July School Holidays: Week Two ~ Nature and Books

 

Our second week of the July school holidays brought glorious sunshine. I love this tree and never get tired of photographing it. Early Sunday morning I discovered a lone magpie way up in the branches and was able to snap this beautiful photo. If you look in the top left hand corner you will see a little black dot - that is the magpie.

Even on weekends and during school holidays, I still generally wake and rise no later than 6:30am. One of the main bonuses of this routine is that I am often greeted with glorious sunrises such as this one.

Two trips to the shopping centre in two days. The top photo was a solo trip I took on Wednesday. The clouds indicated that rain was returning and my weather app advised it would be raining by Thursday morning. However, when Thursday dawned cloudy but dry, Munchkin and I decided to make another trip, saving me having to do any grocery shopping on library day. Munchkin spotted two Rainbow Lorikeets in the tree, and I always love these daisies that bloom along our route.

Duolingo was happy with my hard work this week.

I earned an achievement in my walking app this week as well.

My solo trip to the libraries to pick up ALL the books for the new term.

All the books carefully but precariously perched on the library bookshelf in my bedroom before I sorted them to their respective homes.

There were three distinct groups of books in my haul this week. The far left photo are all the books I picked up for Munchkin for independent reading for the beginning of the term. He is currently enjoying re-reading various Percy Jackson series as well as the Series of Unfortunate Events books. We own all but the last four books, so when he wants to re-read the series, we grab those from the library. Several of the Percy Jackson books are on the 7-9 Premier's Reading Challenge list which is good because Munchkin still has a few more books to read in order to complete the challenge this year. It is his final year participating so important that he finish on time.

The middle photo shows books I borrowed as part of our homeschool curriculum plans for term three. I've bitten off WAY more than I can chew and there are well more books here than we can complete, particularly because this is going to be a shortened term for us. Some of these books will be returned until term four. I will say that I'm THRILLED to finally have the GEOGRAPHY book which is part of the Big Ideas Simply Explained series published by DK. As my regular readers will know we've read MANY other books in this series. Monkey is also particularly excited about this book as he loves all things geography related.

Finally, the far right photo are all the books I borrowed for my own independent reading. Again, I have gone overboard, but I hope to finish many of these in the weeks to come. There are also three books in this stack that are on the Premier's Reading Challenge list (two Roald Dahl books and a John Green book) which both Munchkin and I will read.

Another view of the books, but this time slightly larger photos for the people who like to look at titles a little closer. This is my "library bookshelf" in my bedroom so Munchkin's independent reading doesn't feature in these photos. He has a separate "library bookshelf" in the front hallway for his books. A bookshelf full of books always makes me happy.

These are the four books I picked up from my "backup" library. This particular library has much stricter rules than our lovely library we've been attending since 2009. Renewals are automatic and when a book is ONE day overdue it locks the particular library card. To contrast, our main library allows manual renewal and an overdue period of TEN days before the cards lock. Therefore, I generally don't renew books until day ten which gives us a bit longer borrowing time. It is a fun little way to cheat the system a bit. However, this means books from this "backup" library often take priority over our main library. As Saturday was our last official day of the July school holidays, I set aside a chunk of time for reading and got a good start on all four of these books. The Agatha Christie book absolutely grabbed me from the very first page and I ended up staying up until 11pm to finish it!! It has been a couple of years since I've finished an entire book in one day!

A little millipede that Monkey found in the yard. Despite all the rain we've had recently the weather was nice enough that the men were able to spend a good chunk of the afternoon working together on some much needed clearing up in the backyard. It is always fun to see what wild life they will find in the process.

I'm pleased with my walking and Wordle progress this week. Two walks to the shopping centre and the library trip which isn't bad considering the variable weather.

Wordle was good and I have a two digit streak again, but Sunday and Wednesday I needed a bit of assistance. Monster helped me out on Sunday (though if I had been more patient I would have got it on my own) and both hubby and Monkey gave me a slight hint on Wednesday. We shall see if I can continue my streak this week. I would LOVE to beat my personal best of 35 days.

July School Holidays: Week One ~ Finally Some Sunshine

School holidays are officially here and we are more than ready for the break after a "less than our best" term two. 

Despite the holidays, we did continue with some reading. Generally we only read the Bible during holidays, but as we were near the end of this book we continued reading, finishing it on Friday. As I mentioned in the review I gave on both Goodreads and Storygraph, I have made reading the classics a key part of our English literature curriculum because I believe they still hold importance and relevance in this day and age. Yes, there are cringe worthy moments in many of them. Yes, the language and attitudes of the time are often vastly different to what is considered appropriate today. However, rather than ignore, brush aside, or ban them, I feel they give us a starting point and/or a bridge to deal with the difficulties of the past.

Sunday kicked off a pretty solid week of rain. We had some chunks of time through the week when it would dry out a little bit, but most of the time it was dreary and wet. I will admit that after twenty-six years here, I am spoiled by the sunshine here in Australia. Long periods of rain get to me, and MUCH quicker than it used to bother me in the states.

Traditionally, the first Monday of school holidays is MY day and I call it my "read and rest" day. It means that aside from basic work around the house, and meals, I ignore everything and focus on reading. This school holidays I needed it more than ever. It was a good day and I finished these two books. Both were excellent in their own right but I definitely preferred "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd. I will go into more detail about them at the end of the month.

Tuesday was my first "work" day and I focused on catching up the boys schoolwork. I did little marking (grading) through the term, and almost no recording in their portfolios so everything needed attention. I got Munchkin's completely finished and a good chunk of Monkey's done as well. In week two of the holidays I'll finish off Monkey's recording and make sure I am fully ready for Term Three. These two pictures show the balance of the day. I fuelled myself with a healthy(ish) breakfast and some reading before getting stuck into the work. As you can see from the second photo, I kept a close eye on the World Cup soccer scores while I worked. I chose not to watch the game as it would distract me too much, but with this set up I was able to monitor the score.

Wednesday afternoon Munchkin and I took a much needed trip to the shopping centre for groceries. The weather was somewhat clear, with periods of sun, so we decided to get that chore out of the way. Good that we did as Thursday it poured again. We discovered this little guy on our way. We stopped, snapped the photos, and ensured he would reach the grass safely before we continued our trip.

Wednesday night was the third and final game of this year's State of Origin Rugby League match between New South Wales and Queensland. Somehow, by some miracle of miracles, we pulled off a win and thus clinched the match title. Yes, there was a try we shouldn't have been awarded, but it may not have changed the result that much. If only New South Wales could play like this consistently. But I'll take that win, it was a fabulous game, and we'll see what happens next year.

No youth group for the boys on Friday, so no library trip for me. But as they are teenagers now and like to do their own thing of a Friday night, (this week it was many episodes of the Clone Wars show and a Narnia movie) I have oodles of free time. A mug of hot chocolate and a stack of books is my idea of the perfect Friday night. I read one chapter each of the two non-fiction books and several chapters of the novels. It was bliss.

Saturday the sun returned and it was glorious. I spent the morning getting a couple of loads of laundry on the line and admiring the cloud formations. As beautiful as they were, they were a sign that more rain was to come, and sure enough, the rain returned overnight. However, we have more sunny days than rainy days forecast in the week to come. So far this has NOT been the dry winter that was predicted.

Saturday afternoon Munchkin and I managed a quick walk in the afternoon to soak up the sunshine. When we returned we enjoyed a cup of freshly squeezed lemonade that some neighbour girls across the road were selling (it was made from lemons off their tree and was absolutely delicious) and I enjoyed more sun soaking on the front verandah. The Snake plant has been blooming (which interestingly is often a sign of stress) so I took the opportunity to photograph the flowers. When it is done flowering we will divide the plant into more pots as it IS looking crowded now.

So pleased with my Wordle work this week. No bombs and I have hit double digits with my streak for the first time in weeks. I am slowly learning that I don't HAVE to solve the puzzle immediately. If I don't get it straight away, I put it aside and look at it later.