Yum!

Just a quick pic today.

High Tea or "Hi Tea!"

Continuing on from the last post...there seems to be a theme here...today we had High Tea instead of our regular dinner.

Dinner has degenerated a bit to an 'around the TV snack' or a 'gobbled down' affair. When I lived with Peace we usually sat at the table to eat. Not because we were overly formal but because it was the best most convienient place to eat.

I love the dinner time conversations, the 'dishing-up' ; usually done by one of the kids could take quiet awhile. But most of all I loved spending that time together as a family at the end of the day. Time when we could all chat about what we had done, about what we might do tomorrow and just love and laugh together.

Since I have been solo parenting in my own home (I say this to distinguish from single parenting...I don't single parent in general...Peace is a very prominent part of the kids lives...I am just solo parenting in my own home) meal times have become more of a 'get the kids fed' ordeal.

So tonight, I decided to put in a bit of effort and do something special.

I told the kids we were having High Tea...so all evening Tui kept saying 'Hi' to her cup of tea! LOL

We set the table



made cup cakes and cucumber and avocado sandwiches with th crusts cut off



the mad hatter was present!



Rain poured...homemade lemonaide for the kids



and I poured wine from my teapot!

We've been playing dress ups heaps lately. So I bought some new face paints this week. While I'm hardly a professional the kids loved their geisha and zombie faces.

Floods, vampires and society girls...

To get to my house from Mullumbimby you have to drive over two bridges and across 19 cause-ways. The road winds along a river valley and then up into the hills where my house is set at the very top. The drive here is beautiful. I love winding through the green fields and then the rainforest. But the fact that the road crosses the river 23 times means that when we get a bit of rain I am often flooded in here, no way to get to town.

Being flooded in is no big deal when you live in sub-tropical country areas of Australia. I’ve lived in a lot of rural areas and usually people are prepared to be cut off for a few days.

The biggest hassle is boredom or cabin fever…you know when the kids have made cubby-houses, played 100 games of monopoly, read books, watched DVD’s and are now bored and cranky and all they want is to get out of the house. In the ordinary circumstances of wet weather you can always take them to visit friends or to go to the movies but when you are flooded in there is no choice but to stay put and try to find more games to play.

Actually I am being a bit unfair here. The kids haven’t really been bored at all, they quiet happily go between reading and playing and building and watching. It’s actually me who gets ants in my pants and “needs” to get out of the house. But never mind me, I am learning to sit and be still and wait for inspiration to strike and if it doesn’t then I just go and play dolls with Tui.

It is rather wonderful being up in the clouds though!

Earlier in the week we were flooded in and the kids wanted to play dress-ups.

Rain came up with a plan to play it like a make-over show.

She took Tui into her room with a pile of dress-ups and make-up and I was to dress and make-up Mr T… we had ½ an hour to create our characters.

Here are the results.

The Vampire.

And the princess (although I think she looks more like a society girl!)

...yep, a bit of a natural model there...

During the last 24hours we have had another 200mm of rain fall. The cause-ways are all flooded again. Unfortunately I was supposed to get a gas bottle delivered this morning but the driver couldn’t get through, as serendipity would have it my gas ran out at about lunch time. So I am hoping the water goes down sometime soon. I can cook on the camping cooker and boil water in the kettle for dishes and washing but it is nice to have some luxuries!

Today the kids are all at Peaces house for the night. And after spending lots of time sewing lately I took out my crochet again. Last week in Nimbin I saw some beautiful knitted dresses for sale. They really inspired me. Not to make a copy but just set a whole bunch of ideas running through my mind. After drawing a couple of designs earlier in the week I started work on one yesterday. I finished it this morning... photos coming soon.

x

Still here

I am still here! But I haven't been on the internet much lately. Sometimes because my internet reception isn't working but mostly through choice.
I'm trying to balance my life and I'm finding I'm enjoying real life a bit more lately.

The weather this Summer has been wierd.
We've had so many cold, windy, rainy days. There has really only been a handful of hot Summer days.
So when they do happen we are making the most of them and heading to the beach, the pool or this lovely local waterhole we found recently.

But like my little Buddah here, mostly we are just being...

Wet weather gear

It hasn't felt much like Summer so far this season.
We have had so many cold windy, rainy days. The kids have been getting a bit of cabin fever.
But we've been keeping busy, with games and puzzles,

doing craft and reading. I am reading the Harry Potter books to the kids.

Mr T has been helping me pull apart an old sewing machine, I love how he is fascinated with the gears and moving parts.

And we made Tui some wet weather gear out of old shopping bags so she could go play in the rain.

There's a Circus in my house

Last week the kids had their last circus classes for the year. I know they will miss going there over the holidays. The classes are so much fun, the teachers great and they love seeing their circus friends.

Mr T is especially excited about circus classes next year. He has been asked to join the kids performance crew. So he will be going to circus twice a week and doing longer classes.

But even though they will miss the classes they are still practising at home.

For Christmas I made them a trapeze. It is made from 20mm galvanised plumbing pipe, a couple of elbow fittings, some high strength tow rope and cycling handlebar grip tape.

Peace came over and with his rock climbing expertise rigged it safely to the roof beams.

We didn't want to wait til Christmas to put it up!

So it now hangs proudly in the lounge room alongside the Tissu Rain got for her birthday.



Tama's just been hanging around alot lately.



So along with the Tissu and the Trapeze, the diablos and devil sticks, the pois, hula hoops and juggling clubs that are always lying around between uses my house has begun to take on a decidedly circusy-feel.

All we need now are a couple of clowns... oh, I think we have them already :)

Circus Show

Rain and Mr T had their end of the year Circus performances over the weekend.

I am amaed at how great they are, how much they have leart in just six months.

The kids performances were great and we were also treated to a guest performance by a guy who was in the Siberian Circus which was amaing!

Rain up on top!

Rain's group.

Mr T and Partner.

Mr T again.



One of our homeschooling friends doing her Tissu routine.



This month- November

November has been a busy month. We started the month in Thailand.

Tui and I on the Ferry to Koh Phangan

Spent the first 9 days on the Island of Koh Phangan.

Tui in one of her (many) new outfits. The kids cloths were just so cute and so cheap I couldn't resist!

...waking up to beautiful sunrises

...exploring beaches and villiages

Mr T picked his first Coconut.

Kayaking to deserted Islands

...where we found Wilson (Tom Hanks' mate)

Although technically I think Wilson was actually a volley ball.

And since we arrived home I've been creating like mad.

Going to local celebrations and to the beach,

...and finding Faeries at the bottom of the garden.

Not to mention that it's almost that time of year again!

Blessed and blissed

I'm feeling blissed and blessed.

Our new house is lovely. The unpacking is coming along slowly but surely.

I have been loving lighting the fire and spending cosy nights crocheting and talking to friends beside it.

My happy flags are coming along nicely. I think by the time I've finished unpacking I'll be hanging them up.

I received the most amazing house warming gift in the mail. A beautiful soul named Lars, whom I met at a Rainbow gathering sent me this amazing Candelabra. It's has a lovely family story behind it which makes it so much more special. The kids were also most grateful for the treats included in the parcel. Tui loves her little doggie; she carries it every where, and they made short work of the lollies!!!

Where there is unpacking there are many boxes.

So of course a Mansion had to be built in the lounge room.

I love how the kids co-operate when they are doing something fun together.

And Rain and I are both loving the spacious kitchen. We've been cooking and baking everyday.

Rain made some raw ice cream yesterday (she even made a small lactose-free batch for me, with coconut cream instead of regular cream.) It went perfectly with the banana and chocolate cake she baked! 

I've just said goodbye to my first house guests. Friends fresh home from India have been staying and been the best guests ever!

Every night we've been cooking up a storm in the kitchen. They left me with a load of fire wood they collected, clean gutters and many happy memories. They played with my kids, helped me out, gave me space, shared many lovely and inspiring tales of their adventures and shared 1000 cups of chai.

Man! you guys should just move in!!!

And I've been spending lots of time with majikfaerie. What could be more blissful than that?

A childs perspective.

"A person's a person no matter how small."

- Dr Suess



Have you ever noticed that in Dr Suess books for children you never see a whole adult. You never see an adults face only glimpses of arms or legs...

After looking at these family portraits that Tui has taken over the last couple of weeks I now understand why!

"Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them."

-Dr Suess

Colour and impermanence

I've really been enjoying spending some one on one time with each of my kids lately. It's seems to happen more often since Peace and I split up.

This morning Tama was with Peace and Rain was happily reading so Tui and I played with some paint.

I had to take some pics because the vibrant colours of the paint were so beautiful. Our paints were limited to red, blue, yellow and white so we mixed some to make more colours.

It was awesome to watch Tuis face as she mixed the paints together and saw new colours appearing. And to hear her exclamations of "Oooh, it's making pink!!!" or orange or green.

Once the paints were suitably mixed we pressed a piece of paper on to the plate to preserve the pattern.

At this stage I relinquished all control (well, I didn't really have any agenda anyway, except to play with paint) and Tui started to really play.

She mixed and smeared and spread, getting her hands and feet into the action.

The paint felt nice and soft and smooth.

After washing her dress Tui then climbed into the tub of warm water and enjoyed a bath in the garden in the winter Sun.

All we were left with from our "Art" was a plate of brown paint with marigold flowers sprinkled over it. Even the piece of paper with the print had become a big brown smudge.

Often after doing art with the kids we have nothing to show for it. It doesn't worry me at all. The point of the exercise is to have fun, not to necessarily create something. Today Tui explored colours and the texture of paint, from which she'll have gained so much more than from a controlled Kindy craft project, made out of pre-cut shapes glued onto paper that is similar to the one every other kid in Kindy has made.

As well as the lesson in colours I think there is a big lesson for kids to learn about impermanence. The Buddhists see the beauty of this. I once watched some monks make a sand mandala that took many, many hours and then it was blown away.

It's a pity that more people don't recognise that the lesson is the learning not the results. The board of studies don't get this when they demand 'evidence' of homeschooling. It is not the paper you save with things that the kids have done that shows what they have learnt and what they know, it is their experience of the world around them. And that kind of knowledge can not be saved on paper.