Sunny Summer Days

Ah, the end of another week! We've been indulging ourselves with late nights on balmy evenings, old movies, board games, visiting friends, wonderful new books from the library, trying new recipes, painting the house and gardening. For a family who's on 'vacation at home', we've squeezed a lot in, but still feel so refreshed.

Actually, today we took a trip a couple of hours north to meet some farming friends. They arranged especially to have their eldest son come along with his wife ... and his wife is a friend of mine that I first met at the age of 8. How absolutely delightful to be reacquainted again!

We enjoyed a lovely lunch and tried to catch up on a brief history of our 20 year 'gap' from seeing each other. Her young daughter then needed to go home for a nap, and that seemed like good idea as the heat peeked for the day. We stayed on and chatted with our friends a few more hours about so many topics close to my heart, one being to live as frugally and self-sufficient as possible (they do have a farm and beautiful vegie garden, but drought and now a locust plague, along with a damaged wheat crop from excessive rain, has made their life very hard).

We also had a long talk about how to give our children the best opportunities to find their natural skills, especially one that would lead to a fulfilling vocation. This is moreso something we're mindful of with Maestro, as he is growing so quickly and still doesn't know where he's real interests lie. Hubby and I know some of his strengths with regard to subjects we've already covered in homeschooling, but we're not sure we've seen any particular subject/skill really 'grab' his attention.

I wonder if some of the natural enquiring a child does about a vocation gets more than a little battered when they're told that they are not old enough to help yet. There was a stage when Maestro really wanted to help at the library. He knew how the book categorising worked, and he wanted to be a helper at returning all the books to the shelves. However, he was told he had to be 16 and have a formal letter provided to him saying that he was doing work experience. That certainly squashed his enthusiasm. Mariposa is going through the same dilemma, as she'd love to help at a pet store to feed the animals and clean their cages.

We also want both children to experience more woodworking, metalworking, mechanical repairs and the like. I know hubby and I will have to talk this over many more times, hopefully being led to some opportunities that will be doors to both of our children.


Ah well! .. and look at where this post has led me to thinking instead of just summarising our week's activities, lol!!

One hands-on activity that is happening here is painting. Hubby started the task of painting all the outside windows. Wow, what a mammoth job! Of course, hubby's diligence means that time is being taken to do it properly. I can see a few more weekends will be needed before we're finished, though.


I'll share a couple more of our happenings in some future posts. It's getting very late now and I need my beauty sleep (smiles!)