Finally Blogging...

It's taken an age for me to have five 'spare' minutes to put a blog post together. Once the old PC died life went a little nuts. While it was dead I did THREE photo-shoots (all unpaid), which resulted in such a 'back log' of work it has taken two solid weeks of catch up. I think I am finally there (pretty much). There are still a lot of things I need to spend time doing, but half term is coming soon... However, I do have the promise of 3 more PAID photo-shoots before Christmas so I need to keep on top of things now. Just need to pray they actually happen, because on the basis of them doing so we went out and bought I new PC. Needs must!

Anyway, some 'Home-Ed' updates...

Jake (Bugs) has now been in college for almost half a term. He loves it in many ways, but in other ways finds it frustrating/annoying and most definitely he is SHOCKED by the amount of work he has to do!! The enjoyment outweighs the rest atm, but he doesn't like having to write everything down and, because he already has a fair amount of 'ability' with a camera & with processing he doesn't feel he has learnt anything very new yet ~ apart from dark room skills, which is entirely new! He's not sure he likes all the analysis and 'how to's, but I think he realises that things will get more challenging as time goes on (at least we hope so). The biggest stretch for him is not in the actual work itself, but in managing his time and keeping on top of all he has to do. The work all has to be presented 'artistically', and him being such a perfectionist means this can take a VERY long time!! All the same, he'll be fine I think, when he gets better into the swing of it all :D. Next week they are off on a residential week to Wasdale YHA, shooting landscapes I think, so that should be a lot of fun for him.

Taz just continues on at home with most of the same work he was doing last year atm. I haven't done anything about contacting the college for him yet. REALLY MUST DO THAT ASAP!!!

All the others are settling well into a new 'school' year and working well. Even Stitch is managing to apply himself a little better this year and mostly gets his required work done each day. He is bright as a button and I have no worries about him ~ I just wish there were more hours in a day to make it all a bit more tailored to his needs.

Chip, well he is rising 3 and not one to be left out of ANYTHING! He needs an almost constant 'playmate', be that human or techno! He has mastered the computer mouse and now likes to commender a laptop for as much of the 'school day' as he can! When he's not at the computer he wants to have someone play a game with him, or to join in with whatever work they are doing! This works a large part of the time, but sometimes it's a challenge. However, he has an amazing ability to concentrate and is a whiz with a colouring pen, so that helps!

Lilo is doing really well with her reading and writing. All About Spelling has absolutely proved to be the right program for her (I somehow knew it would be) and she is coming on in leaps and bounds now. DD's spelling is still more natural to him, so he is slowly pulling away, but keeping him working alongside her motivates her to work hard at keeping up and thankfully is not holding him back, so for now that continues to work well. We started Level 4 this term and I hope to complete it and Level 5 this year. If we get to Level 6 that will be a bonus, but I don't think we will. The real issue I have now is that that Stitch has decided he would quite like to join in these lessons, but of course has missed 2 1/2 levels of work, so can't really just 'jump in'. His spelling is amazingly good though, for a 6 year old, so I don't think that taking him back to Level 1 is the right thing either. I think I'll just have to try and think of a way to catch him up quick, so he can take part. ATM he does Reading Express, or Explode the Code Online while we are doing AAS.

In other news, TP has decided that she REALLY likes taking pictures and is learning to use Lightroom. She's not ambitious with it, but just enjoying it, which is lovely. Her heart is still set on an animal career of some kind. The other day she talked about the RSPCA ...

The highlight of most weeks seems to now be 'art afternoon' on a Wednesday. The children now really look forward to this and to a large extent it is proving to be quite successful. Even Taz is enjoying it!! We've studied Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso (used an online program called 'Picassohead'), Romero Britto  & done some Word Art (sometimes the work has taken more than one session).

I have a couple of things I'd like to get time to look into at some point. One is seeing if organising a 'Forest School' group to run from my back garden might be an option. I wonder if there might be some H'Ed families locally who would like to take part. The Moss, where we live, is an very interesting place in terms of flora and fauna, and could provide a great base. We have a big back garden and an adjacent field which we are permitted to use (although I may need to check with the owner for this purpose) and can provide shelter on terrible-weather days, and hot cups of tea for grown-ups :D. It's a thought. I have a contact number. Watch this space...

I have also been contacted by someone interested in bettering 'music' provision to H'Ed families in the North West. I'm not sure where this might go, but hopefully somewhere...

As for me, I seem to be constantly in a whirlwind of never ending 'stuff to do'. I feel I wear a sign over my head, saying 'in house computer technician' much of the time and I often I knew just a touch more than I do. I know enough to wear that sign, but not enough to make things happen in a snap, so everything seems to take forever ~ from networking issues across the PC and laptops, to internet connection issues that drive me WILD!! Paul hasn't a clue, so it all falls to me. I enjoy it UP TO A POINT and then it's just a time drain and a stress. Currently I have on-hold three 'tech' jobs; build Paul a PC for down in his church office, build Jake a PC to use for college work & convert an OLD HP510 laptop (which is dead slow, but still works) to a Chromebook or Andriod laptop (either would be fine as it's just to get something working for Chip to use in the daytime when the others need the other laptops for schooly stuff). I tried to do the HP510 last night, but without success, so now that's going to be a more frustrating job than I had hoped :(. Doing the two computer builds MIGHT be easy, or not... It depends on how the two towers that I have redundant upstairs play along! But first I have to do a whole load of file backing-up and user data cloning, so as not to loose too much in the process, so it's a whole lot more complicated than it might actually otherwise be! Besides that I try to keep on top of home-ed, now with three secondary age children who need stretching and three primary age children who stretch me! I am trying to swim twice a week, for a couple of hours each time (to loose weight), and have just committed to swim 2 MILES in Windermere next summer, in the Great North Swim! I still need to decide a cause to do it for :D. And I am continually trying to push myself as a photographer and get my business to be some kind of success. That's not proving to be easy either, as most people actually don't want to pay very much for photography services, and I don't want to charge less than I consider I am worth! I really need to try and find a market outside of my immediate social sphere, but that is a challenge without being able to drive.

OK ~ that'll do for now I think, and if you got this far, WELL DONE!!