Going Against the Flow: June 2023

Week nine is finished and the end of the term is in sight. I have informed the boys that as soon as they finish their assigned work they are on school holidays so we'll see which of them works that little bit extra to actually finish early. Once they are on holidays they get 60 minutes of computer time per day instead of 30 minutes, so there is motivation to finish early.

Munchkin and I noticed this succulent at church and we have never seen it grow a tall stalk like this. We are wondering if it is going to flower so we have decided to keep a close eye on it and check it each week.

After church we drove into the city to pick up some computer equipment and I took the opportunity to photograph the beautiful winter trees.

The other thing we did Sunday after church was visit a high school friend of hubby's who gifted me with two, 60 litre tubs of yarn. She crochets squares for charity and I now knit squares for charity so we are both in need of lots of yarn. She recently inherited her mother-in-law's entire collection of yarn and it is WAY more than she will use so she was generous enough to share.

Yes, I took way too many photos of the yarn, but I had lots of fun sorting through it all and boxing it back up in a way that would be easiest to access what I want to use first.

I found this drawing that Monkey is working on - and took two different photos of it. One on my DSLR (left photo) and one on my phone (right photo)

We finished off two junior non-fiction books that cover Munchkin's curriculum requirements.

It was Lego Day at the library for After School Activities on Friday. Munchkin and his little friend enjoyed building at one table while a small group of girls built at the other table.

A new addition to our social calendar is that Monkey and Monster now attend a youth group on Friday nights with some of our best homeschool friends. They live about a 15 minute walk from our house so the boys leave here at 4:30pm, walk to our friend's house, enjoy dinner there, and then the father drives them to youth group and drops them home after. They are REALLY enjoying themselves and I'm so glad our friends thought to invite them.

It seems I'm averaging three days of good walking per week. I would like to get them up to five days soon. Ideally I should be walking (for exercise) all seven days of the week, but that goal is difficult most of the time and near impossible in winter.

Munchkin's independent reading for the week...

Week Eight started with the Monarch's Public holiday and quickly ended up being a sick week for our family. It all started Sunday evening. While we were doing yard work and cleaning Monkey started sneezing and snuffling. I chalked it up to his allergies. However, when he still had issues Monday morning AND felt yucky, I realised a bug had invaded the house. Poor Monkey was miserable with his mega runny nose, tons of sneezing, lots of coughing, a sore throat, and a low grade fever. But as Monday was the public holiday they just got a relaxed day.

However, by Tuesday, Munchkin had come down with it, and by Wednesday hubby was sick with it as well. Thankfully Monster and I scraped by with about half a day of nasal issues only. But it meant a full sick week for Monkey and Munchkin as it was impossible for them to do any written work while coughing and blowing their nose nearly constantly. We did manage read alouds, but otherwise they just relaxed and rested.

Monkey felt so bad on Monday he couldn't even draw. He literally just sat on the lounge wrapped in his mink blanket and browsed his geography channels that he loves on his phone.

Everyone still felt well enough for their regular computer time...

Often on Sundays we visit a free little library that is near our church, and this week I picked up these treasures from the library. Monkey is super interested in The Arabian Nights and wants me to read them aloud to him.

I inherited this little bookshelf, and while it isn't perfect, it allows all our homeschool equipment to be IN the dining room so I'm not constantly getting up and going looking for something which just disrupts our learning time. Once the spare fish tank (you can see on the right of the photo) has been sold, I'll do a different bookshelf set up and will have things exactly how I want them.

On the public holiday Monday I got the idea to totally rearrange my books and my cupboard. This was because I had stacks of books all over the place that I had either been given or bought at the second-hand stores, and I needed to make room for a very generous gift that was coming in a week. One of hubby's high school friends is generously gifting me LOTS of yarn so I can start knitting again, and a box of books. So I MUST make room...

These are all the BEFORE photos as I started pulling books from EVERYWHERE and thinking of how best to reorganise them. I also wasn't happy with how cluttered my bureau was starting to look so decided to tackle that at the same time.

Lots to be organised in my cupboard/wardrobe/closet. The stuff on the floor on the bottom right of the photo needs a new home so that two 60 litre plastic tubs of yarn can fit there.

What started this whole cleaning frenzy project was when I discovered that all but one of the shelves in the tall bookshelf in this photo can be moved. What a game changer that was for me.

The bed is always the storage space for my books as I reorganise them and figure out what to do with them. Often they also need dusting.

These are the last of the BEFORE photos... now enjoy the AFTER photos below...

The bottom shelf in my wardrobe now houses bits and pieces of things (in the plastic box), some health related books, a few school related books that we aren't using at the moment, and my puzzle rolls.

The top shelf in the cupboard/wardrobe/closet is for my classic books. These shelves are very deep so they are double shelved. This back row is books that aren't likely to be read for a year or longer.

This is the front row of my classics shelf is books that are being actively read to the boys. On the left are the classics I've read to Monster but not yet to Monkey, then from "The Hobbit" to the far right are books that I have read to Monkey and still need to read aloud to Munchkin.

The second shelf holds books of authors I love and therefore have collected many of their books to read. Again the shelf is double shelved. At the back are my Kate Morton books and Maeve Binchy books that I haven't read and that the library doesn't have.

The front layer of books on this shelf are my Ken Follet, Paullina Simons, Liane Moriarty and Danielle Steel books that I have collected. I also found a Jojo Moyes book for free recently, but the library has all her books so I don't really need to collect those.

This is a rather eclectic selection of different titles at the back of the last shelf.

Finally, my Jodi Picoult books - again I buy (2nd hand) any titles of hers that I still really want to read and that the library no longer keeps on their shelves.

Next we have my book organisation in the tall bookshelf near the bed. The very bottom shelf (which I didn't photograph) is historical fiction that I've collected. This featured shelf (which I made EXTRA tall) is all my Byrce Courtney and Colleen McCollough books. I buy any books by these two authors that the library no longer has so that I don't have to rush reading them. These authors do not write in a way that the reading can be rushed.

This shelf is all autobiographies, biographies, or otherwise non-fiction books.

Also YES, there are two identical photos of each shelf I realise, that is because I took photos on my DSLR camera and my phone.

These three photos are also a continuation of the autobiographies, biographies, and non-fiction selections.

The final AFTER shots. I am really happy with the finished project. I can find books more easily. All of my books have a home again so they aren't just balancing precariously on the edge of random shelves, AND I made room for the yarn.

In the top left photo you will notice a row of books on the top of the short bookshelf (from my reading light over the the tall bookshelf). Those are the books I'm currently reading!!

In the top right photo you will notice the sheets and blankets now sitting on the floor of my cupboard/wardrobe/closet. They are waiting to get put on the bed and that will then be clear space wide enough for the two 60 litre plastic tubs of yarn!!

And finally, my bureau is looking clean and tidy again.

On to other news for the week.

Munchkin was thrilled to find his rosemary plant absolutely covered in flowers again so I took the opportunity one day to get some nice photographs.

This is my favourite photo of the lot, and the three photos above were taken on my DSLR camera.

More photos of the rosemary flowers, but taken on my phone so I could text them to Monster's Godmother as she and Munchkin share a love of all things gardening.

I am up and out of bed by 6:30am most mornings now. I was amazed with this sunrise (photo taken at 7am) as the moon was still visible, and though you cannot see it in this photo because I shrunk the size, the last star was visible just below and to the right of the moon.

As I mentioned earlier, despite the illnesses, we still did our reading aloud every morning and evening and this is the selection of books we finished this week.