The Lazy Faire

The set of computer repair tools I ordered for J arrived.  Now we’re all set to start assembling his PC as soon as I find some time.  L. had a piano lesson today and then went to Borders with Stacey.  Kashti has been showing off his ability to stand with just his hands on a table for stability.

I am experimenting with dividing my day and efforts into 20-minute chunks, and stopping at each 20-minute interval to breathe, center, and decide whether it is profitable to continue what I’m doing, or better to choose something else.  I’m also consolidating my organisational systems so that I always have a complete menu of potential tasks in front of me - including recreational “tasks”, like playing video games.  So far this is helping eliminate un-mindful dead time.

Stacey, sadly, has been sick, which has been keeping her from the farm.  She has antibiotics now, though, so she should be on the mend soon.

Completely out of the blue, L. just presented me with this delicacy (sorry it’s so blurry):

A banana simmered in a rose-cinnamon syrup with a chocolate-cinnamon sauce, garnished with a cinnamon stick and fresh rose petals.

I love my family.

Yesterday’s Beer & Badminton kickoff was a smashing success.  We had seven guests join us over the course of the afternoon.  The weather, despite threatening storms, was perfect. The competition was fierce.

All the children had a good time.  L. and J. both got some badminton in, but spent most of their time hanging out with our guests.  Kashti had a wonderful day, crawling around in the grass, showing off his ability to stand up with some assistance, and playing in the kiddie pool.  He even tried his hand at badminton.

In the evening we ordered pizza and Stacey made her now-famous wings. A few of our guests stayed with us for a viewing of the Twilight RiffTrax, which turned out to be one of the best RiffTrax yet. Ah, glittery angst-ridden Anikin-like Vampires.

Not much to report for today.  I overslept in the morning, but decided to workout anyway despite the lack of time.  Which was a good choice; having missed two workouts I was starting to feel lazy.  I burned through supersets of deadlifts and dumbell bench presses as quickly as I could, and felt a lot better by the end.

Read a sample of L.’s writing today, which is good  by any measure and outstanding for a 14-year old.  I think she has a bright future in writing ahead of her if she chooses to go down that road.  She’s working with an editor now which will help her to hone her talent.  We discussed community college; I think she’d be better served by it than the public high school she wants to attend.  She’s game, but I understand the nearest CC has an age bar.  Perhaps it’s fungible; these things often are.

L. has been watching a lot of “Hells Kitchen” on Hulu too.  Not just a cooking show; there’s some good stuff there about working as a team, working under pressure, and accepting criticism gracefully.

We had a lovely Shabbat dinner, as usual.  Then I lay down for a quick nap and wound up sleeping 3 1/2 hours.  Another polyphasic setback, alas.  Oh well, that’ll teach me to nap after eating and partaking of alcohol.

Today L. went exploring and came back five or so hours later very tired with lots of pictures.  J. finished Watchmen, and we talked a little about the morality (or lack thereof) of various characters.  J. and I also spent some time shoping for a power supply unit for the gaming PC he’s building - we settled on the Antec EA650, a midrange unit with good reviews and an unbeatable price at Newegg.

In polphasic news, I am loving this weather, because it means naps in the sun.  There isn’t much better in this world than an outdoor nap on a warm spring day.  Also having better luck with a 25-minute timer - it gives me time to settle in and get a solid 20 minutes of sleep during each nap.

The one aspect of life that’s suffering right now is fitness - Stacey hasn’t been feeling well, and I’ve simply been finding it hard to schedule my workouts in despite the polyphasic schedule.  I think that’s just because I’ve been trying to fit so many new activities into the extra time, like mowing the lawn, doing the dishes every night, and  writing little notes for the children to find in the morning.  I’m going to try to break the chain of slacking tomorrow morning.

Yesterday L. dyed her hair black and white and red.  At my request J. drew up a map of our hometown, including lesser-known features.

Here be dragons. And worse things.

L. and I discussed the dearth of things to do at night in our town.  We decided that if she’s willing to do some of the initial legwork and research, I’m willing to consider moving forward my long-term plan of starting a coffee house.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from home/unschooling, it’s that when a child wants to do something badly, no matter how ambitious, you get out of the way and help it to happen.

I’m half a week into my experiment with the “Uberman” polyphasic sleep schedule, and still having to fight off sleepiness at night.  But for all that, it’s still easier than the “Everyman” schedules I had been trying for the preceding month.  And there are few things better than napping in the sun on a warm Spring day.

Yesterday I tried something a little different.  Early in the morning I prepared notecards for L. and J.  Each one contained the date, a greeting, a random fact about the day, and a list of two tasks.  To J. I gave the tasks of decyphering some Elder Futhark runes (inspired by his interest in Runescape), and vacuuming the living room.  To L. I gave the tasks of creating a Knights Templar-inspired wallpaper image (we had just watched The Maltese Falcon the night before), and mopping the kitchen.  I added some individual personal notes to each card, and left them sealed at the kids’ places at the dining table.

J's illuminated notecard envelope

Both kids completed their tasks without any urging at all, and even went above and beyond.  J. returned his card to me with added illustrations.  And L. mopped not only the kitchen, as I’d asked, but the hall and dining room as well.

Knights Templar graphics by L

We watched half of “On the Waterfront” in the evening, and read a chapter of The Amber Spyglass.  And J. downloaded an RC flight simulator for the XBox 360, which inspired a discussion of how to make coordinated turns with aileron, rudder, and elevator.

I finished mowing the lawn.  An hour or so pushing a reel mower with a 20lb baby on your back is a lot of exercise!

Stacey was out in the evening, so I was taking care of Kashti and making dinner.  Kashti has taken very much to the role of “attachment child”.  He’s perfectly happy - so long as he’s always being worn or held.  Which seems like healthy behaviour in a nine-month old.  We get frustrated sometimes; but someday we’ll miss the days whenall it took was closeness to mommy and daddy to make him happy.

EDIT: Oh yeah, J. started reading Watchmen again, and we had a brief conversation about the origins of the name “Rorshach” and the inkblot test.

It’s that time of year again! The first official Beer & Badminton of 2009 will be this Saturday, May 23, at The Lazy Faire (aka the Grimm residence). Bring a beverage to share, and a chair if you want to sit on anything besides the ground between games. We have plenty of racquets, but if you have a favourite racquet bring that too.

We’ll get started in the early afternoon, say 1:30PM, and wrap up whenever we get tired.

Hope to see you there!

Summary

This was a frolic marked by extreme busyness but relative routine-ness as compared to the heavy travel of recent frolics.  Highlights this time time around centered around Spoutowood Farm.  First, Stacey was accepted as the newest apprentice at the Spoutwood CSA!  And we spent two lovely days  at the Faerie Festival, something we look forward to every year.

Statistics

Total points attempted: 24

Points completed: 14

Not completed: 10

Unestimated tasks: 1

Notes

What went well

• Avdi found that studying a little bit at a time over coffee in the morning works well.  Areas of study at the moment are home-buying and unschooling.
• We got a lot of lawn work done, including fencing in a groundhog-prone bed and repairing/tuning the reel mower.
• Stacey found that waking up at 5AM works well for her new schedule of full-time farm work.
• After much anxiety, Stacey found no difficulty getting her groove back on her first club night out in a couple years.
• We found a model of baby carrier that works well for extended wearing.
• L. finally met her friend S. in person at the Faerie Fest.
• We adopted a pair of young squirrels found wandering aimless and terrified in the back yard.  L cared for them and gave them a longer life and more love than they would have experienced had they been left to their own devices.
• Stacey learned some new things about her body from her allergen elimination diet.
• Stacey started work as an apprentice at Spoutwood
• We were finally able to pay off our primary credit card, another big step on the path to Zero Debt.
• Avdi got lots of stuff done thanks to his polyphasic sleep schedule.
• We finished our much-delayed plan for meeting homeschool reporting requirements.
• Music, dancing, shopping, and eye-candy were all in abundance at the Faerie Festival; but the best part of all was getting to meet up with a constant parade of friends new and old.  Including one much-welcomed surprise reunion!
• Avdi shortened his workout without reducing performance by using supersets.

Not so well

• Holding a retrospective late in the evening (especially when Stacey had been out late the night before)
• Avdi’s work time has been running unpredictably late, interfereing with family time.
• Despite L.’s best efforts, our adopted squirrel friends sickened and passed away after a couple of weeks.
• Stacey’s allergen elimination diet was no fun
• Avdi has been trying, in vain, to hit upon a polyphasic sleep schedule that sustainably works for him and the family; and getting increasingly frustrated.
• Stacey came to the conclusion that she simply can’t fit studying for her Family Herbalist program into her busy schedule at this time.
• Avdi beginning to feel overwhelmed by the pressure to be maximally productive every day.  Feeling pace to be unsustainable.  Needs more slack in his life.

Ideas moving forward

• Avdi wrap up work at a regular 7PM every day.
• Avdi experiment with a pure “uberman” sleep schedule
• Make the next frolic a “slack frolic” - don’t attempt to accomplish nearly as much.  Stop and smell the roses, etc.

A long time back J. expressed interest in having a boomerang, and on my last trip to Colorado I picked up a ‘rang from Colorado Boomerangs.  Today I looked up some instructional videos on YouTube and then we walked out to the local park and gave it a spin (literally!).  J. pronounced boomerang throwing to be “fun!” after the first throw.  We never quite got it to return to our hands, but we came close a couple of times.

I told him a few of the things I’d found out about boomerangs: that they originated in Australia; that the aborigines used them to hunt; that they would use one type of ‘rang to “corral” a flock of birds and keep them from flying out over a body of water, and a different, hunting boomerang to bring down the cornered birds.

On the way back we discussed the resourcefulness of ant colonies, and I related a few of the more impressive ant accomplishments, like farming and tentmaking.