Here we go....
Our beech tree that's now quite bald and naked...
For those of us who never think that Ghin smiles...
Yet another unflattering angle...never take it from the bottom up - even babies have a ahrd time with the camera then.
Martinmas laterns!!!! The lanterns from Class One, Oisin's class.
The Martinmas play which the Class 2s do because in class 2 they learn about the lives of saints. In Class One it's all fairytales...Oisin has an amazing command of fairytales at his fingertips now. Yesterday we went through my annotated fairytale bible and apart from some unsuitable ones - like Donkeyskin, which involves some dubious incest - he was pretty much up to speed with the fairytales there.
Hi there...oh i've been meaning to write for soooo long but life got in the way... you'll never believe what i've done...this is how psychotic i am now. The housework, i've decided must be done better. So one day i sat down and made a list of all the things that needed doing. And then i divided them up into things that needed to be done everyday, every other day, once a week, once a month, etc. Then i factored in the 4 o'clock feeling and of course taking care of the kids - feeding, washing, playing, TV time, etc. And then, i worked out a timetable - which is still being worked out...but i have figured that there are things that must be done everyday, which i didn't do everyday because i thought they only needed to be done when they needed to be done.
They are: taking out the trash/doing the compost/emptying all the bins in the house, the laundry and the dishes. The dishes actually must be done several times a day. There were things which needed to be done everyday and i did them - like cooking...cos i enjoy cooking. But the bins and the laundry, puh-lease!!! Also if i did these it was done at the end of the day, which was a really bad idea because i was grumpy and disgruntled and took about twice as long to do them, meditation or no meditation. Now, i put Ghin to bed in the morning and instead of faffing around on the computer, i do these three things...and guess what?? It's great. I've used this for the past four days and it's a great system. Firstly, it gets the bloody things done, secondly it's still new enough that i feel quite virtuous when i do it. And finally, it now gives me time to do stuff with the accounts, etc...
I know, what has become of me...making household chores a great thing to be done, but when you are confronted with a house that looks like the last hour of the Titanic, you'll know how good being where i am feels, East Belfast cultural heritage, notwithstanding. (That is a reference to the fact that the Titanic was built just down the road from us almost a hundred years ago, wouldn't you know it. They have a great slogan which is "She was alright when she left us...")
Apart from that there has been the usual rounds of dinners and lunches and more dinners and lunches with friends more friends - and playdates. Oisin and i have decided that we are going to make a gingerbread house for his class for Solstice. We did one about three years ago and it was a great success...even if we had to remake the cement icing about twenty times before we stuck the house together. However, it could have resembled a blown down sheep dung riddled cottage off the hillsides of Donegal and it wouldn't have mattered because it was stuck over with the most unhealthy, maltodextrose filled confectionery you'd ever seen.
My tiny twinge in the wrist has since become a full blown case of tendonyvitis which means that i can't swivel my wrist any longer nor stretch my fingers to reach an octave. There is no cure for this apart from an operation and i don't think i'm going under the calpel just yet. So i've booked an acupunture appointment and hoping that this will give me some relief. In the meantime i'm slathering arnica cream and a mixture of horsetail and comfrey lotion and not trying to use the hand as much which is kinda impossible if you have a ten month old who refuses to be left down for any length of time. The arnica in particular is as good as any steroid filled tube that i would have been presented with, courtesy of the NHS, but it's only a temporary thing... it takes the edge of the pain, but does not allow me to use the hand the way i used to. It's only now that i realise how adept my left hand was. While my right hand did all the 'steady things' the left hand did all the fancy stuff. It's really like the perfect partnership and now my right hand misses the left immensely.
To my next post and more photos...
