Here's our schedule. Monday - Horse-riding for 8yo dd - Swimming lessons for 3yo (4 in two weeks) dd Tuesday - Violin for 8yo dd Wednesday - Pottery/therapy with occupational therapist for 8yo dd (in a group of 4) - Swimming lessons for 3yo dd - Catechism for 8yo dd Thursday - History Club / Science Club - we rotate this with two other families and do the SOTW activities and Sonlight "Discover and Do" experiments together. We did have each once a week, but one of the other family's competitive gymnastics practice has made it harder to get together. We are moving through SOTW slower than I'd have liked (we're half way through book 2 after 2.5 years), but the advantage is that the children benefit from getting a lesson from someone else and from the mom's diverse crafting skills for the activity preparations. We're doing a literature based South African history study in the alternative weeks. For science I regard the Science Club afternoons as an "extra". Both girls join in. - Kindermusik for 3yo dd. Saturday 8yo dd has an hour horse-riding lesson, but spends the whole morning mucking about at the stables. She is horse-mad and hanging out with the other girls there is the highlight of her week. They get put to work looking after the horses, so its good for her!

I remember my mother for her joyousness, unconditional love for my sisters and I, unwaivering support, wisdom, independence, creativity, fantastic sense of humour, loyalty to her family and friends and absolutely living by the maxim that "if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all". She was always positive and upbeat about life - even when she was very ill. My mom passed on when I was 18 and I would have liked to have known her as an adult. I think we'd have got on well. She would have loved having grandchildren and being part of our lives. The bargain-hunter gene most definitely came from her - she loved a good find! I'm also pretty organized and must have learned that from her too.

I have "downloaders ache" - I've been clicking away for about two hours solid! My girls both had very short bed-time stories this evening!

Even though for the first time I've been able to do the downloads with a fast internet connection - yay!!!, the Free Download Manager program has made downloading the books so much easier for me. It queues the downloads and will resume a download after a broken connection (which still happens here quite frequently).

This is unforetunately not a very good picture, but it gives you an idea of our timeline. It is up on the wall above the desk in our study. It's about 6 feet wide and 3.5 feet high. I made it myself and you can find a template at this yahoo group. The lines are arranged on wall in a triangle, starting with a Prehistory strip right at the left-hand bottom and then two strip for the years 3099 to 3000 and 2999 to 2900 on the next line. There are two centuries (with strips of different colours) to a line for the BC years going up to the year 0 at the top. The AD lines go from 0 at the top to 2000 at the bottom. There are two centuries per line going down to 1499 and from there is a century per line going on - as there are more events in those years. You could make the timeline "thinner" and "taller" if you only put one century per line - starting from the floor and going up. You could also use the strips to build a timeline going up the stairs in a step-wise fashion (with year 0 on the landing). I hope this makes sense!

I use a display folders with 50 pockets to a folder. At the end of the year, I put in a selection of the year's work for each subject and include the daily record book and complete workbooks as well. For grades one and two, both files have ended up about two inches thick. For art, I have a seperate folders. The best pictures make it to the fridge for display and from there into the folder. I take photographs of cardboard "sculptures" and add those to the file too. Dd's pottery goes into a box via the top of the microwave. I have a large wooden chest for all the display folders and pottery boxes. Before starting the filing system, everything was loosely thrown into the chest. When it eventually could not close any more I spent a few evenings purging and getting the filing system set up. It's really easy to maintain now that I have it sorted. There's space for a few more years now!

About a year ahead so that I can look out for 2nd hand items. With the outrageous cost of overseas postage, I try to get things by surface mail, but it can take literally months (the longest was 7 months!!!) to get here.

Thanks for the reminder that it's all up to Mom! Paula's archive has some more ideas for pre-school activity bags.

I chose Bleh! It's Saturday morning here and dh had another seizure during the night. He has an excruciating pain in his chest from the muscle spasm and will probably be sleeping for most of the day. Sooo, our Saturday plans are cancelled. We were going to have coffee at the newly opened coffee shop at the art gallery in town and then run some errands. 8yo dd has horse-riding later this morning and is getting a play date over this afternoon. 3yo is already painting. I’m feeling rather sorry for ourselves this morning (lack of sleep), but should get over it in a short while…

I've started listening to audiobooks while doing chores and really enjoy them. What are your favourites?

Ah! Thanks Beth. We call a comforter (the plain fabric bag with filling inside), the duvet and the cover is a duvet cover.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between a duvet and a comforter? We have down duvets in winter and synthetic fibre in summer. We use only a duvet cover - as the top sheet always gets tangled. My parents insist on a top sheet. Hannah

Learning A-Z are offering a week of free access to all their sites next week. We used the Reading A-Z phonics program and booklets to teach dd to read. I can highly recommend them. They now also have a number of other sites that we have not yet tried. I see that the registration is not yet activated, but pressume it will be in a few days.

Given the problems with your current house and the fact that you don’t see it as a “heritage†building, I’d do it in a heartbeat. We built our house and I love that it suits all our needs exactly. I must add though, that I didn't mind the process that much. The only thing I found frustrating about choosing things was the budge constraint! If you do it, try to include a good architect, specializing in eco-friendly buildings, in the budget. In the long-run it will save you a lot of frustration. As others have said, I’d also shop around for a contractor I could trust. My sister and bil are currently planning a self-build of a straw bale house with self -suffiency ito power and waste management. It's very exciting!

For the composers, I went with the music we already have from a "Great Composers and their Music" series we subscribed to years ago. These are all Western composers and we are missing some important female composers, but this is easiest for us. We're doing: 1. Corelli (1653-1713) 2. Vivaldi (1678-1741) 3. Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 – 1767) 4. D. Scarlatti (1685-1757) 5. J.S. Bach (1685-1750) 6. Handel (1685-1759) 7. Haydn (1732-1809) 8. Mozart (1756-1791) 9. Beethoven (1770-1827) 10. Rossini (1792-1868) 11. Schubert (1797-1828) 12. Berloiz (1803-1869) 13. Chopin (1810-1849) 14. Liszt (1811-1886) 15. Verdi (1813- 1901) 16. Wagner (1813 – 1893) 17. Gounod (1818-1893) 18. Offenbach (1819 – 1880) 19. Smetana (1824-1884) 20. Brahms (1833-1897) 21. Bizet (1838-1875) 22. Mussogorsky (1839-1881) 23. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) 24. Dvorak (1841-1906) 25. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) 26. Elgar (1857-1934) 27. Puccini (1858 – 1924) 28. Debussy (1862- 1919) 29. Strauss (1864-1949) 30. Sibelius (1865-1957) 31. Rachmaninoff (1873- 1943) 32. Holst (1874-1934) 33. Schoenberg (1874-1951) 34. Ravel, (1875 – 1937) 35. Mahler (1876-1911) 36. Bartok (1881-1945) 37. Stravinsky (1882-1971) 38. Prokofiev (1891-1953) 39. Orff (1895-1982) 40. Gershwin (1898 – 1937) 41. Copland (1900-1990) 42. Rodrigo (1901 – 1999) 43. Britten (1913 – 1976) 44. Bernstein (1918 – 1990) 45. Lloyd Weber (1948- For art, I again know that we're probably missing some important artist or group, but this is what we're doing: 1. Ancient Art 2. Chinese Art 3. Duccio 4. Giotto 5. Robert Campin 6. Hieronymous Bosch 7. Andrea Mantegna 8. Fra Angelico 9. Sandra Botticelli 10. Leonardo da Vinci 11. Michelangelo 12. Raphael 13. Titian 14. El Greco 15. Albrecht Durer 16. Hans Holbein (the younger) 17. Pieter Breughel the Elder 18. Rubens 19. Vermeer 20. Rembrandt 21. Fragonard 22. Thomas Gainsborough 23. George Stubbs 24. John Singleton Copley 25. Francisco Goya 26. John Constable 27. JMW Turner 28. Gustave Courbet 29. Euouard Manet 30. Alfred Sisley 31. Salvador Dali 32. Joan Miro 33. Paul Klee 34. Jackson Pollock 35. Andy Warhol 36. Sculptors South African Artists: 37. Annette du Plessis 38. Maggie Laubser 39. Rexon Mathebula 40. George Pemba 41. Hugo Naudé 42. Pierneef 43. Gerard Sekoto 44. Irma Stern 45. Vladimir Tretchikoff 46. William Kentridge 47. Paul du Toit

I hope that he makes a speedy recovery.

We have a composer and artist of the month and study these on a four-year rotation. Each month I print out four paintings of the artist from Artchive.com and hang them on the wall. We buy or get books from the library about the artist and read these during the month. I also have a basic fact-sheet on the artist. I don't expect dd to memorize this, but she hears these facts a few times a week during the month. We sometimes have activity packs or pictures to colour as well. For the composer study, we have the portrait of the composer on the wall, also get books about the person to read during the month, have a fact sheet and we play his/her music during the day. We listen to Themes to Remember in the car and it is amazing how much my girls have picked up from this just from the repetition. It's all quite easy to do, but really effective.

I wondered about that too. The article says the father was the only one with the code to the secret door. The mother must have been suspicious of something, but could one ever bring oneself to believe that such an atrocity is happening? He must have been pretty clever at explaining things away - like the three children on the doorstep.

Sky News is carrying the story of a man who held his daughter captive in a a cellar for 28 years. During this time he forced her to have seven children - three of whom were kept in the cellar with her. I cannot imagine that anyone can be this sick. It is utterly disturbing.

We got most of ours from Ebay. In our case the UK site (.co.uk) because the postage is cheaper than from the USA.

Yup, I've been sorting through the clothes we need today. Except here it's for winter and it's getting cold quickly.

I don't have a blog (yet), and want to put the list of things I am grateful for in South Africa "out there"....so here goes... We have amazing, caring and generous friends. The children have special friends. Dh has a very good job that he enjoys in a supporting group with people that he trusts and who respect his abilities. I have a morning's only job that I enjoy. We live in a fantastic thatch-roofed house in a secure, boomed, nature reserve. We bought the house at exactly the right time before the housing prices sky-rocketed. House-prices are a fraction of those in Europe. We can take wonderful family-walks in the reserve. We see wild animals and birds daily. The weather is great. Younger dd attends a small playgroup with a very dedicated and gifted teacher. Horse-riding and music lessons are cheap compared to European prices. I can easily afford domestic help - a weekly cleaner, gardener and daily childminder/tutor. I understand the humour. There is a lot of open space. My husband, children and I were all born in this country and it is still "home". Colleen - you're welcome to stay over if you ever visit South Africa. We can put down a row of camping mattresses for your boys.

Saw, have you come to a solution yet?

Thank you all for your empathy and encouragement. It is hard, but I know its the right decision for now. I will allow some grieving time and part of that includes some serious comfort eating...