Hello again!

I am still here :-)
I won't bother trying to update what has happened since I last blogged as it will all be too much waffle!

A is now 16 (yesterday)!!!
Last Saturday she had a big birthday party with about 30 people here of various ages. They all had a lovely time and most of them had gone home by midnight. A couple stayed over and there was not even too much mess to clean up. A has since been researching new things she can do now she is 16, we were particularly excited by the fact she can now sell scrap metal..... that will be especially useful! On her birthday, I had to work for a few hours (at a pub car park, joy of joys!!) but then when I got home, we headed into Sale together. We got some crisps, dip and birthday cake then sat in a cafe for a while. We carried on the celebrating later on by ordering pizza - which is something we rarely do. It was a very nice day and I don't even feel any older!! We also found out on that day that my friend had her 5th baby!! I have seen the photos and she is soooo cute. It is also A's best friend's new sister so that date in future will be full of celebrations for 2 families :-)

As my life just gets busier I have come to the decision to let go of my allotment. I just can't fit it in and often feel stressed that I haven't been. I don't really have enough time for the garden here so I am letting someone else have a go. I will one day again get an allotment but probably when I am no longer needed so much for the kids. Even though they are older I seem to be spending more time ferrying them to and from places. I suppose as it gets darker now, earlier, I don't like them catching buses alone so am just flowing with it!

We have new added activities now too. A does a writing course on a Monday at the Royal Exchange. She is also doing a Sociology GCSE at a college on Tuesday evening. A and M now have viola(A) and guitar lessons (M), on a Friday which has made Friday the busiest day of the week.
I don't mind being so busy but it does mean my days fly by which is not so good. I am still trying to get up earlier but not managing the 7am I would like. I attempt to go for a 20 minute jog/walk each alternate mornings which always wakes me up. I am considering having my iron levels tested as I do feel tired a lot. Something for the near future anyway!!

The swifts are still here so it must still be summer. Today actually feels like it because the sun is shining for a rare change. Although when I came out from yoga the other night it was getting dark which made me think how winter is drawing in already!
I have baked potatoes cooking in the oven, A and D are at a friends, M and J have a friend round so there is lots of card and electronic gaming going on. I may tempt them out to the park or playing field later, I fancy stretching my legs. I am really into gardening at the moment as it is in dire need of weeding. My green bin is full though and only emptied every 2 week, I may start making a pile instead.
I probably need to phone the agency as there is a tile that has come of the roof that is hanging in the gutter. If it falls it could injure someone, but I need to tidy down the side of the house first. My ex has some scrap metal he dumped there which I may well try and take to the tip tomorrow. I asked him if he would do a tip run, he came round, spread the old inflatables etc over the tidy garden then left so today's job is to re-sort that.
I have a burning desire to learn some DIY as I hate when things need doing but I can't do them. The cupboard doors all came off in the kitchen but need wood screwing to them inside the cupboard before being re-attached as they chipboard has no strength to hold the screws now. But I worry about drilling into pipes... maybe I shall get shorter screws!

Summer term is here so the kids activities are quieter. J finished Junior Strings and will start with a violin in September. Fortunately they have moved his day so he can still do beavers on the Thursday which I am really glad about. D quit her Monday dancing so I have been able to go back to yoga.
Last week, M, A and D did the Lowry summer school where they helped write and perform their own musical. I really enjoyed the show at the end of the week and they had a great time, although getting up early to be there for 10am every day was something I think we would struggle with for many weeks of the year!
On Monday M did a day of percussion and dance with a friend. Theolder girls are booked in for a behind the scenes- technical workshop- at the same venue in a week.

A and D have been hanging out with their home-ed and their church friends separately. They have such a good time but we still have to fit in their Arts Award. I am struggling to make contact with a choreographer or a script-writer for them. We send off many e-mails and mostly don't get a reply or if we do it is a no. A challenge indeed which it is supposed to be!!! A is supposed to be writing and performing a radio play, and D choreographing and performing a dance. Not much work has been done on either and they are supposed to be done for Mid September... time yet as they keep telling me!

This week I took A here and she needs to go back and have some weekly treatments. I am also taking her to the Children's hospital for a heart check-up after some tachycardic events! Fingers crossed.

Right off to sort out those inflatables :-)

Another month has passed by and we are now officially in summer. It has been sooo warm the last few days that I have struggled sleeping even with a fan on me all night. Possibly not helped by the water bottle - that is J- that lies next to me lol. But then we are also getting lots of heavy showers so it is probably ideal weather for plants - especially the brambles, bindweed and thistles on my allotment!
I only seem able to get there about once a week at the moment and spend a good 40 minutes each time pulling the bloomin things up! I enjoy weeding the beds but it is the paths which need more wood chip on that they keep springing up from. I seem to have been a bit late in getting things in but I can still sow some mixed lettuce, radish and the like. It is the process I enjoy though, as much as anything I just wish I could get down there more often. Currently the kids have an activity on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. I am having to go to yoga now on Wednesday and pay for it now as D moved dance classes. Sometimes I nip to the allotment when she is dancing so I may start taking her earlier so I can get more time there.

A few weeks ago I went on a wildflower ID day course which I loved. I am so at home doing that kind of thing.... maybe when I am knowledgeable enough I can get paid for doing it! As you can see I am still trying to rack my brain on how to be self-employed or more accurately what can I do??? I have no particular skill unlike all my friends so it is challenging me and taking up my thought time. I have to have something I can do self employed as leaving the kids for 16 hours a week and home-educating will just be too much. I'm sure it will all work out some way. It has to!!

Yesterday the girls went to a science event at Liverpool university which they enjoyed. I am trying to get into the habit of recording the things they do each day so I have awritten record for the LA when they contact me but it is not something I am used to doing so it will take some time I have no doubt. They enjoyed Liverpool and A came home - as she does- with a Liverpudlian accent. She is very good at accents and it is quite entertaining lol. The house is currently quiet though as the older girls have gone to a friends gig in Marple and aren't due back til later when they will probably stay up late on Facebook. They have some new friends as they went on our church's youth weekend away and made lots of new mates. They have spent much of this week, texting and on Facebook. It is nice but I feel there is always a balance to be struck which can be hard.
They have to do regular work on their silver arts award which I think is interesting yet they are often reluctant to get going on it. Still, they want the end result which is the qualification so I guess they will have to put the work in. They have their last drama class next week when they have a small play to out on for the parents. I am looking forward to the summer break! I expect I will have a house full of kids playing which is nice though. I am planning on painting M and J's bedroom and hopefully the back room while over the summer break. I managed to paint the hall and landing with about 8 children playing in and out so the other rooms should be a doddle!
It is amazing though, how even though we home-ed we still seem to run to terms - I blame all the extra curricular stuff the kids do lol but they do enjoy it.

Anyway , quick post, now supper for the younger two needs doing. I have an early start tomorrow as am at a breakfast and 2 of the girls are dancing.
I must post some pics of our new pets soon!

Well I seem to get on Facebook more than here and yet we are doing lots in life.
Today I slept in.... which I enjoyed but also lost time, which frustrates me. I had woken at 6.30 after a horrible dream of A having piercings done and screaming in pain and me crying. Gah!!!! She doesn't want piercings so not sure what that was about but it disturbed me. After dozing off, M ran in saying there was buzzing in her room so I checked for bees but couldn't find any. I dozed off again then til 9.30!!!!
I had requested some screen free time today so other things were done including trying out some drawing techniques, Ki-nex, Quizzmo, reading. The older 2 made a start at the Silver Arts award looking at reviews. They then navigated back to bloomin You Tube til they did some Maths from a WH Smith book. J did some reading to A. Not sure what I did, other than try and keep the peace.
I had planned a lot of gardening but am hampered by the weather which saw torrential down=pours here.
I need to start de-cluttering the back room but have to try and do one shelf at a time or I will not achieve anything.

Yesterday we had a big gathering here. Various teens hung out and went to the field to play girl v boy rounders, the girls won lol. I went into Manchester to return some stuff for A. While I was there we popped into a Christian bookshop which was just lovely and had a big ground floor with cafe. We shall definitely be going back. The price for a cup of tea was £1.10 which for the city is VERY cheap!!!!!
2 weeks ago M had her 10th birthday. The week before that I had run a joint games party for her and J (who is now 7). We had 24 kids of all ages playing games on our local playing field then we came back here for a brew. It was busy but lovely. Unfortunately our beloved guinea pig died on M's birthday which we all sobbed over as she was a much loved member of our family. We buried her that evening :-(
On a plus side we received a precious gift of 3 baby guinea pigs a few days later who are called Lilo and Scruffy. They are gorgeous and now live in M and J's room as it is the only room with a door the cats can't get through. In there we also have the 2 hamsters lol so it is like a private zoo. We have animal handling each day to make sure they all get some attention!

On Sunday my children were dedicated at our church and A and I had full submersion baptisms which were just AWESOME! I will post the video when I finally get them up-loaded off D's phone.

I am nearing the end of my accounts and book-keeping level 1 course. I have the exam in 2 weeks but haven't studied yet. It isn't really hard though so I reckon I will be okay.
There are lots of changes going on here and life always seem to go in the direction you least expect it but at least it keeps you on your toes!!!

Hiya :-)
Well a blog post is obviously very overdue. I have managed to get to the computer but usually I go on Tribalwars to check our villages/send out troops/upgrade buildings. I do this first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Then if I go on Facebook I usually end up chatting with a friend. Or I change my status on Twitter. All these things are bitty and don't take up too much time but usually then there is a child queue waiting for their turn.
I am now grabbing my diary to blog what we have done in April!!
On the 1st April, A and D had a go on the cycling track at the Velodrome in Manchester. They were a bit nervous about it but after the hour were really happy and excited to have done it. Especially when I explained our gold medallist Chris Hoy had trained there and they had cycled on the same track! I hadn't booked M as her cycling is not up to that really. They don't do a lot of cycling mainly because I can't as Jude doesn't so M never really gets her bike out much!
On the 2nd J's beavers group were having a trip to a local fire station. As I had never been in one I decided to attend (and I took M). Can I point out my interest was purely educational and had nothing whatsoever to do with fire-men-rescues and pumps! It was fab and all the kids had a great time looking in the pumps and playing with the hose.

M has been to 2 fab birthday parties this month. She is friends with twins who had separate lovely parties so M has been to Tatton Park Farm and Stockley farm. Each time, when I collected her from the girls' house, I took J who then got invited in to play in their amazing garden that has a sunken trampoline and purpose built adventure playground at the bottom of it. We hung out there for many hours and I got numerous cups of tea made for me which was lovely as normally nobody here makes me a brew!

On Friday 3rd we went to a family fun event at our church which was great. We teamed up with another family and then competed in various different quizzes eg. guess the ebay buy it now price, label the UK counties, guess the celebrity face! We didn't win but had a really great time and got some chocolate eggs too!

Easter holidays were quite quiet for us so it is weird to be busy with all kids stuff again. I managed to get in making 200 paper pots and sowing approx 120 plants. I did lots of digging both here and at the allotment. I have now planted two big potato beds. M and J helped plant rows of red onions and today I did a bed of white ones. I still have one bed ready for carrots. I bought some fleece from the pound shop as I will NOT lose them to the carrot root fly this year! Seeds wise, in pots we have got sugar snap peas, broad beans, mangetout, beetroot, parsley, squash, sweet pea, wallflower. I can't remember what else off the top of my head lol. Productive growing month anyway!

M went away for a brownie pack holiday from Friday to Monday over Easter. I was worried she would be hungry as she is so fussy but she chose to go so I figured she'd either be hungry or eat lol. She had a great time though but looked exhausted when I collected her. She earned another badge for her sash :-)

April has been the month of hair! J had his long-ish hair cut really short which he loves and yesterday I got my roots done and a cut too. M is due to have hers done next week
Kids have been busy having fun. The latest craze here is making animations which I will post as soon as we have put them together.

The girls have their drama moderation on Friday for their arts award where they will find out if they pass - eeeek! Am sure they will though. Then we are heading into Manchester to see our friends who leave our country for Bulgaria (for ever, sob) in a few days time.
Things are always changing, it keeps one on ones toes for sure!

APRIL PICS:

We did Earth Hour- turn your lights off!:

the girls did another Live Radio show (with home-ed friends) and created a facebook page:

Was that enough of a round up then? :-)

A bit of light relief!

You know you live in 2009 when...

1. You go to a party, sit down and take MySpace pics.












2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.












3. The reason for not staying in touch with your friends is that they don't have AIM/LiveJournal/MySpace/Facebook.

4. You'd rather look all over the house for the remote instead of just pushing the button on the TV.












6. Your evening activity is sitting at the computer.













7. You read this list, and keep nodding and smiling.












8. You think about how stupid you are for reading this.












9. You were too busy to notice number five.












10. You actually scrolled back up to check if there was a number five.












11. And now you're laughing at your stupidity.












12. Put this in your profile if you fell for it.
You know you did =D

Hasn't the weather been nice the past couple of days. I hung some laundry outside which was a real novelty. Today seems bright but cloudy. I had been meaning to do some gardening on Sunday. I was planning on weeding my strawberry plot but for some reason I felt exhausted and spent 3 hours that afternoon in bed and still managed to go to sleep before midnight that night. I think being so busy catches up on me so I am trying to go to bed as early as I can. Ideally lol this would be at half 9 but before I know it, it is 11pm! Where does time go???

A has a busy week this week as it is her last week at the Royal Exchange with 3 performances for the paying public on Friday and Saturday. Link for her play here. So she will be there every night now from 5-9pm. She is looking forward to it but it will feel like the end of an era for her. She has finally quit the Garrick - her Saturday drama as she was not enjoying it nor making any friends there. She has met a few people from the Royal Exchange. She went to see one boy who lives a short train ride away, on Saturday. His Mum drove her back home and came in to chat. She home-edded one of her sons for 2 years and was full of praise for it even though they are both in school now. It was refreshing!

I am taking D to have her hair cut today. I was A's turn last week. It shall be my turn next month after we have got through the expensive dentist trip due next week! Haven't quite worked out how to pay for it yet but am seriously looking into dental insurance.

The kids Dad has no job at the moment so is offered no help whatsoever. not that we get much when he is but I occasionally manage to squeeze some money out for the dentist. He has started seeing his ex again who lives in Hereford. He would like to live there I think so I am gently encouraging. The kids can have trips there whenever they choose. He is planning to go there on Sunday but so far only M is possibly going but she isn't too keen. Gah! Sometimes it was so much easier when he couldn't be bothered with them. Now he turns up when he feels like it and I never know when that will be. If he is in Hereford he couldn't do that... I think!!

Last night I stumbled on this conference I would LOVE to go to. It is in July so I wil see if anyone I know is up for going. I think the teens would love it too though not sure of the younger ones.