Very quiet here · Friday August 3, 2007 by Ann
It is very quiet here, with the girls attending The Big Green Gathering and David working most evenings and spending time with friends.
Right now David is devouring his latest copy of White Dwarf so we won’t see him for a while!
So Tom and I are taking the opportunity to declutter-today we’ll be tackling the cupboard under the stairs, which is full to over flowing at the moment.
Apart from that I have a lot more chance for peaceful reading and listening to our choice in music (though I must confess to having the recordings of the two tracks by Lucy’s group included in my play list-it is nice to hear her voice around the house, even when she is not here) Actually, we have found that our choices in music have been changed as much by listening to the tracks the children play (loudly from three different directions in the house usually!) as they have taken to listening to some of our musical choices.
I’ve also started Christmas shopping! Now that is sad! Last year we were lucky enough to come into a lump sum, which enabled us to by a laptop for each of the children once we had added some savings to it. The laptops have revolutionised the lives of the children, especially for Lucy and I credit it with making such a difference to the improvements with her reading and spelling. However having had a laptop each at the end of October, the children knew there was no money left really for any big present for Christmas-but declared themselves happy with the situation.
But I had such fun finding lots of gifts for them to open on Christmas day that I had found in charity shops, on Ebay and on Amazon’s new/used selections.
I found several copies of different musicals-on DVD or video for Lucy and a copy of a Eva Cassidy DVD and some Jazz ladies greats on CD.
Alice had a Bob Marley CD, a couple of Jane Austen DVDs and a didgeridoo!!
And I was very pleased to obtain all eight volumes of a Warhammer series of books very very cheaply indeed and three hardly used PC games off Freecycle for David.
That they knew that they had all been obtained second hand didn’t matter at all to the children, we still had a lot of fun on Christmas Day! Our family has been slowly moving towards being more conservation minded, with saving energy, recycling and freecycling and not buying new where at all possible-so this has fitted in well with our ideals right now. This was further underlined when we watched An Inconvenient Truth in the Groovy Movie Solar Cinema whilst we were at HesFes.
So yesterday I was very pleased when i managed to get a PC war strategy game for David, and a CD and DVD of Bob Marley for Alice-both off Ebay and I am waiting to see if my bid for five Jane Austen novels is successful-having watched all the DVDs Alice now wants to read the books. I’m also watching the price on a CD of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ for Lucy.
But if you know my children-don’t tell them any details!
I was also very happy to receive a phone call from Iris Harrison yesterday. Iris and her lovely husband Geoff have helped to found a new charity for young people with dyslexia or other literacy based SEN, to supply software for computers that will make all the difference to helping youngsters reach their potential. Speaks Volumes now has it’s charity number and some funding has been realised. They have agreed to apply to the fund to buy Alice the software she needs for her computer. They will be supplying the latest voice recognition software, so that she will be able to write her essays and assignments for whatever OU course she decides to start, by speaking into the pc and it will write it for her.
Geoff is an absolute wizz and expert on all types of this sort of technology for dyslexics-born out of his own need to use it.
Geoff will train Alice initially and then Alice will use it herself, but also will be able to help to train others and also to potentially be a spokesperson for the charity in the future. We are all very excited about this opportunity-both to get the software that Alice and Lucy need but also to be in a position to help other people. It will be fascinating to be involved as this charity grows and accesses more funding-applications to some more sources of funding have been made.
We’ll be going over to Geoff and Iris’s home next week for dinner one evening to discuss all this further and for Alice to meet some of the trustees and other people involved with the charity that Lucy, Tom and I have already met, when Alice was away sailing last summer.
Update on decluttering! Cupboard under the stairs now sorted! Several bags of things have gone off to the charity shop-where they were meant to go in the first place and there is now proper storage in that cupbard, to take the main body of excess items that we get in bulk from Suma (which we do in partnership with some other HE families to make up a minimum order)
And I have also found space for the items which belong to our home ed group, which up until now have been stored in boxes in a variety of places throughout the house. Now I’ll be able to access everything quickly when we are going to/setting up a meeting.
;o)
Pleased with myself now.
