My Daybook: 17th February, 2017

Outside my window…

summer days are blazing. Today the temp is 31C/88F and we are so, so grateful for the cooler weather after the weekend’s heatwave. We experienced two days of record breaking heat with the temp in our area at 45C/113F and even hotter in other parts of Australia, around the nation bushfires raged and some townships were sadly lost

I am thankful…

that my husband and I were recently able to get away for a weekend together, yep just us and it was wonderful! We love our precious children but we try to go away together occasionally, usually about once every four years, to spend quality, uninterrupted time with the one we love, it’s healthy for our marriage. We started this tradition of a weekend away with just us, or us and the current breastfeed baby, several years into our marriage on the sage advice of older and wiser friends who had more children than we did. Last weekend we stayed at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, enjoyed plenty of walks along the beach, eating at different restaurants, shopping at Pacific Fair, actually we didn’t enjoy the later, too overwhelming, simply spending quality time together, and yes I must admit we enjoyed the air conditioning whilst at home they battled out the heatwave of 45C/113F days.

Most thankful and grateful that our adult daughter and teen children were able to continue running the homefront smoothly, to nurture their siblings, to attend to their physical needs, to maintain our home, to drive siblings to dance lessons and a party, to take them to Mass, most thankful

I am thinking…

about fitness and it’s impact on physical and mental health. As I shared last daybook we’ve, PC and I and some of the children have taken up running. We run 5km/3mi on a Saturday and a little less a couple of times a week, not only are we feeling so much better physically, mentally we’re experiencing nothing but positive results, that adrenaline is kind of addictive

Learning all the time…

we’re three weeks into the new school year with a great line up of resources and everyone is happy with their workload but…thinking we might change the focus for the younger set next week and host a Reading Challenge/Bootcamp. I’m certain if they just put as many hours into their reading as they do into other activities (such as screen time) we’d have a houseful of proficient readers, instead we have a couple who should be more independent and instead are not making strong progress. Writing up a list of ideas and planning to rotate through every 30 minutes. Thinking of calling them Reading Stations, perhaps written in a bingo style, perhaps a challenge list, maybe a reading punch card or I might just do the old ‘pull out of the jar’ with suggestions such as, read to a sibling, silent reading for 30 minutes, play a literacy game. If I can have more independent readers then we’ll have more independent learners, huge win

 

Celebrating the liturgical year……

honestly it’s been so long since we managed to celebrate anything in the Liturgical Year, other than living the everyday and I don’t minimise that at all, but as I never have anything exciting here to share I’m tempted to take this headline out and declare done

From the kitchen…

still eating lots of salads thus little potato due to the heat. My waistline is rapidly shrinking, salads and running, a recipe for success 🙂

I am creating…

the girls and I are planning to make circle skirts, we’ve settled on the fabric and style, now we just need to do. They’re looking forward to that full swing at their Rock and Roll dance nights. Seeing four of our kids, our 17, 15, 12 & 10 year olds head off for a fun night of dance together just makes my mummy heart smile

I am working on…

yet another project that I’m very excited about. Suspense hint: It involves two of my favourite activities, talking and literature. Promise all shall be revealed soon

I am going…

went last night with PC and bought an air conditioner, after the heatwave last weekend we declare ‘surrender.’ Whilst an air-con isn’t quite a necessity it will sure be a welcome addition, bonus we found someone who can install the unit within the week

I am hoping…

Bass(5) wasn’t too traumatised by his dentist visit yesterday, he doesn’t appear to be, they were fantastic dentists most gentle.  Several months ago whilst jumping on the trampoline Bass damaged the nerve of his tooth, as we’d been through this with Einstein 14 years before I thought I knew the drill and based on that experience made a decision based on then for now. When Einstein damaged the nerve of his tooth they decided this would involve an overnight hospital stay and surgery for the tooth extraction to not be too traumatic for him, it was however rather traumatic for me. Bass kept reassuring us that he had no pain and so I left the tooth in remembering the trauma of his sibling, well my trauma. Recently his tooth began cracking off, freaking me out completely and I knew it was time to do something, in truth my mind was imagining surgery complete with cutting the gum and stitches, obviously I’m not a dentist 😉 Well it all evolved that due to leaving the tooth in he now had decay on both sides of the damaged tooth and needed two fillings, more upsetting was that whilst he hadn’t experienced pain the decay had to go somewhere and it went into his gum and very nearly infected the second tooth coming through, so all around wrong decision. Great news was dentistry has come a long way in 14 years and it was a simple matter of a small gas mask in the chair, numbing gel and he had no idea about needles. So he didn’t appear too traumatised and neither was I 😉

 

I am praying…

• for my children; for their health, their spiritual needs, that transitions go according to His will, that they grow in Grace and always walk with Him
• for the unborn brother of our god-daughter who has Trisomy 18. Please join me in surrounding his parents in prayer so that they feel His consolation and love, that they know His strength as they deal with the reality of an anti-life society, please pray for Jonah Job as his parents and sisters prepare to welcome him briefly to this life, knowing he will rapidly depart to eternal life
• for my brother and sister-in-law who will welcome their first born in July. Half way already and Praise God babe and mother are healthy and well
• for our nephew and PC’s godson, it’s his birthday today

I am pondering….

how much frustration am I’m prepared to put up with, my brother gifted me with an iphone 6 on the weekend for which I’m grateful but…the screen constantly freezes. Research reveals this is a common issue with this model, I followed the tips to rectify which involved a factory reset, all was good for half a day and now the screen is freezing again, arghh…

I am reading…

on my birthday present, a Kindle Paperwhite, loving it, thank you PC 🙂  Over time I’ve been saving free Kindle books in my cloud reader and now I can enjoy them, it’s all a bit of a ‘lucky dip’ all these authors are new to me. I am a prolific reader though so I’m worried I’ll soon whizz through them, can you recommend any blogs/sites that suggest free Kindle books?

I am listening to……

despite my desire to listen to a line up of wonderful podcasts I have to confess I’ve listened to nothing and haven’t done so for months. I feel as if this is another headline I should just delete and be done with

 

I am hearing…

Princess and Jelly Bean singing, they sing all day long, I love listening to their voices, rather gifted. We considered singing lessons for them but they just aren’t interested, they declare they’re just happy accompanying their ipods

I am struggling…

not a struggle as such but a juggle for time and energy to meet the needs of our teens and youngers during the academic part of our day. This week past I trialed focusing on one ‘set’ only on turnabout days, I don’t feel that was the solution. I’ll just have to work longer days, maybe continue with breaking for the afternoon and utilise the night hours

Clicking around…

still haven’t worked out how to save on diigo so can’t share my clicks but will share the most recent shares PC sent me, he reads from a different areana of the internet than I

Is school ‘killing your child’s creativity? And does this matter?  Yes they are killing it and yes it does matter, nodded my way through

Are Australian households on the edge of a debt crisis? What can I say, his career is in finance, I confess I skim these shares, blush

Kids now spending more time online than watching television, survey shows Well some parents might not be worried but I sure am

China’s Government may ban under 18s from playing video games late at night PC sent this one to our five oldest children suggesting perhaps we move to China, the emails back and forth rapidly pointed out the restrictions for our family as China has a One Child policy, another rapidly assumed he would be the chosen one and promised to send postcards home to siblings. Jokes aside the issue in our house isn’t late night gaming but late night reading, this week I woke at 2.30am to turn off a child’s light!

Around the house…

no movement on the house building front, we’re still recovering from the big push last year to build  and complete the library and kitchen. My energies are mostly taken with finding the balance of maintaining a home whilst running into town five days a week for swim lessons & squad, dance lessons, acrobatics and musical theatre, it’s a full season

 

 

One of my favorite things…

date nights with my husband. One night of the week a dance lesson is from 6-7pm so PC and I have claimed it as our date night, we’ve just enough time to meet at the pub for a drink and chat, treasuring our time together 

A few plans for this week…

just the usual after school activities which take me into town nearly every day,  co-ordinating the use of the car between Michelangelo’s job and activities. So grateful to have capable children who are handling the meal prep the afternoons I’m not home till later

A little peek at my day….

this afternoon whilst dancing girl dance is enjoying her jazz class, I get to enjoy myself too a highlight of my week, a whole hour at the library perusing books all alone, well older children may come but no noisy, distracting younger ones, bliss