Funny how I have no real problem sitting down at the computer... it's sitting down to actually write that's a problem. Well, here I finally am now, headphones one with Band of Skulls "I know what I am" playing, drowning out the sounds of Youngest playing a new Xbox 360 game behind me, while Dh and Eldest head off to a second run movie together.
The biggest news since I last wrote is that we finally got a new computer. Just the tower, plus a higher end video card and some updated software that wasn't worth getting as long as we had the old machine. Not enough processing power. Getting it used up most of my husband's sign up bonus, but I think we all find it's been worth it. Amazing, how much of a difference there is. I can actually browse and listen to music at the same time, without loading pages causing the music to stutter and skip. The difference really shows when I work with photos, graphics and movie software, but little things, like booting up in under 2 minutes instead of 15, are greatly appreciated, too. ;-)
Eventually, we'll get another monitor and rebuild the old machine so Dh will have his own desktop. We did offer it to the kids, but they chose to stick with their old Dell. Something to do as funds get freed up.
I haven't done a library list in ages. We slowed down on the library trips quite a lot after getting our own books back. We finally even have them all unpacked, though a couple of small boxes of books are set aside to pass on, as the kids have outgrown them.
The library trips are picking up again, though. Eldest has been getting lots of books on weapons for reference drawings. Youngest is more into Brother's Grimm, which are somehow not in our collection (though we do have the complete Hans Christian Anderson and a lot of world mythology). We've got another historical themed dinner coming up this weekend. We've officially started a group with others interested in doing these, but no one was up to hosting an evening, so the girls chose an early pioneer theme. They were looking specifically for early agriculturalist, prior to the land grants and rush of immigrants in the late 1800's, set in the prairies. It's been a challanging theme. Most of the info for the time period is either US based (where things happened a lot faster than in the Canadian prairies), or coastal (with well established towns long before central Canada was settled). There just weren't a lot of settlers in the prairies before then, and they certainly didn't spend much time writing cookbooks. *L* So we're researching into what they did have, as far as equipment (often just a frying pan and a Dutch Oven type pot) and ingredients (very much feast or famine!).
We're looking at a good turn out, though - three other families are coming, for a total of 19 people. There will be kids as young as 3 yrs old. The mom of one family is actually a professional story teller who focuses on this region's history, which is totally cool! I'm really looking forward to it. If I can find it, we'll be doing wild rice and rabbit. If not, mixed grains and bison. With some of the other ideas bouncing around, things should be really good. :-D
Youngest, meanwhile, is well into her voice lessons, with only a slight roadblock. She has a very well developed, deep voice. What she doesn't have is a developed high voice. Her teacher wants her to stay away from using her lower registers completely for the next while and focus on singing in the upper registers. The challange was finding songs she likes that are already in the key she needs to sing in. The music she usually listens to are male singers or deep voiced females. So now we're getting a lot of Loreena McKennett and the like. Once she gets her high voice developed. her teacher will start bringing her back down again, and eventualy be marrying them all together, and she'll be able to sing just about anything she wants.
After we got back from her lesson today, which was more about listening to songs the teacher was suggesting to add to her list (a few more, and they'll be set with a songs list to work on for quite a long time!), Eldest made up a pot of tea and suggested watching a library movie. They chose Elegant Universe, a 2 dvd set on physics, quantum physics and string theory. It was a bit more edutainment that we usually watch, but they really liked it.
Normally, tomorrow is our library day, but I think we'll push it back to thursday. One of the things about living in a co-op is that unit inspections for mainenance are regularly required, and we've got that happening sometime tomorrow. A good time to think about the little things that need to be worked on that we tend to let slide.
*sigh* And some time tonight, I need to get all the cut down boxes from the books and other stuff we've unpacked into the recycling bin, which is across the street in the highrise of our complex. I really don't want to be doing those stairs. My knees have been doing the patella polka far too often for my comfort. *L*
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