Monday, February 21, 2005
Playing
Years ago, my s-i-l and I had great fun playing with vegetable dyes, using the resulting fabric to make up lap quilts. I'm more into threads now, so on Sunday I took a variety of different coloured DMC flosses and dyed them, using onion skins and salt as a mordant.
I know Tumeric works, but will have to experiment with other things, cos of course, everything else we used grew locally and I'm now in a different continent!
Moo
I know Tumeric works, but will have to experiment with other things, cos of course, everything else we used grew locally and I'm now in a different continent!
Moo
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Bits and bobs
Thursday was DBs 40th birthday. He's not been looking forward to it, mainly cos the kids keep going on about how old he's going to be. I started saying that he was going to be 'thirty-ten', which made him feel a tad better about it! I had the same problem at thirty, twenty-nine doesn't sound half as old as thirty, now my age doesn't bother me at all. Quite looking forward to being an eccentric old lady actually!
There was some discussion on one of my lists about birthdays and presents a while ago and one woman wrote that in their family 'nought' birthdays get that amount of presents, so I've been collecting things ever since. DB took the day off work, and had an absolute ball opening his forty presents. I gave him all the little things first, then his main present, which was a camcorder. Desired result, he was like a waen in his excitement!
We then went up to East Kilbride, I took him out to luch and then he went off to spend his vouchers from the girls. He loves HMV, so he spent ages in there while he made up his mind! I went off and did other shopping while he was busy. He'd chosen macaroni cheese for his 'birthday dinner' and much to the childrens' disappointment, didn't want a cake.
At bedtime, I asked him if he'd enjoyed his birthday to be told " It was brilliant, I can't wait to turn fifty now!"
I've long been amazed at the level of stupidity that abounds in the great unwashed public! But then again, it shouldn't surprise me at all. I've long suspected that the practice of just channelling children along, without them having to pass exams, or competency tests results in a large part of the population being if not completely illiterate, then definitely only at Primary school level.
It also doesn't help when the teacher in Primary Seven, tells you not to worry about the childs spelling!!!!! How the ***** are they meant to learn to spell if they aren't corrected????????
John's (16) reading ability is abyssmal, but I put that down to the fact that he missed so much school through misbehaviour. Now I'm not so sure. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the level that Kim, (fourth year high school) is working. I'd said I would help where I could with her maths homework, and asked to see what kind of thing she was working on. It's the sort of thing my girls were doing in Primary school back in SA, so I'll certainly have no trouble helping her!
It also irritates me immensely to buy something and get instructions that are almost written in words of one syllable and appear to be aimed at ten year old children. However, it takes a really special kind of stupid to do this. . . . .
Sunday night I get a phone call '.....' has a new sewing machine, can I thread it. I said I didn't know as machines are different. Knew I could, couldn't be arsed. I only hear from '.....' when she wants something. She carried on and on about it, so I said bring it along.
It duly arrived. (She didn't bring it.)It's a bog standard machine. Nothing fancy at all. Put cotton reel on spoke, run under doodat, down front, under nogga doodat, up and over nogga doodat and down to needle. I will concede that to the uninitiated it could be confusing, BUT along with the machine comes an instruction book. In it are clear step by step instructions, plus photos, on how to thread the machine and fill a bobbin, as well as how to load the bobbin into the case below the needle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I sent it back with a bobbin filled and loaded. If she wants to send it back when that's used up the answer's NO, she can read the book and figure it out, cos of course, very predictably I didn't get a word of thanks for doing it. !!!!!!!
Moo
There was some discussion on one of my lists about birthdays and presents a while ago and one woman wrote that in their family 'nought' birthdays get that amount of presents, so I've been collecting things ever since. DB took the day off work, and had an absolute ball opening his forty presents. I gave him all the little things first, then his main present, which was a camcorder. Desired result, he was like a waen in his excitement!
We then went up to East Kilbride, I took him out to luch and then he went off to spend his vouchers from the girls. He loves HMV, so he spent ages in there while he made up his mind! I went off and did other shopping while he was busy. He'd chosen macaroni cheese for his 'birthday dinner' and much to the childrens' disappointment, didn't want a cake.
At bedtime, I asked him if he'd enjoyed his birthday to be told " It was brilliant, I can't wait to turn fifty now!"
I've long been amazed at the level of stupidity that abounds in the great unwashed public! But then again, it shouldn't surprise me at all. I've long suspected that the practice of just channelling children along, without them having to pass exams, or competency tests results in a large part of the population being if not completely illiterate, then definitely only at Primary school level.
It also doesn't help when the teacher in Primary Seven, tells you not to worry about the childs spelling!!!!! How the ***** are they meant to learn to spell if they aren't corrected????????
John's (16) reading ability is abyssmal, but I put that down to the fact that he missed so much school through misbehaviour. Now I'm not so sure. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the level that Kim, (fourth year high school) is working. I'd said I would help where I could with her maths homework, and asked to see what kind of thing she was working on. It's the sort of thing my girls were doing in Primary school back in SA, so I'll certainly have no trouble helping her!
It also irritates me immensely to buy something and get instructions that are almost written in words of one syllable and appear to be aimed at ten year old children. However, it takes a really special kind of stupid to do this. . . . .
Sunday night I get a phone call '.....' has a new sewing machine, can I thread it. I said I didn't know as machines are different. Knew I could, couldn't be arsed. I only hear from '.....' when she wants something. She carried on and on about it, so I said bring it along.
It duly arrived. (She didn't bring it.)It's a bog standard machine. Nothing fancy at all. Put cotton reel on spoke, run under doodat, down front, under nogga doodat, up and over nogga doodat and down to needle. I will concede that to the uninitiated it could be confusing, BUT along with the machine comes an instruction book. In it are clear step by step instructions, plus photos, on how to thread the machine and fill a bobbin, as well as how to load the bobbin into the case below the needle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I sent it back with a bobbin filled and loaded. If she wants to send it back when that's used up the answer's NO, she can read the book and figure it out, cos of course, very predictably I didn't get a word of thanks for doing it. !!!!!!!
Moo
