Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
Crochet
On break
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
Download material
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type – (in download material)
Pegasus enjoyed the movie. He said 22 was his favourite character. (Not surprised)
Dance
As per usual, I didn’t do anything specific for this.
Music
His scales are coming along nicely and he willingly practises both his scales and the pieces in the book.
Crochet
We haven’t started this yet.
Basic Information
We are working on the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is going well. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
We practised the seasons, but he still needs help remembering them in French.
Printing words
We’re working on spacing and keeping the words on the bottom line. I think he’s getting better at this.
Counting objects/math-type activities
He still has no problems with counting these, and I feel like his numbers have improved.
Math worksheets. He REALLY likes these. He did them both on Monday because he was so excited to do them.
Storytime
We got 4 new French library books. We read 2 this week.
Activity
Blues and jazz music – We listened to both and I talked about their history. See Dragon’s Soul Results for links.
Learn to meditate – Pegasus liked the meditation exercise I led him in. He even tried it on his own later.
Make a personality zine – I used the Personality Traits from this website to discuss the areas of his personality. He decided which words fit him best, and then he built the zine himself from my template. (I love that template.)
Before the pandemic, I was talking to a friend and they said something like, “You understand what it’s like since you’re neurodivergent.” I didn’t know what that meant. In case you don’t, neurodivergent is a blanket term for those who have a different mental or neurological function. You’ll also hear neurospicy or other variations. The word is often claimed by autistics, those with ADHD, dyslexics, etc.
Once I looked up what they meant, I assumed it was due to my dyslexia, something that has plagued me my whole life.
Another friend later said they claimed Jen and I as part of their neurodivergent friends. I also started noticing a lot of my friends are neurodivergent and I started looking into it.
I started to see a lot of memes and videos about ADHD and Autism that were really relatable and I started wondering.
By the time the pandemic hit, I was thinking maybe. We’d also noticed some attributes in Dragon and started the process of getting her psycho-educational testing.
After a lot of procrastinating, Jen and I set up appointments for ourselves. (We’re still waiting on Jen’s results.)
Mine came back, as I expected, with ADHD of the Inattentive type. I’d done enough research to be fairly sure but it still feels weird. It makes sense however.
There it is, I’ve learnt more about myself and this gives me tools and a community to help me deal with my own brain. The nurse I talked to said that I’d done a good job finding strategies to help myself avoid the worst.
If you have questions I can try to answer but I’m no expert… yet.
Today we’re talking about the 2017 film Power Rangers.
Story
This is a very derivative story. It’s a chosen-one, superhero, Breakfast Club with lots of old Power Ranger cheese. It’s exactly what I wanted from this movie even if it wasn’t original.
Score: 0.5
Characters
I liked the diversity. They each had their individual arcs, and despite the multiple set pieces eating the time, they all felt well set up and complete.
The acting was extremely well done considering the cheesiness of the script.
Score: 1
Dialogue
Some of the dialogue is terrible but delivered really well, almost making it seem natural.
The heart to heart moments between characters are pretty staged but again well-acted.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
The visuals used the style of the old comics with the unmistakable 2010’s main colour palette. At least they kept the rangers brightly coloured.
The music is epic and the score utterly fantastic.
Score: 1
Fun
I wanted something that had the essence of the Power Rangers I grew up with. I didn’t want the exact same story or the same characters (I don’t remember them that well, it’s been 30 years since I watched it). This delivered and was just plain fun. Lost of cheese, lots of great acting, and some awesome battles.
Score: 1
Overall
A fun take on the concept of Power Rangers that will enrage the diehard fans but on its own it’s a fun and exciting movie.
I think I can say that I’m a moderately experienced author at this point… (2 unpublishable novels, 7 solo published novels, 2 co-authored published novels, 2 co-authored unpublished novels, 10 years of serial stories, a dozen or so short stories, and over 15 years of blog posts)
I’m currently 2/3rd of the way through a novel, in the last stages of a TTRPG system, writing a serial story, and writing a novel with my wonderful wife. (I’m tired just thinking about it all.)
I have a giant secret to tell you… come in close… closer… hey, stop licking your screen…
It doesn’t get easier
The mechanics get simpler, once you understand how to use quotation marks and construct sentences. I’ve heard wild tales of authors taming commas but I’m sure that’s just a tall tale.
The actual writing doesn’t get easier. You try your best to put one word in front of the other and stay coherent, and in the end you have a pile of them that have to be cleaned and organized into something resembling a story. All the while, there’s a little voice that says, “Can you really do this? No, probably not.” Even after writing 11 novels, I still hear that voice and it’s hard to ignore.
That doubt is something I’m told all authors live with (if it’s just me, please don’t tell me. Leave me to my delusions) and it’s one of the greatest obstacles.
Having finished something does give me the extra little confidence to say, “I did it before, maybe I can do it again”. It’s not enough to silence the doubt but it does help.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
Crochet
On break
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
Download material
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type – (in download material)
Addition and pattern – worksheet
Storytime
Activity
Experiment Blue Eyes (link to experiment) – use different shapes in different colours and have them grouped in different ways, picking one group to be “lesser” each time. Does that make sense? No! Elephant rescues in Africa (video) Shapes Activity (print out in folder) – can make more shapes. Group them, name them, etc.
Pegasus was entranced by this movie. He seemed to understand what was going on and was very sad when a secondary character died. He said that his favourite part was when the second star appeared.
Dance
As per usual, I didn’t do anything specific for this.
Music
His scales are coming along nicely and he willingly practises both his scales and the pieces in the book.
Crochet
We haven’t started this yet.
Basic Information
We are working on the day before and the day after any given day. The months of the year is going well. All months have proper pronounciation now, and we’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
We practised the seasons, but he still needs help remembering them in French.
Printing words
We’re working on spacing and keeping the words on the bottom line.
Counting objects/math-type activities
He still has no problems with counting these, and I feel like his numbers have improved.
Math worksheets. He REALLY likes these and had a lot of fun with the more challenging one. He did them both on Monday because he was so excited to do them.
Storytime
We read all four of the French library books again. He did really well and read several pages on his own.
Activity
Cooking rice bowl – He was very enthusiastic about chopping, prepping, and the initial combination, and he really enjoys dumping things into other things. But he has absolutely no interest in sticking around and watching the food cook.
Baking beignets – He really enjoys working with dough, and loves seeing things rise. The initial rolling, he got bored. And then the cutting after, he got even more bored. Thankfully he wasn’t interested in the frying part (because boiling oil!). He loved using the mixer and dumping ingredients into it. (Dragon helped a bit with this one because she wanted to.)
Learn about frogs – We read about different frogs from his sister’s schoolwork, and we watched a couple videos about wood frogs thawing after a freeze. He was tremendously interested in them coming back to life.
