1000 Fields of Roses

Navigating Empty Roads

We had some unavoidable appointments today, so even though we’re in voluntary isolation at the moment, there’s still some things you can’t do by phone or internet.
After the appointments were done, we thought we’d get a coffee at our favourite cafe.

As per quarantine rules, they’re only open for takeaway at the moment. There are no tables inside, so we’re not tempted to stay, and you can see the tape on the floor to help with distancing while waiting. The other room is blocked off.

You can phone through an order and pick it up quickly – I believe they will also bring your order to your car (if you park on the street outside) if you really don’t want to risk being around people… No cash is accepted at the moment – pay by tap.
We had a (properly distanced) chat while waiting for our coffee, talking about the situation and the changes it’s brought. I personally have had mostly good interactions with people up to now, but I know there’s been bad stuff happening – abuse of supermarket staff, hoarding and general awfulness. Talked about the difficulties of getting the fresh ingredients to make what they sell…
I wouldn’t want to be in customer service at the moment. I’ve done that in the past, and I know that even at the best of times some people can be rude, entitled and sometimes abusive. With the fear levels now, the filters are off some people’s reactions. Those on the counters in healthcare or retail situations are making the best of the circumstances, while never quite knowing if the person in front of them is passing on a virus that could seriously impact themselves or someone they love. Whole days, weeks of that is exhausting.

Choose kindness.

Slow down.

Breathe.

We drove home afterwards, in a city that felt like it was early morning – minimal traffic and pedestrians. I’ve felt lately like time has been slowing down, in a way – it’s hard to remember what day it is sometimes.
Our libraries are closed now, but over the last week or so they increased the borrowing limit from 20 items to 50. I decided that was a goal I could aim for! I now have my 50 items, for an indefinite period. I just have to find the time to read them!

I was glad to get home this morning, and finally have breakfast.

We went to the cafe because we were in the area, and because we wanted to support them. It won’t be a regular thing, though, and I wanted to make it worth the trip 😀
A bigger breakfast, and definitely more sugar, than I’m used to.
No regrets.

Apart from necessities, we’ll be at home now. Probably reading…

I hope your day holds something good, whatever your situation.
Here are some cafe bunnies to cheer you!

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on March 25, 2020 at 2:12 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: rafter and rose

How To Be At Home

…if you happen to be rich.

Obviously these gadgets are beyond the grasp of most people, but I had a giggle 😀

This is Richard Ayoade in “Gadget Man“. There’s also “Travel Man“, which you can watch at the moment on SBS on demand.

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on March 24, 2020 at 4:30 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Gadget Man, Richard Ayoade

Church And Chocolate

Closures have meant our church services are not meeting at the moment, but we joined in with the online service. This morning was a chance to sit together and sing, and listen to God’s word. This afternoon I logged in to the service at a church we go to in the evenings… more worship – yay!
Because we were in our own lounge room we could have come in pyjamas, if we’d wanted 🙂 We had a cuppa, and I dipped in to a cup of chocolates my Sweet Bean got for me when he went to a service station down the road yesterday – he wanted a walk, and to get his own chocolate stash, so I thought I’d indulge!

I forgot to put it back in the fridge last night, so one of my freckles had eyes…

I enjoyed being comfortable in my own home… but most of all, I enjoyed meeting up with my Christian family – even if it’s just virtual!

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on March 22, 2020 at 6:34 pm Leave a Comment

Learning At Home With The TV On

So we’ve been doing this learning at home thing for a long time now, and the self isolation hasn’t changed a lot of how we do it…
For those who are trying to find their way outside of school, there are lots of resources being shared online at the moment, and there’s always documentaries and kids’ shows on TV (check out ABC or SBS).
I just thought I’d share a few shows we’ve watched, or are still watching, that you may not have thought of 🙂

For English and maths, there’s “Letters and Numbers” on SBS. It’s probably better for older children, but have a look. It’s a game show with sections on making words from random selections of letters, and sections on using a selection of numbers to come up with an equation to get to, or nearest to, a randomly generated number. These are timed, but we pause to give us a chance to think about it more.

For more maths you can watch Bargain Hunt, at the moment on 7Plus Catch Up. This has two teams competing to buy three items with £300 and make the biggest profit. They have an expert with them, who chooses another item, which they can choose after the initial items are auctioned. I enjoy watching it because you get to see a range of antiques and collectables, and hear about them – after a while you start to understand different time periods, such as Art Deco, Victorian, Georgian… The auctioneer for the day will then appraise each piece and its possible sale price at auction.
For the maths –
– add the purchase prices for each item, then subtract from £300 to see what the expert’s left with.
– compare with auctioneer’s estimate.
– work out profit or loss as each item is auctioned.

“Antiques Roadshow” is another favourite, although there’s not as much opportunity to use maths skills – it’s more for learning about antiques and different time periods. Some episodes have valuations in both British pounds and Australian dollars, so it can be a way to talk about exchange rates and try to convert pounds to dollars.
At the moment you can find it on 9now or ABC iview.

For music history (and just plain fun!) we watch “Spicks and Specks”, a game show where two teams compete to answer questions about a wide range of music genres and eras. Some of the humour can be adult, so check it out beforehand if that might be a problem for you… we watch it with Sweet Bean and talk about it all. I get to reminisce about all the great songs and bands of my childhood! It’s amazing how much Sweet Bean has learned – he went from knowing practically nothing to having a fairly wide knowledge of all different types of music 🙂
There’s not a lot on ABC iview, but at the moment it’s on every night on ABC2, at 7.30.

What else?
We always love “Time Team” for history and archaeology, although it’s UK centred. I don’t think it’s on TV at the moment, but there’s a YouTube channel.
We’ve also been watching “Science of Stupid” – particularly good if you want to learn physics and like blooper type shows… At the moment on 9now, or it’s on YouTube.

These are just some of the things we’ve come across over the years, and we learn a lot from them. But – above all – we watch them because they’re FUN! If you’re tearing your hair out because you don’t know what to do, and everything’s topsy-turvy, it’s OK to just stop. Just for a bit.
Spend time together.
Just have fun ❤

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Homeschool

on March 21, 2020 at 9:57 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Antiques Roadshow, Bargain Hunt, Coronavirus, Letters and Numbers, Science of Stupid, Spicks and Specks, Time Team

21 Today!

…but he’s already got the key to the door 🙂

Biggest Boy turned 21 today… kept it low key – presents in the morning, nachos for his birthday dinner and toffee pecan roulade as his cake.

Nice!
(and very sugary…)

I’m so proud of my sweet boy ❤
Looking forward to what the next 21 years will bring!

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Thinking....

on March 18, 2020 at 10:38 pm Leave a Comment

Staying Home

Another day in the continuing coronavirus saga…
Went shopping to pick up some essentials today – no toilet paper, which we expected (we have enough at the moment), but when we tried to get some mince for Biggest Boy’s birthday dinner tomorrow (he’s 21!) – a vast expanse of empty shelves! We’ll improvise…

How shall we proceed?
None of us in this family are in the risk groups for complications even if we catch the virus, so we’re not worried there. But in our various social circles there are those who are. There seems to be some evidence to show that younger age groups (and possibly older but basically healthy?) can be carriers while being asymptomatic, so waiting until we feel sick to self isolate may be too late for others who are vulnerable.
We are in the fortunate position of not having to go out much – our normal life is fairly isolated. There are still some situations where we’re out of the house, or people come to us. At this point it’s a case by case decision as things unfold…
There are many who don’t have the luxury of staying home – those in essential services, those who can’t afford it, service industries… for those people, and the ill, elderly and immunocompromised, we have a responsibility to do what we can to reduce the spread of the virus.
What to do while we’re isolated?
There’s always books! My answer for everything 😀 Use your local library (before it may need to shut down?) Get as many books as you can. Have a look for books online.
Create. Write that Great Novel you’ve always wanted to. Or a poem (it doesn’t have to be “good”!) Bake cakes with the kids. Dance round the living room until they need to take a nap 😉
There are also free courses online, or movies, in a variety of subjects – some are always free, some may just be for this period of time… also some suitable for school age children.
I’m looking forward to browsing what’s on offer!

If you’re still unsure why it’s beneficial to self isolate or practise social distancing, here’s a clip from one of my favourite shows, which demonstrates how disease spreads…

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on March 17, 2020 at 11:26 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Coronavirus, Crash Course, FutureLearn, Khan Academy, Open Courses, Scrubs

Live Long And Prosper

In this time of coronavirus fear and “social distancing“, we are renegotiating contact with others… the basic handshake is avoided, and other greetings put in its place. For our church, as for other places of worship, that means using the Vulcan salute.
A good choice, I think!
Quite apart from the geek factor, the hand gesture is derived from a Jewish symbol, used during a priestly blessing. Leonard Nimoy (Spock in the original Star Trek) remembered seeing it as part of a service in the synagogue in his childhood, and when faced with coming up with a Vulcan greeting, modified what he had seen.

The original blessing is done with two hands, arms held out and hands touching to form the Hebrew letter “shin”, which stands for “Shaddai”, or “Almighty God”. In this form there are restrictions on who can perform the gesture and the accompanying blessing, but as the Vulcan salute is modified, it is available for anyone to use.

Tomorrow we’ll be telling each other to “Live long, and prosper”, to which the proper response is “Peace and long life”.
And we’ll be extending a blessing to each other as we do it!

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on March 14, 2020 at 10:41 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Leonard Nimoy, Vulcan Salute

Offlining

Having just spent the last few days without internet, it’s been fun catching up with everything!
Something went wrong sometime Friday, and the technician couldn’t come out until yesterday (Tuesday). Thankfully, it all got fixed fairly easily, and we have a new modem now.
I don’t think I’m online too much (although I could cut down), but I had to stop myself going to Google something quite a few times! It felt quite freeing, though, not having the possibility of frittering away my time. I spent time studying and really taking the time to notice things…
Coincidentally, we’ve been doing the Red Letter Challenge – following the “red letters” of Jesus’ words – and last week was “being”, which included various disciplines. The last day was about having a Sabbath (basically, a day of rest)… I feel like I’ve just had a mini Sabbath season. There’s a website called Sabbath Manifesto, which has some ideas on how to unplug for at least a day a week.

Stand outs for me these last few days?
Using all my Bible translations (NIV, Message, Passion Translation, Amplified) to do some study.
Enjoying a leisurely egg on toast – there wasn’t anything to rush off to. The eggs seemed a bit worried about it, though…

Having a coffee at the library cafe, while writing and watching the world go by.

Earth Hour will be coming up soon – another chance to unplug and take things a bit slower 🙂

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Thinking....

on March 11, 2020 at 11:57 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Earth Hour, Red Letter Challenge, Sabbath Manifesto

Panic In The Aisles

Behold our loo roll substitutes!
As we shop fortnightly, and generally only get what we need for each fortnight, we have been faced with the empty toilet paper aisles Australia seems to be afflicted with at the moment. We do still have some rolls left, but we won’t have enough for a full week – we’re caught short, as it were…
These are obviously not the best alternative, but it will have to do for now.

Good thing we don’t use hand sanitiser!

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Thinking....

on March 6, 2020 at 5:25 pm Leave a Comment

Snippets

I’ve been reading again!
Over the holidays I binged on cozy mysteries, so now it’s time for more educational and inspiring books (not that I’ll give up on my mysteries!). I have lots of books in my bookcases that I haven’t read, and I’m working my way through those.
Our library also has new books coming all the time – I can usually go in each week and find something I haven’t seen before.
I’ve just finished a book called “Bare”, by Susan Hyatt. It’s got a lot about weight loss, but coming from the perspective of loving yourself where you’re at, and finding out what you’re actually feeding when you binge eat (or over work, over exercise… add your particular excess here…) One section is about what to do with the hectoring voices in your head. There are a few different options; this is one of my favourites.

Another that I quite liked has to do with reacting to the rogue thought as a bouncer would –
(Scenario)
Thought – “You’re useless/ugly/horrible” etc…
Mental “bouncer” – “What!! You again! Trying to sneak past me – get out of here!”

What else have I been reading?
My devotional reading this morning lead me to John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV –

“Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend,
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new
I, like an usurpt towne, to’another due,
Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be loved faine,
But am bethroth’d unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,’untie or breake that knot againe,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.”