Happy Birthday to Me!

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young. - Fred Astaire


I was 50 yesterday. As my charming children keep telling me, now I'm 1/2 a century old I'm already 1/2 dead! Wishful thinking? The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. English Proverb

Actually I had a really lovely day. The boys remembered & rang. My mother remembered & rang! [Last year she forgot my card & we had great fun betting on how long it would take her to remember!]. The girls went to great pains to make it lovely for me though Ditz began her AbbaMania run yesterday & that was a tad fraught making. To save money, give Ditz a little more responsibility & save me spending my whole day travelling Dearest thought Ditz could travel by boat & bus alone to the pick up point for her ensemble.

O.K., she's 13, it was bright daylight in a safe area & Ditz doesn't get too many opportunities like this. She's a very competent Miss so I wasn't too worried. Ditz certainly told me not to worry in no uncertain terms. Then I got the phone call! Ditz was frantic. Her bus had a flat & she was terrified she was going to miss her departure time. It always happens. I reassured her that if she was already moving again she had plenty of time, as indeed she did.

Two performances, matinee & evening. Ditz sang two *solos*, if you can call it that when someone else shoves the mike in your face, & was spinning like a whirly~gig when Liddy & I picked her up that evening. How that child loves to perform! At least she's reasonably sensible. I know her loving family who know her so well would dispute that but she was not the child who over ate till she vomited & then fainted from lack of food. There's one in every crowd! And thanks to the faintee Ditz got the extra solo.

We have flute today & Ditz wasn't in bed till midnight so she's not doing today's performance but will then go Friday, 2 Saturday & Sunday evening. Don't know about Ditz but I am exhausted just thinking about it. That is late trips to the mainland to collect my child & bring her home. I did think about asking my boys to collect her & put her on a boat but I'm afraid they're not that reliable & unless you live on an island & have had to deal with a stranded child you have no idea just how ill with worry that can make you. We have been there more times than I care to remember & I just prefer to go with said child if at all possible.

The Lord is good too. Friends came round yesterday & from that visit two lovely things happened. He works with computers so yes, mine is now back up & running. I am so happy. My girls are so happy. Dearest is happy.

Our friends are * boaties*, the term for those itinerants who occasionally make their home on a boat & travel around the world on said boat. They are planning on pulling their kids out of school again & going cruising for 6 months next year. I had a brain explosion, dug out my used curriculum that is just cluttering up my place & handed it over along with a pile of Sonlight readers. Their youngest is a Ditz clone only far more academically inclined. Even better my friend liked the LLATL Ditz & I couldn't stand & both her girls can probably use it if it is modified a bit for the youngest. I gave her all my homeschool links too as even if they take work from the school it probably won't be enough & Distance Ed has so much busy work they don't really want to go that route again. So nice to be helpful.