Cooking, Sewing and Painting mostly

Arden got back into cooking dinner this week.  Damien helped him to make slouvaki.

We went to a Chinese calligrapy exhibition;one-stroke calligraphy last weekend.  The exhibition and the philosophy were beautiful.  We're hoping to go to an ikebana demonstration that they are also doing, this week.  Arden and Gabriel both did some calligraphy printing whilst at the exhibition.  This is Arden's print.

 We did quite a bit of sewing this week.  Even Irving had a try.

Irving's stitching.

Arden's pyjamas.  We've pinned the legs together, and I overstitched the edges to strengthen them for him.

Gabriel's tie getting close to completion.

I started making a bag.

We finished Arden's block on the Bible Creation story.  Some paintings from this week.

Arden's painting.

My painting of humans being created.

Irving at work!

Arden's book put together.

We finished reading "Little House on the Prairie" this week, and Arden is all enthused for the next book, but I haven't got a copy of it yet.  I ordered a pattern for pants for Gabriel to sew, after he does a basic piece of sewing on the sewing machine, though he hasn't decided what to sew yet.  Willow had a meet and greet session for a youtube series that she's going to be in over the weekend, and finally we caught up on our meeting sessions with her.  We also all sat down to try a DVD learn to sing series this week (the name of it totally escapes me right now) but the techniques the guy was using reminded me of Michel Thomas.

Cheese

This week has seen Arden and I back into following the seasons; and in particular the moon- focusing on it's rising and it's setting.  As well as doing this, we've also been learning to make cheese, starting with ricotta.  I'm not sure I'll ever want shop ricotta again our home made versions were sooo good.

This is ricotta number one, made with milk and an extra cup of cream.  *Everyone's* favourite.

Ricotta number two was made with my buttermilk, but since it was fresh buttermilk and not soured, we needed to add lemon juice for the curdling.  We felt this was average and only as good as the shop ricotta.  (One that I would normally think was worth baking with spices.)

This is ricotta number 3 made with our souring milk, almost as good as the extra cream ricotta from day 1.

We only strained our ricotta for 10-15mins to keep the creaminess in.  Ricotta is *soooo* easy to make and so much tastier home made I'm not sure I'll ever buy it again.

Gabriel and I have been making progress on our blues guitar, and I'm starting to feel like I can play a bit.  Haven't asked Gabriel how he feels he's going, but hopefully we're both getting somewhere!?  Arden has got a few songs that he's becoming familiar with on  harmonica as well as his Gilbert and Sullivan selection and his own creations now.  He's also coming along nicely with violin lessons with Willow; they are now starting to work on learning his first song.  Willow is singing Iolanthe endlessly; and of course so is Irving.  I'm sure before long it will be driving me as mad as Pirates did last year!

Gabriel is working on a biology block currently and reading "A Leg to Stand On" by Oliver Sacks.  He's also reading "Romeo and Juliet" for English, and I was hoping to find a copy of "Iolanthe" to read.

Arden is starting on his first hand sewing project; a pair of pyjamas for summer, and Gabriel is starting to put together his tie.  Irving has fallen in love with Arden's gingham pyjamas that I made, so I'm hoping to start him some this afternoon.

Willow has been busy singing and writing, and we need to sit down and have a focused chat again with Damien.  I find it hard at this time of year, when everyone's in a production, as it takes up quite a bit of free time.  Gabriel and Arden both have small rolls in Iolanthe, so it's just Irving and I hanging out this year!

Today we are showing Class Dismissed (again!).
https://www.facebook.com/events/799938486817918/

Yesterday was Samhain for the Southern Hemisphere, so we went Pumpkin shopping and had pumpkin pie and carved a lantern, and shared mulled wine, was a very pleasant end to the week.

Pirates of Penzance

Hallo everyone!

 Wow, long time no see, huh? I keep meaning to post on here but forget... I've been too busy with Spinj's Space and Spinj's LEGO Blog.

 Well, I suppose mum told you all that I'm in a production of The Pirates of Penzance? *Looks through posts* Yup, she did. Well then, I suppose I'll give you an update on it! :D

 Rehearsals are lots of fun at the moment. We finished learning the songs about a month and a half ago - maybe with the exception of some of the principles and one of the chorus members, as they keep forgetting the words to songs - and we're now doing blocking. For those who don't know, blocking is where the director shows us where he wants us to stand, occasionally how we're supposed to react to stuff, etc.
 Dad and I went to a rehearsal yesterday, and at the end of it found out that the whole show had been completely blocked! Now we just need to run through the whole thing a few more times so that it runs smoothly.

 I also made up a hashtag for the show, but it's not official... yet. It's #PerthPirates2015, and I used it on G+ and Facebook. :P
 Here are some photos from the blocking:

 1. Rehearsing a scene from Act I

2. Rehearsing the beginning scene from Act II

 We're having loads of fun, it's so amazing to be in a production again. X3

 The show starts in... three weeks, I think. We're doing nine shows - the last time I was in something big we only did four. It's going to be tiring, but I reckon I'll survive! That said, we're doing three rehearsals a week at the moment... :P

 If you guys want to have regular updates on how it's going, sail over to the Gilbert and Sullivan FB page! :D The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of WA | Facebook
 There's also and event page with details about the show, so feel free to check it out!

 See y'all later!
 Willow (AKA Spinj The Ninja)

Camping to Cooking

I've been busily spending the morning trying to make arrangements for Willow to attend a homeschool camp.  At this stage we're just booking the first leg of the trip- to Adelaide and later when she's saved some more, we'll sort out the rest.  She's been wanting to go on a homeschool camp for quite some time, so she's pretty excited at the idea of it.  The camp is down near Mt Gambier in South Australia, as her cousins, who are also homeschooled live near there.

Willow's also has been busy explore lots of aspects of Ninjago and Lord of the Rings.  This is her singing "Pippin's Song", though my preference is for "Golum's Song", though the recording doesn't do justice to just how beautiful her voice sounds.  In relation to Ninjago, she's been making up her own fan stories, and some poems too.

Here is some of her other work for the week.

Progressing through geometry

Blanket making- this rug is being woven using a square loom.

Gabriel has been working on geography- we're looking at the Asian region.  This last week saw him doing some map drawing, and writing about New Zealand and the Maori people.

Gabriel's map of Oceania

Geometry from the last two weeks- spiral drawing

Arden has been busy working through his jump maths book doing some basic adding questions, which he's been loving.  He's also currently into Jamie Oliver and doing quite a bit of cooking.  This week we've made scones, and oat cakes together, making sure to soak our grains overnight.

Some Highlights from this Past Week

This past week has seen us reading 'The Golden Goose'.  Arden has liked this story much better than Rapunzel, and we only worked on two letters this week, so there was some extra time for modelling.  Since we were working on the letters 'b' and 'k' and Arden was curious how they sounded together, we decided to put some vowels in the middle, and made the word 'book'.

This is Arden's painting of the king from the Golden Goose- using the 'k' to make the king.

Willow has been experimenting with weaving on our new square loom, as part of her craft project for this term.

We've also been setting up an etsy account that she can sell some craft stuff on, as part of her main project this year.  Her project is focusing on creating her own small craft business.  She had her first market stall for this year, selling her brooches at City Farm for mothers day, and we're now looking at ways that she can sell online too, as well as other projects that she might like to try selling.

This is from Gabriel's geometry from last and this week, dividing a square into halves and thirds, and extending the pattern.

Gabriel has still been working on physics this week- we've been looking at light.  There's been some fun experiments with colour, and light and darkness this week.

Finally I came home tonight to find Arden playing his own special version of pinball.  Gabriel came up with the layout, and Arden added the flips-  I thought this was very cool!

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2025 

Willow didn't progress far with the craft business.  She ran the stall for a while, but people were interested in her things being cheap, and since she was using pure wool, it didn't progress far.  I'm not sure what happened with the etsy account now.

At this point she was still busking regularly- most likely flute, and she was pretty happy with how much money she made from that.  When she was older she would sing, and later she gave up busking, and after completing her Diploma in 2017, she worked in a cafe for a year.

Holiday Recovery

We're back into our usual routine this week, after lots of interesting activities and outings over the holidays- the first week was really relaxing and the second week was exhausting!

Willow and Gabriel spent varying amounts of time at City Farm helping out and doing activities for the school holiday program there.  Both had a fabulous time participating in woodwork, gardening, soap making, woodwork, amongst other things. 

This week saw Willow finishing her apron finally -it looks amazing, and is just in need of an iron to finish it off nicely. (She hand sewed this).

She's now on her way to planning some slippers to make.

We finally received our JUMP workbooks, which I'm quite pleased about as it will simplify doing maths- no more copying questions out for me!  We ordered a trial pack from grade 1-8, which offered one of each workbook.  Perfect for us really, and I've been really happy with the way they arrange maths.  Just need to pair it with the online teacher guides and we're all set.

Gabriel is still working on a block on ancient Egypt and we're reading Roger Lancellyn Green's book on Egyptian Myth.  Willow is doing a musical block, looking at different regions of the world and progressing into medieval music, it ties in quite nicely with her musicianship classes, where they are looking at studying different musical pieces and learning about composers and notation.

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2025

Willow changed from doing choral classes after our first year in Perth ( at this stage she was doing choral classes and suzuki flute), and shifted over the doing the Musicianship lessons which use the Kodaly method.  We started off with a local flute teacher, but that wasn't working well for us, so we starting doing remote lessons with the teacher we had in Adelaide, then we had communication issues based off the distance, so we returned to local lessons with another teacher.  We didn't have much success with local teachers TBH- this next one was rather temperamental, and so after a break, we moved onto private singing lessons- first with a jazz singer, and later with an Opera singer.  This was all over the course of about 5 years.  

Recent Work and Events

I visited the anthroposophical shop last week to stock up on work books, get a gift for someone and get modelling wax (largely this was due to Arden being co-operative whilst we were there). We are heading to Perth to live in a few weeks, and I have no idea if they have an anthroposophical shop there, so stocking up on basics before leaving seemed like a good move, plus I really like the lady the manages the shop at present, so it was nice to have a chat to her about our plans and homeschooling.

Gabriel has started on his next cross-stitch project. He designed his first one based around animals and crystals, and his second design was on knights and dragons. He'd like to sew both of them by the end of the year- at this stage it seems like a lot of work, but he's getting much more consistent with his sewing. He has started on the first part of his animal cushion, which consists of four panels with different images.

Willow is still working at her stuffed toy project, and at this stage is drawing lots of horses, her drawing has improved immensely over the last few weeks, and I think after a few more weeks of drawing it may be time for her to move onto planning how she will make her toy horse.

Willow had her final singing lesson tonight with her choir before we move, and has one final flute lesson and a flute concert this weekend. Her singing concert was a couple of weekends ago, and as usual was a success. This time Willow had a shared 'solo' part which was exciting for her. She loves singing on stage, and was really pleased to get the shared part in singing 'Maria' from 'The Sound of Music'.

Both kids have been doing a block on maths- Willow business maths and Gabriel fractions. But our usual bookwork, has fallen to the side this week, as the kids had a visit to Mt Gambier to see their cousins there. They had a fabulous time and have been talking non-stop about wrestling, basketball, frogs, computer games, and goats amongst other highlights of their stay.

There's quite a bit to do round here, with getting ready for the move, but gradually things are getting done. We've got a couple more things to sell, or throw out, and boxes are getting packed - so that's good, we need to find a home there and catch up with friends before we go. I've already contacted their homeschool community and on first impression they seem very friendly, but my plan at this stage is to have a rather low key term so that we can get to know Perth at a more relaxed pace.

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2025

So there was no anthroposophical shop here, but there was a nice shop associated with one of the schools at one point.  Eventually I accepted to get the resources here that I needed to order them online.  So many of these things that I like are difficult to get or do in Perth.  And whilst that door is closed off here- unless we travel to the South of WA, there are other interesting things that I enjoy here.  Perth IMO is a much more extroverted place, than Adelaide, and I have found it interesting that so many of the things that I miss from home, are quite easily found by visiting the small towns of the South.

Heading to  Southern Aurora Steiner shop.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/10/southern-aurora.html

Before vanishing, the shop became "The Honeyclock".

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/02/last-fortnight.html

We took a while to settle into friendships here, which I somewhat expected, I had a similar experience when we moved to Glasgow, but I found it much more challenging then, as Willow and Gabriel were so small and I didn't have a sense of how long that process could take.  With the move to Perth, I was quite patient about it, but Willow found it a bit tricky, and it was only when we started music classes at Cottage institute, do we start to find our sort of people.

Settling in to Perth, and starting at Cottage Institute with Willow.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/09/over-last-few-weeks-weve-been-out-and.html

Back to Life

Willow had her final opera performance Saturday, so we are settling back into our normal life here this week. Gabriel, Damien and I attended the opera on Saturday and had a fabulous time. It was amazing seeing Willow up infront of so many people, and so calm and centred throughout it. The story was lovely, and all the children did an amazing job.

This week we've been back to our normal school routine which has been nice. Willow is doing some national geography and history. Gabriel is doing some more maths, going over things we've already covered, as well as looking at money, and decimals in relation to money.

Story wise we're reading 'Playing Beatie Bow', which gives a good outlook on what Sydney was like in the 1800's.

Performance Time

Well Willow had her first Hansel and Gretel performance last night. She had a fabulous time, and has been enjoying the whole process. Over time the rehearsals have moved from the Opera centre at Netley, to the Grainger studios and finally at the Adelaide Festival theatre. Willow's part is in the choir at the end of the opera, and she is one of the Ballerinas. Last night she brought home the opera booklet, and it was quite exciting to see her name there in the list of children in the choir. Anyhow for the last 6weeks or so this has kept us very busy, so it's nice to have it coming to an end, though Willow is keen to do more of this sort of stuff.

Otherwise we've been discussing fertility, doing gardening around here and celebrating a blended Beltane/Halloween. It's a bit tricky to be totally seasonal in our Celebrations here, when the non-Seasonal event is pushed so strongly here.

I've also booked Willow and Gabriel in for a bow making course next year, sounds fabulous. There are so many interesting things being planned in the local homeschool community at present. I'm organising a group in the Fringe Parade again, someone's organising a night at the zoo, then there's a chance to go to see Wicked at the theatre.

We finally went to see the pandas at the Zoo on Thursday. We were having a house inspection, so decided to go out. The Zoo certainly is becoming a nicer place for animals though I'm not very keen on it, overall. The pandas were very cute. We also saw some of the animals being fed-the sealions, the penguins, and the otters. The otters were very funny- squawking at their zookeeper to hurry up with their dinner.

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2025

You can see the long bows that Willow and Gabriel made in this post here.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/04/onto-block-two-and-recent-activities.html

This was the beginning of Willow deciding that she wanted to be an opera singer, for the next seven years or so her primary interest was music and there were all sorts of musical things going on to help her achieve her year 12 goal of getting into a Diploma at WAAPA to study Classical Voice.

Willow being accepted at WAAPA.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-year-mild-summer-high-school.html

Performance with Oratario.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/05/april.html

Willow's take on Uni and studying Classical Voice.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/06/adventures-of-homeschool-graduate.html

September Holidays and Events

Well Spring is truly here, and this time the rain seems to be staying for a bit- which is nice. We've put our strawberries in our front yard this year, and they are much happier. Our back area seems to do ok during winter, but doesn't get enough sunlight during the summer. Plus with the strawberries out the front, our bulbs all up, and some extra herbs in the garden, it's starting to feel much cosier. And just for Arden, we put in a little path that loops around the bench!

Over the last month, many things have happened- the most uninteresting bit, was that I was sick last week. And one of the best bits, was that I now have a solution to giving Arden cod liver oil. I bought some of the gummy fish, which he likes, and also the butter oil with CLO, which he also likes- but loves with a bit of honey. So it's nice to have that sorted out.

We also went away-down south east. We visited friends in Kalangadoo, family near Mt Gambier, and friend and family in Melbourne. Along the way we drove along the Great Ocean Rd, which was stunning! and visited the National Gallery of Victoria to see the European Masters Exhibition. Sadly it all ended a bit too soon, we were hoping to see some of Ballarat, but Willow got a part in the state opera's Hansel and Gretel, so we had to leave Ballarat very early for her to get to her rehearsal.

Singing in the Heat

Summer has returned here with a vengeance, and deserted us again. And I hope it will stay in the pleasant range of weather for a while, rather than being excessively hot again. It would be even better if it could be a pleasant summer this year. Had enough after 46degrees earlier in the year.

So Willow and Gabriel had their choir singing in the Pageant again this year, right in the middle of the heat. Fortunately it wasn't over 40 and so not too awful. Arden and I had seats in the VIP stand, and a great view of the pageant. We were quite lucky. Damien's boss offered them to us the night before the pageant.

There was a brief respite from the heat when we caught up with our Waldorf co-op. One of the mum's organise making dragonflies out of beads it was a great activity. Everyone here has been keen to do more craft activities with beads now.

Returning

It's been a very long time since I've posted on this blog, but since I'm now starting another blog on making money, I decided to reconnect to this one and make more of an effort.

We moved house and are now living on top of a hill! But still very near to Adelaide. The move was a bit mad, but it has been worth it- living in North Adelaide is much more community orientated than Unley. It has been nice to find somewhere to live in Adelaide, that I like, since our return from Europe. I had been struggling a bit to appreciate the place since returning. And recently another market has opened, the community market at Grange is lovely, and a great place to spend this time of the year at, if one heads to the beach too.


We've had quite a busy year with our homeschooling activities, and amazingly it's heading towards the end. We've nearly finished class 4 and class 2. Our craft activities have been all quite successful. We all made fabulous wooden swords, and I am feeling much more confident in our ability to do woodcarving. Willow has nearly finished knitting one sock (with second to follow next year). Hopefully she may finish the sock now rather than reading my post! ;) But perhaps she's too busy giggling. So in the course of Willow knitting socks, I also have learnt to knit socks and am currently up to my third pair- one for each child.

Gabriel learnt to purl this year, and next year will see his first real knitting project. Quite an exciting step forward! Our final selection of craft for the year is cross stitch, which is being enjoyed by all presently.

Activity wise has seen lots of interesting things happen here. We've started our own Waldorf Co-op, which meets fortnightly, and is looking for a few more people but establishing itself gradually. Willow went for a sail on the One and All, which was fabulous apparently and took a year to occur. It was a beautiful mild day for it, which was great considering the last cancellation was due to excessively hot weather. Willow and Gabriel can both swim reasonably well now, after 6months worth of lessons with Ken Richter, who is an amazing swimming teacher and currently everyone is back to Young Adelaide Voices for singing- with the Pageant coming up soon. There is not quite as much excitement as last year about the Pageant singing performance, but everyone is still looking forward to it.





We also headed to Melbourne for a holiday and had a great time. Our first holiday away since returning to Adelaide. We flew with Tiger airways and whilst the flight was fine, the terminus in Melbourne was quite amusing. It was basically a gigantic padlocked carport. Very odd indeed. We had a few eating destinations requested by the kids, which we headed to. One was Wagamama, we ate there regularly in Glasgow, and Fifteen. The guys had been watching Jamie at Home and decided it would be good to go to his restaurant in Australia. We all had a bar meal. It was really good, and has inspired Willow and Gabriel with their cooking.

And now it looks like Summer is here, so things are starting to wind down and yet get busier at the same time. Lots of fun end of year Christmassy things to happen!

End of Year

Well we've finished the majority of our homeschool activities now for this year, except for a couple of craft things Willow needs to finish. It feels good to be done! We finished highland dancing and choir last week, and next term will be much quieter- we're taking it easier with the heat. And we've finally finished reading The NeverEnding Story- don't let the movie put you off, the book is amazing.

Arden is now one, amazingly enough, and now share's his birthday with two friends. One turns 36 and the other is now around 11 days old.

Gabriel made a beautiful Steiner style doll for his final class 1 craft project for the year.

And now it seems to be party season- birthdays, Christmas, solstice, etc,etc.

What's Been On

Well, it seems like it's about time I sit down and do another post on here.

We are coming to the end of our organised school year, and it's such a relief to be nearly done, particularly this last term with all these extra things we're currently doing. At present we're spending Tuesdays at Burnside pool, Thursdays at choir and Fridays at Highland dancing. Everyone has been enjoying it alot, but it is rather tiring with all these extra activities to do!

The choir sang in the lead up to the Christmas Pageant, and they did a marvellous job. All the children deal with it so confidently, it's nice to seem them so self assured.

Last weekend we attend the Alliance Francaise's French festival. I must admit it was a little lacking compared to a couple of years ago, but the music was still good this time. I particularly enjoyed Zaza Fournier. The food was rather lacking this year, as was the variety of beers according to Damien.

Activities

We've been very active round here the last week with all sorts being planned and happening round here.

Willow and Gabriel's cousin Dale came for a sleepover last week, so there was much excitement and late night chatting for that. Whilst that was going on I managed to finish making Gabriel's felt slippers, and I was really happy with them, since it was my first try. Willow wants a pair now too.

We celebrated the Spring Equinox last night with a lovely dinner, and a candle making ceremony. We had collected and pressed flowers for it months ago which we pressed into the wax. The candles were melted in hot water for a minute, the flowers were pressed in, and the candles were put back in the hot water again. We're probably in need of practise to get a really nice finish, but we were satisfied with our results.

This week there are some interesting things to try, so we've booked in for the Butterfly Plants session at the Botanic Gardens, and the Art Gallery is doing a workshop on Screen printing, so that should be good too. We were thinking of trying Cirkids this term, but everyone now is keen to try Young Adelaide Voices, so we're off to their trial evening before making a decision. Willow would like to try horse riding, but that may have to wait til next year, if we do the singing. And finally we're all planning to give Scottish dancing another try, we really enjoyed it before, but I was anaemic for part of Arden's pregnancy, so we only did it for a little while before stopping. So many things to do!

Plus presently we've been weaving and learning about fabric's and making fabrics, and clothes, in our current homeschooling activities. The weaving projects are quite simple at this stage, and for our first sewing project we're going to handsew Willow a pair of pyjamas- still early days in the pattern but it should be very interesting!

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2025

This was the beginning of our singing journey with Willow!  It's so interesting to look back at it, and feel satisfied that we achieved her goals for her education with performance.

Willow did  a few Gilbert and Sullivan performances over the years.

Pirates of Penzance
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2015/05/pirates-of-penzance.html

Iolanthe.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2016/06/iolanthe-has-take-over.html

She also learnt to play violin and flute, did a lot of musical busking, learnt a variety of dancing styles- ballroom, swing, rockabilly, rock and roll.  

Instead of completing year 12- she studied a Diploma in Music industry (classical voice) at WAAPA-the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.  There's a small discussion on her acceptance into tertiary education here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/02/