Weekly Wrap-Up

Wow, this week seems to have flown by. A busy and productive week.

 The first couple of days this week, I hobbled about like a little old lady as we had been on a hike on Sunday. My thighs were killing me but I actually enjoy that kind of pain.It tells me my body has worked! 

The kids thought it rather funny that I couldn't move without groaning!

Josh wrote 2 papers this week, English and accountancy. Just two to go and then he will be done!

 He also had a good meeting with a prospective employer this week and has a lot to think about and plan regarding his future course of studies.

After school we had a little running around to town as Zak had two castings on consecutive days. One for BMW and one for Mercedes. Sometimes these can be a real drag as there are loads of kids. Luckily this time around it was fairly quick in and out. Now we wait to see if he is cast.

We attended our weekly Afrikaans lesson at the library and I am amazed at the sudden jump in confidence in the kids conversational skills.

We received a coin exchange from Canada this week. It included a map and some postcards.

 I have never really paid much attention to a map of Canada before and it was interesting to browse. 

We have continued learning about India and the culture and have been reading "Bold Believers in India".

Our Egyptian studies have us reading a wonderful living book, "Peeps At Many Lands, Ancient Egypt" . 

We have read of pharaohs, the life of an Egyptian soldier and the lives of Egyptian children and their tales of long ago. While I read aloud, the kids keep their hands busy. Keren usually does some art or crochet work and Zak has taken to drawing too. We have also watched some online clips on the lives of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great. Today I managed to download a bunch of free kindle books on Egypt. We look forward to dipping into those and seeing if they are worthwhile reading. 

Zak has started working through an art book that was given to the kids by my dad.

It is a fantastic book and he enjoys doing the exercises. He plans to draw every day. I am so pleased as when he was little, he refused to draw anything and always wanted me to draw for him. I think he felt he couldn't do it as he was comparing his ability to that of his sister who was three years older!

Here is the blind contour drawing and the unfinished crow he was copying from a photograph.

The end result was really good! 

It was also wonderful to hear Keren encouraging him in his new found interest in art. 

Keren and I found a free short online cooking course on the art of baking with Yuppiechef. We started the first lesson and plan to go through the course and bake some of the yummy and delicious recipes.

Another thing we discovered this week was a nearby paper craft shop....

oh my word, we had to restrain ourselves! 

The colorful paper and bits and bobs for card making and scrap booking were just beautiful and so well priced !

 Keren bought supplies for her craft workshop that she ran yesterday. 

She taught four younger girls Christmas card tutorials, a fun flower card and how to make a cute gift box. The two of us have had some fun being creative and making cards for this weekends mini market too.

This morning I enjoyed some time doing mosaic while a dear, sweet friend visited.

 The kids watched the movies we took out at the library, "Journey Through the Valley of Kings" and "Trompie en die Boksombende". When I was a kid we used to watch Trompie! Great for them to improve their Afrikaans.

Tonight sees a house full of teens as both the boys invited friends for a games and pizza evening.

 Great end to a busy week. 

Slow Living Month 10

I can scarcely believe October has come to an end already!
 It has been exam exam season here with our son having written 7 papers so far and just 3 to go...
then his home education journey of 15 years is over.
 I still remember the day we decided to home educate when he was just a wee little thing of 3 years old.
 Now a strapping young man of 18 and I wonder where the time went...

NOURISH: 

This month we have eaten loads of rice. Way more than we normally do. This is because I won R500 worth of rice! We have eaten tasty rice salads, and various curries and rice. 

We have eaten plenty of fish too as I won R500 worth of fish vouchers too! My son asked when we plan to eat anything other than fish!
Leeks from the garden were used to make a delicious cheesy leek pie...

 ....and tonight we have a leek and chicken pie in the oven alongside the usual apple, cinnamon and oat bake hubby enjoys for breakfast.  

PREPARE: 
I have doubled up on meals once or twice to save cooking a meal from scratch each night. 
We received a wonderful gift of bags of granadillas and my youngest and I made a refreshing cordial and a delicious granadilla yogurt tart was made a few times during the month.
Besides that, I bottled some beetroot. Always good alongside a meal.

REDUCE: 
I have been stopping by a dump bin outside a local wood shop regularly and have picked up some lovely bits of wood, free for the taking. Some will be used as fire wood and some has been cut into bases for me to mosaic onto. A friend also made me an oak bread board from one of the scraps. 
We have sorted through my younger son's clothing, some of mine and my daughters and were glad to give bags full away to two families that were victims of shack fires.
I have also sorted through the unused school books in our study and was happy to sell off a fair amount at a recent open day at a local school. 

GREEN:
My garden has enjoyed home made compost, worm and seaweed tea this month.
I have tried lemon balm tea and found it refreshing and soothing. Lemon balm is springing up everywhere in my veg garden!

GROW: 
This month I have sown sunflower seeds, various chili seeds, coriander, beans, butternut and courgettes. They are all doing well.
I planted some basil seedlings, aubergine and gem squash as well as bush cucumbers and black kale given to me by a friend. 

We have harvested herbs, lettuce, spinach, broad beans,  peas, gooseberries and leeks. 



Today I picked a beautiful red tomato from the bush that just sprung up out of nowhere and is my best ever tomato plant. 
There are loads more on this almost one meter tall plant!

CREATE:  
My daughter and I made about 60 cookie monster cupcakes for her 16th birthday party. 
I have been busy with my mosaic projects and got my first orders for some items.



I knitted up a slouch beanie for my youngest and a quick knit snood as a gift. 
I am now busy with a slouch beanie for my daughter and then my oldest son would like one too!
My pottery has finally started arriving in drips and drabs. 



I love the way my little jug turned out!

My youngest made a DVD rack at his technology class and my daughter held her monthly craft workshop where she did a few card making tutorials and taught the girls to make a gift box too.

I have also been having a bit of fun making cards again.

DISCOVER: 
I read an e book on Paleo breakfasts to try and get some new ideas for breakfast. I am not a breakfast person but there were some great alternatives to the usual carb breakfasts of cereal.
The kids and I have been enjoying reading A Passage to India and a wonderful living book on Egypt.
 I really need to get stuck into a novel for myself again too...

ENHANCE: 
We have had my sweet nephew here for a sleepover and babysitting. 
It has been great to have the little man around. 

A group of friends have gotten together and decided to set up a mini moving market. We will each bring our crafts or whatever we have to sell and set up a market in different venues as and when we can. We had the first one this month and another is due this weekend.

We have taken part in a book exchange and the international coin exchange again this month.

My daughter has taken on teaching a young boy to cook and bake.

ENJOY: 
Beach walks and braais, 
forest and mountain walks....



.....all good for the soul.

I had a dear friend visit from up country for just over a week and it was wonderful to spend time together and catch up as we haven't seen each other in a while.

Our daughter's 16th party was a wonderful event with loads of teens dressed in pjs and playing party games like musical bumps and pass the parcel. 
They enjoyed reliving childhood party games and fun.

We celebrated hubby's birthday this week too and enjoyed a home movie evening and rare treat of take out for dinner.



Thanks for the link up Christine.

Krafty Kow workshops

Last year our teen daughter was part of a craft group that met monthly. The girls enjoyed learning new craft skills and producing something hand made. Arts and crafts are part of her life....she enjoys them immensely and is always working on some project or other.

 She has been privileged to be asked to run the classes for the first term this year. 

She has successfully run two workshops and made herself some pocket money on the side.

 It is wonderful to see her be able to pass on her love for anything crafty to younger girls and to see her sense of satisfaction at being able to generate some income for herself. 

She has learned so much from these experiences......

teaching requires patience with younger ones who need extra help,

working out costs and profits and budgeting,

planning and organizing each workshop,

understanding that work is required to earn money

and

reaping much more than financial rewards!

In her first workshop, she taught the girls how to make pretty necklaces.....long necklaces with hearts and pearl beads as well as sparkly key rings with crystal and pearl beads.

 One of the mums told me her daughter loves to wear her necklace daily. Another mum enjoys the fact that it is easier to find her keys in her handbag now days!

The second workshop was a great success too. 

The girls made ribbon charm bracelets, the charms being the armour of God. 

Each girl got a little card with the relevant verses and a pretty pink bag to keep their bracelets in. 

They can literally put on the armour of God daily.

 One mum loved it so much, she ordered one right then and there for herself!

As the workshops have been successful, she has been given the opportunity to run more in the new school term. For the first one, she will show the girls how to make beautiful beaded cards for mothers day and then there is a surprise item they will be making for their mothers day gifts too! 

The second workshop will be a scrap booking workshop where the girls will make mini scrapbooks...these have already been sourced by my entrepreneurial daughter as well as some gorgeous embellishments.

She has dreamed of her own little business for some time and came up with the name "Krafty Kow" a little while back...spelled with K as her name begins with K and she loves crafts and cows! 

So if you would like her to run a Krafty Kow craft workshop for a group of 6 to 8 kids, please let us know!

Unfortunately she can only offer classes in the Cape.

Miss K's art and crafts

At art K has learned new techniques with watercolours. They experimented with wet paint on dry paint, wet on wet, dry brushing, layering, painting over wax and salt crystals,and using gladwrap and papertowel for different effects.

She so enjoyed that lesson!

They went on to practice their techniques and she painted this beautiful blue and white vase with bright flowers.

Even though the painting is smudged, I think the vase came out beautifully!

At home she painted a vase of colourful poppies as a gift for her aunt.

The colours are gorgeous.

The art teacher introduced the children to plein air painting. This is K's painting of the view from the field next to her art teachers home in a national park.

Next the children were introduced to botanicals. These are my personal favourites and one can see that she has an excellent teacher!

The little turtle was carefully observed and painted in detail.

They did a study of goldfish...

The goldfish are my absolute favourite painting!

(Sadly this photo does no justice to the painting.)

Next they moved onto working with acrylics.

They painted a still life with a twist. First one half of the painting was done and then the paper was turned upside down to paint the other half.

A fun colourful exercise!

At one of the monthly craft afternoons the girls learned how to mosaic. K made this colourful heart mosaic with pieces of mirror in the middle as a gift for her precious far away cousin.

At another craft afternoon the girls were taught how to make these cute doll key rings.

Colourful, fun and cute!

Pottery

The girls craft club has begun for the year. This time around, it was pottery. It seems the girls had a great time learning a new skill. They will be going back next month to finish off their items and I look forward to seeing the finished products.

Card Making wORKSHOP

This afternoon we had our first get together with our new craft group. The aim is to expose our girls to different crafts, using professionals,to teach them their skills. I love making cards and one of the girls had dropped out so I got special permission to join the group.

I was delighted to find a huge bag full of goodies at my place at the table! Cynthia from "Noo-Can-Do!" taught us how to make the most delightful cards. Each girls blank cards had been printed with a label on the back saying "handmade by ........" with their own names filled in.

I loved the pink handbag card, perfect to slip a gift voucher or some cash inside!

Please visit Cynthia's site www.noocando.com.