What did I do in 2023?

 

Chairs from church Christmas event on Dec 31. Clear view across vacant lots where there used to be houses until Feb last year. Neighbours bikes.

When I discovered both my blog and blood tests had nothing between Jan and Nov last year, I wondered what I was doing all those months.

After checking other records, here are some things I want to remember from 2023, in no particular order.

~Our home became both bigger and smaller around Feb 2023. Until that point, we had relatives living with us and neighours in their house over the fence. But at that point the relative moved out, the house torn down, and boys moved into the back part of ours. 

~Recovering from 2022. Those Two Big Things of 2022 left such an impact. We travelled to the capital city 3 times in the first half of the year to help with that. The second half of the year a new activity started here on Tuesday afternoons which seemed to even things out. In fact, most in 2023 were impacted by 2022. Our household, our homeschooling etc.

~A strange and scary heat wave happened in May. Normally March and April are hot and we take 6 weeks off school. Then back to lessons when it gets cooler in May. But in 2023 May was actually hotter!!!! I did more reading aloud than normal lessons to survive that. An American had just given us some of her old books so it was good timing.

~ Homeschool next stage. When I first learnt about homeschooling the focus was on doing a bit of English and maths each day. Then the pandemic broke out and it gave us time to start daily desk habits to that end. It felt like it was going really well from late April 2020 until Feb 2022.

 When our daily habits were abruptly stopped in Feb 2022 I spent most of the rest of the year thinking I would go back to how we had been homeschooling. It had all suddenly ended with an emergency trip to hospital. I kept feeling like I was waiting for things to calm down and we could pick up where we left off. Sometimes in late 2022 I realised that was never going to happen nor should it. Not only was life different now since the hospital but there were other factors. The pandemic was over so life is busier, our household makeup and ministry is different AND the children are really different ages now. April 2020 they were at the stage where I was wanting to do a bit of maths and English each day as the main intentional desk-type work.  But maybe almost a year ago I realise I was starting to think about where I want my eldest to be academically wise in 5 years. So actually we will never return to those first 2 years of desk work. Late last year we started transitioning over a curriculum which I hope will see us through many years. Low stakes, easy to try it out now. Apart from those 2 months when the internet was unstable. Despite the disruption, I think we are getting the hang of it. 

~Role reversal in reading. I used to read to my kids and now I need them to read to me. (Pre-pandemic when I took the children to the supermarket I would try to point out English letters on food packets to help them start to learn to read. An unexpected 2.5, almost 3-year gap in their supermarket trips happened and it feels like they can suddenly read! No longer am I pointing out letters, but they are just picking things up to read them. And also...I can't read small print anymore, so I ask them to help me read food packets.) 

~Movies and books! I read lots of stories about Khmer history. I listed some of them on this blog already and intend to record the rest later. The dry list doesn't tell you about how amazing all the stories are and what it was like to read them but I don't have the energy for that yet. Just quickly recording that I read them last year, maybe I'll come back to that later.

My children and I went to see The Rise of Gru at the cinema, was that in late 2022?. They loved the outing and with 3.50usd a ticket it felt very doable. So since then, we have seen many movies! Once with a new friend from Tuesdays. Although the last 2 times it cost 4usd. we also saw a couple of free movies by the pool at a hotel. Although we spent lots of money on food so they were not really free!

`~ I think I lost my purple scarf that I received from students in 2006. It had a good life. It could be somewhere in our messy house, but most likely fell off me while bike riding or walking?

~ Quick visits from Aussie families. I guess with travel possible now everyone was getting on planes last year. We took a few of them to the nearby newly opened gardens and a few others came to our house.  Three families used to live here at different times, one family I knew from school (I met her in 1987?!), another 3 families live in other parts of Cambodia and I first met them at church or Bible college in Aus.

(A boring list mainly for myself: 

J,S with H and L stopped by our house to drop off medical stuff, they used to live here just before covid so it was fun to see them again. 

R,S with N and his 2 younger siblings also used to live here many years ago when our firstborn were toddlers, they stopped by and the ex- toddlers played soccer! 

An old school friend and her family were touring, we met up with them at the gardens and saw the landmine rats together.  

C and K and S who used to live here also were back in SR for a bit and we hung out in the gardens. Our firstborn also knew each other as toddlers. 

K and her 2 girls from another province had a spare day in town so we hung out at the gardens. I don't thnk I had met her children before, the main time I spent with her was when we were both single at Bible college.

Later in the year 2 Aussie families from PP visited our house, we fed them breakfast. One of them actually came at breakfast time.

Maybe there were some others, I can't remember. We also saw at least 3 Aussie ladies who brought gifts and medical stuff. So my kids got to hang out with lots of Aussie this year, although none they can see in a normal month. And we went to those gardens so many times and kept meaning to go back ourselves but we seem to only go with friends.)