't fit neatly into boxes - no human being does!  And they most certainly don't learn at the same pace.  Some will always be bored.  Some will always be left behind.

This school presents a multi-age philosophy for preps, year ones and year twos.  Multi-age is the deliberate placing of children of different ages (and different abilities) in the same classroom.  Within the classroom, the children are often regrouped into different learning abilities, rather than being taught at an age level.  They are taught at their point of challenge (their words - love it!).  With average multi-age class sizes of around 20 - there are only about 6-8 preps per class.  

We entered one multi-age class and you couldn't tell which children were preps.  All the children were relaxed, calm and intent on their learning (even after a slight interruption of our presence!).  There wasn't the manic-ness you often see in a class of 20 five year old children (or six year old for that matter).  According to the teachers, the prep students learn very quickly of classroom 'etiquette' and are often helped along by the older students.

Another thing that struck me was when we walked into a large room, divided into three multi-level sections, where approximately 60 year six students were learning maths, in small groups of no more than seven.  There was very little noise!  (In fact, this was very evident throughout the school.)  The children were so intent on their learning - it was evident there was no boredom.  The year level was six, but there were many students of younger ages present, as that was where they were up to academically in maths.  There is continuous re-evaluation of the students by the teachers, to see if they need to move groups to further stimulate their learning.  They work on the 50:50 premise.  They aim for students to get 50% of their work right and 50% of their work wrong, striking the perfect learning balance.

I could go on for hours.  I was very impressed.  The focus is very much about nurturing self motivators and from what we could see, this was very evident (especially in the two class captains that walked around with us).  And of course, being IB, the school has an international focus, which I greatly value.

I feel very grateful that this school has found its way into our world.

Thank you to Rachael for the referral. *smile*

May 22nd

There's a couple of things I'm very grateful for today.

After the awesome group energy of yesterday, today was a day for Ben and me.

A couple of days ago, a friend online had asked if anyone was interested in an overlocker - used once, still in the box.  I immediately (like, within 19 seconds) said yes.  And today we went and picked it up.

Meet my new machine!

We decided to coordinate our four hour round trip around breakfast and a coffee date with the beautiful Carly, the provider of my brand new machine (*squeeee*).  I love that I live in a world where items that are no longer needed or used, are offered up to be loved by someone new.  I also love that I could then on-sell my (laden with past life heaviness) overlocker to another home in need.  Perfection.

The second thing I am grateful for, is a man's need to tinker.

And a man's need to figure out how things work - and then *make* them work!

Have you ever had to thread an overlocker?

Oh my.

This is a five threader, but you get the idea, right?  Eep!

So, while I was busy attaching more boosters onto more pads, Ben was threading the overlocker and then serging even more boosters (enjoying the fruits of his labour).  We had a wonderful afternoon stitching together *smile*.

I was contemplating this train of thought, as I was stitching earlier...

I am very grateful for the ability to dedicate a whole day and evening (and another afternoon planned for tomorrow) to helping people achieve something they could not do on their own.  I started thinking about my gorgeous friends yesterday, who turned up on my doorstep, arms laden with sewing machines, fabric and children and contributed an amazing effort, despite the constant up-down, up-downs of parenting small children.  And how one of the gifts of not having children in my life full time, is my capacity to contribute my undivided time and attention to causes just like this.

Ben told me a story of how one of the many counter-arguments he would give in support of his choice to not have children (a stance he has found he has needed to explain and at times, almost defend since his decision more than ten years ago), is how he is able to positively impact the lives of so many more children (if he chose to) by not having his time and focus 100% taken up by his own, had he had them.

Knowing myself first hand, just how energy demanding children can be, I really resonated with that sentiment yesterday and today.  And I felt very grateful that, while at times sharing my daughter with her father is incredibly hard, it also frees my time to help others.  And I think that's wonderful.

And now this post is done, we're off to cut out some more cloth pads!

I plan to crack that 100 mark *grin*.

Enjoy your evening!