Still waiting...

No news yet about the job, and its doing my head in slightly. I'm finding it very hard to focus on other things and am trying not to plan too much in case I get called in for the induction days.

So, what have I managed to get done?

The dreaded tax return

Harvesting of blackcurrants

(they are now waiting in the freezer to be transformed into blackcurrant vodka!)

Creation of 'chubby bunny'

(a present for a nearly due baby)

I also managed an outing to the pub (hooray!) while A was on a sleepover on Friday night.

Other than that we seem to have been meandering along doing very little, a bit of maths to keep on top of things for A, but lots of late nights and late mornings. A is loving it and keeps reminding me that this is her summer holiday because she is now a 'school kid'. I'm feeling a bit weird about it. I don't like the feeling of not achieving anything, that constant feeling of 'I should be doing something...' I don't seem able to move ahead until I know about the job.

At the end of this week we have a visitor arriving - A's friend from Glespin is coming to stay for a week - unbelievable excitedness from both girls :-) I think they have been planning and scheming on facebook - I wonder what I'm in for!!

Are you impressed??

With my first attempt at knitting - the fabulous dishcloth!!


Probably not!! But I am quite impressed with myself. Off to get some wool tomorrow and will attempt some stripy arm warmers next.

Bit of a stressful day today, just one of those days where I seriously doubt myself.

A wanted a music lesson, which I was quite happy to go along with, thinking it would be lovely - she is very interested in music and already seems to have a good idea of what she's doing. Well, it ended with her in tears and me walking out of the room saying 'we need to get a proper music teacher for you because I'm obviously no good'.

We did discuss things once we'd both calmed down, and continued a bit with what we'd been looking at, but I'm really at a loss as to why we cant seem to work together on this subject. Maybe its my attitude, I did study music for several years as a child/teenager, so maybe I make assumptions about how easy or difficult things are, but we don't seem to have that problem with other subjects.

Maybe its just A's resistance to learning the theoretical side of music, even though she says she wants to. She spends a lot of time on her keyboard, but is used to making up tunes herself, and playing by ear. Having to sit down and read music is not as much fun - and doesn't feel so creative I suppose. I think I'll have to have a look around for some teaching resources that are more fun and interesting to help us. I really want to encourage her in this area as I think she is naturally quite musically talented, and learning the 'mechanics' of music could be very helpful in the longrun, but today just felt like I was doing it all wrong and putting her off.

Maths and English coming along nicely though. She seems to like the Letts workbooks (we're using the age 8-9 at the moment). Maths is more of a struggle, but she gets there in the end. I'm very impressed with her English, we did a dictation test the other day - I just took a passage out of one of our books - and her spelling and handwriting were really good. Her lack of enthusiasm about reading books obviously isn't holding her back.

Some culture

Last night my Mum took us to the theatre to see Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes . A very good production I thought, with fantastic use of the set. I did find the two main characters quite irritating at times, not sure whether this was down to them being young boys played by grown men, the forced American accents, or just the characters themselves. But there was a lovely sinister atmosphere evoked by the carnival scenes and characters, which both A and myself enjoyed very much. In fact I think I liked the evil 'Mr Dark' a little bit too much (but thats always been my problem). In essence though it was a very moral tale about joy and love overcoming evil.
I wondered whether A might be affected by the disturbing tone, some bits were very dark, and I know a lot of kids might end up having nightmares after that sort of thing, but she seems to take it all in her stride - not bothered a bit.

Today I learned to knit! Not sure how I got to the age of 35 without having achieved this, but I sat down today with my Mum and actually listened to her explain it to me, and am currently creating a dishcloth (woo hoo!!). I have great ambitions in this area, but the wise woman (Mum) tells me I must go slowly, otherwise I'll just put myself off by trying something too complicated. So its dishcloths for the time being. A, of course, has been able to knit for a couple of years at least.