Miscelleanous

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming Barbarella.

I think Marlow fell face first into his tuna juice. Nothing else explains it. Not that he's long haired, not by any means, but he does have something of a ruff [& very cute it is too] & when he crawled into my lap for his cuddle this morning & squirmed onto his back so I could rub his throat I found bits of his ruff in great knobby lumps. No point even trying the comb. I went straight for the scissors. Now I'm shaving the cat! Good grief!

Ditz made spring rolls for tea last night. Not an unmitigated success. They tasted fine but the first ones had a tendency to come apart in the pan. More practice needed I think. I like this!

And can someone explain to me why mathematicians can't write plain & simple English? I'm about to veto all word problems on the grounds the writers are incapable of expressing themselves clearly in their native language. Never read such a lot of koofoofuffle in my life! Apart from the common sense fact no~one in their right mind continues to pour liquid into a container leaking faster than you can fill it. They must be all barmy! I already told Ditz to scrap the algebra pages. I'm not into guessing games. This is supposed to be a practical text! I have no idea what you actually use algebra for but I think Ditz & I can manage very nicely without it.

I'm in pain & my tolerance levels are low. I have, however, had a truly brilliant idea for science ~ if only I can find the tools I need. Household science! The first experiment: removing body odour from clothing! Yep. And it was a success! I'm such a woos I actually did *environmental science* to finish up with because I refused point blank to cut up dead things that used to be alive, blow up smelly things or play with gadgets that never worked properly in order to record information that by it's very nature was useless & pointless. Please don't tell me you now know where Ditz gets her attitude from! Remember, I'm the ideas person. I process everything in my head. Heaven alone knows what Ditz does.

I think our weather got lost. It bypassed Melbourne, where it belongs, & landed here: wet, windy & downright miserable. They must have our sunshine.

What I mean...

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato.

For the record, Ditz is 14. This is not old enough to drive ~ in any state ~ & we're funny about a 14 year old running round town after dark so I drive her to her rehearsals. It has been raining for over a month & I can never find parking at the mainland jetty so when it began mizzling again on Wednesday night I put Ditz out at the jetty with both bags & the hot food [no sense in both of us being drenched] & went to look for parking.

Parking is a five minute walk away through the slush in the pitch dark but I do this every week, no big deal, only AVAE times have altered slightly which means we are tight for time, especially if Ditz wants to eat ~ & Ditz invariably wants to eat.

Just the same I swear I was being careful, I just never saw the big sloshy puddle of mud. I came down hard; hard enough that Dearest commented when he saw me I was lucky not to do my collar bone like Liddy did playing soccer a few years back. At the time I was less worried about the pain than the glug. I have serious tactile issues ~ as anyone who knows me really well will testify. I don't eat certain things because I can't stand the way they feel in my mouth; I'll never be playing clarinet . I don't wear certain fabrics because their feel drives me bonkers. I can't stand the combination of sand & salt on my skin at the beach. I prefer cats to dogs as much because cats feel better as for their temperment. That being said, a 2" thick coat of wet mud plastered down my back in the wind & the rain was pretty much guarenteed to drive me into a frenzy. By the time I got home I'd been in this wet grubby state for almost an hour, long enough for absolutely no~one to laugh when they saw me. It took coffee & copious amounts of hot water, clean clothing & deep breathing before Dearest could assess the actual damage. I warned you I have serious tactile issues.

Ditz has been wonderful. No, she hasn't sat down unasked & worked through copious amounts of school work. She did manage everything on Wednesday so all I had to manage was me. Mind you, she finds me falling apart in public a huge embarrassment so it was in her own best interests. Thursday, however, is our shopping day. We have a large household so shopping is not for woos'. True, Ditz couldn't drive the car but she did everything else. She wheeled the trolley. She loaded & unloaded groceries. She packed everything away where it belonged & then she cooked tea: homemade pizza & chocolate mousse. I'm told the pizza was very nice. I passed as Ditz did us scrambled eggs on grain, nut & seed bread to hold us & it held me very well indeed, thank you! Not even getting landed with unexpected extras for tea fazed Ditz.

Somewhere in the process I believe Ditz has a menu plan. I did see a shopping list of some sort because Ditz is planning on doing a few meals over the coming weeks. OK, so she's got a bit to learn about the clean~up process but frankly I will take any amount of cleaning up over actually having to cook a meal. See I can think my thoughts while cleaning up: of poetry & Celts & plots for non~existant novels ~ something not really feasible while cooking though I have been known to try. Ditz, who has been blessed with a sunny disposition, worked cheerfully too. I appreciate my girl. I really, really do. ☺

About Learning Styles.

When all else fails, read the instructions! My mother's sarcasm.

Homeschooling is a state of constant flux. Either our children are changing, or we are. Sometimes everyone changes at once. Sometimes other things change. Sometimes the whole thing just makes me tired. No, this is not another rant about my beloved youngest child. My beloved youngest child is being very accommodating just now, even with her math. Nope, this is about learning styles ~ or rather a particular learning style.

God in his infinite wisdom made little people to do the *monkey see, monkey do* thing ~ which is why you see Clara~Jane stomping round in her mama's high heels with a gash of bright red lippy from ear to ear. Practise makes perfect. Or why little Freddy has his daddy's hammer hooked on the loops of his jeans. Most small people are hands on learners. Some stay that way their whole lives & thank God they do or we would have no plumbers, no electricians, no mechanics, no farmers.

As little people grow bigger many show tendencies to learn in other ways: visuals learn best by *seeing*, audios by hearing, Kinesthetics by using their body & the hands on by doing. Most people fall into one of these 4 main areas but there are other ways of looking at how people learn best & when combined with the four main learning styles allow homeschoolers to better tailor their homeschool program to a particular child's needs.

Now Liddy was a kinesthetic & a concrete sequential thinker. She used her body to learn. She used her senses to learn & she was a methodical, sequential learner. Apart from the jiggle like a hooked fish & move your books around the entire house she was pretty easy to teach. Actually she did a lot of it herself & fitted very nicely into the sequential orderly world of the modern classroom. She did well at home too. Ditz is not like that.

Ditz is a visual/spatial child: messy, random, illogical. Random is the key word. The Gregorc system uses 4 learning styles too ~ a combination of sequential, random, abstract & concrete. Ditz & I are both visual/spatial learners. We are both random learners. This means we share many learning similarities ~ which should make things easier, right? Wrong. Nope. It actually makes it infinitely harder because the common ground confuses the issue.

Let's look at it a little more closely. Ditz & I are both random learners. This means our minds order information in chunks. It can arrive any old which way. Our minds work like a jig~saw & slot the information into the appropriate space. We both dislike structure, don't follow directions or rules well, are not detail orientated & need a stimulus rich environment ~ & there the similarities end. Ditz is a concrete thinker. She is almost totally reliant on her senses to process information: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. All the tags for ADHD are there: the short attention span, the fidgets, the strong will, the need for a reason to do anything. You have no idea how this begins to clash with an abstract thinker who is not reliant on her senses to process information. I visualise, imagine, grasp hidden meanings & ideas or make quantum leaps of intuition.

It is no surprise to me to be told the art world is littered with concrete random learners ~ lots of rule~breakers, fashion nightmares, *free~thinkers*. What I what to know is: how does one teach them effectively?

Audio~visual aides ~ tick.
Choices ~ tick.
Short dynamic presentations ~ well yes, but she's in grade 10 & it's getting harder to stick with that.
Full control of their own projects ~ not on my nelly when it comes to school work because I am accountable to our umbrella & they are accountable to the government.

The problem is the rest of it; the scientific reports [which guaranteed Ditz will never ever of her own volition apply; why would she, her mother doesn't]; the abstract math, ditto; the writing for no discernible purpose than to demonstrate she can when she & I both know she can so why must she prove it? *sigh*

There is absolutely no good reason why children should learn most of what we ask them to learn once they have grasped the basics. And no, it's good discipline for the mind & the intellect is not a good reason, not when you are a concrete abstract. The question is: can I use it in everyday life for a purpose I want? Answer to almost all education then becomes, No. Scary? Yet from observation I would suggest these children are very good at *living life*. They have determination. They have grit. They think outside the box. They know how to enjoy what they are doing ~ & they know how to achieve their goals!

We know so much about the different ways our children learn now & the multiple sorts of intelligences they display isn't it about time our schools & our curriculum suppliers caught up with the research? As my mother so aptly put it, & looking at the number of children falling through the cracks in the system, isn't it about time somebody read the instructions?!

Maudlin' Monday.

Who, or why, or which, or what, is the Akhond of Swat? Edward Lear.

See it's been raining for a week, 10 days if you like, up here. Melbourne [down south] had a shower & got flooded out. Water, water everywhere & not a drop to drink....What this means in practical terms is the washing is piling up & the whole house feels damp. Ick. Or if your a Melbournite or somewhere out St George way you're scraping mud off the walls & throwing away the family heirlooms.

I was flicking through Sunday's paper, which is a waste of a good tree or two only Dearest feels deprived if he doesn't get Sunday's paper, & what grabbed my attention was not the golfball sized hail that hit Melbourne or the hoo~ha about who can or cannot march with the veterans on ANZAC Day or the media hyped housing crisis, critical as any or all of these things may be. Nope. Tucked away in an obscure corner was this choice little gem: a Korean couple let their 3 month old daughter starve to death while they raised a virtual daughter on~line! Their virtual child was named Anima & they cared for her at the local internet cafe for as long as 12 hours at a time while their real daughter languished un~named, unattended & malnourished in their apartment. How did we, as a people, get so screwy?! How does someone so lose their way between fantasy & reality? This shocks me far more than Haiti, or Chile or the numerous other natural disasters that are plaguing our world at present because this was a choice. This couple chose their virtual *daughter* over their real one. Is it only me that thinks that's more than a little scary?

And while I'm at it, who writes the manual for the parents of missionaries? After a week in Melbourne Liddy was gone all weekend ~ & this will be the case more & more as the missionary fueled wheels grind to the final departure but ~ no~one told us about this. No~one prepared us to lose Liddy before she actually left & I'm just a tad peeved. I'm the gal that needs to prepare emotionally. Don't hit me with unexpected emotional whammies because I don't cope too well & we all know I'm not the practical sort. The practicalities of getting Liddy to Chile never once crossed my mind but we are dealing with those realities now. [& this folks is why Liddy is going to Chile & I am not. Um, yes, it's been confirmed.]

You know I'm an Aussie & there's a little thing about Aussie native flora that gardeners learn real fast if they plan on dealing with Australian natives; you can transplant them but they will only survive if you get the entire tap~root, intact & undamaged. Break that & you will lose the plant! Often that is true for people too. We plan on getting Liddy to Chile intact & undamaged, her tap~root anchored securely in the love we all have for her. Finding ways that best support her is not going to be easy because our concern is for Liddy & all Liddy's thoughts are consumed by Chile & we are all trying to perform our God~ordained role in the process. Where is the manual when you need it?

And last but certainly not least: due to some confusion about who was doing what when on Sunday one of our families was taxied here by another friend & in the general chit~chat that tends to happen at such times some interesting data was shared. Interesting because I can't name you a church on the islands that isn't struggling. They are struggling to get the numbers or they are struggling to get finance or they are struggling to get a preacher or they are struggling with the music , or they are struggling to outreach ~ you name it one or more of our island churches is battling in that area. All of them are small, under 50 regular attendees. There are 3 main ones just on our island: the Catholics & Anglicans [by far the largest group & I'm not going to distinguish because the Anglicans are *high* & as any Anglican will admit that makes them far closer to popish practises than not]; the Pentecostalists & the non~denoms. For all the years I've been here those numbers have not fluctuated much, though the Pentecostal churches tend to start with a boom & end with a bang. We've grown leery of the pentecostalists who arrive here to *save* the island from itself. No staying power. Sad but true. At different times the church we did belong to grew so small it worshipped in believer's homes. What has come to pass, quietly & unobserved, is a whole underground movement of *cell groups*, most of whom know nothing about each other but who are quietly meeting together each Sunday to worship & encourage each other, just as we do. There may be as many as 200 hidden believers. That is phenomenal! Many are disenchanted with regular church but are very committed to Christ. I think that is very exciting. Someone has a vision for bringing all these diverse groups together once a month or so ~ though I suspect their very camouflage ensures their effectiveness.

A lot of people have been praying for revival for a long time but I am minded what a very wise & experienced minister once told his congregation: many of the very ones who have prayed most fervently for revival do not recognize it when it comes or the manner in which it manifests. I think I need to remind myself pretty often not to stand in God's way & let Him get on with it.

One computer, four users...

Chaos reigns within/Reflect, repent, reboot/Order shall return. Suzie Wagner.




The girls & I have been telling Dearest for years that computers are the thing; he should get into them. They'd open up the world for him. Manlike he rolled his eyes at us. [Knew Ditz got that from somewhere!] See Dearest is a man's man. He worked with his hands & knows things like how to mix cement, lay a brick, do the math to build a set of stairs, lay down a trail bike & slide under a moving semi~trailer...I didn't say sane & sensible. A bloke's bloke. [Mind you, I met him in a poetry writing class so there is a whole 'nother side to Dearest.] So just for the record he wasn't doing any daft & stupid boy things when he broke his back but break his back he did & life as he knew it changed overnight for Dearest.




I don't think Dearest has ever once said, "Why me?" He counts his blessings. He can walk. He has his stamps.Very occasionally, for something extra special, he travels but travelling is difficult. He made the award ceremonies the year Liddy won the regional player of the year award; he's never seen Ditz perform.




If it had been left up to me we still wouldn't have a computer. I'm a simple old fashioned sort of a girl & a brief dalliance with the primary school computers had convinced me I was only good for blowing them up & crashing them. Dearest however became convinced our homeschooling was second rate because we did not have access to a computer. I wonder if he ever thinks on that observation & rolls his eyes? Whatever. Dearest researched & juggled the finances & eventually procured a computer that could access the internet. For school purposes, of course.




Liddy was delighted. She was the only one computer savvy & promptly acquired a hotmail account & a Facebook page while I quaked every time I had to turn the blasted thing on & all this stuff flashed at me! Yep. Every time I needed to do something I was yelling for Liddy & Liddy, not unnaturally, got rather tired of that rather fast. Liddy being a logical sequential teacher & me being a random visual our learning styles clashed & it took me a long time before I began to feel that, "hey, maybe I can do this". It took a while longer & a NaNoWriMo before I got to the, "hey, this is fun" bit. Meanwhile Ditz took to just clicking on things & progressed much faster than I did. Terror about the unknown dangers my girls might unwittingly fall into spurred me on to keep up but it slowly dawned upon Dearest that though there is always someone invariably using the computer & a lot of time is spent with it very little of that is school related. The virtual fish bemuse him ...but the cats adore them!




Dearest had the computer moved downstairs so we could use it while he had company but he invariable found himself talking to someone who was plugged in & ear~plugged. He's a stubborn man, my Dearest, but we wore him down, three on one & he has succumbed. The only problem is ~ someone has to teach Dearest all the things we now take for granted, unkindly laughing when he worries about all the odd things that pop up on his screen & the peculiar things that happen when the kittens squirm all over the keyboard. Dearest grabs whoever is closest to sort out his problem but I have found myself landed with teaching him to upload his scans.




Dealing with pictures was one of the very first things Liddy taught me & I have used it a lot so I'm pretty comfortable but I am a random visual & Dearest is a hands on sequential. I am going nutty teaching this man the multiple steps needed to get from his scanner into Photobucket & from Photobucket onto the stamp forum. Everything has to be done exactly the sane way each & every time. No deviations allowed. Worse, as I have been doing this for him everything is set up for ease of use by a really random random who tends to have several operations happening at different places at once because this is an incredibly boring process & the faster I can do it the better. I have been reduced to plodding where I am used to running.



I think we are making progress. Dearest has finally cottoned onto the fact that the computer is completely rigid & he is the one who must change his expectations!

A Little cross cultural love.

Don't pity the girl with one true friend. Envy her. Pity the girl with just a thousand acquaintances. Katie Obenchain.


I have this friend I have never met. Nope, not even once. She lives on the other side of the world, in the other hemisphere & across one of two very large oceans. She drives on the wrong side of the road, calls scones biscuits, pikelets pancakes & has even more children than I do. We have managed to disagree on lots of things & still remain friends; good friends. She is logical & good at organizing things ~ actually I don't think we could be more different if we tried but ever since God brought us together & we *met* on~line we've clicked & she now has the dubious honour of being my oldest *computer friend*.


She is also wonderfully kind & thoughtful & for someone who has never met me she knows me incredibly well. She knows I like blue & white china, surprises & cats. She also knows that despite the kittens I am missing my boy, because he was mine ~ & I was his. The kittens may be anything yet. They don't appear to be very discriminating. Issi had excellent taste. He adored me! It changes you when you are loved like that.


So yesterday a brown cardboard box arrived for me. [Here I confess my Dearest was far more fascinated by the postmarks on the box than by the contents but he's a little odd; stamp collector; they have this thing about postmarks.] Inside was this adorable Polish pottery cat. [Yes, Mama Olive, he travelled very well & arrived all in one piece!] The thing with Polish pottery is it is durable. It is meant for everyday use & is beautiful as well as hardy. When you have as many little visitors as I do that is an important consideration. Just the same I don't have many knick~knacky things [well, I wouldn't would I, after 5 kids & with 2 kittens rampaging round!] & was at a lose where to put him safely ~ somewhere where I could enjoy his beauty at odd moments through the day. For now he is living on my kitchen sink window sill with the old blue wine bottle & stray shells but out of reach of kittens & curious small fingers.


I am truly blessed to have a friend such as this. May in be counted unto her as righteousness. I ♥ you, mama O.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly acutely miserable, racked with sorrow but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. Agatha Christie.


Yep, life's a bit like that round here. Ditz, who has been eye~rolling considerably over her history & English & made a complete meal of her math [yes, we have a math text though it would help if, when I actually knew a formula I applied it correctly!] decided her AVAE class was the place to suddenly air her esoteric knowledge. Nope, she couldn't remember Bach belonged to the Baroque period but she did know the piece they are singing: Bist du bei mir ~ in German. While I vaguely recalled the piece I had no idea where I knew it from while Ditz calmly informed everyone we'd done it for school last year when we did Bach. Not that the piece sounded anything like our cd ~ the kids being uncertain with their German pronunciation & not backed by a full orchestra. We still surprise Alison occasionally by what gets termed *school work* round here! And Ditz still amazes me with her musical recall. She can probably already sing the soprano part note for note. Unfortunately she is singing 3rds this year & will have to learn the alto part!

AVAE has been reduced to just 10 singers: 5 girls, 5 boys ~ & to Dearest's utter bemusement the girls are singing alto & all the boys are singing 1sts or 2nds. Um, yeah. I sorta get his point ~ only having heard the boys sing I don't think most could hit the altos bottom notes.

Meanwhile, as we got the only dry morning in more than a week I thought I would indulge Kirby, who can't think why he isn't allowed outside, by opening the front door & letting the cats gambol in the garden while I weeded the path ~ an easy job just now while the ground is so waterlogged.

Obviously I have mush for brains. Kirby was delighted. What I had forgotten was the builders who have also decided to take advantage of the fine weather. Poor Kirby shot back in the door twice as fast as he came out of it. He made several tentative attempts to investigate the garden while not becoming completely spooked.
Marlow just sat on the top step looking out longingly but after one attempt, belly dragging in the mud, tail flat to the ground, he returned to his perch on the top step from whence he could see both Kirby & I from relative safety. It's a shame as both the lads are very interested in our garden, a garden to delight any cat's heart, but Kirby called every time he lost sight of me & there was no way Marlow was letting me out of his sight. Much happier inside. Even happier when I rejoined them & they had all their people together again.

A Little Liddy.

And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them? Romans 10:14 NLT


Of all the things I really hate doing donning my armour & heading to the front line would be about foremost on my list. The desert forefathers had the right Idea. I want a very tall pole!


The spiritual grenades are lobbing this way, some from people who really should know better, & plenty of them. Not unexpected, no, but a right royal pain in the whatsit! I will leave it to Liddy to document Melbourne. Suffice to say things went pretty well & we will know by the end of the month. As you all now know Chile is something of a mess. We do not know if this will affect things. Actually we don't know a lot but given how much flak is coming our way I'd say Satan is pretty upset & Lid is good to go ~ but that's just my think & God may have other ideas. I think we will all feel better when we know definitely for sure whether she is to go.


I can see a marked spiritual change in Liddy since her return from Melbourne. Interesting. She picked up an award from work for having the best local dairy ~ which is nice but no longer as important to Lid as it once would have been. Her focus is elsewhere ~ & it's been put into perspective.


I don't think I've ever thought much about the process of becoming a missionary ~ well, I wouldn't would I? Not being a sequential thinker & all. God calls, you go. Yes, well. um. It's not quite that simple. Lid's pretty young but she is incredibly competent ~ but I will tell you something on the quiet. Chile may be on the other side of the world but I am A~OK about that. Really I am. You see, I've just learnt that there is such a thing as *secure* countries. What a misnomer! I know what they mean but...! They are called that because if you are caught proselyting you are dead. I knew that, but the suggestion is you have to be so secure in Christ & His call upon your life that you are not fazed by the prospect of dying & I am really, really happy Liddy does not feel called to one of those countries.


The last of the first things are behind us. Until her trip I think Liddy thought I was being mean when I cautioned her about becoming too attached to the kittens but I think she sees the wisdom now. They are one more thing that must be left behind.


It is incredibly exciting to watch a child begin to outstrip you spiritually, to mount up on wings like an eagle, to see the spiritual war clouds gather...so my dear friends, don't forget us in your prayers. Pray especially for the team in Chile & their wisdom & discernment as they consider whether Liddy is the one God means for them & their work. Pray for the work too, which has probably tripled during the present crisis [not much info is coming through yet], & pray for us that we are the strength & support Liddy needs at home as the battle rages round us. Lastly pray that Liddy only grow closer to God as she seeks His will for her life.


We are not living in comfortable times, but boy are they exciting!

Tuesday's Trivia

All the world's a stage/& all the men & women merely players...As You Like It.

Seeing as I seem to be having something of a Shakespearean week today's trivia is Shakespearean. With that in mind, & bearing in mind my household is soccer mad in season, Tottenham Spurs [yes, the London soccer club] was named after a Shakespearean character: Harry Hotspur in Henry IV. True. Look it up.


Shakespeare was a country lad. There are over 600 references to birds & animals in his plays. What's more he knew their habits & habitats rather well also.


Most of us quote bits of Shakespeare all the time. Everything from *all that glitters is not gold* to *to sleep, perchance to dream...* He is also responsible for inventing 1 700 English words; words like bedroom, majestic, laughable, critic, submerge, assassination. Not as easy as it looks. Consider that the average American has a vocab of roughly 10 000 words. If you're really smart [or majored in literature at college ;P] you might have a vocab of 15 000. Shakespeare had a vocab of 29 000. Someone didn't have enough to do if they sat down & actually counted!!


Most people think of Shakespeare as a playwright but in fact he was an actor who wrote plays. He is supposed to have really enjoyed playing the ghost that plagued Hamlet. I completely understand that! He performed before both Elizabeth I & James I.


In 1603 Shakespeare was 39 years old & the Black Death swept through London killing 33 000 people. *Sweet Will* survived the plague.


Uranus' moons are all named after characters in Shakespeare's plays: Oberon, Titania, Juliet, Caliban, Sycorax.


While Shakespeare did not die *without issue* he has no descendents. His son [Hamnet, of all things] died as a child. His daughters married & had children who did not survive leaving Shakespeare definitely as *one of a kind*. And to top it all off his gravestone does not bear his name. Nope ~ but he did think to curse anyone who was considering moving his bones.

Good friend for Jesus sake forebear

To dig the dust enclosed here

Blessed be the man who spares these stones

And curst be he who moves my bones.