Wolfe's Den

2009-02-24T20:06:00.002Z

Not much going on here today, shopping delivered early for a change and only one item out of stock. Robynne's still feeling rough, we have that awfully sweating body smell in the air, she's thankful she has a bunged up nose and can't smell it. Shall try to encourage her to shower when she's feeling a little better, until then febreze.

Fluff migration

2009-02-23T18:43:00.006Z

The new cage for the chins arrived finally today and after a bit of fiddling around we got it all set up.

Then it took a little persuasion to get Squeak out of his old cage. None was needed with Tweak and Cupid as they had definitely outgrown the cage they were in. But, as it was just a nursing cage it was bound to happen.

Squeak is on his own at the moment but eventually when Cupid and he have gotten better acquainted then, our youngest little one will move in with his new roomie. We'll be getting another of these cages next month and then we'll be getting rid of the big monstrosity to the left of the picture. Eventually we will have 6 of these cages with only two chins in each - they have pop holes so that they can pop in and out of each side. - but, for the time being they are big enough to house 2 chins in each side.

Got the Asda shop sorted this morning so fingers crossed, no problems this time. Have also ordered some hair dye from Beeunique thanks to Nikki for the link to them, we'd been looking for a place that sold great hair colours and now we have found them. Really looking forward to them arriving and then getting our hair done. We have a few parties coming up in the next month so they should be fun.

We had intended to go and get Robynne's passport photo done today so that we could get her 16-25 railcard, but, she's not feeling so good right now, hopefully she'll not be feeling so bad tomorrow. Especially as we are meant to be going up to our Aunt's on Friday so that Robynne can show her how to use the Mac that we have sorted for her thanks to Jem. Hopefully she'll get the hang of it OK, Robynne will sort out a list of processes for her just in case. But, if not we'll have another Mac at home which is what were going to do anyway.

Been looking into shows to see for Robynne's birthday this year, looks like it's going to be Mamma Mia for sure. Tho' there are many more she and I want to see, so I guess we'll be doing those too eventually.

Odd day things

2009-02-22T19:35:00.008Z

Andy's bank account got fixed so yay, after Asda rang he rang the bank and they delete the pending item. The odd thing is they could have done that it seems in the first place, but, every one he spoke to before couldn't do anything. Internet is "fixed" again so no engineer needed tomorrow, so they have cancelled that. Wonder how long the fix is going to last this time.

My nephew came back from spending the week at his dad's with his hair practically shaved again. It wouldn't matter so much if he liked it like that, but, poor kid wants to grow it and it had only just started to grow back again after the last time his dad decided to cut it for him.

Cat's still being weird and proclaiming her annoyance by messing where she shouldn't. Just when we think we have her figured out she changes tactics on us.

Andy's busy cooking dinner Spaghetti Bolognese with quorn for Robynne and myself and he's having chopped up sausages with his, because when he got his meat out of the fridge to cook it smelt and looked bad - we only got it weds from Asda so looks like we won't be doing that again.

Well guess that's it for odd things for today. Robynne and I watched Mamma Mia last night and again this afternoon thoroughly enjoyed it so looks like we'll be doing a trip up to see this at the theatre for her 18th in October. Still can't get over that, my baby, practically all grown.

Quiet

2009-02-21T23:06:00.003Z

Quiet day today, apart from having to get in touch with Asda because they have messed up taking payment from Andy's account for our shopping this week. Really need them to sort it out as it's going to cause a problem when he gets paid on Monday. They took one payment for the shopping we received and they've left a pending amount which the bank can't fix till they remove it. So poor Andy has been having a mild panic that he's going to lose half his money on Monday.

Oh and we've had power fluctuations with the internet again today, causing it to go off and on all day. It's very frustrating, but, hopefully they will get it sorted when they come round on Monday.

Oh and I finally remembered to reply to the consultation on Thursday nearly forgot, ended up doing Andy's reply as well. Wonder what they'll come up with now.

Do delivery drivers think were stupid?....

2009-02-20T18:26:00.003Z

....... I'm damn sure the ones who deliver here do. As having stayed in all day, we ring to find they had called to deliver at 3pm and no one was in. I don't remember having an out of body experience today. Then they say that they delivered to a church in the road, which seemed even odder. Finally they said "oh the driver knows it's flats, but there was no access to your building"... I must have missed it when they built a 10 ft wall all around our flats. Oh and they asked for our phone no: so they can ring when they deliver again on ... Monday... I guess delivery people don't work on the weekend. I sure hope they aren't as big of idiots as all the different companies we have tried and failed to get to deliver us a new washing machine. Lets hope the cage etc arrives, because the chins to be rehoused have already did a Houdini last night and much as I love them waking up in the middle of the night to them nibbling on the bed head really isn't my idea of fun.

Where did that day go...

2009-02-19T13:42:00.002Z

... yesterday totally disappeared on me. OK no, it didn't, but, getting onto the computer proved a little difficult and that's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Robynne was having a couple of friends over yesterday so we were up early attempting to tidy up some before the guys arrived J rang about 12 he felt ill so wasn't coming, so a little grump and then back to tidying up. Then all of a sudden P turned up so to get out of tidying she grabbed him down town to help her pick out a present for A, who's having his birthday party today - have just realized something Robynne's friends has a higher ratio of guys... mmm should I be worried, well maybe later. - so Andy and I got back to the tidying only to be interrupted yet again. This time by a nice lady doing a survey of people in our building with children under 19 - something to do with accessing services that are available - felt sorry for her really as she'll have no hope of people in this building being helpful. Later when Robynne and P returned with a very interesting present for A - lets just say I'm glad that his parents have a sense of humour - Robynne was most surprised to find that I had let the survey woman in. I can see her point as I wouldn't normally do that, but, I guess I must have been looking for an excuse to put off the tidying. Anyway the survey lady left and we finished off just enough that it could be left for later - tho' when that will be I don't know - and Andy and P played Wii games for the next few hours.

We had Andy's homemade pizza's for tea, he brings a whole new meaning to "Fully Loaded" with them lol. Robynne spent a while making some emotes for msn and then made a card for A. Movies were watched, pizza's eaten then time for bed.

This morning Robynne went off and caught the 11am bus to Chelmsford, to be met by her bf S and then there going to the monthly H.E. meeting before going off to A's, she'll be home sometime tomorrow.

P was dragged off by Andy to play a PS2 game, until it was time for him to leave. Unfortunately he couldn't stay too long as he had to get home to his mum, she was recently misdiagnosed as having Alzheimer's but thankfully after further tests it's only mild Dementia, which as long as she looks after herself shouldn't be too bad. Which in a way has helped P to appreciate her a little more and I think they may be getting on a little better now than they had been.

Oh Tuesday night Robynne informed me that she wanted to go to college in Chelmsford, she can't remember which one it is, but, her friend M already goes there and it looks like a few of her other friends will probably be going there next year too. Also they do Japanese at this college, which is a major bonus as she has been wanting to learn that for a while now and the nearest place we had found before was an evening course in London. So the plan is to find out which College it is, get a prospectus and see what courses etc they do. She doesn't want to go till next year, but, we'll need to get it sorted out, she's still planning to do the GCSE's at the Southend Adult College this Sept. I was thinking OK with going to Chelmsford, as it's not too far and she can go there and back by train everyday. Though that's not the plan, Robynne wants to move to Chelmsford. I was well lets say surprised, but, not as surprised as her when after a few deep breaths and a little panic I agreed with her. Robynne told me that she had been thinking about it for a little while, but, was worried how I would react and had said anything in her words she expected me to go "Ape sh**". Well considering everytime she had every talked about moving the places she wanted to go where Scotland, America and Japan. I can cope fairly well with her being an hour away in Chelmsford. Though I did say that I thought I wouldn't see her that often what with almost all her friends being in Chelmsford she'd never want to come home, she patted me on the head - grr - and told me I was a silly as that would never happen. We talked about the practicalities etc of moving away and then she went off to bed only to find that Sox had just left her a very unwanted present in her bed. After a Little ranting at the darn cat and clearing up, Robynne turned round and said "I think she's mad at me for daring to talk about moving out". Personally I think the cat's just mad, that Robynne forgot to clean her litter tray. Anyway Robynne ended up sleeping in with me as she didn't want to sleep in her room.

I am actually a little weirded out by her wanting to move out, but, she's growing up and it's time for her to go out and do what she wants to do. It's not that I want to keep her my little girl for ever, well OK I would love to keep her my little girl. But, that's just crazy obsessive talk and well frankly that's not great and well I have known that this would happen sometime, I just hoped it wouldn't be yet. Ah well life has to go on and I need to go do some more washing.

Plans

2009-02-17T16:50:00.005Z

Well, I finally gave in and changed this blog over to the new customizable layout, didn't realize when I started how long it would take me - almost 2 hours - but, it's done now. The only thing I'm going to have to do now is change the Sewing Friend link picture, as you won't fail to notice it's the wrong size and well it might mean that Robynne might get my new logo finished soon then I won't have to mess around and resize the old one.

Today wasn't quite as productive as I had intended, I meant to go down to both the Council and the Housing offices today to finally get everything changed over name wise, and also get sorted out so that we get onto the transfer/mutual exchange lists. Ah well shall do it tomorrow, I did get the grocery shopping done online and to tally with what we had to spend for the week, which means Andy only has to nip into town for a couple of items. Mind you Robynne will have to put it all away and check it when it arrives tomorrow as I plan to get the jobs done that I meant to do today.

I did get Robynne booked onto the course that she wanted to do down at the Adult Learning College, it's a 10 week course on Psychology Forensics. Not my cup of tea, but, it's something she's interested in. Later this week we'll nip down to the Community College and get her sorted for the courses that she wants to do next.

So since I decided yesterday to stop looking backwards and to get on with forward planning, I worked out a plan for getting the Chins all sorted into new cages, we have a new one arriving sometime this week, and we shall be getting a few more, but I worked out that getting just one more for the time being means not only can we get rid of the old bulky cages, but that Robynne won't have to have the tall cage in her room. Eventually this one is going to be fitted out as a play cage and they will all at separate times get to make use of it.

I shall also get on with finishing off all the items that I want to put up for sale and get on with making more. I need to learn to manage my time a little better, have been spending far too long lately on fun projects which aren't going up for sale. Though I have been working on designs with Robynne for an interactive story quilt, which if it works could be a great idea and hopefully make us a bit of money.

I need to get more organized in general, I'm a terrible ditherer, I come up with plans and rarely follow through so this year I'm going to get things done. No more dithering, well maybe a little. We've talked about sorting the living room out, so that's going to be done next week have decided so if they don't like it tough.Next job will be too box up and catalogue all our books, videos etc and sort through all Robynne's old toys. Most of which are already boxed up under her bed, but, I know there are a few items that she wants rid of. I'm also going to sort out my only Sim Story blog soon and get some new stories written, just a bit of escapism, but, well we all need that sometimes. Oh and I must find a quilting/patchwork course to do, and I'm gonna dye my hair some fun colour haven't decided for sure what colour yet, but, it's going to be different lol.

Catch-up Mode

2009-02-16T13:19:00.008Z

Just lately I have been stuck in catch-up mode, where everything seems to be happening around me and I'm just slightly out of kilter and having to catch-up. I'm frankly hating it profusely. So today have decided enough is enough, I'm forgoing the catching up and getting on with life. The past has now ceased to exist and I shall only concentrate on the future and the now. That said lol, I just need to mention one item for catch-up. I was nominated an award a while ago now and due to my lapse in blogging and keeping up I missed it. So apologies to Shirl and thanks it was a nice surprise.

There are rules to the award which are as follows:
I have to nominate this award to 10 other bloggers who show great attitude or gratitude.

Which means I know have to think real hard about who to nominate. So thinking cap on for that.
OK here goes:

1. Has to be Robynne at Fat Bottomed Girl and the Army of Fluff sometimes things don't go her way, but she has a great attitude and gets on with it still, plus she helps keep me grounded which isn't always an easy thing.

2. Nikki at Happily Home Edding. Always a good read.

3. Cat at I think your Bonkers. Her boy is doing an Abseil to raise money for the British Lung Foundation, in April.

4. Deb at Not Sheep.

5. Rosie at Knitting Yoghurt for living the dream, well as far as I can see.

6. Gill at Sometimes it's Peaceful, because she makes it all easier to understand.

7. Anne at Six Home Ed in Kent, she always sounds busy, but never hurried.

8. Jem and Roxy over at Doing It our Way.

9. Lisa and co here at Boyce View Home School.

10. and last but not least ninnynoodlenoo.

Boy that took some thinking about, I also made the decision today to blog everyday no matter whether it's interesting or not, cause I need to let it out now and then.

Hair today Gone tomorrow

2008-11-15T17:37:00.008Z

Well yesterday it happened, I chopped it all off with a little help from Robynne and Andy.

Here are all the dreads neatly bagged up. I was going to weigh them, but, our scales need a new battery in them ah well never mind.

I have raised just under £60 at the moment, but if anyone else would like to sponsor me then the page is still open.

It's been a while

2008-11-11T12:27:00.003Z

It's been a while since I posted, things have been going well with the new Home Ed group, were now having a session of Mad Science going on over the next few weeks, with more possible in the new year.
Robynne is having fun at college, tho' she's now only doing the one course as all the others ended up cancelled or she found them irrelevant. Andy has started college too and he seems to be enjoying it.

And I am removing my dreads and shaving my head for Children in Need, I decided I had had enough of them, especially as have been having no end of neck problems, due to the weight of them and well I fancied a change, so new start all off and shall have some fun with wigs and hats till it grows back. So if you would like to sponsor me then please do. I have a link just below for you to click on and you'll get sent to my page. Oh and if you really want I'll send you a dread lol.

More College Madness

2008-09-18T20:24:00.004Z

Just when I thought we had got all Robynne's courses all sorted out, we got a phone call today saying that some had been cancelled due to lack of numbers. So after a lengthly phone call we had Robynne moved to other dates and lost one course - Maths GCSE - which Robynne wasn't to sad about and we gained a new course - Science GCSE - which Robynne likes far better. The only downside tho' is that after getting a couple of tickets via EO for Joseph next week we now can't go, so before I email the organiser and let her know I shall see if a couple of Robynne's friends would like to go. If it wasn't her first night on the Art AS course we would still go, but, it's not worth going when it takes us two hours to get there and we would have to leave London by 4pm to get to Rochford for her to start her course at 6.30pm. It's a shame but there you go at least we hadn't paid for the tickets.

Well tomorrow is Thames Kids Club time again, I'll be taking along some wool and some French knitting dolls so we can try obviously French knitting and finger knitting, both are great fun. This time I shall remember my camera just in case there are any impromptu performances. Also I have printed of a sample of Zoom which is a musical based on the Hare and the Tortoise story. As Robynne and some of the others want to put on a musical and this one looks like a good one to start with and lots of parts for little children as well as the older children. So fingers crossed everyone will like to have a go. Then maybe next time we can do the other ones that Robynne wants to do. I'm so pleased that even after all her courses have swapped round to different days that she still gets to continue coming along and doing the things she wants to do with the Thames Kids Club.

TKC and College Madness

2008-09-15T14:20:00.007Z

Well things have been interesting round here over the last few weeks. The launch party for Thames Kids Club went well, tho' it ended up being along day for us as we popped round and spent time with our elderly aunt afterwards. Which will now be a regular happening as the club is held just round the corner from where she lives. anyway, as I said first club meet went great, the second one which took place on the 12th wasn't so well attended, but we had great fun anyway. The highlight was when all the children plus Robynne put on there own interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. For some reason they made Robynne the wolf, tho' I guess not really a big surprise as she was the biggest there. It was very sweet, they raided the dressing up area to get themselves all dressed up. I think the woodcutter was a little over enthusiastic in killing the wolf, Robynne had to run to get away. Sadly I didn't manage to get pic's of the play, shall be more prepared next time. Tho' I did get a couple from when they were dressing up.

I seem to remember taking a pic of Robynne dressed up, but, it appears to be missing from my camera, Shall check but it looks like Robynne may have sneakily deleted it. Ah found it some how it ended up in the pics I took when we went to see Wicked.

Speaking of Wicked we had a great time the show was awesome, tho' as we had already read the book it was a little confusing, but you can't really expect them to do everything that's in the book when making a musical. It was nice to see they had the Witch survive along with her fella tho'. Here's a couple of pic's of Robynne and her friends before the show.

Oh and sadly some of our friends who wanted to come with us couldn't so were going to try and arrange another trip to see Wicked later probably in the New Year now.

Ok now on to the College Madness, sadly Robynne didn't make it onto the course that she applied for - tho' she was told to ring in 6 weeks to see if anyone doesn't make it after the probationary period - so that meant we had to find something else for her to do until she can re apply next year. So we managed to get her on some Adult Learning courses she'll now be doing GCSE Maths and English on Tuesday and Wednesday Mornings on Canvey Island, a Drawing and Painting level 1 on a Monday afternoon in Basildon and an AS Level Art course Tuesday evenings in Rochford. Tho' she may drop the drawing and painting one as it's only equivalent to a D/F level GCSE and well if she gets on OK with the AS level course that would mean that instead of having to re apply for the course she missed out on this year she can skip to the next level next year and will be on track again. So here's hoping, I can't really see her having any major problems, but you never know.

Something Wicked this way comes....

2008-08-29T13:02:00.007Z

So yesterday was Robynne's college interview. She had spent the last few days before hand getting her Portfolio together and with a little help it was all finished Weds evening. It seems she likes leaving things till the last minute. She had a lovely image on the front cover and as were walking through town, we got some interesting looks. Some of the pictures used for her portfolio can be found here

Anyway we got to the college about 3.30pm, as it's enrolment time we had no set appointment and well from experience going after 3pm is a quieter time. So we get signed in and waited for all of 5 mins, then it was up the stairs to talk to a tutor.

The course that Robynne is hoping to get onto is "Introductory Diploma in Art and Design". The guy we saw is the tutor for the next level, which if she gets in she will do next year. Anyway he was very impressed with her work and said he looks forward to her being on his course next year. Only thing standing in the way of that is her getting into this years course.
Basicly we now have to wait and see, the tutor doesn't get back till Tuesday as she's on a cruise. She only takes 25 students and at the moment we went there were 24 on her list, with quite a few waiting. So on Thursday next week they start the induction and if people don't return on the Friday, the tutor goes to her waiting list to fill up the course. So now we wait and see - and secretly hope that people drop out or get places elsewhere - which as Robynne said "it's the worst part". Which it is, I know if she doesn't get on the course it's not the worst thing in the world, but, it may feel like it and well there's always next year. It's just if she doesn't get in, we may have problems with WTC, but, will deal with that later. Were going to sign her up with connexions on Monday which will give us 20 weeks to work with with regards to WTC.

So College aside things are looking good, well apart from friends of ours moving out of the area, were sad to seem them go, but, at the end of the day it's what's best for them. I just hope that everything goes well for them all. The launch party for Thames Kids Club is all organized for next Friday 5th. Library meets start again on Wednesday 3rd - which incidentally is my birthday - and the week after on the 10th were of to see Wicked, not sure who's more excited about that, but, Robynne would probably beat me.

Well better go get on with something, not sure what yet, but, well lots to do.

Thames Kids Club

2008-08-22T12:06:00.002Z

We had another meeting Monday evening in regards to the new H.E. group Thames Kids. Robynne showed all her designs for the publicity and they went down well as did the logo that I designed, we also agreed on the colours for the logo which is below.

Also that evening we sorted the money for the first month's hall fee's and I'm sure they have gone off to the relevant person now. The hall people wanted to see any advertising/publicity that we would be doing so copies of the poster, leaflet and bookmark were sent to them via email, the other day. I think were just waiting for the OK with that then we can advertise properly.

Everything seems to be going well with regards the group, have spoken to a few people so I know we will have some people there the first week. So fingers crossed for a good launch party.

OK also this week, Robynne received her interview for college, which is next week so hopefully she'll get onto the course that she wants to do. Were also hoping it's not going to stop her coming to the H.E. group as she is really looking forward to that. She has alot of ideas for the group that she wants to help with.

We have also decided that we are going to save up to move, as well as another of our friends has found out it's nigh on impossible getting a transfer with the Council, it's a shame but well the final straw has been broken. We live in a tower block and in the summer the drains are pretty awful and the smell flows up from below and comes out from all the plug holes, the toilet and the waste pipe on the balcony. This year has seemed worse than ever, add in that some charming people in the flats above have been throwing things out of windows - to smash windows open below - it has been happening before, but now the items have been becoming increasingly worse. I'm sure no-one wants me to say exactly what has been thrown I shall leave that to your imaginations. Needless it's not pleasant and I really don't want to have to put up with it anymore. So it's time to move on, even Robynne who has been totally resistant to moving has agreed that enough is enough, plus I'm sure she's hoping that we can get a dog again at some point.

Wicked

2008-08-12T16:47:00.005Z

So today was spent more or less on the train, overland and underground as I went up to London to pick up tickets for Wicked. Which a group of us H.E. families are going to see on the 10th Sept for the matinee show. The seats aren't as great as I would have liked, but I'm sure we'll all have a great time. Now all I need to do is send off the tickets to P and G for them and their families as well I doubt we'll be seeing them before we go, but well you never know. Just need to arrange with S about her tickets and then all sorted.

Robynne and myself popped round to R & J's again last night for another planning meeting with regards to the new group that were setting up along with R. All this initial thing is going to drive me nuts lol and I'm bound to forget one day, just hope I don't get strung up for it. Anyway, the new group, we more or less have everything sorted now.... like name, venue - incidentally a lovely Quaker Meeting House - the main things that seem to be left to do now is to confirm booking etc, get the bank account sorted as until that's done we can't apply for a grant. Tho' once the grant application is all filled in and sent off we'll now in 8 weeks whether or not we were successful. We've also got the advertising worked out and a provisional date for the launch party, plus we've also been thinking ahead to activities and people we could have come in to entertain and educate the children and ourselves lol. The aim I think is as were going to run weekly to have something extra ie, speakers at least once a month.
All we need now is for people to come along and fingers crossed and anything else they will. Oh nearly forgot we've picked the name Thames Kids Club, so hopefully that's not taken elsewhere I did do a google search and nothing came up so. Anyway I guess that's about it for now, as not only do I need to rest my back after the various train rides today. Robynne wants to get on the computer and well as she's reworking my rough sketch into a poster I better let her get on.

Freetime

2008-08-09T14:36:00.011Z

I know I know I've been really lax lately with my posting, see that always happens when I set myself goals lol. I really want to blog at least once a week, but, well basicly I forget then I think ooh must blog about such and such and then I get distracted.... which isn't that hard for me to do.

So since I last blogged we have had lovely weather, we've also had some lousy weather. We also had one of our chinchilla's die too. We had a lovely family time at HESFES our darling nephew greatly enjoyed himself, tho' he may have been a little annoyed at Robynne occasionally for daring to go off with her friends without him, but on the whole a great time was had by all. Now my sister is considering Home Ed for S when he gets to Senior School age. Right now he's at a lovely small village school, that caters for him extremely well, sadly when he gets to 11yr he'll end up at a very large school and the worry is that he may get lost in the crowd so to speak. We never know he may love it and thrive there. We are all just thankful that through H.E. there is another option if it is necessary, tho' he's only 8yr nearly 9yr so a few years yet to prepare.

Oh while we were at HESFES, we had to come back to Leigh for the folk festival, as Robynne was performing with the Leigh Mummers shall just hunt for a pic, it's not of the best quality so please bear with me....

.... obviously Robynne is the one wearing the very fetching cap, about to hit the poor guy on the chair around the head - it was part of the script - sadly we have no idea why the picture is so blue, it wasn't when taken. Strangely most of the pics that we had taken that week with my parents camera have all gone blueish when my sister sent them through to us.

We had a day out at Colchester Zoo while at HESFES too, which was great it rained a little, which frankly with the way the rest of the week had been if it hadn't rained a little while at the Zoo we would never have made it round. A couple of Robynne's friends came with us to the Zoo and we got a very interesting pic of a Daisybird not sure if I'm allowed to show that so will check later with Robynne before posting it. Anyway a couple of pics from HESFES and the zoo coming up next..

... myself being glomped by my lovely nephew...

...... Robynne and co .....

..... now somewhere among my old pics, I have a very similar photo to this of Robynne at the same age as her cousin - in the front - on the same tortoise statue with some school friends, taken on a school trip obviously about 8yrs ago. I remember taking the picture, but can't for the life of me find it anywhere...

..... that lab coat was bought just before we went to HESFES and I think she wore it everyday, actually she did wear it everyday...

...... oh and a red panda pic just because .....

I do have a few other animal pics and some of Robynne and friends on my cam somewhere, but right now not sure where I have put it away too lol and well frankly right now I don't fancy hunting for it.

Oh and well now I shall confess to why I haven't kept up with blogging lol, it's silly really but, well I am a Sim addict there I said it I am a Sim Addict ... yes it's sad I know but, well what can you do. You see after we had to rebuild our comps into one all our sim data was lost and we had to borrow Sims 2 to get it all reloaded back onto our machine, - we do have a copy of Sims 2, but to keep a long story short the first disc doesn't load so we can't use it - and all the expansion packs we have and well we bought the new one Freetime and well frankly it had to be played and played and well played. So there you have it if it takes me a while to reply to emails etc, or Robynne is away from msn for days at a time it doesn't necessarily mean we offline again lol, we could just be playing the Sims.

..... where else would you get a heavily pregnant lady doing ballet exercises....

A Eureka Moment

2008-06-17T12:37:00.003Z

Well, internet is fixed finally, our two computers have been taken apart and rebuilt into one computer. So we now have a working computer, with a few minor bugs to sort out as some items were not quite compatible, but a few downloads and we should be all sorted, thanks to a friend of Andy's. So we have a happy child again lol, almost once we have the usb ports fixed and all that's needed to sort them is a card which Andy is gonna pop out to get sometime today.

We had a great time at our first local Home Ed camp the other week, I will admit I felt like a fish out of water to start with and compost toilets aren't as hard to get used as one would think - the hard part was the walk up to them lol - were looking forward now to the next one in September. Especially now we know how things work.

The whole family is looking forward to HESFES, even if there not into all that goes on there, it will be great to have a family holiday, we haven't done that in years.
While were there were taking it in turns with W to come back and check on all our animals between us we have 17 Chinchilla's, 2 rabbits, 2 rats and 4 cats. There's also the 3 dogs, but they come along to HESFES and we may be taking Sox, it just depends on how she copes with outside, she's getting on ok with her harness and lead but you never know, the only reason for taking her is she has the tendency to not eat while we are away.

Also while at HESFES we will be coming back here as Robynne is performing with The Leigh Mummers at The Leigh Folk Festival on the 29th June. There going to be at the Strand Wharf.

Well I better get on loads of things to be catching up with now were back in with the technology.

Coming to you via Wii

2008-05-09T11:18:00.000Z

Well just a quick update today. After last week we had hoped things would be getting better round here, but, no the Gods have other plans for us it seems. Over the weekend our Internet went out again taking with it our old computer - well the Internet went out the old comp stopped working, so I drew the logical conclusion that the Internet was too blame - So now we are waiting for them to be fixed and so in the meantime, were having to use the Wii for email checking etc. thank the Gods for the Wii and wireless Internet. Unfortunately we can't do everything with the Wii - so no uploading off pics for the time being - poor Robynne is suffering withdrawal as she can no longer be on msn all day with her friends. It's a little sad ah, but actually it's been good as we have sat down and worked out what she wants to do next and how were going to go about it. She's going to be doing a mixture of Sonlight and OU courses until she's ready to go off to uni at 18. That's the plan for now anyway it may change later we'll see how it goes.

Our new chins Smokey and Rocky arrived Tues - pics in previous post - and are making themselves at home, it's caused a cage rethink, to happen, but when we get all the new cages we shall be converting their lovely 5' high cage into a play cage. Which will make things a little easier, well on Sox at least no more being chased by chins round the hallway, tho' personally she must like it or why else would she sneak in to join there play.

It was a great H.E. meet at the library again Weds, all about weather so lots of weather measuring equipment made by the children. Robynne was nabbed by the littlies and proceeded to read stories and play with them. She came over at one point with a huge grin and complained they had got her, then went back to them, methinks she doth protest to much as she was clearly having a great time.
While clearing up us mums worked out what to do for the next few meets, so that's May sorted. I have a few idea's in my head for later on, shall mention them to L next time. Robynne wants to do Blood typing, so will have to see how we go about that and what we'll need.

Well that's enough for now, as it takes quite a bit longer than usual doing this on the Wii and I'm not that adept at using it. Robynne would probably have taken less time, but, thats teens for you.

Well What a Week

2008-05-03T12:30:00.008Z

As weeks go this past week has been a bit of a disaster, what with chin food deliveries that didn't happen, waiting for Robynne's new glasses. There was also internet going down, modem going wrong oh and yeah my handbag was stolen at our weekly H.E. meeting in our local library. On the plus side we are getting another couple of chinchilla's, Robynne has her glasses, the chin food finally arrived oh and I got my bag back and the perpetrator is now spending 3 months at Her Majesty's pleasure.

So where to start the beginning seems a good place Robynne went to specsavers three days running only to find her glasses hadn't arrived each time. The lenses finally arrived Weds morning so she was able to pick up her new glasses Weds afternoon.

I realised also that in my last post I mentioned she was getting two pairs of glasses, obviously my head was worse than I thought as I totally misunderstood. She only got the one pair with reaction lenses. Not two pairs one with reaction lenses and one pair plain, but we would of needed to pay another £40 and well she didn't really need two pairs.

Next we had the problems with our chinchilla food delivery, I made a mistake when it was first ordered, as they got the money, but not what was ordered so that delayed things that end. Then we had the delivery drivers who couldn't find us, which was really annoying we had to have someone stay in three days straight only to have no sign off delivery. Finally on Friday the 20kg sack of food arrived, hopefully it will be less drama next time round. Speaking of chinchilla's we are rehoming two more chinchilla's with us, so our little herd is now swelling too 12. I haven't seen them as yet, but Andy and Robynne went round to where were getting them from and spent two hours there and brought me back a couple of pics of them both. Till I see them better I'm not quite sure what colour they are, but, they look to be a female standard grey and a male beige or silver. Named Smokey and Rocky.

Smokey

Rocky

Smokey and Rocky

As usual they are really cute, Smokey is about a year old and Rocky is about 15/16months old. Smokey is the female and Rocky the male. Really looking forward to them coming over. We moved the other chins around yesterday as well. Harry has gone back in with Sally and Charlie, they all seem really happy to be back together again, tho' this is only temporary till our new cages arrive. We also moved Pumpkin in with Squeak and they are getting on brilliantly too. So now we have a small rat cage that is off down to the rubbish bins, I did think to keep it for maybe a sick chin's cage, but well Pumpkin as pretty much killed it lol. Besides with the new cage bank that were making we will have a couple of spare cages anyway for well new babies and separations if needed.

Then Tuesday evening the internet went down and what with power outages and modem problems, that didn't get sorted till late Thursday. Fingers crossed there'll be no more problems with the this well apart from random power outages. Which thankfully don't seem to happen that often.

I think that's about it for our stinky week oh well apart from the theft of my handbag on Weds afternoon, that was a fairly harrowing event. I was more worried about the loss of some. picture of Robynne than the money really. I mean it's a pain in the backside, but losing those would have been awful. Thankfully due to the quick thinking and brilliant observation of a couple of people in our group. The police were quickly called and the guy was chased down by the police. I got my back bag with everything in but my £50, but, I may still get that back eventually. as for the guy who took it well...

......... he's not going anywhere for a while.

Mmmm I really am hoping for a better time this coming week, you never know.

You would have Thought...

2008-04-24T10:13:00.004Z

.... that a simple trip to Specsavers would be a nice simple thing to do. Pop in have eyes tested, order new glasses, then home for a cup of tea. Well that was before you add in my cold and stupid rules and regulations.

See I was feeling fairly crap anyway, what with the pounding in my head, lack of sleep - cute and fluffy don't cut it when you feel bad and they are keeping you awake - and feeling just generally urgh from this cold which now appears to be going to my head.

We get down to the Specsavers, and sit down so they can do all the form filling on the computer. Firstly Robynne's 16yr so supposedly she still goes in the student section, only we Home Educate and there's no slot for that. So we have no school to put her down as oh dear you have to pay for the eye test, I'm like what why, then remembering my lovely NHS Exemption card in my purse no we don't I said she's covered by this. Ummm actually she's not cause her names isn't on it. But, you can still use, just if they won't accept you get a £500 fine, mmm let's see pay £20 for test or use card and possibly get a fine. Ok we payed.

Now I suppose really I should be spending the afternoon getting intouch with the relevant people to complain, but, I just don't have the energy today. I'll get to it tomorrow honestly, just as soon as my head clears.

I guess the worse part was, that I only had a little money on me so we could pay extra if she need on her glasses. Tho' on the plus side for Robynne, she gets two new pairs of glasses - yes I fell into the £75 trap - one with reaction lenses, so get got what she wanted prescription sunglasses. Which she will have to wait till next week for us to get, but that's no biggie really. Mind you she has picked some really nice glasses, tho' on the way home she was a little worried that she would have no clothes to match with them.

I was fuming in the end tho' and Robynne said she felt guilty for costing so much money. So then I felt bad too lol and well as I said to Robynne it's not your fault how the rules are made. There's a smug person somewhere thinking they are real clever, but you know what someday I'll find them and rip them a new one...... or not.

ChinFest 2008

2008-04-23T14:19:00.014Z

Ok as requested by Lisa today is ChinFest here on Othena so if your not into cute and furry look away now, as this post is heavy with the cute and fluffy ones.

There all growing well, tho' obviously not as rapidly as Pumpkin did last year - can't believe she's almost 8 months old now - what with there being three of them, I guess it's a little harder for them all to get in there now.

Well here comes the picture, run and hide now if you need too.

This was taken a few hours after they were all born, so their still a little damp looking, it didn't take long for them to become all fluffy.

These are one's of Tweak and Ninja, they are having a little exploration around the cage, under the watchful eye of Daddy Joe.

Tweak

The following where taken yesterday...

Drexl

Ninja

Tweak

Have you had enough yet or shall I save some for another day lol, ..... no ok then just a few more, then I'll stop honest.

This one's Daddy looking out and down at the babies being weighed on the table below. You can just catch Mummy in the background.

And now for some very odd shots not sure which ones are in any of these but the highly striped individual is Robynne..... (told you it was a bright top Carol)

.... and now for some seriously cute pictures that well I just couldn't resist....

Well hope that's enough for you Lisa, I feel I may have to post more of them later lol, but, well I'll try to be a little more restrained.

Surprise

2008-04-13T15:35:00.005Z

Ok it wasn't really a surprise we new it was going to happen sooner or later, but, well it was still a bit of a surprise.

What am I babbling about well, I shall tell you. In the early hours of yesterday morning our chinchilla's were all making a lovely racket, which kept us awake lovely animals. Anyway we left them alone then in the morning - at a normal time - I heard the unmistakeable squeaking of a new baby. Went out to check on them and saw, what I thought was twins, but, when Chicca moved a little more we saw three little heads. So we know have three more gorgeous chins swelling our herd to 10. The new babies are two male Lt Ebony's and a female Beige. So the boys look like there dad Joe and the girl is just like her mum and big sister Pumpkin - who was born Oct last year.

Here's pic's of the three of them held by Andy, just after we weighed them this afternoon.

Drexl

Ninja

Tweak

Yes I know the names are interesting but, they do fit them very well. Drexl is the biggest of the three today he weighed in at 50g, with Ninja following behind at 48g and Tweak brings up the rear at 46g. We shall be weighing them every day just so we can be sure there all getting fed ok. Especially Tweak as her brothers do seem to push her out of the way, but she fights back. We may have to take them to one side a couple of times a day to give her a chance to get in there. But for now we'll just wait and see.

Oh and if anyone's interested in seeing Robynne, when performed with The Leigh Mummers. Click the link and then click video's it'll take you to the right page and it's Jack and the Princess.

Positive Thinking Finally

2008-04-03T17:27:00.003Z

Yes, finally I have gotten my finger out of a place it shouldn't be lol and got down to getting things sorted out. Today after much procrastinating I have finally gotten my Etsy shop up and running admittedly there's only one item up for sale and there's no pic, but once the camera's batteries are charged I'll get the other items photographed and uploaded to the shop too. I think things may finally be looking up on that side of things. Mind you if I hadn't had that conversation with Shirley the other day it may have taken a lot longer. Sometimes I forget that talking to other people can help lol, I really do need to stop brooding on stuff on my own and just have a little more faith in the world. Also thinking more positively works too. Robynne's going to work on some designs for me, she has done some I know but, they don't always get passed to me when I ask lol, wonder if it has to do with the selective hearing thing that she suffers from.

So on the H.E front things seem to be slowing down a little round here, she's still not sure what she wants to do next, tho' we are looking into the possibility of an art course that can be done by correspondence as she still doesn't really want to go to college. Plus there's also the problem that I suffered with when I was at school, she can only draw when she's in the right frame of mind. Not that she doesn't still draw practically all the time. It's just that if she needs to draw something specific that's when the mood has to be right. Her doodles don't count.. her words not mine lol. Tho' personally I think her doodles are sometimes some of her best work.

Were off to the Palace Theatre Monday afternoon, with the local H.E group, for a backstage tour. It could be a great afternoon. Speaking of the Palace Theatre, they had auditions there last Sat for a 9 - 19 yr olds for a production of Bugsy Malone which I think there putting on in the Summer. Robynne found out about it when we were down at the Cliffs last Fri to see Danny the Champion of the World - again with local H.E group - it was very good, anyway Robynne was all excited about the Bugsy audition lol, she comes over to me and I had to burst her bubble, you see she couldn't go to the audition as that was when she was of to Colchester with the Leigh Mummers to perform at The Leaping Hare Conference, which incidentally went really well and she thoroughly enjoyed herself and can't wait for the next time. Tho' no idea when that will be.

Well I'm gonna sign off now, the internet went out for a couple hours again today and that held me up from doing some things like blog posts lol, and well Robynne's been home from Deep Readers a few hours now and she wants to be on the comp... ooh I really need to get my finger out and get the other comp fixed. Apart from the lack of memory on this comp it's a real pain having to share again lol.

Fun and Games with Wii

2008-03-17T18:21:00.004Z

A couple of weeks before Robynne's birthday last year we bought a Wii, we had been wanting one for a while and thought it would be great fun at Robynne's party as it turned out we never used it at her party. Need less to say it has been used many times scince then.

It has become not only a source of great fun and much amusement, it seems to be quite educational, which I suppose those of us in the H.E. circle know that this can be said of many every day household tasks and activities. Though I was quite surprised at this event tho' I shouldn't have been really. Anyway as I was saying it has been used alot, at first it was mainly Andy, then when we looked after K monthly while his mum took Robynne, T and J to H.E.Y - Home Ed youth group for over 12's - they really enjoyed Wii Sports, tho' as we have gotten more games this has changed lol.

Then it got to the stage where Robynne would play more often, then we got My Sims and I too started to play, mind you Andy still plays more as even tho' My Sims was a game that Robynne and myself wanted he completed it first. Super Mario Galaxy is another one that we have all enjoyed again Andy has almost completed this one too.

Our latest acquisition is causing the biggest stir tho' Robynne loves this one and has been asking for it ever scince the oh so charming advert, I'm sure you will know the one I mean when I say tht the game is Guitar Hero III, I just love the image of Slash wearing someone as a skin lol. It's not really helping Robynne learn her guitar lol, but it is helping her timing and rhythm. Even Andy has benefited even tho' he plays the guitar in the most unconventional way across his lap, for myself I like the game but every so often I have to pass to Robynne to get past certain levels. All in all the Wii has been a good buy lol, tho' now we need to get another guitar as playing dual player with the Wiimote is flaming awkward, it really messes me up when I go back to playing with the guitar. You can probably guess this, but, I think Robynne is going to complete this game first.

Best Laid Plans

2008-03-13T17:33:00.002Z

Well so much for those, see I had planned to be more regular with blog posting, but, well somehow something always came up. Then when I finally get some time to blog, my darn internet kept cutting out, it seems to be sorted now, but, you never can tell.

So anyway looks like I'll be doing another catch up post. Nothing that interesting has been going on her really, Robynne's been enjoying our local Home Ed meets, one of the dad's has been doing art classes which she has found quite helpful with her art. She had a free trial with Photoshop Elements 6. She enjoyed that and was quite sad when it ended, unfortunately it's a little expensive. But, she did a search around the net and found a lovely program very similar to it called Paint Tool SAI from what I have seen it's very good.

Also she's been having great fun, with the Leigh Mummers, she comes back from rehearse ls tired, but happy. It's good to see her having fun and doing what she enjoys.

Myself I have recently bought six DVD's from eBay starring the lovely Gary Oldman and I'm enjoying them sooo much lol. My collection is slowly growing and what a lovely collection it is too. Also my parents bought a trailer tent from eBay too, ready for us all to go to HESFES. Which were all looking forward too, well maybe not the cat lol, tho' she is slowly getting used to her harness and lead. We have a provisional booking for the Chinchilla's at a Chin Hotel, hopefully that will be ok as I have no idea what where going to do with them other wise.

Well I guess I better get on things to do and all that.

Absence of Sound

2008-02-29T10:59:00.004Z

So yesterday Robynne and Andy, went to the Science Museum with the Chelmsford H.E. group. Leaving me to enjoy the quiet that is an empty flat.
I got quite a bit done, considering I'm still feeling a little run down. I tidied up this blog a little, sorted out my other blogs. Decided on a format for the business blog, which once we get the other computer fixed or retrieve all the data of it which ever happens first, I'll get right on with that.
I also started on cleaning the bathroom - tis one of the jobs I hate, but, someone has to do it - bought some DVD's from eBay starring the lovely Gary Oldman, my collection is growing slowly, one day I will have them all. I'm sure I did other stuff, oh yeah downloaded and printed off Robynne's script, she's joined the Leigh Mummers and has her first performance with them at the Leaping Hare Pagan Convention in March at Colchester. She's very excited, but, she's being very cool about it lol.
Then I had a good look through the English GCSE folder, I can see there's a few items that Robynne will enjoy doing and quite a few that she won't lol. But, then again she's only going to do the ones she's interested in.

All in all it was quite a productive day and Robynne and Andy both came back after having enjoyed themselves thoroughly. - I can never be sure with the two of them who's learnt more, but, frankly I don't think it matters - Sadly there return heralded the end of my lovely quiet day. You see our cat is in season at the moment and she had been hiding in Andys room all day but, as soon as he walked in the door out she came and started up her very loud crying. It's the only time that she likes Andy lol, the rest of the time she avoids him and his large feet. Silly really he's only ever tread on her paws once, he did more damage to himself trying to avoid stepping on her. - namely a tv aerial spike in his foot, he wasn't a happy bunny.

We were off to Priory Park this afternoon, to meet up with members of our local H.E group, but a phone call received five minutes ago mean were needed elsewhere. So must dash and grab a bus.

Busyness, H.E, Holidays and Pets

2008-02-26T09:22:00.001Z

Time's been a flying by again and if I don't stop to get my words down now, I'll probably forget everything which is what usually happens. I finally worked out what direction to go in with regards to the business, and was starting to get everything implemented, when lo and behold the computer with all the relevant info on decided that enough was enough. So we now have the problem off how to retrieve everything and I mean everything and hopefully get it fixed. It wouldn't of been so bad if it had been our old geriatric comp that had given up, but, no it's the good one the one that we hadn't backed up anything on because well it's new - well newish - and well frankly I didn't think about it. Am seriously kicking myself now and vow to always back up if and when it's back up and running.

Next on the agenda as it were is our Home Ed group, which really seems to be going well at the moment. We seem to have a permanent home in the Library lots of trips are organized, for the next few months or so. I'm even thinking of repeating the trip that I organized a few years ago to go Paint balling.
At the moment Robynne is enjoying going to the library each week, but, I know that can change at anytime so I shall just have to keep an eye on her moods lol. Park meets are starting up again next week and those go down well with us, well especially Andy lol.
We picked up the coursework for GCSE English from my sister at the weekend, and after looking through the large folder. Robynne has decided to work through it even tho' she has no intention of doing the exam. Myself I'm going to put it all on the comp and make PDF's of the different modules which can then be taken out with us - easier than lugging that big folder and helpful to share with others in the group.
We had our reminder flyer come through for HESFES last week too and so we showed it to mum and dad at the weekend. As after visiting us at the site last year, they liked the look of the place. The up shot of that is that now, not only are mum and dad coming our sister is coming too and taking Simon out of school for the week. Oh and the parents are paying so even bigger bonus.

Going on holiday then brings us to our animals, last year Andy stayed behind and looked after not only our pets, but Willow's small animals too. But, this year Andy is coming with us, so plans have to be put in place for the animals. So Robynne is going to attempt to teach Sox to walk on/tolerate the lead, as the plan is to take her with us. We tried once before, but the harness we had then wasn't a good fit. The new one we bought yesterday is much nicer and it also helps that this week she's in season and will let Robynne do anything to her.
That only leaves the chins to cater for. We have been doing some rethinking with regards to their cages at the moment and were going to be investing in six new cages to make a bank in our hallway where our bookshelves are at the moment. So that's going to be fun, especially as some who shall remain nameless really don't want to come out of there cages lol, tho once out he has a lovely time. So back to what to do for holidays, we either needed to find someone to come in everyday and check them or have some one else take them in for the week. We have found a chin hotel in Kent, which charges £2.00 - £2.50 depending on the food per chin per week. Which isn't bad all we need to do is find out how far away they are and whether they have space that week, for our 7 darling little fluff balls.

So was there anything else that I needed to update on, mmmmm can't think of anything ... oh yeah chin food, it's been a bit of a nightmare lately getting there food, we went to two big pet stores yesterday. One up near our parents in Suffolk, and the big one here in Southend and neither of them sold Charnwoods pellets, which is what our little ones all eat. The helpful girl at Southend said oh these pellets are the same you can just give them these. Which we could see weren't the same by the shape. So now we need to work out how to get the food, Andy does a trek up to Leigh every couple of weeks for a few bags, but we really need to find a way to get a sack which would by my reckoning last 2 months at a time and be far more economical. Mind you it'll be better once we have all the food bowls attached to the cages so they can't take them out of there holders and fling the bowls around the cages. Which is quite funny I'm sure, but it wastes the food and I'm hoping this behaviour isn't a symptom of something else.
Oh Robynne picked them all out new toys for there cages yesterday, a cargo net thing for the boys which is made of string stuff, they'll have fun ripping that up lol. A couple of large willow twig nest balls, for the girls, Chicca and Joe which they too will eventually chew up. Then lastly something new which we hadn't seen before but is designed for chins, but we'll see how it goes a swing ledge for little pumpkin's cage with her being the smallest and the only one on her own at the moment - we are going to get her a mate later on - she has the smallest cage which doesn't have too much room for extra toys. Were getting a new cage next month for the boys so she'll move up into what will be our cage for nursing/sick chins and her cage will be for temporary stays.

Oh me Oh my.... or Avoidance issues

2007-07-29T15:25:00.000Z

..... I know it's been ages since I last blogged, but well it's not because I'm ignoring anyone or anything... it's just that every time I log onto the computer I am reminded of about half a dozen other things that I should be doing on here that I have been avoiding doing. So to make avoiding them easier I have been avoiding the computer. But hey as everyone knows we can only avoiding stuff for so long before it bites us in the butt...

We went to HESFES and Robynne had a thoroughly enjoyable time.... and I well lets see I had a nice time when it didn't rain and I wasn't wondering where she was half the night - not that I needed to worry really, as she was only just a couple of yards away in her boyfriends tent most of the time, - yes I know please don't point out about them being teens and alone.... that's something else and has been discussed at great length by Robynne and myself much to Robynne's annoyance. But it's more for me than her really as I know she has no intention of you know whats etc, but I need to feel like I'm getting my point across.

She was recently told that she was old enough to have a 2yr old, to which she promptly replied "yes, but I'm not stupid enough too"

Which made me smile, but inside I was a cheering lol.

So back to HESFES, as I said it was a good week for Robynne, a whole week hanging out with her friends who she only gets to see once a month and a chance to get to know others better. Myself I fell on the Sat and bruised my knee and twisted my hip a little so I was a little more wary of wandering to far form the tent on the wet and muddy days. But despite all that I still had a good time, read all the books we took with us. Got to grips with cooking and shopping again, which I don't do at home as that's Andy's area lol. It made me realize again just how much he does and how sometimes we don't appreciate him as much as we should. I'm glad we got the bigger tent, but if Andy comes with us next year which were hoping he can, shall need a larger tent lol.

But we will definitely be going again next year, would of liked to go to part two, but we have decided to go and see We Will Rock You again for Robynne's 16th - can't quite get over that yet - so all camps etc. are off as this is a little more important to us money wise. We went for her 14th birthday and we all thoroughly enjoyed the show. We said we would go again, there was a coach trip advertised locally that was actually on her birthday, so we were all set to book with them only to find that they had cancelled as not enough interest. So as we had gotten all geared up for it. We'll be off up to London in a couple of weeks to get tickets.

There was other stuff I was gonna blog about but I'll leave that for now as can't quite remember what it all was lol.

But before I go must just do this tag from Shirley

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? No such luck I was named from a Beatles song.
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? don't know try to avoid that at all costs.
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? sometimes, but then again I tend to do more typing than writing
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LUNCH MEAT? used to be corned beef, but am veggie now so none.
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? for the time being just the one.....
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? maybe but I'm very picky lol....
7.DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? me use sarcasm never...... ok too much lol
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? yes.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? not again no, there's too much of me nowadays.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CEREAL? oooh cornflakes or shreddies....
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? no I get someone else too lol.
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? sometimes to strong it's not always good for me.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM? Strawberry cheesecake
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? smiles
15. RED OR PINK? urgh ok Red
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVOURITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? sadly my attitude sometimes leaves alot to be desired.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? not sure can answer this one...
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? well if I send it to them lol
19. WHAT COLOUR PANTS/TROUSERS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? none lol, skirt and bare feet.
20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? cherry yoghurt.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? original cast of We Will Rock You
22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE? purple
23. FAVOURITE SMELLS? washed hair, clean babies.....
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? friends son.
25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? yes she's one of the few friends I have.
26. FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH? don't usually watch sport.
27. HAIR COLOUR? brown, purple, lilac, mauve, lavender and a little pink lol
28. EYE COLOUR? blue
29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? nope, wear glasses tho'
30. FAVOURITE FOOD? yoghurt
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? oh ok happy endings....
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The Simpsons
33. WHAT COLOUR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? purple
34. SUMMER OR WINTER? winter
35. HUGS OR KISSES? hugs
37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? to what me hugging them...?
38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? ..... lol ok
39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? none at the moment
40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? a faded tippex drawing of a flower.
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? Casualty
42. FAVOURITE SOUND? silence lol
43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Stones all the way
44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Portugal
45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? for stating the obvious yes.
46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Southend
47. WHAT SUPERPOWER WOULD YOU LIKE? none, I'd feel compelled to help people.

Warriors, Rain and Observation

2007-06-27T16:00:00.000Z

Well we went to our Litha Ritual Sat night down at Chalkwell Beach it was a little chilly, and it rained a bit on the way down to the station. But, thankfully the rain held off while we went through a lovely ritual, which started of with someone singing the runes, to help cleanse the area after the invasion of the ummm how do I put this politely.... aw forget it drunk chavs at the Beltane ritual. It was a little hard to hear what with the wind blowing, but still very moving. So after we were sat around watching the lovely dark clouds o see which direction there were going. Well after about an hour the sky's opened and those of us with children rushed around and gathered them all up and made our way quickly home. Thinking we were the sensible ones lol, only to find out yesterday at the Pagan Lions meeting that the rain stopped about 10 mins later and the others all had a great time. Well if I hadn't of had Robynne with me and I weren't going to camp Fri - so didn't want to get ill - I'm sure I would have braved the weather and stayed then again ...... maybe not.

So Warrior's, well that's what the talk was last night at the moot, they even brought some weapons and armour with them. Which was really great the "children" namely, Willow's youngest, my Robynne and my little brother Andrew really enjoyed getting to play with the weapons etc. Robynne tried on the chainmail shirt and then left it on till the end of the moot. I do have a couple of pics of her wearing everything, but there with her camera, which for some reason isn't that great for pics. I know Willow got a couple of her so shall get copies form her and post them up later. But for now, you'll have to use your imagination with these pics lol.

...... and finally observation, well ok a quiz about observation, but it is interesting ..... sort off lol.

Your Observation Skills Get A B-

Your senses are pretty sharp (okay, most of the time)
And it takes something big to distract you!

How Observant Are You?

Anyway I guess this will be my last post until after HESFES, if your going I look forward to maybe meeting some of you there.

I think my brain is in holiday mode....

2007-06-25T14:45:00.001Z

... or else I'm just feeling lazy lol.

Anyway have just finished up guitar club for two weeks as what with HESFES next week and family visiting the next we just wont have the energy. We should be going swimming tomorrow, but shall wait and see how we feel. Robynne is off at the Science Museum with Andy today with some of the teens from the area. It gives me a break and her and Andy time to have fun together, what with him not being able to come to HESFES this year. Were supposed to be going with the 11+ to the cinema on Wednesday, have no idea yet if were going to go as not only is it getting busier right now with packing etc for HESFES, but the parents are visiting as they pick up our elderly Aunt for a short holiday. Then poor old dad is back again on Thurs ready to takes us to HESFES, then back down again on Monday to bring Auntie home and then he's back down again to pick us up from HESFES. Ok for those in the back who may have gotten confused then lol, my parents live in Leiston, Suffolk, my Aunt lives in Leigh and were in Southend. So my poor father is driving down here and back Wed with Mum to pick up Mum's sister - Auntie - then he's coming back Thurs staying over taking myself and Robynne to HESFES, not sure what day he's going back to his possibly Fri or Sat, then he drives back Mon to bring Auntie home to Leigh, then back to his home and then down again Friday to pick us up - tho' may see if he wants to stay here with Andy for the week and have a break from Mum lol - then Sat we go off to the parents till Sunday as our nephew is being enrolled as a Junior Soldier - for those of you wondering that means he will become a junior member of The Salvation Army - So all in all my Dad is going to be doing a lot of driving this week. Were pretty lucky he offered, we had originally asked him to do just the dropping off at HESFES, but the old darling got time off work to come pick us up again, I bet he wishes he'ed managed to teach me to drive all those years ago lol. But I'm sorry to say all the other drivers are far safer with me not on the road, I was a complete disaster behind the wheel of a car..... We may not see them as often as we used to but, it's nice to know that they're there if we need them still.

A few pics to share lol...

Robynne's lovely Green hair - and yes that is a skull on the desk.....

Joe being chased by the lovely Chicca...

.. and Chicca having a cuddle.

.....

2007-06-14T11:28:00.000Z

Well what have we been up to lately, we went to Tropical Wings on Monday with Shirley and the gang. It was a lovely place to visit we shall be going there again.

Robynne's blue hair dye arrived yesterday, so yesterday we lightened her hair ready to put in the blue this afternoon, once she gets back from Oakland's Park, where she is with some of her H.E friends from the Chelmsford end.

Also yesterday our new tent arrived, ready for HESFES - she had tried to deliver it on Tuesday, but we were swimming with Willow and assorted children -, just a couple more things needed and we'll be all ready. Were both getting really excited now, and counting off the days and outings we have till it's time to go.

Tomorrow were off to pick up two more Chinchilla's, these will be our breeding pair shall post some pics of them in a few days when they are a little more settled in, oh there names are Joe and Chicca and were getting them from the lovely Kelly.

Oh and I have lengthened my dreads, and they look very cool even if I do say so myself....

... also have been knitting head/hairbands, long wristbands and shall be doing some hats too, these will all go into our handcrafted shop. Which I have now sorted the shopping area out - when tested all links went to where they should do so yay -, just need to add some products now lol.

Well of course

2007-06-04T16:37:00.000Z

Your Hair Should Be Blue

Wild, brilliant, and out of control.
You're a risk taker with an eye to the future.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

Thanks for this one Shirley tho' it's Robynne going for the blue do this time lol.

3rd or 4th time lucky.... I forget..

2007-06-04T14:52:00.000Z

Yes for some reason unfathomable to me i have written this post or some semblance of this post 3 or 4 times now on different days only for the post to disappear from the ether as it were. So bear with me as can't remember half of what I was going to write and shall probably miss things out.

So my last post was over a week ago now and lots has happened scince then, I've made some money from the site, have half pulled my hair out over getting my handcrafted shop up - for some reason the page won't work the way it should and can't get it to link to the pay page - so it's seems back to the drawing board with that. We had a mad dash to get tHE Sound finished on time this month, so in a bid to get ahead have started next months early lol, bet I still panic before the time again. It'll be worse too as it's due out while were at HESFES. Which is something else we have been getting all ready for, more excitment the closer it gets, tho' still haven't gotten the tent yet, everything else is sorted lol.

What else has been happening, oh yeah my friend Willow and her children came round and she braided my hair so that it will eventually go into dreads. My new do looks very cool, and feels great - well I think it's cool you don't have too.

I'm getting Robynne to extend the length a bit with more wool over the next few days so that will be good.

Then it was time for our monthly H.E. Meet which was great fun and the theme was Japan, darn I forgot to get a pic of the children wearing their lovely Samuri Helmets, but here's a pic of Robynne wearing hers lol....

She doesn't usually look that dozey lol, but she has a bit of a cold at the moment and well I did kind of surprise her by plonking said hat on her head and snapping the picture.

We also had Robynne and Dee doing face painting, here's Robynne I think she was painting Dee at the time....

Later that evening Robynne and myself along with our friend Willow, went down to Prittlewell Priory museum for a Telling by the Essex Storytellers of 'A Green Mist Rising' - The Story of the Witches of Manningtree 1645. It was a very interesting night, with a few tales that we had already heard at recent Pagan meetings and well one of the tales namely 'A Green Mist Rising' had a far better ending to our mind when told by the Gippeswyk Storytellers.

Ok I think am all caught up now, except to say that I really should of been at the park this afternoon for a meet up with local Home Edders, but sorry guys if your reading this, I got a little sidetracked, what with needing to go buy a new toilet seat and Robynne not feeling so well today, better luck next time I'm sure.

Now I think had better run back to the sewing machine lol or maybe try again with that elusive Handcrafted shop page, but first another cup of tea before the silence is broken by my lovely brother coming home form his first day of work - in about 3yrs - he'll either be on a total high or a little tired, he was feeling so nervous last night. Fingers crossed it all goes well for him.

.... Earth Possibly...

2007-05-25T09:48:00.000Z

You Are From Neptune

You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability.
You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea.
Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion.
You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone.
If you don't get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.

What Planet Are You From?

..ah well it looks pretty there at least, still worrying how accurate some of that is. Not saying which bits are true tho'.....

As seen at Shirley's and Dotty Spots.

It's official...

2007-05-24T12:33:00.000Z

.... well from Tuesday the 29th it will be. I will be Self-Employed, now comes the moment of serious panic. I'd been putting it off for weeks, finding road blocks to hold things up. Which weren't road block at all, just me being scared, but you know what now it's all done - well apart from one phone call on Tuesday - I'm actually feeling quite calm about things..... almost... at the end of the day if it all goes pear shaped at least I will have tried.

New members of the family & LA Report

2007-05-17T15:13:00.000Z

Ok have been meaning to post pics of them for a while now so here goes.....

The Girls
Charlie & Sally

The Boys
Harry & Squeak

Harry, Squeak and Sally are all 5yrs, Charlie is 2yrs. Harry, Sally and Charlie are Standard Greys and Squeak is a Brown Velvet. Charlie is Harry and Sally's daughter.

Oops mustn't forget Sox, she's still not sure of the chinnys especially after they chased her round the living room the other day.... I would post a pic of the hammy but darn thing wouldn't stay put...

Oh and after our visit with the LA bod last Tuesday, we received our report from them in the post yesterday. I'm so so pleased our provision for Robynne has been deemed satisfactory and appropriate to her age and abilities. Oh I'm just so pleased isn't that wonderful...... ok enough, even I can't stand that level of sarcasm for too long..... oh and as everything is ok, they plan to see us next May 2008 and yearly after that.... umm did I miss something but did they not notice her date of birth...... we may have to see them next year but after that well I think they can go stuff themselves - sorry to those of a sensible disposition, but I couldn't really put what I wanted them to do really, I mean they do pass for human you know.

Well I had nothing better to do.....

2007-05-12T13:40:00.000Z

....... or rather nothing better that I could be bothered to do lol....

Got this one from Shirley

You Would Choose Love

Money may buy a little happiness, but not the happiness of true love.

You rather have a true soulmate than a private jet.

And while many people may claim they would choose love too...

You're one of the few who would really do it.

Would You Choose Love or Money?

..... very disappointing lol, I thought I was much more cynical than that..... Oh and while was there just ended up doing a few more of these..... I think they could be addictive.

Your Attitude is Better than 40% of the Population

You have a positive attitude... sometimes. You prefer to see the world through clear glasses, not rose colored ones.

How's Your Attitude?

.... 40%, that's good...... but I'm more grumpy than that honestly.... ask anyone....

You Are 16% Sociopath

You're empathetic, loyal, and introspective.
In other words, there's no way you're a sociopath... but you can spot one pretty easily!

Are You A Sociopath?

.... oh I wanted to be a Sociopath or was that a Physcopath.... mmmmm - odd thing for you all, did the spell check thingy as wasn't sure if had spelt Physcopath right, so spell check thing showed it up red, ok I said it's spelt wrong.... but, instead of showing me how to spell it right the word that it wanted to replace it with was .... Facecloth....? strangely enough when I spelt facecloth wrong it didn't come up with Physcopath as a replacement.....

You are 60% Virgo

How Virgo Are You?

.... So if I was more tidy lol, I would be fully Virgo.... so can I change when I was born then so I fit into a more messy starsign...

It's been a busy few days

2007-05-10T12:39:00.000Z

First of we had a meeting with the LA bod on Tuesday morning, ooh I do hate those early mornings. Surprisingly things went ok, we had thought to cancel and send in a report, but with everything else that I had to get on with over the last couple of weeks. I really just didn't have the time, so maybe next time. Anyway we were a little apprehensive as we had heard that this guy thinks he knows everything, so we were unsure of how things would go. But surprisingly he was almost pleasant, tho' we shall see when the report comes through from him. He would have liked to see Robynne's work, so he could assess her progress.... tho' how he was intending to do that when he had nothing to compare it with. All in all he seemed quite pleased with how we were going along, tho' he did keep returning to our method of learning. I suppose being an ex headteacher, he must of despaired at our lack of timetable. Well if Robynne's working on something she's interested in, I find it far easier to let her carry on with it till she has worked through it.

On the business front we have added a spreadshirt shop to our website, and Robynne has been adapting some of her art and designs to go onto different items at the moment she has done some sweet baby items with a bear theme, and she's working on making her comic characters from our H.E mag tHE Sound big enough for T-Shirts etc.

We have also come up with a H.E design and were running competition in tHE Sound, the winners will then added to the shop. Which will then hopefully sell, well and that will give us some much needed money for resources and running costs not only for the magazine but for the H.E. group in general.

And then we have some general fashion items that may appeal to all ages.

We will still be having a shop area that will have many custom items for sale and a place for ordering custom items. But we haven't been able to sort that at the moment as for some bizarre reason our computer is showing almost all pictures as very large, very bright red area's. I suppose I could use the old computer. but well that would involve moving everything over and well it's just too much, especially as the old comp is so slow, tho' am hoping to get a laptop soon just for the business stuff, well that's what I'm telling Robynne it's for lol.

Umm well if your sure....

2007-05-04T22:45:00.000Z

Erotic Thriller

You've made your own rules in life - and sometimes that catches up with you.
Winding a web of deceit comes naturally, and no one really knows the true you.

Your best movie matches: Swimming Pool, Unfaithful, The Crush

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

.....thanks to Shirley for this one lol.

So anyway have had a fairly productive week, well ok no I haven't but it sounded good didn't it? We managed to get our H.E mag out on time and all in one piece which I think is fairly productive, I made some hammocks for the chinchillas, which they seem to like, tho' still have a fair few other things I should have done, maybe tomorrow. We had a nice afternoon in the park today as well, well until it got chilly it's always great to hang out with the H.E group down here. Tomorrow evening were down the beach for a Beltane Celebration looking forward to that oh and here's a pic of one of our chinnys his names Squeak and he's oh so cute.

" Service Please"

A What?

2007-04-29T14:15:00.000Z

Have seen this all over the place today...

I am a
Canna

What Flower
Are You?

"You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that."

..... umm and that is....?, has anyone seen or heard of this plant mmmmm looks like time for some research, wonder if can get Robynne to find it for me.... well it's education isn't it lol.

*edit - found out about the lovely Canna flower.

Decisions

2007-04-24T13:04:00.000Z

We have made some new decisions with regards to well lots of things really, life H.E and home.

Yesterday we restarted our Guitar Club, we used to have it fortnightly then monthly. We found that monthly was too long and after a break of a few months, were now not only changing from monthly to weekly, we changed the day and time, so now it'll be for just an hour on a Monday. Yesterday went well, it was basically just a catch up to see what chords everyone could remember. It was great fun and I think only doing the hour made it less stressful for me too, tho' next week everyone is going to come 15 mins before start time so we can make sure everyone is in tune - must find our little box for tuning before Monday then lol.

We have also swapped our swimming session from Thursday to Tuesday, as alot of things that Robynne wants to join in with happen on Thursdays and we really want her to do more swimming/exercise and hopefully this will mean it will be more regular.

Also tonight were off to our second Pagan meeting,- we went last October and had a great time - we have decided as a family after much talking and research that this is the way were going to go with our faith. We told our Mum a while ago what we were thinking of and she was a little worried about it being a bit mmmmm evil lol. But after we chatted and explained, she was alot happier about not ecstatic mind you but well she was less worried for our souls lol.... it's quite a difference really from the way we were brought up - The Salvation Army - but it feels right for us.

Then our last decision, has been to forget about getting a dog for now, as as much as we would love to have a dog, having no garden and the size of our flat just aren't practical especially as the dog that we all really want to get is a Siberian Husky/Alaskan Malamute. So the pet that we are going to get is........ drum roll please, well ok maybe that's pushing it lol..... were going to get Chinchilla's. We had been researching pets and well we have all fallen in love with them. Were off to see Kelly on Friday and hopefully in a month or so we will have some new family members.

I just had to do this.....

2007-04-15T13:09:00.000Z

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I'd seen this in various places over the last few days so just had to give it a go.

V&A Visit

2007-04-12T18:35:00.000Z

Yesterday we had a really good day for our visit to the museum, we missed meeting with everyone in the morning, then at lunchtime we all magically met up and ate our lunches together in the John Madejski garden actually it's the only garden area lol. But there's this lovely Ouroboro sculpture, which signifies regeneration and continuity.

The Ouroboro serpent, which swallows it's own tail as a symbol of infinity. The serpent's scales are made of interlocking plastic jerry cans. A very interesting piece, but I'm sure there where some more surreal things in the Surreal Things exhibit, but well I had no interest in seeing that. Plus the queue for tickets was amazing, which is a shame as we where going to try and see the Kylie exhibit, but I hate queueing lol, so maybe we'll pop in there again next time we nip up to London.

After lunch we all went off to the Japan Exhibit, where the children took part in the Japanese activites - well all but Tom and Robynne, we let them go off exploring on there own - just wish I'd managed to get a photo, of all of their lovely Samurai Helmets and Kimono doll's. Tho' I'm pretty sure we will be doing Japan as a theme for the H.E group and that template for a helmet that somehow managed to make it home with me, will be well used I'm sure.

We spent a far bit of time in the Japan exhibit, while the children did the activities. Then we split up, some went home then, but the rest of us stayed and agreed to meet up an hour or so later for the journey home. As Robynne is very into her drawing we went off and checked out the Prints and Drawings exhibit, while she had a long look round I found myself a seat and settled down for a long wait.

Oh in the morning we had spent a long time in the sculpture's area and also looking at some very interesting fashions of yesteryear, and in the presence of some very large paintings.

Tho' later Robynne informed me that she didn't think we were allowed to take photo's of the very large paintings.

A New Blog......

2007-04-10T17:31:00.000Z

.... to go with our business venture.

This is where I shall be posting abut the progress of our business, with ideas and such that we shall be trying out. Sewing Friend, it just so that I don't clog up this blog with business stuff lol.

Well I never....

2007-04-09T18:17:00.000Z

...Honestly.....

You Are a Cadbury Creme Egg

You're the type that stole little brother's easter basket so that you could have MORE CANDY!

What Easter Candy Are You?

...... I would never ever steal my brothers candy. Mmmmm well ok I'm ~~pterry~~ pretty sure I never knowingly stole his candy.

Noticed this over at Bonkers

...Hooray

2007-04-05T11:56:00.000Z

Hammy is back -

and none the worse for wear after the 12 day holiday in the kitchen. Robynne caught her in the gas cupboard, thanks to Sox who lead her to hammy's hiding place. We are all so relieved to have hammy back where it should be.

Lets see what other great stuff happened this week, oooh our tickets for HESFES arrived so yay. Found out about Japanese lessons, that Robynne and some of her friends will be doing for an hour a week after Easter so she's real excited. Tho' not so excited about possibly having to get up earlier.

Next Wed 11th April were off to the Victoria and Albert Museum, wih some of our local H.E group. Which were all looking forward too. We'll be meeting outside @ 11am so if anyone else would like to join us that would be great.

Mmmmm what else, well it's Easter at the weekend so that's fun too, you know can't think of anything else right now. But it doesn't matter, cause hey the hammy's home hooray for that....

Oh and have gotten rid of that annoying music that started up when you click on the blog, don't understand why it kept starting automatically as had it set to not doing so, ah well the wonders of technology.

The Errant Hamster

2007-04-01T14:23:00.000Z

I had previously blogged about this, but blogger chose to lose it and wipe my draft too.... mmmmm wonder what problem blogger has with hamsters.

So anyway back to ~~the story~~ sorry the reality of our errant hammy. Late last Friday night, when we were all in bed - some sleeping, others attempting - there was an Almighty crash in the living room. Upon investigation we found our cat Sox sitting outside the living room door, and after further investigation we found the hammy's cage on the floor in various pieces. With absolutely no sign of hammy, now three scenario's went through my head at this point.

1. Sox had eaten hammy.

2. Hammy had gotten away then possibly died of fright.....

.... or and this is was the most preferred option....

3. Hammy was fine and having a ball round the flat.

So we cleared up the mess, put the cage back together as best as it would go and put the cage down - in the hope that hammy would return - and we returned to bed.

There was no sign of hammy until late Sunday evening, when Robynne spotted Sox and the hammy sniffing each other by the kitchen doorway. Unfortunately she yelled at Sox and both animals split. So now we knew hammy was safe and alive. So now we put the cage in the kitchen and kept the door shut. But, sadly hammy was obviously having too much fun living in a much larger cage, as it had been returning to the cage for food and then leaving again.

Our next step was to hunt for humane mousetraps to make online. So during the course of this week we have attempted a few, but it seems our ~~darn~~ sweet little hammy is either just to smart to be caught or doesn't want to be. Right now we have this one made and in the kitchen, fingers crossed it will work.

As the bucket one pictured didn't work, mmmmm maybe it's the bait were using.

Tho' judging by the way it was running round the kitchen when I saw it on Friday evening, it seems quite happy. Personally I'll be glad to see it in it's cage again where it most definately belongs.

I'm not worried honest...

2007-03-26T13:22:00.000Z

.... honestly I'm not really, well ok maybe just a little.
Wondering at my worry or trepidation, no.......... well ok then but, I'm going to tell you anyway.

You see at the weekend I booked Robynne and myself our first HESFES holiday and well, seeing as how I'm not always good in situations where I don't know people I'm feeling just a little nervous. It's silly really I love camping and can't wait to get there, and I'm sure I'll meet lots of great people and hopefully people will not think me too odd lol. Robynne on the other hand is looking forward to going and hanging out with her friend and meeting lots of new people. But, she's a little worried about the camping side, being as she's only ever been with Scouts and she wasn't into that so well. Fingers crossed she'll come to love canvas as much as us - Andy(my brother) and me - as were planning on going to a few spots later in the year, we may even get our sister and her little boy to come with us.

All I need to do is get a few essentials before the time, like a tent lol... but I have one all picked out just need to go buy it.

Anyway really must get on with the next issue of tHE Sound as it's due out at the end of the week.

Penguin Readers

2007-03-13T14:43:00.000Z

The other day we were hunting through some of the boxes in my bedroom and came across this... which I had actually bought for Robynne quite a few years ago - when she was still at school - along with another book cassette pack, - which we have yet to find lol - from Poundland, so decided to get Robynne to work through it, just for fun as it is a level 3 and in she should be on the level 6 ones. Amazingly she has almost finished even tho' she finds the book a little creepy - she's not really into Edgar Allen Poe - not sure why, but there you go. But anyway she has enjoyed it, shall hunt out the other one later. So I thought I'd look up online to see if I could find anymore and found the Penguin Readers site....

They have some really lovely books listed, with cassettes or cd's and their not too bad of a price. The free resources are fairly good to, and you don't need to join to access them all. We have had a look at and printed off the fact/worksheet for Memoirs of a Geisha and Robynne has now gone off to the Library to find the book, so that will be her English work for the next week sorted. With a whole list of others for her to work through as and when she wants to. Now if only could get her interested in Maths.

Ok so now the house is quiet for a while shall just play for a little bit....

Time sure does Fly...

2007-03-13T13:20:00.000Z

Scince my last post have been relatively busy, what with one thing and another - website work, mild LEA contact panic, great monthly H.E meeting and Cosplay outfit for Robynne - phew that was fun... and in the middle of all that had my parents visiting lol

So in order lol
Website work - well to be honest haven't done as much as I intended to, but it's geting there have nearly finished the shop page so that should - fingers crossed - be ready to go up at the end of the month a little later than I wanted but, would rather get it right first time.

LEA - well this was the letter that I recieved on the morning of our last H.E meet which sent me into a little bit of panic.....

..... there was also a form for me to fill in, more in next paragraph lol.

H.E Meeting - this was really great, lots of new people and some we hadn't seen in a while. The children all had a great time and some lovely things were made. I am really enjoying the meetings and always look forward to the next one coming around. Also re previous paragraph showed the letter to some of the other mum's and was advised on the correct way to fill in the lovely form that they had sent, was going to photocopy it and post here but, well have filled it in now and it's making it's way down to there offices as I type lol, so not only great time at meeting, but after chatting to the other mum's silly LEA letter was busted and held no threat .... phew

Cosplay Outfit - So Robynne and her friends Dee, Joe and Seth - with Andy walking with them as chaperone and Dee's family following in the car doing a great impression of the paparazzi ... lol - did a Cosplay sponsored walk on Sat 10th to raise money for Red Nose Day, not sure how much they have raised yet, but from what some of them have said they have raised over £100 between them so thats good, plus there looking forward to do it again next time Red Nose Day comes round again. Hopefully they will have a few more friends join them and will give some of us a little more time for costume preperations lol. Anyway this was the pic that Robynne drew for me of what she wanted her costume to look like....

... which after a few days work turned into this...

A couple more photo's from Saturday.....

... these were taken by Dee

You can find more photo's here....

AC:WW

2007-02-28T06:21:00.000Z

Oh my goodness, we have Animal Crossing and I am addicted. I never wanted to be just thought would have a litle play and put it down lol. We only got the game on Monday, as Robynne and Andy decided to take some games to trade in. I knew she wanted AC:WW as she had liked when she borrowed from a friend, I was also vaguely aware of the game. But I never thought it would get me, but it has... I paid the mortgage off in less than two days. The only thing that is sad is I have no friends who play the game, mmmm maybe they are more sensible than me lol and knew of it's hidden attraction and kept away. Does anyone know of a support group for poor addicted people like me....... no oh well shall go back to it then.

On another note have gotten the next issue of our H.E mag "tHE Sound" all finished and will be sending that out on Friday. It felt a bit touch and go this time, as it was all finished and printed bar Robynne's comic strip which she left to the last minute, so she felt like I was rushing her. But as Andy told her 'if you had done when you were asked, you would have finished it then'....... So fingers crossed, we won't have the same problems next month.

Currently we are in the process of making stickers to go on every available item in the flat, with there Japanese names on. Not just in Japanese but also in Kanji as Robynne is learning Japanese and labelling the whole flat will help...... mmmmm can't see the cat enjoying a label on her back tho'. But thankfully we won't be goingthat far as Robynne already knows the name for cat, she - that's Robynne not the cat - found a really great downloadable resource and is using it for at the least an hour a day. Where did she get that from now.... will just check, it's one she found herself not one of the twenty odd that I found for her when she expressed an interest in learning Japanese. Ok here it is it's called Japanese learning Suite it does take over an hour to download, but I took a brief look at it today and found it very good.

Robynne is also now getting back into practising her guitar everyday and she has even agreed to work through her theory books too. Which I'm really pleased about. Then last night Robynne asks me if her bike works as she wants to get a little fitter and riding her bike would be fun. Funny that, we were going to get rid of her bike cause she didn't want it anymore, it's been sat on the balcony for over two years. She won't be riding it any time soon tho' as for one the inner tubes are shot and well it's too small for her. When I bought it I never expected her to sprout up like she has. The funny thing is have been saying for a while that we were all going to get new bikes and Robynne has point blank refused to have anything to do with one. So we shall see how long this lasts for.

Things never change...

2007-02-24T01:27:00.000Z

... sorry but this is just so funny had to share....

*Well it seems that this is no longer working, ah well it was fun while it lasted. But just in case you really wanted to find the song for yourself - tho' have searched to replace this and no luck so far - it's 'High School Never Ends' by Bowling for Soup.

It's a Thank-You blog today

2007-02-20T12:20:00.000Z

Doesn't time fly, I didn't realize that I had spent so much time away from H.E. this past week. I have been learning so much about building websites and all those seemingly insignificant little bits of code, that have such great effects. That I haven't been noticing the world around me. I even missed activities well one activity, we were as a family planning on joining our H.E friends for the monthly woodland walk, but the code dragged me back in and I just plain forgot about it till I read through blogs late one night.

I shall blame the lovely book Robynne got me form the library "HTML 4 for Dummies" which to tell the truth have read three times and it still confuses me, thank goodness for 'copy and paste' and good old 'trial and error' as apart from the shop area our business website is more or less finished. Also thanks to Ann and her help I now have a nice link button on the right. I have given up on oscommerce as it's not compatible with our sites host, so I found a nice ecommerce item through another blog so thanks go to Qalballah for that. Must also thank Shirley for all her help, she probably doesn't think she helped me much, but she did. But, the main person I have to thank aloud is my darling daughter Robynne who has put up with my grunts and groans when things haven't worked and who oh so patiently showed me again and again what I did wrong, then checked through different codes to see why things didn't work. Plus she hasn't complained when I've been on the computer for hours on end and she wanted to be lol. Oh better not forget my brother Andy who as always makes sure we drink and eat, even when we don't think we need to lol.

So for the next few days I am going to leave the computer alone, well maybe not totally alone. Shall be concentrating on finishing off my work area and getting things sewn up. So again thanks to all those who have helped me get this venture off the ground. Ok better get on, now where did I put that book again ...... lol

Lets catch up.

2007-02-13T14:57:00.000Z

Well what a fun time we have been having. Scince my last post we have been busy, what with taking care of our friends three dogs, walking them etc. we ended up with one of them taking up residence for a short while as she got into a fight with the others and came of worse. Resulting in some rather nasty holes in her leg and underbelly. Personally it was rather nice having her around, Robynne got up early to take her out, she also took her out often during the day I think the dog adopted her as she only asked Robynne to take her out. Tho' am pretty sure Robynne didn't enjoy the wet nose in her face first thing in the morning lol.

Unfortunately we never made it to The Science Museum, as well the world conspired against us and roadblocks were forced in our way. Well to be honest we could have made it, but it would have meant leaving one of us behind and even tho' my lovely brother offered I didn't take him up on it. So fingers crossed we will get there sometime this year. Anyway our next outing to the V & A on the 11th April should go to plan.

Then we have the saga of the leaking pipe. Remember I made an appointment for someone to come fix the leaking pipe, well I waited paitently for just over two weeks and then after removing the third bleached towel from under the pipe I rang them again yesterday - well today would have been the third tuesday I had waited for them to come. - So anyway I rang them first thing only to find that the last appointment thay had on file for me was in December when the pipe burst in the first place. Understandably I was a little miffed at the news and promptly requested very politely a new appointment a.s.a.p, so there coming tomorrow after 3pm. Fingers crossed that's the last pipe problem we will have for a good while. Personally I think all the pipework needs replacing along with everything else, but can't expect miracles lol.

Oh and we ended up chucking out the old broken sofas yesterday as we now have some nice cream leather sofas which go so much better with the colour scheme and they make the room look so much bigger ok maybe not so much bigger, but they look good.

My work area is almost complete and we have the frontpage of the website up, we just need to get the other pages links working and to clear out the odd few bits left over from the website template that we don't need. Next job on that is to work out how to get the oscommerce programme to work. Anyway here's our frontpage if your interested Sewing Friend please do tell us what you think and if anyone can explain in simple words how to put the oscommerce stuff in then I will be eternally grateful.

Robynne and her friend Dee have decided to do something to raise money for Red Nose Day this year. So far I think they have got 6 of their friends involved and hopefully we will have more friends joining in too. Anyway here's Robynne's page which gives you details of what they are doing and when.

Oh and does anyone know how to turn this into a button/link to put in the sidebar

Oooh I wish I was a computer geek.....

2007-02-02T17:30:00.000Z

...... well if only for 10 minutes, things are going well for setting up our new business, until we get to the website lol, it's there we have it, but no-one can see it yet. Why didn't I pay more attention to the computer at school and just stayed out of the warm safe library. We will get it sorted soon, anyway have done the most important thing, have designed a logo - well I thought it important - lol.

So anyway work wise this week has been taken up mostly with Robynne spending alot of time on building website thingys, yes thingys I call them that as have no idea what she was talking about but it looked good. I'm so glad she knows what she's doing or I would be truly lost, can just imagine how I would cope with business without her around. I'd probably end up deleting half the site within minutes lol.

That aside she was off at Chelmsford yesterday for Deep Readers, and today was our monthly H.E meeting which was a really great meeting, some new faces and the time really seemed to fly away. Robynne was even playing quite actively with some of the other youngsters, which was great to see - normally she sits in the corner drawing - as it makes me forget that she's getting older now.

Oh and as I haven't been able to figure out how to upload our H.E mag tHE Sound onto Blogger - there's probably something really simple that I'm missing ..... mmm like a brain - so I thought would do it this way lol. If you would like to see a copy of what the girls put together then send an Email here and I'll email you a pdf copy. See two things I finally worked out how to do lol, a nice email link and pdf'ing a document, oooh next year I could be Lord of the Web....... mmmmm well maybe not lol.

Well I was there

2007-01-25T17:48:00.000Z

Oh what a fun afternoon we had, we went to the library nice and early even tho' it was snowing out there. Sat and waited for well over an hour - cause last year the lovely lady was an hour late - then decided to make the 2 minute walk to the Civic Centre and the Education department. Waited there just over half an hour only to find that the man had been there waiting for us at 11am. Funny that when we had made the appointment for 2pm, cause I really don't like mornings well unless it's for something fun, does meeting the LA bods count as fun, oh I surely think so. So in between our phonecall before christmas and there letter reaching us to confirm, the time for the meeting changed from 2pm to 11am. Silly me, I knew I should have read that confirmation letter from them, but again silly me, I thought they would keep the appointment time to that which we had arranged. Will know better next time.

So apart from the fact that Robynne managed to pick up a few more manga books, we had a fairly wasted afternoon. Oh and the lovely walk in the snow, which I enjoyed so much, really must do that again. Mmmmmm maybe I over did it on the sarcasm there lol.

tHE Sound

2007-01-25T11:22:00.000Z

Our new local H.E. magazine was finally finished yesterday all ready to for distribution. Unfortunately we had no luck turning it into a pdf as for some reason, it wouldn't recognize the format we are using and when we saved it into a recognized format it screwed up all the pages. So am pretty glad we didn't buy that package then. Now am trying to workout how to link to it on here so that any of you lovely people that read my blog may take a look to, but, only if you want to of course.

Robynne has been fairly busy putting the mag together for me along with her friend Dee they managed to do quite alot on Monday. Tho' she did drag the last few bits and pieces out for as long as possible lol.

We are off to our meeting with the LA bod this afternoon, would rather be going swimming - even tho' I don't swim - personally, but when I rearranged the appointment I hadn't yet filled my diary in for the year and forgot about swimming. I did give Robynne the option of going swimming instead of the meeting, but, she seems to want to come and meet this new man, mmmmm wonder if she'll be as polite to him as she was to the last person we met.

Things on the business front are ploding along slowly, we should have the domain name and web hosting sorted out in a few days - maybe one day I'll get a credit card, apparently they make life easier lol - so it will be time for more learning with Robynne as she teaches me how to build a website lol. In the meantime we have been sorting my new sewing area out, we built the carcass of my new sewing table the other day. The next step is to make it safe and to cut out a hole for my light box to sit in. Ooh my favourite bit is next week when we go fabric shopping, for the material to make some animal hot water bottles. I really like the designs I made, but I think my fav at the moment is the horse one, with the saddle on it's back.

Oh and we now have slow leak on a water pipe leading to the main radiator in our living room, while I've been typing this, I have been on the phone to the repairs team and get this we have an appointment for someone to come fix this on Tues. Apparantly while it's contained its no danger, I guess as I've only gone through two towels, a cushion and only a corner of the sofa has gotten a little damp it's contained. Ah well at least it's not gushing like the last pipe. But, still Tues I can see I shall be checking it every 5 minutes now, just to see if it's safe. Thankfully there's no carpet under that bit of the pipe.

On another note we are planning trips to various London Museums this year with our group so if anyone wants to meet up with us that would be great. It would be nice to meet up with other H.Ers from other areas. I first visit is on the 7th Feb and were doing the Science Museum were meeting their at 11am. We've never been there before so were really looking forward to it.

*will pop a link for the mag in later as Robynne says we need to upload it somewhere or other lol, and I have no idea what she's means, so she's going to show me then I can share. I am teaching her at home honest......

Fingers Crossed and off We Go...

2007-01-18T13:35:00.000Z

So have made the decsion I'm going for it, I'm going to start my business lol. I have received a load of lovely patterns from a lovely lady on freecycle, spoke to my mum and she's going to let me have all her patterns that she no longer uses - which means I'll have hundred's lol - and then after rearranging the living room for optimum space, all I need to do is get the website set up, sort out some example type things. Oh and make up some of the lovely cushions and hot water bottle covers that I designed last night. Oh and keep fingers crossed tightly, tho' that may hinder sewing slightly. Oh yeah and I need to think of a name for this venture too. Something catchy and says what I do, urge tis hard ah well something will spring to mind I'm sure. So look out for my little logo in the sidebar, and if you need anything made let me know.

*On a slightly scary note, am sitting here with the wind howling outside and suddenly had this sick feeling, the reason the building is swaying, literally swaying. I live six floors up - there's 15 in the building am so glad I'm not higher up - and I'm feeling seasick, I've never noticed the building sway before and I hope it stops soon, cause this is a little freaky.

Ok am gonna try not to think about that for now, may go wrap myself up in a duvet till it stops, but first need to find some puzzles for the new mag tHE Sound, pick a photo for our caption contest and make sure the list of everything to go in is all ready for the girls to sort out, originally we were going to have it A5 size, but, it's now A4, well it means we won't have to shrink the lovely artwork etc. that the kids have sent to be included. Plus Robynne is happy as she can make her comic strip a little bigger now. She has been working so hard on that, Monday she was in Chelmsford at the Deep Readers group, Tuesday was spent working on her comic strip and today she's in Chelmsford at the monthly H.E. meeting that she likes to go to every so often.

Right must get on now as this wind is really making me feel quite ill and I won't be able to sit here much longer.

Business or not?

2007-01-14T15:47:00.000Z

Ok have now added a shiny new Flickr badge - it only took me two hours to finally work out how to do it lol - that has my dressmaking photo's on.

So who thinks I'm dreaming and who thinks I should go for it.....

Shall hide my head till the shouting has stopped lol. No really I've had a few people say I should go for it, but, well there my friends and they like me so their biased........

Well is that so....

2007-01-14T04:06:00.000Z

Your Life Path Number is 11

Your purpose in life is to inspire others

Your amazing energy draws people to you, and you give them great insight in return.
You hold a great amount of power over others, without even trying.
You have the makings of an inventor, artist, religious leader, or prophet.

In love, you are sensitive and passionate. You connect with your partner on a very deep level.

You have great abilities, but you are often way too critical of yourself.
You don't fit in - and instead of celebrating your differences, you dwell on them.
You have high expectations of yourself. But sometimes you set them too high and don't achieve anything.

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Well thanks for that one Shirley not sure whether to agree or not lol.

Our little H.E mag should be ready fingers crossed for distribution by the 1st Feb, I've got the layout sorted in my head it's just now left to Robynne and Dee to put it all together for us. So will have to work out a day when they can get together and do that. Also have lots of trips/visits on the cards, some that will need a bit of organising and some not so much. It's all more or less down to the phone calls now and hoping that people can fit us in oh and that people will want to come lol.

My diary is looking extremely well organized lol, with coloured dots for all the different activities. All I need to do now is try not to have any major clashes other than the one I noticed earlier lol. I some how managed to schedule our next LA meeting the same time as our visit to the swimming pool, mmmmm wether to cancel or just get darn thing out of the way decsions, decsions.....

All in all this week has been rather productive, fingers crossed next week will go as well. Well once I've got that back to work interview over with on Monday, have been mulling over the past month or two trying to make a decsion about starting a business making clothes. I think my main worry is that at the moment it's something I enjoy and I'm scared/worried that turning my hobby into a job may just take the fun out of it, that and all the dreaded paperwork involved.

Mmmm well was going to post up a couple of pics of things that I made last year, just to see if anyone out there thought I should give up the idea or go for it, but obviously blogger disagree's with me so may try again tomorrow - as I'm darned if I'm taking the computer's word for it......

You have a ......

2007-01-13T02:32:00.000Z

You Have a Melancholic Temperament

Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything.
You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life.
You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you.

Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace.
You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life.
Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times.

At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you.
You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others.
You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult.

What Temperment Are You?

Ok where was this test 16yrs ago it would have saved so much time and energy lol. I can't believe how true it is especially the last paragraph.

All hail blogthings so wise if slightly illiterate...... HAHAHA

Six weird things about me.

2007-01-08T16:12:00.000Z

Yay I think. Just when I thought I was safe Debs caught me and now I'm tagged lol. So anyway first the important stuff:-

Six weird things about me: THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Now then to think of only 6 weird things about me, mmmm tough call lol.

1. Before going to bed at night (or when ever lol) I have to check that all the light switches are turned off in the same direction.

2. I really don't like it when people leave the pick'n'mix lids up, I have to go round and shut them.

3. I can't eat before 11am, not sure when this started but, if I dare eat before 11am I end up feeling really sick all day.

4. I gave up smoking in one day, ok thats probably not so weird, but, when I know people who struggled for years to give up it feels weird.

5. I would rather suffer than take pain killers/ medication of any kind.

6. My youngest brother by 10yrs lives with my daughter and me. Well some of my family find it weird. I most of the time actually like having him around.

Lets see people to tag:-

Shirley
Carol
BJanecarp
Noogie
EmilyRoseanna
Robynne

I Love it when a plan comes together.

2007-01-07T22:43:00.000Z

I have had dozens of ideas whirling round in my head for weeks of things that I want to aim for this year, one of which is to get Robynne - along with my brother Andrew - into an adult learning centre so she can do her GCSE's in English, Maths and Science. Hopefully we'll find a centre that will take her on, if so she'll probably start with doing just one and see how that goes. I know she wants to do Art and Drama too, but much as she hates the idea I think she may have to go to college for those, tho' we are on the look out for another Drama group for her to try.

Plus I have also spent the better part of the day sitting here at my desk working through other ideas for the coming year and even tho' I say so myself I think that this next year is looking to be very interesting. Especially once we meet up with Shirley and we get the last few bits ironed out. We should be well on the way to getting things sorted. So fingers crossed not only will we get the H.E'd magazine that we have been talking about doing for ages sorted by the end of the month. Were going to start nipping up to London for some highly educational museum visits. The first of which is going to be The Science Museum. Which is one place that I have been wanting to go to for years along with quite a few others so this year is going to be the year for at least some of the list.

Another major item that we really want to do this year is HesFes and fingers crossed we will get there this time round.

The OTHENA meetings are also taking on a new turn as from this January we have joined our monthly meeting in with Freya as working in a hall gives a little more scope, plus joining together makes alot of logistical sense. But, having said that we are going to hopefully make a monthly visit to the cinema as a group. The book group are reading Carpe Jugulum by Terry Prachett and should be meeting up sometime near the end of the month to discuss it.

Oh and we start back with our weekly visits to the swimming pool on Thursday and then next month we shall be getting back into the swing of things with the guitar group.

Plus am determined to try and get Robynne to work on some other subjects this year, yes she loves doing her Art and writing her fanfic stories, but it would be nice to have her make a cake lol. Now I'm pretty sure she won't turn into a domestic Goddess lol, and her art and writing are very important to her. She has great fun with her music too, not just the guitar, but her own compositions as well. We have all these CGP books which she reads fairly regularly and even does some of the work from, but she doesn't write much down. I suppose I get a little concerned sometimes that she does all this work and there doesn't seem much to show for it, not that we would be showing it. Which reminds me we have a visit with the LA bod on the 25th of this month, which should be interesting. Not that I'm that bothered really, well ok maybe a little bit have never really liked authority figures much and even tho' technically this would be Robynne's last year at school. I still don't want to see them try and force her back, she's so much more confident now and high school was such a nightmare. I just hope that she's a little more select with what she tells this guy as I get the impression that this visit may not go as well as the last. I'm not sure why but, my gut tells me he's not going to be an easy man to get on with.

Oh and you may have noticed a lime green box on my blog now. I decided to join the Home Ed blogring, I was always envious of those with the nice box for the early years blogring lol and even tho' she may act it sometimes we don't quite fit that age group. Anyway I think I'll get off to bed now, before my butt molds itself anymore to this chair lol.

Happy New Year....

2007-01-02T15:42:00.000Z

..... to each and everyone, I hope that the year brings what we need and maybe a few things that we want lol.....

...and because it's funny here is my new title lol...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Milady the Most Honourable Michelle the Indecisive of Dicken St Charles
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

oh and well here's the rest of the family ... well just because...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Her Most Noble Lady Robynne the Perplexed of Chalmondley St Peasoup
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
The Very Reverend Andrew the Mystical of Old Yarkhillshire
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Christmas Tree 2006

2006-12-21T16:29:00.000Z

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

2006-12-07T15:48:00.000Z

... 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.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

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.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Is it just me or....

2006-12-05T01:17:00.000Z

... 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.

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

2006-11-26T10:47:00.000Z

.......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.

Craft Club & Beyond

2006-10-10T13:49:00.000Z

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.

What Type of Home Schooler are You?

2006-09-26T16:13:00.000Z

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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Experimentation

2006-09-19T10:28:00.000Z

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 Tartar Baking 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.

Browsing the Blog World

2006-08-31T11:16:00.000Z

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.
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.

Room 101 & Room Fluffy

2006-08-30T09:38:00.000Z

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?

I Have Been Tagged

2006-08-26T13:28:00.000Z

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.

Beach Barbie

2006-08-22T09:18:00.000Z

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.

Clay Nameplates

2006-08-16T10:09:00.000Z

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.

Organized Chaos

2006-08-14T16:54:00.000Z

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.

Paintballing @ Upminster

2006-07-17T20:48:00.000Z

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.

Careful Planning

2006-07-05T16:36:00.000Z

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....

Cat Scratch Fever

2006-06-24T09:12:00.000Z

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.

OTHENA Meeting

2006-06-20T10:44:00.000Z

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.

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

2006-06-17T11:08:00.000Z

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........

2006-06-17T01:01:00.000Z

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.