Thursday, December 21, 2006

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Things you find when you look round the internet...

... So anyway a while ago I did a search for H.E. through the blogger network and found some interesting blogs and some not lol. Well through the ones that I started to read I found links to others and have now got a long list of Home Edders blogs all over the place that I know read regularly.

On one of these blogs a while ago I found some of those quiz's from Blogthings, you know the place I'm sure all of us at some point have done one of these daft things, their harmless and always give me a chuckle. I thought I would share the latest two that I saw on Dottyspots blog.


Your Christmas is Most Like: The Muppet Christmas Carol

You tend to reflect on Christmas past, present, and future...
And you also do a little singing.


You Are A Weeping Willow Tree

You are a dreamer, and you're into almost any kind of escapism.
Restless and capricious, you love to travel to exotic places.
You are easily influenced by others, as long as they don't pressure you.
You tend to suffer in love until you find that one loyal, steadfast partner.
An empathetic friend, you love to make others smile and laugh.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Is it just me or....

... does Christmas seem to creep up on us quicker each passing year. It seems like only last week we were down at the beach having Bar-b-que's in the pouring rain - is it only us that enjoy that or do other's take part in this dying art lol.

So anyway we spent the day, well Andy (my bro) and me not Robynne she spent most of day in bed suffering from a cold - which is why she should listen to me when told to wear a coat out in this weather, but well they never listen do they -. Tho' must admit we got most of the presents sorted out without her input, but, well she still had to check the list. Which I'm so glad she approved of everything I mean phew am sooo relieved what would we have done if she didn't, frankly nothing lol.

We should get out later in the week and get most everything bought - fingers crossed nothing is sold out - for the family before our brother and his family's annual prechristmas visit. I must admit to really looking forward to this every year, we don't spend as much time with him and his girls as I would like. But that's what happens when we don't drive and they live so far away, maybe one day.....

So that's the family sorted, well almost. Have even written the list for cards to post, I should get them written and posted later on today, but, I won't cause well it's my baby brother's birthday today and he's 26yrs old, so we may do something fun with him. Well we may go to the pictures, or we might get him the new game he wants, tho' as the main birthday treat for us all this year was to see Rocky Horror Show, he should really be happy. But at least the pictures will be fun for us all, tho' if I get the game it keeps him quiet for longer oooh big decisions can be so hard to make lol. I know will compromise and get the game as part of his christmas present.

So Wednesday is the last Guitar Club meeting of the year, what with illness and other commitments, I feel that we haven't progressed as far as I would have liked. But, then what does it matter, we can all learn as and when that is the beauty of H.E there's no set time to get things done.

I know at times this year has been hard and I have doubted what we have been doing in life, but I don't think I would really have changed any part of the journey thus far. Life is a journey there are bumps along the way and occasional sharp bends, but if you lose your way, there is always someone to guide you to another path and we all get where we should be in the end.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Do you ever think.........

.......Why do we bother, why do we put ourselves through the ringer everyday so some supposed smartarse can come along and tell us were doing it all wrong?

Well that's how I have been feeling lately not, just about H.E, but about life in general. I'm not complaining, well not much anyway, but just once in a while it would be nice if things at least seemed to be going right. Sorry there are a few things that are happening at the moment that as yet I can't share, but, as soon as they start going right I'm sure I'll be the first yelling them from the rooftops.

Ok little rant over, for the time being. As you can see it's been nearly a month since I last posted. I'm not sure why, actually to be honest, I haven't really felt the inclination, plus to be honest not much has been going on since I last posted. Well apart from the National Schools Film Week that so many of us took great delight in this year, can't wait to see what films are showing next year. It's not every week you can spend 4 out of 5 days at the cinema and only pay for 1 out of 4 movies. Incidentally my Robynne actually handled the early mornings quite well, and of all the movies for me to doze off in, it had to be the one we paid for. Tho' how I would of managed to sleep in any of the free films with all the lovely schooled children and their very vocal enjoyment of the films lol.... and did anyone else get what a lovely film Curious George is?

Then we had a very busy week or so what with Robynne's 15th Birthday and three birthday/halloween parties over the course of five days. Then I managed to go down with a rather nasty cold which ended up on my chest and to add the icing on the cake ended up with both Robynne and myself suffering. Tho' thankfully we had my brother Andy to take care of us both. (you know sometimes, I wonder how we would manage with out him around.... just don't tell him I said that)

Anyway I'm going to endeavour to be more disciplined with posting and not leave it so long next time. Oh we had Movie Afternoon on Friday, it's something we do on the last Fri of the month and we watched Rocky Horror Show, for 1)Cause it's an interesting Film and we recently bought it thanks to Shirley pointing out where it was currently on sale cheap. and for 2)Because were off to see it on stage next Friday and well I thought it might be a good idea for Robynne to have some idea of the story beforehand.

Then we have Guitar Club on the 6th which usually we do on the first Weds of the month, but it seems like months since we have met up for this. What with illness and things halting proceedings. Then our next OTHENA meet was going to be our Christmas Party, but instead were going to meet up and go to the cinema and see one of these movies... Happy Feet, Flushed Away, Eragon or maybe with it being Christmas Santa Clause 3.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Craft Club & Beyond

We had a very lovely afternoon on Monday with Craft Club, we had a Halloween theme, so I spent a few days beforehand researching and looking for fairly simple things to make. I came up with a few good ideas, but, as things go we only worked on safety pin badges/necklaces, which I think you will agree are very effective.





Tho' this one that I tried later in the evening, didn't quite work, but well I like it....



We found lots of patterns for Halloween pin badges and well anything else you may want to try and if you want we found lots of Safety pin projects here.

Also after much discussion between Shirley and myself, we decided to incorperate Craft Club in with the Freya meetings. Which will be good as it will mean more space for projects, not that I haven't enjoyed having it in my living room, but there's only so much room.

I'd just like to add my thanks to those of you who have come and joined in with Craft Club and look forward to having just as much fun with you and all the new people we will meet at the Freya meetings.

So anyway I'm going to keep the 2nd Monday of the month as a Drop-in afternoon. So if your in the area and need a coffee/tea or just fancy a chat then by all means drop on in.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

What Type of Home Schooler are You?

I found this real funny, thanks again to Ann for this lovely item. Tho' the results did surprise me I mean it's been years scince I saw melting clocks.







What Type of Homeschooler Are You?




Salvador Dali Melting clocks are not a problem in your reality. You are an unschooler. You will tolerate a textbook, but only as a last resort. Mud is your friend. You prefer hands-on everything. If your school had an anthem, it would be Dont Worry, Be Happy. Visit my blog: http://www.GuiltFreeHomeschooling.blogspot.com
Take this quiz!








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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Experimentation

Lets have a brief catch up, then on with yesterdays fun. We have now started back in with the swimming sessions and the first week back we had 8 youngsters at the pool - ok 1 was technically an adult, but don't tell him, he would be so disappointed lol - and they all looked like they were having a great time. It's so nice going when the place is almost empty, us mum's can sit there in relative calm and quiet and harrass the staff at our lesiure - not that we were of course.

In craft club we made a couple of volcanoes, ready for yesterday's Bangs & Explosions Science afternoon.


Not that we had to many bangs or explosions lol, but we all had fun, we tried out a few of Krampf's Experiments namely
Repeat Fireworks

... now if you look at this one we missed out the first experiment as for some reason our metal file decided to do a disappearing act on us - I have not doubt that the flaming thing will turn up in the next couple of days, it's always the way -

but, we had a good attempt at the second one despite being unable to find any Boric Acid in the shops, tho' afterwards as per usual was looking for something else and found a chemistry set - that had been forgotten in a drawer - with surprise surprise the elusive Boric Acid in. You know that song "If I didn't have Bad luck, I'd have no luck at all".... well am sure that's me lol. Anyway back to the experiments - must focus and quit digressing - so being careful and knowing what flames and kids can be like I stood a large candle in the tray of water that we used for the volcanoe's.
Salt
Cream of TartarBaking Powder

They tried, the cream of tartar, salt and well just for fun baking powder - well three pots looked good - obviously the baking powder did nothing but burn and I don't think the others worked as they should but it was all fun trying.

and

Static in a Balloon. We thought we try this with both ground black pepper and black peppercorns.
We did do a few of these, and I now seem to have a few balloons with pepper in floating round the living room.
This worked really well, the pepper really moved when a finger was stroked across the balloon near it. The peppercorns appeared to jump, but, am not sure wether this was down to static or someone giving the balloon a quick shake. We also had a go at an experiment that I had seen on Backyard Science, which is on Toonami. We mixed some pepper and salt together and then using the static on a balloon we managed to seperate some of the pepper from the salt. Tho' unfortunately the pics taken really didn't show the results.

Plus as I mentioned before we had the volcanoe's, thankfully the smell of vinegar has now left the flat, for a while there it was pretty awful lol.


The experiments may not have all worked as they should have, but we all - even me - had great fun trying them out.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Browsing the Blog World

I don't know about you, but I love reading other peoples blogs, especially H.E. blogs. Because it's good to know how other's out there handle this journey that so many of us are now on. So while reading through the expanding list that I have bookmarked, I came across this in Ann's blog and just had to give it a go.I am nerdier than 64% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!
Now I know exactly how nerdy I am, but am not sure how I feel about that. I know for a fact that a few people I know will be surprised at my low score, so I'm just going to put it down to my age catching up with me.
So anyway, H.E Blogs, as I said I have bookmarked loads and am always finding more. Some have been helpful, others just made me think, but, I'm pretty sure I haven't found any that made me cringe. Then again don't know what I might find tomorrow.

So anyway this week is my birthday and rather than avoid it like I have been for a few years now. I decided to have some of the new friends that we have made through H.E. I'm actually looking forward to it too. Plus we have a new family that just moved into the area, coming along as well. It always nice to be able to offer help and assistance to others on this H.E. journey.

Also now the children are going back to school this week we can get back to our swimming sessions in a relatively empty pool, which will please a few of our little group.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Room 101 & Room Fluffy

I wrote a post on my yahoo 360 blog a while ago now and tried to link it to someone else, which didn't work so thought I'd repost it here.
I have been reading/bookmarking quite a few H.E blogs now and don't usually post on them, but I find them all great fun to read. Anyway I read a post on Touchingly Naive about Room 101 and a new room called Room Fluffy (which as you may have surmissed is the room for all the nice things)and decided to use that idea here. So after working out what I would put in the appropriate rooms was wondering what are the 10 things that you would put into Room 101 and Room Fluffy.

Anyway here's my lists lol, in no particular order.

Room 101

1. Supermarket carrier bags.....(Can never get the darn things open-must remember to take bags with me)

2. That flaming woman in the perfume department who insists on spraying just as I walk bye....(I'm pretty sure I don't smell that bad-at least noones complained yet)

3. Children who don't understand the word no and try to bargain their way round it........(why don't they get that, if I said maybe or let me think about it....)

4. Telephone sales people...... (I live 6 floors up why would I need a conservatory)

5. People who use lfts for something other than getting from floor to floor.......(you really don't wanna know-but, I feel for the caretaker)

6. Junk mail/leaflets and other assorted rubbish that gets put through my letterbox.....(just cause I look like I eat alot, doesn't mean I need three leaflets a week from the same pizza place)

7. People who tell you how a film or books gonna end before you finished.......(you know who you are and I will get you eventually)

8. Chat speak or l33t speak......(I mean ok abbreviate the words, but turning them into a whole new language-that I'm too old and have absolutely no inclination to learn-thats just urgh)

9. Things that go together like hotdogs and buns, being sold in different number packages.....(what is with that, I mean if I wanted extra buns I would buy them)

10. And finally delivary guys who don't knock the door and post a card saying 'We knocked but you weren't in'............(I was in, you just never brought the parcel with you...)

ok now for the fluffy...

Room Fluffy

1. Obviously my daughter.....(though may have to let her out once in a while-teenagers aren't always fluffy)

2. Spontanious hugs......(you know when they hug you just because)

3. Our cat Sox.....(she thinks she's the boss, but, is she really?)

4. Cuddling up on the sofa, with a duvet, hot chocolate and a movie....(now she's a teen we watch girly movies together, it's so cool)

5. The internet.....(cause thanks to this have found some cool groups and great friends)

6. Home Education.....(it gave me back my daughter and even tho' it's tough sometimes, it's been a great time so far)

7. The Sims and Sims 2......(because we all need a chance to play God sometimes)

8. A good nights sleep, without the aid of pills....(what can I say real sleep is the best)

9. The sweet smell of a baby.......(you all know the smell I mean)

10. A good cup of tea in the morning......(it just gets the day started right)

Ok well thats my lists, what would you have in yours?

Saturday, August 26, 2006

I Have Been Tagged

I'm so shocked..... lol I've been tagged so thanks Ann for that, now will have to put my brain in gear....


ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE:
Chosen To Be A Soldier-Orders and Regulations for Soldiers of The Salvation Army

ONE BOOK THAT YOU’VE READ MORE THAN ONCE:
The Heart of the Continent - Nancy Cato

TWO BOOKS YOU’D WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND:
The Bible, Big Book of Plant and Flower Illustrations - Maggie Kate

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU LAUGH:
Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone - J K Rowling

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY:
My Story - David Pelzar

ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD BEEN WRITTEN:
What not to Wear when Painting the Ceiling.

ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN:
The Soddit - A R R Roberts

ONE BOOK THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING:
Blackdown Farm - Anne Rice

ONE BOOK YOU HAVE BEEN MEANING TO READ:
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! - Dr. Seuss


FIVE PEOPLE YOU TAG:
Wolfe Darktail, Freya, BrianJaneCarp, Athene and ellesfuntimes

Oh and thanks to Robynne for showing me how to insert links, have been wanting to know how to do that for ages.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Beach Barbie

Ok someone stole the summer and I would like to know who.....? Ooops forgot this is England for a sec there, we have had our summer or what we seem to be entitled too. Can just imagine the guy with the clipboard ticking us off and saying " ok Essex gets those two weeks, along with Suffolk, Norfolk and Wales. Scotland and the Home Counties can have the next two, and whatevers left well we'll send that to Ireland and the rest. I like to shove that guys clipboard somewhere.....

Anyway we braved the weather yesterday for our beach barbie and despite the weather, I think we all had some fun. We only started one small fire and no it's not the one that burnt down the cafe ...I swear.... We managed to stop the table and our lovely new OTHENA banner from flying away a few times. Also despite the rains best efforts the barbies didn't go out. Tho' someone left the matches out so we now have a soggy box, but well never mind. Oh and I did take my camera for pics, but well in all the excitement of the day forgot to take it out of said bag.

I would just like to say thanks to all those brave souls who joined us on a very typical summers day down at East Beach it was great fun and we really must do it again.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Clay Nameplates

Ok so I was sorting through the art stuff ready for craft club, and I realized that as I started this blog after I had started the OTHENA group. That some of our previous projects hadn't made it here for display. So as the title says here are the clay nameplates that we made in one of our early craft club sessions, will sort some pics of the clay pots that where made in the very first craft club later.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Organized Chaos

Well as the title suggests we had some fun organized chaos, rather than pick a craft activity for everyone to do. I just got everything out and let their imaginations take over lol.... at one point we had a clay volcano which then became a winged horse, which then became a rocket and then finally back to the winged horse type animal. Tom and Robynne decided to make a paper mache ninja, tho' after being challenged to make a bridge fit to hold a toy car, Tom left Robynne to create a very butch looking ninja on her own. While all this was going on, my 6yr old nephew who is visiting at the moment flitted from one thing to another, not knowing what to try first. It was great fun to watch in the end he made a very lovely hedgehog out of clay and

we started the beginings of a didgeridoo out of empty haribo tubes. Which will be painted up and has sparked the idea to try some aborigini style art projects.


Incidentally Tom's bridge did hold up the car, tho' when another car was added collapse occurred.

Next month we will be making volcano's as we will be having a 'Bangs and Explosions' science afternoon the week after and well volcano's are the ultimate in explosions lol.

Will add more pics after they have been painted.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Paintballing @ Upminster


Well today brought about the long awaited and much planned first major outing of our group.
The sun was shining and by the time the kids were all kitted out they looked like some sort of alien bugs, very hot sweaty alien bugs lol..

So after the safety talk and the buying of the paintballs they all disappeared into the arena for the first of their three games of the afternoon.
The first game was called speed ball and they had to basicly knock out the opposing team first....


After that it was back for a short break and then onto the second game where one team, was trying to protect a VIP and get them on a plane and the other team trying to stop them. This game took a little longer than the first and a few impressive bruises turned up, so during this break it was out with the arnica cream and lots of water and a last fill up of the paintballs.

This break was also the time for me to disgrace myself and have a bit of a dizzy turn due to the heat, was most annoyed with myself really as I knew I had to move into the shade but, I really couldn't make my legs work.

Anyway after this last break it was onto the last game of the afternoon, which was a catch the flag game. Tho' before this game ended we had a few more injuries, well mainly one injury and a couple feeling a little faint with the heat. My brother Andy has a know very impressive bruise and cut on his arm as unfortunately one of the paintballs broke the skin - I don't think I'll post a pic of that tho'... - , thankfully it was him that got hurt the worse and not any of the young people. So anyway about 10/15mins later everybody returned from the last game and there was a short prize thing where all the team members got either a 1st or 2nd place certificate. Also there was a chance for a few of the young lads to go out again before home time and just blast away at each other and use up all the paintballs. Incase your wondering the Red team Won, which was Andy, Robynne, Joe, Jasper, Jasmin, Faith and Camilla. The Blue team obviously came second and they were Angie, Tracey, Alex, Ben, Ed, Tom and Aiden.

I think that a great afternoon was had by all, well haven't had any complaints lol.... and chatting with a few on the train home we were discussing when to have the next session. Which will definately happen in the cooler weather and so a few more of there friends can come who, don't have the good fortune to be Home Ed it will probably happen during a half term week. So if you have a young person over the age of 11, who wants to be let loose with a gun full of paint, then do let me know. We may go for the full day next time, thankfully we only did an afternoon this time, it may have been a bit much in this heat to have done a whole day.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Careful Planning

Today was off to such a great start. We tidied the flat, got the guitars all in tune. Had the fans going full blast. Collected boyfriend from the station. even had a new whiteboard easel set up to write all the relevant chords on. We were all set for an afternoon of lovely sounds lol..... well ok maybe not lovely sounds but not total cat schreechings. But, due to the fact that for some unknown reason yahoo decided not to send out any of our scheduled reminders for this week, we had a very quiet afternoon. So ok, we then got ready and went to meet everyone for our regular Wednesday afternoon swimming session. You know the saying "The best laid plans of Mice and Men" well we got to the pool only to find that there was a school swimming gala on and we would have to wait over an hour and a half to swim. So off into town we went to enjoy the sunshine.... and a slightly warm sprite.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day lol and fingers crossed for the pool too....

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Cat Scratch Fever






Ok this doesn't really have anything to do with H.E. but, anyway.... So yesterday the man called to read the electric meter, and being a fool that I am I picked up Sox - our cat - and held her while the guy was in the flat. Which was all well and good she was quite happy sitting in my arms, until the guy came to leave. Out the door he goes, shuts it and calls the lift..... Which is when the trouble started. Our loving and wonderful cat has an almost pathalogical fear of the lifts, she wont venture outside of our flat for fear of the lifts. So anyway the doors shut, am just about to let her go when she hears the lift. Which is when I found myself with four claws suddenly embedded in me..... two in my neck and the other two on my shoulder, now normally that wouldn't be too big of a deal, cause I usually just manage to pry her off. But, no this time she was having none of it, the claws went deeper and deeper and she's hissing at me. I mean really hissing.... and I could feel myself begining to lose it, this damned cat was hanging from my neck and shoulder, like some sort of limpet. After what seemed like hours but, in reality was only five mins - which when you have a cat hanging off you is still along time - she finally released me and walked off as if nothing had happened.... me I sat down in the hallway and bawled my eyes out, stupid I know, but I did feel better afterwards. Only thing now my neck and shoulder looks like I have been bitten by a very small and confused vampire.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

OTHENA Meeting

The 3rd Monday of the month rolled around again, so time for our teens meeting. This time we were doing research into board games etc. and working out how to make our own game. After going through lots of ideas the kids decided on a kind of Trivial Pursuit meets Dare type of game. I'm just wondering who's going to volunteer to find all the questions, but I guess that will work itself out. The board shape has been decided, also the shapes of all the cards. I think next time we need to workout the rules etc. it looks like a fun idea, tho' am not sure who's going to volunteer to play lol. They haven't agreed on a name yet and I'm not sure if I should be flattered or not, but a suggestion was made to put an angry faced me as the board background........ I don't do angry faces honest.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Splashtastic ... or Bombs away.....

On the 2nd Monday of the month we have a craft/art club, in which we try out various different craft/art activities. Previously we have done clay work- making pots and nameplates and painting/drawing.
Well this last Monday the 12th, I thought as the weather was so lovely to do something outside. So I spent Sunday evening filling up waterbombs with paint, now if you have ever filled a waterbomb normally ie with water you will know it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. So filling them with paint is a bigger nightmare, if my brother hadn't have been working that night I'm sure I would have tried to con him into doing it for me, but there ya go he was working. Ok so after about 3hrs and coating my kitchen in vary shades of green, purple, blue, I worked out was using the wrong nozzle to fill them, so after changing the nozzle size I managed to do the white, yellow, orange and red without anymore kitchen colour changes. Tho' I must point out that testing them out in the bathroom is not so cool lol, it took ages to scrub the tiles and bath clean after coating them in green paint.

So after bombs all filled and bathroom and kitchen scrubbed clean, it was time for bed.

So to bring this story to an end we had great fun trying to get the bombs to work, we made some great patterns - tho' there appeared to be more paint on the children and the ground than the paper - and the children and adults had some good fun. Plus I learned a valuable lesson, that in the hands of lovely children paintbombs make a very tempting weapon.

Here's some of the patterns made:



Hi All........

I'm Michelle and for just over a year now I have been Home Educating my 14yr old daughter Robynne. A few months ago we decided that as there didn't seem to be that much going on in our area for Older children/Teens that, rather than moan about it we would actually do something to remedy the situation.
So on Monday 17th April we had our first meeting, tho' being as how I made the small error of organizing it on a Bank holiday. There wasn't as many of us as I would of liked, but, as the saying goes "from little acorns, tall oaks grow......" well it goes something like that anyway. We now have 20 members in our online group both near and far.
With various different activities going on weekly and monthly, my daughter and her friends have many opportunity's to socialize and work together.