having a hectic month

Hmmph. Blogger fail. I wrote out a blog post last week, attached all the various labels and added pictures, and then saved it and hit publish. It registered as published on the post list in the back end and I shut it down and went on with my day. Then I came back to write some more on a draft post that I started a while back and discovered that not only did it not publish the post but it's actually lost half of it and reverted back to a previously saved draft! Not impressed Blogger!! Not impressed at all!! >:( will attempt to recreate the post from my memory :/

It's been a while since I last posted. This is partly because we've been very busy for it seems like the whole of July; partly because Podd had a bike accident a couple of weeks ago; and partly because I've been putting some work into my new blog: starting from scratch :: living simply. I started the new blog because I wanted a place to ramble about my efforts with growing more of our own food, and generally becoming more self-sufficient but I didn't want to put it on here because it's not home ed. Please feel to check it out if you wish.. or don't!

Two weeks ago, Monday was the usual busy day of gymnastics, lunch and swimming. On Tuesday Little went to Bazingas, a new over 8 group that has started to run locally, while Small, Tiny and I went into town and went to the butchers, and fishmongers, and finished our afternoon by having some cake from Starbucks, before going to pick Little up again. After that we dropped Little off to stay overnight with my sister and Small, Tiny and I went to Homebase and bought some exterior wood paint. I shall explain why in another post. On Wednesday we had a day off and spent the day at home pottering about the garden and house. On Thursday I had a study day/workshop for work and my sister had agreed to look after the sprogs while I went to that so I dropped Small and Tiny off with her (Little was already there) and then caught the bus to the business centre where the workshop was. On Friday we collected ML, Little's friend, and went to Forest School. The sprogs had lots of fun making and then doing a treasure hunt, while the parents caught up and chatted.

Last week was the sprogs final swimming lesson before breaking up for the summer holidays. They have been booked onto an intensive course at the beginning of August, which will be interesting. On Tuesday we had a play date with some home ed friends, and then the rest of the week seemed to fly by without a great deal to show for it? Saturday was Little's birthday party (she is 9 this week), so there was some preparation for that in the form of cake baking and food buying. We also have our science group this week which I have been preparing for quite a bit. I've also been making arrangements for this weekend as I am attending a training course near London so have been sorting out travel and accomodation, plus some other online training I need to have completed asap.

Saturday was a fabulous day. We had a garden party - blew up a small bouncy castle, had giant dominoes along with our usual garden toys, and bought BBQ food. We invited a few family friends and some home ed friends. Our guests started showing up at about 12 and the last one didn't leave until around 7. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon. I think spending time with friends like that, enjoying some food and generally milling about, chatting, laughing and playing with the kids, is pretty much my favourite thing to do, ever!

I must say, I am feeling really quite overwhelmed by everything this month, what with this training, the fact that I am covering some on call time for a client of a fellow doula, plus with it being Little's birthday and preparing for the science group. It doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but it's been enough to mean that I don't really feel able to do anything else. As a result there hasn't been much active home educating going on at the moment. I am trying to decide whether what we have been doing counts as radical unschooling or whether it simply counts as a holiday from home ed. There has still been plenty of life learning going on, and the sprogs are still doing Reading Eggs/Eggspress several times a week, so perhaps I need to relax and just go with it. Things will ease up soon.