Wandering around in New Spaces

Hello again! What a busy month or so we have had! It started with our last trip to Cobar. At homeschool group the children acted out the story of Burke and Wills. If your memory of primary school history lessons is good, you'll remember that in 1860 there was a race, with a grand prize for the south to north crossing of Australia. Well, the Burke and Wills Expedition was one of the teams that started (and the only one that actually completed the crossing) but all but 1 member of that Northward Party perished somewhere around present Innaminka on the Cooper Creek. There is a famous tree - The Dig Tree, where the waiting party buried supplies then left on the same morning that the northward party returned. They had carved the tree with instructions to find the supplies, and they did dig them up, but then stumbled around a bit more before dying a few days/weeks later, or in the case of Mr King, being rescued and cared for by local Aboriginal people until the search party located him...

Hello Again, And another week has passed... seems like this one was a few days short of the standard... Between sickness, possible allergies and not one but 2 last minute visits by Simon's colleagues, there was some serious finishing of some works-in-progress... and maybe I started some new ones too ;) I've been testing a crochet pattern for the talented Emma Wilkinson Designs. I finished that one off, but no photos cause that's still a surprise. I also finished this beauty. A baby blanket for a dear friend who has recently moved away from Bourke. It's of my own design, so no pattern but, it was great fun to create. And a project started and finished in a week! how cute is this little butterfly! She's colours chosen by her new little friend, and comes from this beautiful book. I love how the patterns work up easily and the colours can be easily changed to make a whole raft of different friends. So this week, there is a...

Recently Mum and I went on a Crafty Adventures cruise. While the craft aboard was great fun, we did come away with some unfinished projects. In fact, my 'purple' Mayan crochet blanket is a crafty cruise project, started with Shelly and probably taking this whole year to finish. I say 'purple' because I didn't have the Bendigo Woolen Mills colour chart at the time of ordering. I ordered Grey Mist thinking it was more grey but it is definitely more purple. Oh well, Simon will have to be content with a Purple cotton blanket for the spring (It will not be done for the Autumn that is for sure!!!) But, I also did Sewing classes with Paula Storm and I'm not real great at sewing but mum loves English paper piecing so we did the class. I've been making an effort to get these projects finished. And while they are not quite there yet, here is a bit of an update on them. The first is a bag cover. While we were aboard, I re-gigged the design from what Paula had done....

Homeschool Space. This box might not look like much to some.... it is a box of plastic blocks, like Lego, but more... These are the maths manipulatives that I hope will teach the boys to love maths again. Math, you see, has been a bit of a challenge for us in our homeschool journey, in this post I'll try to explain. We left the NSW school system officially in July last year (in reality we checked out a while before then really). When we did leave the school we bought with us a whole load of 'stuff'. In those 2 plastic bags though, the kids both had their math workbooks - they happened to be Targeting Maths, a bit of a staple in primary school classrooms. I also had with me from my prac resources a comprehensive (day-by-day, week-by-week, term-by-term) plan of how to capture the entire maths syllabus for k-6 organised into one lengthy but helpful document... I printed it and stuck it in the yellow maths folder, neatly organised with tabs. That sounds great - we...

Hello, This post has been a long time coming. I've been thinking about it, wondering what I might do and if I really want/need/have energy for a blog. And here I am, with a new improved blog and a bit of a introductory and starting post. Now, if you know us you'll know there was no way we could have predicted all of the 'things' that happened in the past year. I struggled to think of the good things, and I was feeling a but regretful, until I realised that even though, for the most part, there were pretty awful situations and experiences, they also taught us a whole lot, and led to the decisions that we make now which we wouldn't be freely making had we not had those experiences. Not everything was bad - we swam with a dolphin named Tallulah at Sea World in October and that was an amazing experience, not only for Simon and I but the kids too!!!!!!!!! So, in no particular order, last years lessons: 1. Speak up - even if your voice shakes (thanks Dolly).  You s...