Updates & Ramblings

Well life's staying pretty busy; today I have work as usual, but then instead of collapsing in a heap like I usually do on Friday afternoons, o heading to bed early, I'll be attending a cousin's 21st in Wellington. I think I'll be pretty much going from the airport to dinner so it will be pretty busy. Then on Saturday hopefully meet up with friends, out with my aunty and cousin for a bit, and then fly home again! So I suspect it will be a long weekend, but not very restful :P Should be good though.

Music classes are going well.Private lessons are scheduled fairly evenly over two days, which is more manageable than one, but not all over the place like it could be if I spread them out even more. This term I've picked up a couple new private (recorder) students, and my times at school have shifted to the same day so I can work an extra afternoon at preschool. 

I discovered a new favourite comedian recently! I can't remember exactly how I came across him; he may have done a show with Tim Hawkins? Anyway, John Crist is pretty awesome. Probably his top three videos would be Christian Mingle Inspector, GET OFFENDED: The Fake Outrage App, and Christian Girl Instagram. I can't find the name of the girl in the last one? A few people have said in the comments section that she looks really familiar, and I agree, but I can't place her. I see some resemblance to Jessica Willis. Anyone else have any idea?

We had an interesting culinary experiment yesterday. The littlest bro very thoughtfully made his sis a birthday cake -- chocolate, with pink  icing. I don't know that he was given a specific measurement for the food colouring, so he just kept pouring until he achieved a colour he was happy with. I informed everyone present afterwards that red velvet cake was the ONLY instance in which it is permissible to use a whole, or nearly a whole bottle of colouring. As it turns out, raspberry essence has a much weaker colouring and much stronger flavour than pink food colouring!

Oh and who had the brilliant idea to introduce ads to Instagram?! First the update that blew up social media because the home feed wasn't going to be chronological anymore, and now wonderful ads! Reckon I'll be spending more time over here instead. ;)

During the holidays Susannah was in Auckland for a few days with her family. Coffee, shopping, kids program (the main church building where the actual conference was had free wifi! #score), talking -- the weekend flew by but it was great to catch up in person again. Besides, it's cheaper on the phone bill :P Now, to find a way to bring Auckland and Wellington closer . . .

Also met up with a couple of other friends during the holidays, spent a (minimal) amount of time relaxing at home, crossed a few things off my to do list, helped some friends get organised for their move down south (seriously, Auckland is growing simultaneously larger and smaller! :/) . . . and suddenly term three is upon us!

Lastly, be sure to check back here tomorrow! ;)

Currently

So much to do, so little time. 

Apologies if I'm meant to catch up with you! I've had it on my to do list to make contact with a few people but life has been so crazy I haven't managed it I'm afraid :/ Miss you though and one day we actually will meet up again! :)

I've just gotten back into flute lessons again (had about three months off because my teacher had a baby), so now we need to get preparing for my next exam, and decide when it's realistic to sit it. Sitting it sooner means I can go for my diploma earlier, but would require a significant amount of time in practice, and already my to-do list is growing faster than I can keep up with. 

I'm juggling a few jobs now -- seriously why can't they all fit seamlessly into my schedule?! So yeah, I'm getting a bit of practice at adjusting my schedule (haven't turned up to the wrong place yet!! :P) but thankfully at this stage I have managed to work things out so I don't have to drop anything.

Nearly every night now we have to work out who's going where the next day, and with which vehicle. With four drivers, three vehicles, more and more places to be, small parking spaces that make it super difficult to park the van, and me not being able to drive the manual, it's becoming increasingly difficult to work out through vehicle logistics. So if anyone is giving a car away, I'd love to hear from you ;P hahaha

Right now I'm sitting here typing this while Mum has been cooking, and is now serving dinner. I can see a lounge chair dissapearing under a mound of washing waiting to be folded by me later tonight. Either tonight or tomorrow I'll have to give Diana another recorder lesson; we're putting in some extra ones to prepare for her exam later this month. And I didn't manage to do the irnoning last weekend so guess what I'll be amusing myself with in my spare time? :P lol

Oh and I've been thinking it might be fun to host a giveaway of some sort on here at some point, but based on the amount of comments I usually get it seems a bit pointless :P

Xj if you're reading this, I'm now 54% fluent in French apparently. Just sayin'.

Work, and All That Jazz

Don't you all just love how I've suddenly posted so many photos?! LOL. But they will come . . . someday.

In regards to the job I mentioned in my last update, that was to teach a music/recorder class at a local school. They agreed to try me and I'm several weeks into that now; it's a different experience than private instrumental teaching but I'm getting the hang of it and it's going well. Using the book I learnt from ~12 years ago brings back memories! The difference is that the accompaniment tracks are on a CD now instead of a cassette tape ;P

Soon after I started the above-mentioned teaching, I was offered another job driving a few kids to and from preschool every day. I did a first-aid course for that (I'm never going into the medical field) and my police vet cleared early this week so I've just started that as well. Truth be told I'm looking forward to this long weekend because I'm really tired from being up at 6 every day lol. 

So that's my work update for now; in other news, we got to catch up with a couple of our Welly cousins last week when they were visiting Auckland last week. No pics since I'm really slack but it was cool to see them again. 

Bought gifts last-minute for my little sisters' birthday last Friday, gave them and had cake in the evening. Finished dinner and birthday celebrations, then about 10pm started working on the 100 biscuits I needed for a friend's engagement party the next day!

I'm working on this for a few minutes having afternoon tea and some downtime after teaching (school), and waiting for mum to get back from shopping so I can cook. My flute teacher had a baby a couple weeks back (oops, that's how far behind I am!) and I've been meaning to take her a meal since then. I made some pies last night and I have the gift now, so I'll do some work on the meal soon and hopefully take everything over tomorrow. Won't be time tonight since I'm babysitting from six onwards!

Recently

I'm sure the summer holidays get shorter every year! At least, that's what it feels like. I guess it's more general than that though, all of life just seems to speed up as we grow older. 

My laptop adapter finally did arrive, so the technical difficulties have been overcome and I just need to find {ahem, make) the time to edit my mountains of images and then post them here. (Cheer me on guys ;) :P)

Over the past few months I have accomplished a fair bit of walking; an hour plus most days. (Xj why am I applying French pronunciation to English words now?! *insert 2015's word of the year* The above image was taken on one of said walks, on my iPhone admittedly, since I haven't been taking the camera with me.

In January the rest of the fam abandoned me (kidding) for a couple weeks and went on holiday to the Taranaki. I did have several good study days, but somehow I didn't manage to catch up on sleep like I planned lol. Ate plenty of good food though!! ;P Got in some good catch-ups with friends and finally went to a couple of services at a friends' church. It was different than I'm used to lol but I won't complain. And being in a church that didn't feel like it was trying to give Antarctica a run for it's money was a very welcome change. (I'm not telling the time I'm writing this, and yes I am sarcastic normally, but this is probably worse.)

Life took a sad turn midway through my time home alone when my nana in Wellington passed away. My family drove straight down from the Taranaki and I flew day on the Monday, in time for the Tuesday funeral. Hopefully a post in the near future will feature a number of photos from Nana's life. It was a pretty short trip for me, as we all left on Wednesday, with the others dropping me in Marton at the ATI Student Conference, and then driving back to Auckland. I spent a day and a half-ish with my awesome friend Susannah (first time seeing each other since we swapped numbers back in July last year lol), talking heaps,  drinking way too much coffee, and not sleeping a lot (paid for it when I got back :P) before I came back on Friday. (That bus driver had no de Bruin blood in him. Or the trip would have taken half the time. Just saying.)

Now that school has gone back I'm into teaching again (privately) -- and at this stage I've managed to get all my classes in just one afternoon!! *clapping emoji* This term half my students are returning from last year, and the other half are new students, learning the basics of how to hold a recorder and such. Putting students through exams is exciting, and it's amazing to reflect back over how far they've come, but it's pretty special as well to see new students grasp the basic concepts!

I finally have managed to make a start on job hunting, so to speak; I expect to have an interview pretty soon to discuss details, and then I should be picking up some part time work. I've made a second enquiry somewhere else so we'll see what comes of these two and take it from there. I'm half thinking about joining Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator too. (Anyone interested in a party?!)

And that's my update for now. If it changes it's because I changed my mind about how much I wanted to share once I had more sleep. Lol. 

And I Return

Hello! 

Nope, contrary to what you may have thought, I haven't dropped off the planet! Wow, has it really been three months already since my last post?! I have a stack of photos waiting to be edited and uploaded, but between busyness and technical issues I haven't managed to work on them. :/

During September and October I spent three weeks in Australia, visiting friends and family . . . and enjoying the weather :D lol. In Aus, short sleeves and jandals -- try not to get sunburnt; walk off the plane into Auckland terminal -- *put puffer jacket on* *still freeze*. Lol. Great trip! Photos coming :)

Since I've been back I've taught a full term of recorder classes, and finished the year off with my students and siblings performing a concert at a local rest home. It's somewhat weird to think I've been teaching for three years now!

While I have some extra time on my hands *cough* since my students are on summer holidays, I become student again, solidifying scales for my next flute exam, and studying so I can {one day/finally} graduate. So if I come on here speaking French and {scientific} Latin . . .

Somewhere between knocking things off my to do list and enjoying the warmer weather (if and when it arrives lol) I'm supposed to get some job hunting in. *Sigh*

At present I can't edit photos on our desktop computer (not sure if I can run updates to rectify that or not) and the adapter for my super-slow laptop died last week . . . I should be able to replace that but not sure how quickly with Christmas being this week. So hopefully I can sort something out and get some more photos on here! But for now, 

Farewell!

Scale Practice Starts Young In Our House! (JK)

D Major on the recorder:

B Major on the piano. 5 sharps anyone?!

Bethesda Rest Home Concert || December 2014

So I didn't actually go . . . but some of the videos are pretty good so thought I'd share them. :)

Recorder Quintuplet || Ode to Joy

{Actually just a duet played with five recorders}

Diana || Recorder Solo

                                          

Danielle || Recorder Solo

Swan Lake Theme ~ Tchaikovsky 

Recorder & Violin Ensemble 

New Zealand National Anthem || God Defend New Zealand

Bryce

Yeah, another back-dated post. Sorry . . .

Happy 7th Birthday, Bryce!!

Highlights of Bryce's year as a 6-year-old include

• beginning recorder lessons -- and playing in his first two concerts!
• playing Uno with anyone who'll join him
• flying through his maths textbooks (chapter a day, anyone?) and amazing us all with his computation skills (first math-brain in the family!)

Bryce would love a birthday message from you! Leave it in the comments section below. :)

{10 on 10}

#1

: : That time of year already! This is my first one done, will be busy with the rest in the coming week or two! : :

 #2

: : Everyone else is in bed, so the neighbour's cat is making himself at home! : :

 #3

: : My Snowy <3 :="" td="">

#4

: : Yep, peeps, I got it. Yay! :) : :

 #5

: : Working on it. One of these days I'll graduate! : :

#6

: : See below : :

 #7

: : I think I've said before that Summer is my favourite season. : :
But wedding season isn't so bad either! ;)

#8

: : End-of-year certificates for recorder students : :
I've taught for two whole years now!

 #9

: : Abstract photography? : :

 #10

: : So when I photograph plants, the background gets thrown out of focus . . .  : :
now I just need to get the same effect with portrait photography!

Maria's Turn

Little-Miss-Four-Year-Old saw Laura's video and didn't want to be left out of the fun, so she did this:

She also plays recorder quite well (considering she hasn't begun lessons yet!), by ear. We managed to capture these two videos:

                                                            Mary Had A Little Lamb

                                                                        Ode to Joy

Diana

Happy 9th Birthday Diana!

Over the past year Diana has

• played {recorder} in her first concert
• begun cooking meals {alone} for the family occasionally
• learned to knit

Leave her a message in the comments section below!

Concert @ Bethesda Resthome

Although not something we have done a lot of, historically, performance is an important aspect of music education. Along with the Campbells (who teach Jarrod and Monique violin), and my recorder students, we concluded term 2 with a concert at Bethesda Resthome in Manukau.

: : Opening with Amazing Grace : :

: : Violin Duets : :

Allegro Andante by John Stanley on my flute:

Danielle began clarinet at the beginning of this year, but she has/has just about caught up to the year 2 students, so we asked her to play a solo. Just before she walked up she asked me what she should play, but since I don't oversee either her lessons or practice, I wasn't really sure. I did, however, expect her to play something she had worked on in her lessons and could play well. So I was a little surprised when she announced she would play Botany Bay, which she found the music for online fairly recently! That's typical Danielle style though, so I should have known(!), and she played really well.

: : 

Responding to a Comment || My Life at Present

Over here I responded to some of the questions in this comment. Now I'll share a bit about "the season of life [I'm] currently in". Wow, that sounds open-ended. Where do I start?!

Well, I think I've said this on here before, but I'm in my last year of formal schooling (yay!), so I'm {meant to

be} working really hard to get everything finished that I want to study in high school (level). That means piles of math and science, along with some French.

Of course, being in my late teens with my graduation approaching, people regularly ask about my plans in terms of a job or career. I've been teaching recorder lessons to a few homeschooled students since the beginning of last year, and next year I plan to teach flute as well. Flute is actually my main instrument (I play it to a higher level than any other), but due to it's greater complexity, I opted to get some teaching experience with the recorder first. Once I've completed all the grades, I can go for my teaching diploma (that's just for flute -- there's one per instrument!) which is through ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music). And voila, I'll be a qualified flute teacher!

So, I think those are the two biggest parts of my life currently. As a daughter at home, I also have various family/household duties, such as working in the family business one day a week, cooking, cleaning, etc.

With my impending 18th {or perhaps that has subjective rather than intrinsic value?} and the end of my "school years" approaching (something akin to the end of an era!), a season (or seasons?) of my life are coming to an end. And I'll leave it at that {can you feel the suspense?!}, since this post was meant to be about the season I'm currently in. And I didn't write all that much. Oops.

Responding to Readers' Questions || Life as a Homeschooler

I received another comment in response to the one I responded to here. I'm going to address three of the questions from it here: 1) Do I like homeschooling? 2) Do I ever wish I went to school? and 3) What kind of things do I do in each day? 

1) No, I don't like homeschooling. I LOVE it. Haha. My years of formal homeschooling (academics) are nearly over, but I am, and likely always will be, a homeschooler at heart.

2) Are you kidding me?! I'm nearly eighteen and more interested in job opportunities actually! :) But in the past . . . Well, for a short time before entering high school (level, that is) I did. But otherwise, no. I loved life as a homeschooler too much! :)

3) My average day would involve school work, music practice (flute especially, maybe guitar as well), folding washing (we all have assigned chores and that's my daily one), teaching (recorder) and some free time. One day a week I work with my dad in our family-owned import/wholesale business dispatching orders and doing some data entry, invoicing, taking/editing images, and updating catalogues and various other documents. Currently I'm designing a new catalogue as well. 

So there are my thoughts on those three questions. And if anything isn't clear, well then there's a comment section. ;) haha

Liz and Lydia Over for Dinner

Liz and Lydia are our cousins somewhere down the line. They're from Wellington and we hadn't seen them for ages, so when they came to Auckland during the school holidays (uni holidays for them) we invited them over for dinner.

: : Bryce and Maria tried really hard to pull Liz off the chair : :

: : The girls have trialed a number of instruments themselves, : :
so throughout the night most of ours made an appearance!
Here Diana plays some recorder pieces (that she hasn't learnt yet) to Lydia.

: : Somehow the bath got forgotten about : :
Maybe the overflow thingy is blocked?!
The entire floor was covered!

This Week...Part 2

Hey!

Thursday we did our friends the Rakete's paper run, as they were also at the tramp, then the others went to Drury Christian School for Monique's violin lesson, and Danielle's recorder lesson (both for the first time), then to Dad's work, while I (once again!) did school work.


Friday we went to my orthodontist appointment at 11:45, which is why my teeth are so sore now, I had thicker wires put on, power chain, and rubber bands going from top to bottom on both sides of my mouth ouch! =)

Then to the Warehouse, where we sat in the car, well I did anyway, Jarrod took the street surfer/s-board/ripstick onto the footpath, terrorised the others, and...well suffice it to say that by the time Mum came back, their were a few screaming children, and most of them jumped out of the car to go see her (when they know they must stay IN the car!)

After a llllloooooonnnnnnnggggggg lunch, Mum took the others to do the Rakete's paper run again, so I some un-interrupted time to concentrate on school work.

And today..we had GKGW (Growing Kids God's Way) course, along with another very exhausting childrens program, which was organised by John Sonneveld - cousin to my friends. This week they learnt about the Good Shepherd, the memory verse being "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." Psalm 23 v 1.
The first craft - glueing a fabric cloak to a piece of paper, and drawing details like the head, arms, legs, clouds, sky, grass, etc...and sheep. They had three cotton wool balls they split in half and stuck on to the sheep.
And the colouring picture was of a shepherd with a sheep.

And tonight..my teeth were too sore to eat the Lamb cassorole that Mum made, so I had scrambled eggs, and will have a cup o' soup soon.

And Dad and Uncle Pete have been to work for a few hours, and just got home.

I've also been reading a book caled "How To Stop Your Kids From Going Broke" by Sylvia Bowden. Although I didn't hear her, she spoke at the Brain Conference I went to early last year.
It's a really good book!

Bee

Hi Again...

Hi again everyone,

Sorry I haven't posted in ages =(

Last Saturday we had a BBQ with our church at Cornwall Park/One Tree Hill.

I have been making skirts (straight elasticated ones) for the girls, and today we bought fabric so I can make purple net curtains, and some of the fabric for purple drapes...I'll be busy...lol

This morning I had my first flute lesson for the year. It was supposed to be 10am, but me being me turned my alarm clock off, and didn't wake again until about 9:25, and of course, Mum being Mum, she had entirely forgotten about it.. so completely freaked when I asked if she had looked at the time recently...lol
So anyway she rung my teacher, and changed the time to 10:30am.. which thankfully we were on time for... =)
Next week's lesson is set for 11am, and hopefully we will be up in time!
We played a few duets - me playing flute (obviously!) and my teacher accompanying me on the piano..oh man, I didn't really need the reminder about how much I want to play piano.....
Yes, my teacher plays more than just flute - piano, oboe, recorder, ...and a few that I can't remember..!

Tonight was also supposed to be the first night (for the second half of the season) for athletics...but it has been raining and windy all day...so that got post-poned to tomorrow night...
Anyway it was fun having our friends the Sonnevelds' come over for an hour and a half to talk instead =)

WOW!!! I can't believe it's already tomorrow night that my friend Bethany arrives from Australia for ten days!!!! =)

Well I'm gonna leave it at that for now,
Luv,
Bee