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family

The purpose of this blog

1st December 2018 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

Was to keep track of our home ed days and chat over the garden fence (virtually speaking) with other home educators. Most of those people have moved on, in that their children are more of an age with my teens and I’ve let the home ed aspect lapse.

Today one of those teens used the archive to work out something about his life he wanted to know, and brought home to me that I’m doing the younger children a disservice in not keeping a note of some aspects of their lives. But the internet has changed, as things do, so it needs to take a different form.

So, noted, this week Smallest (who is not the smallest but I thought she would be) has sat started reading the Lady Grace mysteries, thus continuing the tradition of Tudor interest that so many of the original muddlepuddle children passed through. We also had a long and involved conversation about whether you can be a vegetarian in Minecraft, which spun off in all sorts of directions, about vegetarianism, and veganism, and game playing, and use of animal products and so on and so forth. (I love this kind of conversation, it’s what so much of our home education is built upon.)

Tigerboy is reading Dr Seuss, I’m not quite sure why. He can read well, but he’s not very interested in things without pictures. Which is fair enough.

Small went to computer club today where they were taking part in Ludum Dare. No, I don’t know what that is either, I’ll ask him to contribute and add it in.

Big was at work. As was I. She’s a lifeguard, I manage a charity bookshop part time. Which is kind of wonderful and awful all at once. All the books. And they’re not mine ?.

So that was Saturday, not in snippet form, but recorded for posterity. Oh, and my current read which should be recorded on my bookstagram account Liveotherwisebookclub and hasn’t been yet, is the Ambassador’s apprentice, by Trudi Canavan. Will add all books mentioned to an amazon widget when next on a desktop.

How was your day?

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Filed Under: family, how we do it, Small steps, Soa, tigerboy Tagged With: ambassador's apprentice, computer club, creative computer club, Dr Seuss, lady grace mysteries, ludum dare, reading, Trudi Canavan

Saturday Snippets 28th July 2018

28th July 2018 by Jax Blunt 1 Comment

{learning] about work. Bit of a shock to the system, but I’m sure I’ll adjust.

{reading} How To Bee by Bren MacDibble. I started this months and months ago and somehow put it to one side and didn’t finish it. I’m working on finishing things now, and this was an easy choice to finish. It’s a brilliant read – a children’s novel set in an Australia devoid of bees, where some poor children take their place. Told in the voice of a wannabee (see what I did there?) it’s described as beautiful and fierce which is a pretty good description of the protagonist Peony. Read it.

{watching} Captain America: Civil War. We’re working our way through a whole bunch of superhero movies at the moment, but this is not a family friendly one. So it’s an evening feature πŸ˜‰

{enjoying} a day out at Sax Music Fest where (NotSo)SmallTeen was playing with Ipswich Guitar School. He absolutely loves performing and had a great time – it was a fab day out, if you’re in the area I’d recommend popping it in your diary next year. While three of us were there, Big took the youngest two down to the carnival – we’re all making memories this summer.

Snapshots

Big is working on her 20 year plans (her story, not mine) – good to see πŸ™‚ (NotSo)SmallTeen is, as mentioned above, getting more stage time in. Smallest has decided she likes the idea of beautiful handwriting – hints and tips for working with left handers gratefully accepted. Tigerboy enjoyed a trial of Doodlemaths, but raced through and built his robot in double quick time and now can’t see any point in it any more. Maybe gamification isn’t always the answer after all πŸ˜‰ (Remind me to brush up on extrinsic v intrinsic motivation sometime soon.)

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Filed Under: Book club, family Tagged With: Bren MacDibble, carnival, how to bee, making memories, old barn books, Saturday snippets, saturdaysnippets, Sax Music Fest

Saturday snippets 9 September 2017

9th September 2017 by Jax Blunt 9 Comments

{Practising} habits. Water, exercise, creativity. If I manage to cement these in for another week I’ll add something else – maybe that I clear the kitchen before internet? (This might mean I mainly clear it before bed, but that works too.)

{Reading} actually I’ve stalled. I’ve been reading Lynda LaPlante Good Friday (amazon affiliate link – kindle price excellent just now!) which is about Tennison as a WDC in the 70s. I loved Prime Suspect and Helen Mirren, and she’s in my head while I’m reading this, but I’m really struggling with the writing style. I think maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of YA and MG which tends to be very immediate if that makes any sense, whereas this is quite wordy and descriptive rather than action driven. I really want to know what happens though, so I’m keeping on bit by bit. (And that has to be a positive recommendation – I have given up on books when I just don’t care about the characters. )

{Creating} a lot of little pictures. And thinking lots about my art in a I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I know I want to go somewhere. Similar with photography – I’ve had so many people compliment me on my pictures and how calming/beautiful/different they are, but I tried putting them on redbubble and got nowhere. This may be because I don’t market things well, it may be that they aren’t marketable, I really don’t know. (If you’ve time to offer thoughts on my redbubble offering, it’s here and I’d be incredibly grateful. )

{Circling} on business and content much as above. I have watched a *lot* of webinars though, and I’m pretty sure about a lot of ways I *don’t* want to run a business.

It feels like time for a picture. Look, autumn!

Snapshots.

Big made decisions about A levels and started back to sixth form this week. She also did a huge amount of excavating and discovered lots of socks. So that was nice πŸ™‚

Small didn’t start back to anything except fencing this week, although we have started exploring his college online thing. Not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be doing, so he’s just cracking on with it anyway.

Smallest lost another tooth today, and has started rereading the Harper books in preparation for the next instalment.

Tigerboy and I are enjoying a Pablo and Jane book that I’d thought was essentially a graphic novel but turns out to be part story and part hunt the picture in a picture. He’s actually really good at that sort of thing and it’s been fun sitting together on an evening staring at pictures and talking about them.

Plans for the week ahead? Small starts college (eek), and in excavating the living room I’ve found a stash of craft kits I’d forgotten so I foresee some crafting in the near future. You?

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Filed Under: 2017, Book club, family, It's where it is, week by week Tagged With: blogtember, Saturday snippets, saturdaysnippets

Love you, bye.

21st June 2013 by Jax Blunt 19 Comments

Hey little sister.

Thought I’d take some time to tell you the news, just in case you haven’t been keeping up. Your namesake is 3 1/2 now. Which means you’ve been gone 5 years. Hardly seems possible, that five years have flown by without you.

I think of you daily. Naming one of my children after you made that inevitable I suppose. She’s not much like you though, she looks lots more like Kierston. I thought for a while Tigerboy was going to be strawberry blonde (we won’t say the other) but he seems to have blonded up now, and gone into full clone mode.

Your family are doing OK. Not that I see them all that often, now we’ve moved away. I regret that, but at the same time, this is a good place for us to be. And I’m trying to make an effort to get back up home regularly, though it’s been difficult this year, what with the whole constantly broken car.

It’s not right, you know. You shouldn’t be dead. I’m still kind of cross about that, in a nameless, blame the universe, sort of way. I don’t really know how to express it, just the same as I didn’t know how to express how I cared when you were alive. I’m basically pretty poor at the whole relationship bit, and the fact that I’m related to you doesn’t make any difference with it.

Take the whole love you bye thing. How did that come about? Did the rest of the family discuss it, or did someone just think it would be a cool thing to say, so that just in case it was the last thing you heard, it was a good thing ? And then everyone else started saying it. But I didn’t get the memo. It’s like there was this bit about social conventions that I missed out on the coding for, somewhere along the line.

I thought you got that about me though. It didn’t seem to make that much difference if we had a big gap between seeing each other, it was still easy and comfortable when we did. And the kids got on great – particularly Small and Princess. (I call her that here. I don’t use the children’s real names, you might have noticed.) The shared experience of parenting was something that I really cherished, and something that I particularly missed. I think that maybe you were better at it than I am, and it was good to have someone to talk to about stuff.

You did it again. You made me cry. I try really hard not to, because it’s something I should be getting over, right?

But I don’t think it works that way. I don’t think I’m ever going to get over not having you around any more. Miss you so much, Katrin. Every day.

Love you, bye.

katrin's rose

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Filed Under: family

Saturday snippets 13 April 2013

13th April 2013 by Jax Blunt 3 Comments

{Watching} the spy next door. Jackie Chan family oriented movie. A bit uneven in pacing, but overall great fun.

{Reading} Follow me down by Tanya Byrne. Which has no problems with pacing πŸ˜‰

{Visiting} kentwell Hall for a sewing day in preparation for tudor times ahead. Lots of costume changes afoot.

{Eating} McDonald’s, as we were nearly two hours later than expected leaving Kentwell.

{Remembering} Freddie.

image

{Snapshots} Big has been out and about on the train to meet friends and Small rethemed his website (with a little help from Big). Smallest has been enjoying lots of books while Tigerboy made his first sign (drink) and said his first word ( boo) today.

I am trying to work on gratitudes and seizing of day (one). Today I managed to ask many questions about fabrics and costumes. I got lots of useful answers, no one snapped or pointed and laughed, and my head didn’t fall off and roll away.

It’s a start.

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Filed Under: Ages past, family, It's where it is, Making things, Reenactment Tagged With: Kentwell, milestones, reenactment, Tudors

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