A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Reading by the fire

Tuesday, 4 March 2008

Reading by the fire

What a beautiful day it was today.We were at home this morning and I had intended to go into town to get a few bits, it was just too nice to be inside so as I was making breakfast I asked Milly if she would like to light a fire in the chimenea and sit outside and read and she jumped at the idea.

We got a good blaze going,lot's of smoke as well as flame though!! we both smell like a bonfire:)

I took a selection of books and we started with My story The trenches,then moved on to a book I got as a pack from the book people Usborne Puzzle adventuresWe spent hours working through the puzzle story and Milly surprised me with her enthusiasm for it and it took ages before she started to take the easy option and get extra clues to move on a page.We sat in the sun and warmed ourselves by the fire and eventually went in at lunch time as my Mum and Dad where due.

Off to see my nephew for Mum Dad and Emily after lunch. I got the shopping list and Menu's done ready to go to Tesco after tea.Also managed to flick through a few blogs to see if anyone had posted ,obviously what else would I do with a few extra moments:)

14 comments:

Michelle said...: "managed to flick through a few blogs to see if anyone had posted"

I do this a fair bit and it's always a lovely surprise to find someone has done a post.; 4 March 2008 at 20:25
Stacie said...: I love that outside fireplace thing! How fun!; 4 March 2008 at 20:32
Lynn said...: Michelle,
I get quite a thrill when I go on to my favourite sites and see a post:) Do you think I need to get out more LOL.....; 4 March 2008 at 20:52
Lynn said...: Stacie,
We got it last summer and didn't really get the weather to sit out on an evening then but we hope to make full use of it this year,I would like it even more if it didn't smoke so much!! Not sure if this is something to do with the wood not being dry enough...; 4 March 2008 at 20:54
Michelle said...: definitely is that your wood is too damp or too green.; 4 March 2008 at 21:04
Lynn said...: Thanks, thought it might be, we had a tree felled last spring but is is obviously not ready yet.xx; 4 March 2008 at 21:24
Grit said...: good grief! do you have any idea how idyllic that looks to a sad grit, surrounded by broken gates and broken ovens? can i come and sit with you and milly in the sunshine and drink peppermint tea?; 5 March 2008 at 08:56
Lynn said...: HI Grit,
You would be more than welcome to come over:)
We have been having a good run but don't be fooled things are not all sweetness and light.
Sadly I do not have your writing talent/wit and fail to make our more mundane activities in any way entertaining so I try to avoid doing it as it would scare off the few people who visit here!!! xx; 5 March 2008 at 09:19
piscesgrrl said...: I was overcome with pangs of longing as well - it's still cold here, more snow due this week, and I'm so, so tired of it. I'm trying not to think about it - I can't remember what grass looks like! Oh to read in the sunshine...; 5 March 2008 at 18:48
Lynn said...: I often dream of having a good snow fall, but I think it is a romantic idea of log fires and hot chocolate rather than the reality of a long hard winter holed up and cold without sight of greenery!!
How much longer before spring sets in for you?; 5 March 2008 at 20:20
piscesgrrl said...: It'll be a while before it's "safely" warm. We travel south in March, so I'm hoping it'll thaw while we're gone!

Let's put it this way - we always HOPE we can plant flowers on Mother's Day in early May, but we usually can't.

*sigh*

You can come and enjoy our snowfall for a while - let's trade places!

Snowfall is lovely. 4 months straight of snowfall? A bit suffocating!; 6 March 2008 at 03:44
Lynn said...: Oh wow, May!!! That's along time. Your place looks fabulous and I would love to trade!!!
Lets keep chatting and see where we are this time next year and perhaps you can come over and sample a little of our cumbrian weather!!It would be great to meet you.
Have you viited Britain before?xx; 6 March 2008 at 08:04
piscesgrrl said...: No, I haven't! Wow, how exciting that would be... we could really be on to something here. A blogger meet-up. One of my readers offered a house swap, too. That's definitely worth considering, except then we don't get to meet. I love meeting folks from everywhere so when we travel we have opportunities to get together. Very exciting idea!

We've got 10 acres here so we could do a blog meet-up camp out!; 6 March 2008 at 15:17
Lynn said...: Laura, just realised my response to the last comment hasn't come through for some reason. My response was
10 acres!!! How cool is that. I would come to a blog meet up camp without hesitationXXXX; 11 March 2008 at 14:45

This is me.....

There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” Stacey Charter.

Why we Home educate

( Slightly edited from a blog post I did when we started out) In the end the actual decision to take Emily out only took a matter of days but before that it had been around a year and a half of talking about ti and reading books, Free range education by Terri Dowty, Educating your child at home by Jane Lowe and Alan Thomas were two that had a real impact for different reasons. Free range education has lots of examples of real life home educators and I think I can say that it was this one that convinced me the most that we could do it. We are two very average people ,neither of us left school with many qualifications, we went on to do quite well in our chosen professions and had no need to think about the education system at all until Emily came along.

I knew about home education and when Emily was born considered it as an optionbut always felt my lack of education would be a problem and that I wouldn't be capable of providing her with what she would need.Looking back with hindsight it is easy to see how wrong I was!!

School never really suited Emily......After the nursery year at a very highly rated, high achieving school we knew that particular School wasn't for us and took her out. We enrolled her in a lovely village school with only 70 children in the whole school .The ethos of the school was totally different, the children didn't wear uniforms and there was much more emphasis on the children being individuals.The head was a sensitive and principled man who wanted the best for the children. We thought we had struck gold.Over the reception and year 1 Emily gained confidence and really started to bloom. It was at this time she was diagnosed with dyspraxia( we had had to go down the diagnosis route as our observations of Emily's difficulties were not enough to enable the teachers to tailor things so she was helped and given less work in class) but she managed quite well in the more relaxed play orientated early years.Year 2 with more emphasis on academic activities got progressively harder for her. She is very sensitive and it wasn't just the academic side it was the embarassment of having to put her hand up for the toilet,seeing others being told off and worrying in case she did something wrong and got the same treatment, panicking because she couldn't do the work and the teacher never had time to sit with her (alot of this did not come out until she had left school) her behaviour at home became worse and worse she was so angry and obviously stressed . At this time we began to seriously consider taking her out but held back because of my lack of confidence in my ability to provide her with an adequate education ,my health being so poor was also a major stumbling block.

Then in year three it became blatantly obvious that something needed to change .She was struggling on all levels and we couldn't allow the school system to damage our daughter anymore.She became ill with a bug that was doing the rounds and she was off for two weeks , during that time I had a conversation with a friend who home educates her two children and I was so upset I couldn't make a decision and she said just go with whats in your heart and that really helped me to shift my thinking and stop worrying about what I couldn't give her and focus on what I could give her.

We never sent her back.I still get emotional when I think of that time , the look on Emily's face when we told her she would never have to go back to school was priceless,the immense sense of relief that we were off the treadmill of school life and the excitement of the time ahead and to be honest the fear of the unknown......

So here we are four years on and a lot of reading and researching later I feel comfortable with what we are doing . The changes that have happened so far have been helped along the way by the many wonderful blogs out there.They are so varied and there are so many different approaches , I have found ones that I can identify with and have read a lot of archive material that has been written in each and found answers to so many of the questions I have had that they have helped me to sort out what will work best for us .As much as I wish we had done this earlier and saved Emily from the distress that she went through I do believe things happen for a reason and that the time was right for us to take her out and that looking on the bright side one of the benefits is that at least she has had a taste of school and now we all know without a doubt that it is not for us !!!!

It is very liberating to be making decisions based on what works best for us as a family and not what society expects.

Let your child be a child.

No child was ever spoiled by too much love.

Be authentic with your child.

Listen openly to your child’s needs.

Believe in your child’s good intentions.

Find the humour.

Look past the behaviour… what is your child feeling?

Have fun with your child today!

“There is no reason why we cannot say ‘No’ to children in just as kind a way as we say ‘Yes’.” - John Holt

“Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” - Oscar Wilde

Children thrive in a peaceful and loving environment.

A child needs love most when things go wrong.

Children reflect the treatment they receive.

A few qoutes I like....

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore

The perpetual testing of public school children is like a gardener constantly pulling his plants up by the roots to see if they are growing....(unknown)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instuction...Helen Kellers teacher

I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand...Confusious