Two cakes and a birthday

Nine Years Old. Oh my!! My little girl is nine. Doesn't she look excited - and happy?!

It's not easy to pull the wool over Jemimah's eyes. She was really only a little dot when she realised that if she engineered things so as to celebrate her birthday in Melbourne on the weekend nearest to her birthday, she was likely to manage to have two cakes - one then and one on the actual day.

And so it was this year.

Two cakes. As usual.

There is nothing exciting about living in the ruins of our once peaceful home. Jemimah is still coming to terms with the loss of many of her possessions, and indeed of much of life as she knew it. She is not the only child to have difficulty sleeping, and behavioural issues are evident amongst many of her friends. No one can concentrate, and some are quite fearful.

Birthdays need celebrating when you're nine though, don't they, and even though we were not up to having a party and the whole shebang, everybody has gone out of their way to make Jemimah's ninth birthday extra special.

She started celebrating on Friday night with take-away from our favourite Thai Restaurant with the Princess Pea and her family. There were pressies, potato crisps, favourite Thai dishes and lots and lots of attention for the Birthday Girl. Things were off to a good start.

Princess Pea slept over on Friday night. That was pretty fun also, as was the ice-skating at Docklands the next day. Well, fun, and funny too, watching two tweens on ice for the very first time.

My mum - we call her Marga - excelled herself on Sunday with a wonderful Dolly Varden cake, as she had done for me at around the same age. (Apparently I wouldn't let anybody cut mine, and it was thrown away much the worse for wear several weeks later. Jemimah was not so foolish.) It was delicious, as well as being especially elegant. She was Dolly Varden, after all.

Have you seen my little girl? She doesn’t wear a bonnet.
She’s got a monstrous flip-flop hat with cherry ribbons on it.
She dresses in bed furniture just like a flower garden
A blowin’ and a growin’ and they call it Dolly Varden.

Alfred Lee 1872

Jemimah and her Princess girlfriends decorated her other cake. It was beautiful, as only a child-decorated cake can be. Totally OTT. Now this is how a cake should be - when you're nine, and dieting is still years and years away. Take a look at their creation. Oh my!! Totally beautiful, isn't it?

Last night we had a BBQ with family friends. The kids played, danced to ABBA, and decorated cakes. The adults discussed the flood. And insurance policies. And what to do about mould. As you do.

It was fun.

It was all about Jemimah. Which is right and proper, when you're nine, and it's your birthday.

This morning we cleaned up.

I miss my dishwasher.

Books, glorious books

It's funny to say we've had lots of free time recently, but it's kinda true. Even though we've been working hard pulling apart and washing and disinfecting and putting back together what's left of our peaceful home, we're not doing paid work, and we're only half doing school, and Jemimah's extra-curricular activities are not happening, and we don't have home-group, and we don't have any evening meetings. Which is all very strange. We don't even have a telly to fill the gap.

Which means that I've had time for some good stuff.

Like reading.

I started off with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which I actually read just after Christmas. Reviewers invariably compare this heartwarming book about books written in letter form with Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road, so that's the book I read and adored next. This segued beautifully with that novel's sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street in which Helene finally visits Charing Cross Road. Almost as good, this one. I've written before of my love for this genre of literature. Does anybody have any suggestions for others like them?

From here I moved into the fantastic world of Haruki Murakami. I was first introduced to this popular Japanese author last year with his surreal novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, about, you guessed it - a hunt for a sheep. I loved the peaceful Japaneseness of this book, and was keen to read more like it. My first of Murakumi's novels for this year was Norwegian Wood, a story of teenage love and loss. It was this book that made Murakumi a household name throughout Japan, and it has recently been made into a movie. I would like to see it if it is ever released with English subtitles.



I followed up with another Murakami book, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. This bizarre novel is actually two stores running together, one chapter following the next. The two stories sort of converge and merge with each other. Imagine a book of computers and Bob Dylan and Beer and dream-reading and Whiskey-drinking and unicorns and worlds where people live separated from their shadows and wonderful food and mad scientists and you get the idea. I really like these strange dream-like novels.

My new Kindle arrived in those first terrible days after the flood. I've loaded it up with lots of great stuff, but the only book that I've completed so far is Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. This Russian classic is not a comfortable book to read. It's a story full of guilt and moral agonies, and more than once I had to put it aside for something 'nicer', but it is one of those books that one is glad to have finished, and I feel really satisfied that I have done so.

My next book was much easier - Aussie Author, Charlotte Wood's ironically titled The Submerged Cathedral. This gentle book is a heartbreaking story of sisterly love and manipulation, but also of enduring love and faith. It is an easy read - I finished it in a couple of hours, and I was sad when I reached the end of the story - even though there was only sort of a happy ending.

Finally, two non-fiction books - Rob Brook's memoir, Drawn from the Heart was a must read. This illustrator is the creator of the images in so many of my favourite children's books - The Bunyip of Berkeleys Creek, Aranea, and John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat by Jenny Wagner; as well as Fox with Margaret Wild. Brook's memoir is almost a picture book in it's own right, richly illustrated as it is with so many of this talented man's beautiful pictures, but Ron's battle with depression means that his life hasn't been an easy one, and he is not afraid to tell it as it is - warts and all - in this tale of life. This made it an difficult book to read, but I left it with a great respect for this man and an admiration for what he has done. It is a must read for lover's of his art.

The Little Bookroom is the oldest children’s bookstore in the world, and it is just down the road from our Northcote home!! Aren't I lucky?!! I've been buying lovely books from here for over 30 years. My final book - Little Bookroom: Fifty Years With Children's Books by Jeff Prentice is the story of this lovely shop and of its founder, Albert Ullin, who for over thirty years was an influential figure in the Australian children's publishing world. I recommend it as well.

I was going to update you with what else we've been doing - I've finished Ripple, and begun a lovely knitted blanket with Jemimah, but I think these has better wait for a post of their own.

I'll stop here. I haven't told you the myriad of titles Jemimah and I have read, but our current bedtime cuddle story is The Children of Green Knowe. I love this book, and we're finding it impossible not to sneak in an extra few pages most nights. We're also adoring Lassie Come-Home, Charlotte Yonge's A Book of Golden Deeds is surprisingly exciting, with its tales of battle and brave men.

I'm currently reading R. C. Sproul Jr.'s Believing God: 12 Biblical Promises Christians Struggle to Accept. I'm also looking for a new novel or three. What do you recommend?

PS Anyone else sad that Borders and A&R are in trouble? Coz I am.

Be My Valentine

Hello.

These flowers are for you. Think of them as a belated Valentine's Day gift. From me to you.

They're my way of saying thanks for hanging in there with me. Thank you for your love and your care and your prayers.

Thank you for putting up with me.

Thank you for your lovely emails. And comments. And Facebook messages. And texts.

Thank you for not being cross with me for not answering. I want to, believe me, but I just don't know what to say.

Generally, the words bubble up out of me. Now, I spend ages staring at my dashboard. I know what I want to write, I just don't seem able to get my thoughts into print. I think I'm trying too hard.

I value every word that you say. Your comments mean so much to me. Thank you for bothering to leave them.

That's why I'm giving you these red roses from what remains of our garden.

I hope you like them.

Thank you again, my dear friends.

Homeschooling through a disaster

In early September 2005, during the first terrible days after Hurricane Katrina, Ambleside Online's Advisory member, Donna-Jean Breckenridge, posted this on the AO Yahoo Group message board:

Hurricane Katrina has left many thousands of children without schools this coming school year. This is just one aspect of this crisis, but it is one with enormous implications. We know there are churches in Texas and perhaps elsewhere that are setting up ministries to help evacuees begin the process of homeschooling to help these displaced families get through this crisis.

At times like this, we are even more thankful for our Ambleside Online curriculum, our labor of love, which is available for free online. If you know of a church or an organization in the Gulf area or its environs that is trying to help evacuated families get set up to educate their children, please make sure they are aware of this free resource.

For those in serious crisis mode, though, we just put together another plan- this one *specifically* in response to Katrina. Please look at AO-Help.

This is a free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they've lost in a disaster, and also for churches and other groups needing to set up temporary schools for children who may not have been homeschooled. All texts and teaching materials needed to implement this plan are free online. The only things you need are access to a computer and printer, paper and pencil. And we do know that many people won't even have that much- but we had to do something. We hope to get the word out to those who need it.

We know that there are more important things than missed schooling during a crisis. But sometimes in the midst of disasters, creating a small oasis of normalcy and continuity is very important. In the midst of such a disaster, grown-ups with many urgent details on their minds cannot always focus on thinking up things for children to do, and it is our prayer that this free resource will fill a needed niche. It may not be enough, but we do what we can.

When I began researching Ambleside Online back in early 2006, the Crisis Curriculum was right there on the front page. I remember reading it and trying to imagine how anybody could even think about homeschooling when they had lost all they had. How could they even start to recreate their lives?! I admired them so much, and yet I couldn't relate at all. Not even a tiny bit. Jemimah was only four years old. Grade Prep was still two years away and I was only just exploring the possibility that I might, just might, educate her at home. The idea that I would ever go through a natural disaster of my own was just unimaginable .

It was with a wry smile that I searched for this very same curriculum a few short days ago. The floods that decimated our town, taking with it our home and business and those of most of our friends and neighbours had already resulted in Jemimah having an unscheduled three week break from school - and from us, and just like Donna-Jean suggested above, she was desperately in need of a small oasis of normalcy and continuity. We all were.

Our situation was in many ways quite different from the one that the AO Advisory designed their Crisis Curriculum around. Their curriculum was written for families who have lost everything. We have lost a great percentage of our possessions, but Jemimah's school books, in the main, are not amongst them. We still have our computer too, and in that way we could have continued much as normal. Except that I didn't have the head-space. With so much going on, even normal activities of every day life take incredible effort. Anything extraneous was just ignored. The statement of Donna-Jean's that resonated really powerfully with me though as I read through the introduction to the Crisis Curriculum was this one:

The most important things to do during a disaster are simple things that bring the family together -- special times that build memories and connections. This includes things like singing hymns, folksongs, reading poetry, playing silly but educational games like Mad Libs, telling stories to each other, reading and retelling the old favorites like The Little Red Hen, The Gingerbread Man, and doing silly things like dancing together, playing hide the thimble, and ring around the rosie.

I can relate. It was around this idea of creating special family memories and connections to draw us together as a family that I managed to limp back into homeschooling Jemimah in the first few days of last week. It was, to be honest, mighty hard. Jemimah, distractable at the best of times, had a concentration span of about zero seconds. I had a tolerance limit of about the same length. We had a number of melt-downs over the silliest of things, but I kept reminding myself that the most important aim was to create memories, and so we also spent lots of time cuddling on the (water-damaged) sofa and reading stories together. We read E. L. Konigsburg's most excellent book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Then we read Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright. Then the extremely strange Sophie's Misfortunes. (I'll tell you about this book some time. In the mean time, consider yourself forewarned. Caveat Emptor!) We travelled together as a family to inspect the swollen Murray River and to eat good food. We baked bread, and we began replanting the vegie garden - Jemimah's favourites, cucumber and tomatoes, as well as lettuces and silverbeet. We started knitting a blanket together. We played Monopoly and did jigsaws. We picked bunched of flowers and arranged them on whatever surfaces we could find. We sang songs - psalms for comfort, folksongs for fun, and ABBA just because. We laughed together. And yes, we cried too. But mostly I tried to do what Donna-Jean said I should do. I tried to create some good memories for my daughter. I tried to let her know that even though she has lost so much, she is loved very, very much more. She still has her family, and she still has her friends. God is in control - even when we are not. That's what I tried to teach her.

That's what we will continue to do in coming weeks as we attempt to rebuild our lives. Jemimah came home to stay with us last Tuesday, and on Thursday we slept for the first time in our own home. Now we're working on getting Daddy back to work. That might take a few more weeks, but we're well on the way. The supermarket is open in town. So is the service station and both pubs. The local government school opened on time for the first day of term; the Catholic school should be up and running in a couple more weeks. Those kids, too, will soon be back into their normal routine.

Life in our peaceful town may never be quite the same as it was before it was inundated with the waters of January 14th, but we will create a new normal. Things are already starting to get better. We have forged new friendships and strengthened old ones. We have seen evidence of the Christian love of our church family in a myriad practical ways.

We will be better people after this flood. Stronger and more resilient. The flood has brought us closer together as a family as well. We have relied on each other as never before. More so, we've placed our needs upon God. That's what I'm remembering as I homeschool my daughter. I want her to remember that this flood brought us together. It didn't destroy us. If she gets a bit behind in maths and French then who cares? We don't.

The (water) closet reader

I have not lived in share accommodation since the squats of university days, but I must say that our time sharing a house with other flood affected individuals over the past couple of weeks bears little resemblance to my memories of those days in squalid Uni terrace houses.

There have been up to twelve of us staying with our amazingly wonderful and long suffering friends about 15 minutes out of town. We're a disparate lot, ranging in age from 22-92. There is the student, the farmer, the teacher, the grandmother, the brother, the doctor, the girlfriend, the nurse, the computer expert and more. Some of us are victims; others are volunteers. All of us have been deeply affected by the devastation that affected our peaceful country town only a couple of short weeks ago.

We don't spend much time together. Most of us are up and about pretty early each morning. The farmers are busy repairing flood damaged fences and treating fly-blown stock. They have ruined crops to strip and damaged machinery to repair. The townies are busy ripping up carpets and floor boards, washing water damaged clothes and disinfecting floors and walls. When we do see each other emotions run high. Some days are good; some are terrible. We tready-tready carefully with each other, and try hard not to jump down each other's throats.

When you have so many people living so closely together under these emotionally fraught conditions, personality traits and habits - good and bad - are heightened. One of us is exceptionally polite, and I have been taken to task a number of times for my sloppy etiquette and poor posture. Some of us are organised; others less so. Some of us leave the bathroom in a neat condition; others...um...don't.

One of us is a closet bathroom reader. Who can it be? Is it the teacher? The farmer? The student? What I do know is that our secret reader is a man.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with reading in the loo. We have a bookshelf in the ensuite bathroom of our peaceful home, and I often dip into the latest Asian art magazine or literary journal. Our mystery reader reads man-lit. Now this is a genre that I know nothing about, but I must say I have been really enjoying my foray into books-that-blokes-read each time I visit the little room in our home away from home.

His first choice was Dicky Bird's autobiography. Dicky Bird, I now know is an incredibly well known and much loved cricket umpire. I don't like cricket, and I had never heard of Mr Bird, although he did look vaguely familiar in his cover pic. Anyhow, it turns out that he happens to be a strong Christian and he had a particular interesting life. He also happens to be an excellent writer. Thanks to my closet reader I know that. I enjoyed his first literature selection very much.

Barry Dickins', What the Dickins! A symposium of pieces from the low life, was his next choice. Barry is an Australian author, artist and playwright, although the only thing of his that I'd ever heard of before discovering this book in the loo, was his play, Remember Ronald Ryan, which won him the Victorian Premier's Literary Award back in 1995. What the Dickins is a real Aussie bloke's book. It is very amusing and very well written. Whodathunk man-lit could be so much fun?

There was a new offering in the bathroom this morning. Something about things white men hate. I can't remember the title, but it looks awful. Then again, so did Dicky Bird and What the Dickins, and they were actually quite good. I'll give it a go. My closet reader hasn't let me down yet.

We're hoping that we'll shortly be able to move back into our own home, and I can't say I'll be too sad about that. Being with friends has been a great blessing, but there's something special about your own space, isn't there? Even if it is nothing like the peaceful home we knew and loved.

I'll looking forward to sleeping in my own room and listening to my own music. I'm looking forward to having Jemimah back where she belongs. I'm looking forward to cooking my own meals and getting back into some serious crochet. I'm looking forward to having broadband Internet and being able to read my email and keep up with your lives through your blogs. I'm looking forward to having my own books back.

I'll miss my (water) closet reader though. I've enjoyed his book choices and my foray into man-lit. It's been fun. I can't say that I'm a convert, but my introduction into the world of books-that-blokes-read has been quite an eye-opening experience. Thanks, Secret Reader. These terrible days have been the nicer for knowing you.