Snowy Day Brain Dump

I’ve stalled out on blogging recently. I’ve got a backlog of learning notes posts going back to December. And some reading posts too. And a bunch of half-baked drafts about books and such. And I was sick and Ben was sick. And now we are both better and more than just better, our new insurance kicked in and we can now afford preventative inhalers and boy has it made our quality of life so much better. Both of us have so much energy it’s ridiculous. Today I took a long walk in the snow and I didn’t have any problem breathing in the cold. It was amazing.

So yeah, I want to get back into the groove of more frequent blogging. I also do want to catch up on my backlog of learning notes because it does make me happy to post those little updates with pictures of what we did. I like the record and I hate it when it has gaps here in my virtual file cabinet memory space. I mean some gaps are inevitable because I’m terrible at actually remembering to write something every day and even when I do I forget lots of things. But a partial record is still better than no record at all. I want to get back, but maybe tackling the backlog isn’t the best way to do that. I’m going to try to do some off the cuff kinds of posts to get back into the habit of writing… and then see what happens with posting older stuff.

Anyway this week I feel like I’ve got a sudden burst of something. Yesterday I woke up earlier than I have in a while and Ben was already sitting at the table doing his work. He made some tea for me and for himself, made coffee for Bella, got breakfast for Anthony and Lucy… He was on a roll. And he got everyone else going too. He cleared off his school shelf and threw away old papers and made everything tidy. And then Lucy and Anthony and Sophie all followed his example. Today he and Sophie both hit the books early. I got an early start to the day because I wanted beef stew for dinner to simmer for a long time. So I got bread in the oven and stew on the stove by 11. Which considering all the interruptions wasn’t so bad. Bella and Sophie got more work done than they have in a long time. And we had early stories and then because dinner was already cooking I was able to take a walk in the snow with Bella and Anthony.

We’ve all rediscovered watercolor and the kids have been having so much fun. Today I taught Ben and Anthony how to do spatter paints and they made a glorious Jackson Pollock mess.

I think I mentioned before in my sketchbook post that I got a new set of fancy watercolors. That has made all the difference. Now I’m wanting to paint all the time and seeing ideas for paintings. This week it was in a photograph I saw on Facebook.

Ben and Sophie were both challenged at scouts to do three chores a day. And boy have they and it’s mode a lot of difference too. They’re doing dishes and laundry and sweeping the floor and keeping the shoes tidy. And in general things are messy but much less messy than they used to be. And I’ve now got kids who can and do vacuum and dust and really help with the housekeeping.

Things go in cycles. Life is full of seasons: a season of drawing and one of painting and one in which art languishes. A season of poetry, a season of Shakespeare, a season of writing and a season when writing is fallow. I know I’ll always come back to the things I love, even if there are long times in between. There isn’t time enough for everything.

So here we are, blog entry as slice of life, random brain dump at the end of the day. I’ll throw a few pictures from our day…. resisting the urge to scrap this post. I’m just going to hit Publish.