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Left-handed guitar
We finally were notified that the guitar ordered last Saturday had come in today. The Scientist took Game Fanatic to pick it up this afternoon. About an hour later I got a call from Game Fanatic, an extremely rare occurrence. He wasn’t terribly coherent and kept saying something about a left-handed guitar. The Scientist got on the phone and said the one that had come in turned out to be a left-handed guitar. They had been given the option of ordering again or of taking the floor model with a whopping $20 off. We decided it was time to request a refund and said goodbye.
About an hour and a half later, they walked in, Game Fanatic carrying a guitar case. It turns out when the Scientist requested a refund, the sales assistant spoke to the manager, who took the guy upstairs and showed him a stack of guitars. The sales assistant apologised and so Game Fanatic did get his guitar after all.
I’m glad it all worked out but we won’t be going back to this shop again.
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Late night ramble
After a chilly morning, it turned into a nice day although not very warm. Game Fanatic had his D&D this morning and even he didn’t want to get out of a warm bed. I dragged him out anyway and once there, he was fine for the most part. I spent my morning crocheting blocks for Lego Lover’s Mario afghan and I think I managed about eight of them. Not very many considered we were there for three hours. I guess I spent too much time chatting with the other mums while there.
I noticed yesterday that a tree that had been uprooted in the storm was simply taken away yesterday. I don’t know much about these things so perhaps it was too damaged to try to put it right. But it’s a shame the tree is gone, probably to the shredder.
I’ve been listening to a marathon of Beatles albums tonight. I’m currently on The White Album and it’s almost finished but I may have to stop since my eyes are burning and I don’t have eye drops. I was hoping to read a bit before bed but that’s not going to happen now. Oh well.
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Quiet day
Today was rather quiet compared to yesterday. The storms have moved out and we cleaned up some of the mess from the broken fence. We also cleared out some mess from what originally was the no-dig garden (that never got going). The Scientist cleared out a bunch of rubbish in the area so it looks less ugly than it did. Without the cloud and rain, it’s now been quite chilly and will drop to nearly freezing tonight. Brrrr..
Earlier in the afternoon, we went to a music shop to take a look at guitars. Game Fanatic has wanted to try playing for a while. He really wants to learn to play bass but decided he would learn the acoustic guitar first. With the help of the Scientist’s younger brother who met us at the shop, we found one that was suitable with a reasonable price so we decided to go ahead and get it. The salesman tried to give us the floor model because they were out of new ones but we declined and had him order another one in.
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Topsy turvy brain today
All our routines have been messed up this week so my brain feels a bit tired right now. Newspaper deliveries were delayed by rain while Game Fanatic’s D&D group changed its day this week along with the venue. Game Fanatic didn’t adapt well to the changes which resulted in an exhausting morning yesterday. It seems to have left me in another mind space.
I went on what apparently was a wild goose chase to return some books to a local library today. I arrived about five minutes before the normal closing time and discovered they were closed all week for stock take. Attempts to return them elsewhere were futile since all the branches apparently close at the same time. Had I known this ahead of time, I wouldn’t have wasted my time and just paid the fine. Sigh…When I go back tomorrow I plan to protest the fines since I wasn’t to know the library would be closed or would have made alternate arrangements. The library thing created other problems for me which eventually did get sorted out but left me feeling very out of sorts.
So instead of going to bed early, I am awake late and writing a blog entry. I think it must be madness to attempt to write when one is tired.
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Constraints
This month marks the second anniversary of our home education experiment. I really shouldn’t call it an experiment since it appears to be the norm for the foreseeable future.
This was our third attempt at home education. The first attempt goes back to Game Fanatic’s second formal year of schooling when we made a temporary move to Canada. My plan was to home school while there so we could keep him up to speed with our local curriculum. That didn’t work out and when September arrived, he started at the primary school. The second attempt followed our return from Canada in the middle of the following year. By late October, he was back in the classroom at a new school.
The reasons the first two attempts failed were many but ultimately, it was due to trying to emulate school in a home environment. For some children this might work but for Game Fanatic it definitely didn’t. By the time we pulled the boys out of school, Game Fanatic was in year seven. It was clear that a classroom learning environment was never going to work for him. We spent four years trying to work out problems that couldn’t be fixed. Actually the first year back went pretty well for him with a brilliant teacher who really “got” him from the start. Teachers like that are rare, and even this teacher was limited by needs of many of the thirty other children in the class.
Lego Lover started formal schooling a couple years into the schooling experiment and all went seemingly well the first year. The second year was a different story and it’s still not completely clear what changed. In retrospect, I think the problems were already there and we were blinded to their effects.
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No mental pictures
Time for another post and I have no idea what I will write. I guess I will see where the keyboard takes me on this one. It was another dark, dreary, and damp winter’s day here. It wasn’t particularly cold for much of the day. There was a certain warmth in the afternoon that was reminiscent of spring storms. We did have a storm and a “lovely” downpour in the late afternoon, just as the Scientist and I went off to the grocery store. Visibility was so poor he pulled into the parking spaces next to the nearby school until it eased a bit.
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Happiness is…
Both boys have had a major fix to their obsessions over the past couple of days. Yesterday, the long awaited Lego Club magazine arrived and obviously, Lego Lover was thrilled. Earlier in the day while the Games Fanatic and I were at his Dungeons and Dragons group, I espied a copy of this same magazine and was wondering where LL’s copy was. In fact, it arrived in the mail the same day. The next few hours were spent poring over the new Lego catalogue and describing the next sets on his list to buy.
Today was a momentous day for our Games Fanatic because the very long-awaited Super Smash Brothers Brawl came out. Guess who was at the store quite early this morning to get a copy? I was tucked into a warm bed at the time while the Scientist made the early morning trip with him. Lego Lover was also enthusiastic about the game. so much that I had a battle when I enforced a long break from play today. Normally, we don’t allow video game play very much during the week but made an exception today. Tomorrow, the rules return to normal.
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Tidying things up
It was one of those cold and wet days of winter today. The rain has stopped but there’s a chill in the air which reaches my bones. I noticed my knees are feeling better today but other body parts are still aching quite a bit.
I managed to start some school “work” with Lego Lover today but that didn’t quite succeed and we ended up in another battle. Last week we stopped the medication he started back in March. We couldn’t see any positive effects and he ended up with stomach aches most nights so it wasn’t worth it. He has now started a different medication which has me feeling somewhat edgy. From reading the experiences of others, it’s a bit hard to judge how well the meds will work for any particular individual. The same medication can be wonderful for one and really terrible for another. So far, I think Lego Lover falls sort of in the middle since we’ve not had particularly great or bad experiences. I do think the shift from one medication to another could be affecting the current mood and hopefully he will settle down in the next few days.
During a heated discussion about “work”, I threatened to remove access to Lego for a time. This didn’t exactly eventuate because LL finally decided he would cooperate. I also started digging into his messy bedroom and the end result is it’s looking quite tidy at the moment. It is no longer the hazardous zone it’s been for weeks and months. Lego Lover did attempt to assist most of the time. It often happened that he would rediscover a forgotten toy and want to “test” it out, delaying the end of the task at hand. Finally, I was able to bring in the vacuum cleaner and remove the layers of dust.
Tomorrow I must get into Game Fanatic’s room and clear out all the dust that’s accumulated there. In the past, I would have had to do a similar cleanout of his room but I’ve found the he is doing quite well at keeping it in good order in the last year or so. It’s quite remarkable, really, that he’s always been particularly untidy and now he’s not. But he doesn’t take it any further so dusting and vacuuming is required at the moment.
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Blogging absence
Seems I’ve not been able to blog for one reason or another lately. Mostly, I’ve not felt terribly inspired but hopefully that will change soon. I think maybe it’s a matter of just sitting down and writing a bit.
Life’s going pretty well at the moment. We still have the issue that turned our lives upside down a while back to be resolved. It’s out of our hands right now and it’s really just a matter of time. It’s not affecting us so much on a daily basis but the resolution will be a good thing.
We are at the start of our winter here and it’s been pretty wet so far. I’ve been working on a crocheted afghan I started a couple years ago for Lego Lover. He’s no longer interested in this particular project but I’d like to finish it before starting something new. I had a bit of a spurt today and got through about three small balls of yarn. It’s going to be a very imperfect project because I seem to have lost stitches on one side over several rows but it will be unique and will just be for home anyway. With the cold, wet weather, I should be more motivated to keep going but mostly I’ve been working on it while the Game Fanatic is at Dungeons and Dragon’s on alternating Sundays. Today, I broke out of the rut and worked on it in the evening while we were playing the Zelda game for the Wii that we got a year and a half ago. I quit mainly due to tiredness and soreness from the repetitive motion.
I’m not sure if it’s weather-related but I seem to have acquired lots of aches and pains lately. I’ve had some instability with both my kneecaps and now my shoulder is hurting again. The other sort of arthritic pains have also reappeared.
This past week, we saw my mother-in-law off on a holiday. She will be leaving on a cruise this evening from England for over week, I think. It’s her first cruise so I hope she has a great time. Afterwards she will be visiting her sister for a few months. We also welcomed back my father-in-law, who has been in Sri Lanka for some time. I had a chance to chat with him at length when we went to visit and he was very chatty compared to usual.
I was going to write more but I’m not feeling particularly well at the moment so will try to save my thoughts for more regular posts.
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Too long between posts…
It’s kind of crazy that I got this website set up for this blog and haven’t been posting. For some reason, I’ve just been busy in a way that it’s been hard to stop and write a bit. It’s nearing the end of Mother’s Day here and I will be off to bed soon. It’s been a pretty good day and the kids were both very good today. The kids fed me buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast in bed early today. Lunch was with the scientist’s family at his mum’s house. We had pizza, salad and too much chocolate stuff…We were back home by mid-afternoon so we just hung out with each other most of that time. The Scientist went to bed hours ago and Lego Lover has just gone to sleep. The poor guy seems to have a cold right now and is pretty stuffed up. I have to give him credit because normally he is frustrated and angry when sick, but today he has been pretty quiet. I wonder if the medication he’s been on for over six weeks is finally having some effect. It’s still too early to tell. The Game Fanatic has now also just gone off to bed.
I spoke to my mom for almost an hour and a half tonight. Unfortunately my first attempt didn’t work because she couldn’t hear me. The second attempt was better but she still had trouble. After a while, it just got to be too difficult to carry on a conversation so we left it there. She seems in good spirits right now, which pleases me because she’s been going through some rough times for quite a while. I think maybe she has turned a corner and is feeling better about the world.
No, it was not a bad day at all…