A peaceful Sunday morning

Today is Sunday. Church day. It was lovely. Was woken at 7am by our new ritual of the radio alarm. Westley was totally excited a few minutes later when he realised it was actually Sunday and not Monday - that like, n-e-v-e-r happens to us! A few minutes later he was asleep again. Sunshine and Sweet-pea came in shortly after that and asked permission to go on the computer. I like that because they are quiet and won't wake my Harrison, who I still consider my baby baby even though he is 18 months. Got out of bed, turned the heater up - it is cold in the morning. Put the kettle on and went back to bed. Sunday mornings on the radio are really good - a gardening show. We have just moved into a new house with a huge garden and we are totally excited to develop green thumbs and learn how to keep a garden and grow vegetables. Kettle has boiled so I get out of bed and make a cup of tea for me and Westley and return to bed. Westley sleeps still. I sit and enjoy the peace until Harrison wakes up. Around 8am he is awake and ready for his milk. I get him and return to bed where we snuggle back in and I breastfeed him. Westley remains asleep. 10 minutes later and Harrison is ready to get up and tackle the day. I get up too and grab some breakfast for us all. Yoghurt and strawberries - yummy... Westley is awake now and finished his tea. I choose nice clothes for the children to get dressed for church. Politely ask if Westley will dress Harrison while I shower. Then I casually shower and get ready for church. Family is ready now too so we head off. Church is a nice 5 minutes drive away and we slip in a bit late. Pastor Barry was preaching, he is so full of life it is inspiring. Message from the sermon, we are all different. Only I can be the best me, only you can be the best you. So refreshing!!

... and that was my Sunday morning. It was nice :)

Picture study

Okay, I just did some great planning for picture studies that I thought I'd share. It is really simple, but has helped me get my head around things and maybe it will help you. I first got the idea for a picture study from Charlotte Mason's writings and various websites promoting Charlotte Mason's approach to education. I am very fond of Charlotte Mason's approach to education. One of the subjects Charlotte promoted was picture study. As someone who knows very little about paintings and drawings and artists who produced famous works, I thought this was important for my children to learn to appreciate (and me at the same time!).

OUTCOMES

1. To recognise that artists have his/her own style.
2. To enjoy looking at artwork or be able to appreciate the artist's talent.
3. To be able to identify an artist through his/her work.

METHOD
(some of the ideas below came from this article on the Homeschool World website).

• This method is targeted to an audience aged 5-11.
• Pick one artist to study for a few weeks.
• Look at only one picture per session.
• Talk very briefly about the artist. Keeping the information very simple like, the name of the artist, where they lived and when.
• Showing the child the picture and asking them to look at it for a few minutes.
• Asking the child to talk about the picture. What do they see? How does it make them feel? What colours are they using? As the child gets older I would remove the picture and ask them to describe it, or draw what they remember of it.
• Potential activity (I will treat this activity as purely optional at each session): Child can reproduce the artwork, or how the artwork makes them feel in their own way somehow. Ie, painting, drawing, craft, pasting.

RESOURCES

• Pictures will be found mostly online.
• Library might be good after we have studied the one artist for a few weeks so we can see multiple works in one (different) setting to bring it all together.
• A trip to the art museum.

ARTISTS TO STUDY

• Claude Monet (I plan to start with this one because I think it will appeal to Sunshine).
• Thomas Kinkade (we love his paintings so much, I must, must, must introduce him soon!).
• The four ninja turtles, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and Donatello (because it will be good for me to be able to distinguish each of their styles too).
• Rembrandt van Rijn
• Pablo Picasso (not a fan myself, but it will be good to show Sunshine how different artists can be).

... and that should keep us busy for the next nine months or so! I have a few more suggested artists on my list but I would like to look into them first before I officially put them on the list.

Desperate to create

I am feeling desperate to create. I consider myself as a creative person, but not in a traditional artistic way. My artistic nature never really evolved past 2nd grade. I am not good at drawing or painting. I think that what I am good at is making things out of nothing. When I was growing up I wanted a bedside table desperately, but we couldn't afford one. So I made one with drawers out of boxes and covered it with posters (which I used until my sister bought me a real one for my next birthday!). I am good at "Playschool" typed creating, children's craft and making lots of things out of boxes. I like to be creative in the kitchen too (many times out of necessity because I have to tweak a recipe to suit eating Paleo) and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't... unfortunately. Westley is not so keen on my 'experiments' because of this, however last night I had a real win so I'm on a bit of a high from that (lamb chuck-in-a-pot I decided to call it). I don't like following recipes much, but I do enjoy eating good, yummy food.

I come from a line of women who are amazing with their hands. My mother, her mother, Nanny and her sister mastered all kinds of creativity from dress making/sewing, quilting, cake decorating, amazing cooking, baking (anything that tastes out-of-this world delicious), general crafts and decorations, gardening, floristry, I think Mum has even now just added jewellery making, and the list goes on and on and on.... They are such amazing creative and competent women. So it really should not surprise me to find I get a real itching to create stuff.

I've got many projects on the go in my head but am mostly halted by funds to buy the materials. I got a you-beaut sewing machine for my birthday so many projects twirling around in my head lately have been sewing related. I've had a couple trips to the local fabric store in the last 3 days, just to check it out/dream/plan. It was great. I just wish I could run with it all, now! Today though I pulled out a scrap of pink fleece fabric Mum had given me to make a nightie for Sweet-pea. It's cute and fluffy and has cats with balloons. So in a moment of confidence this morning, I laid it out, stuck a couple of pins, got a bowl for the head, measured a bit, and got cutting! I'm going no pattern!! Learning the way I love, through experience! So, I will let you know how it goes and if I can actually figure out how to upload a pic in a post, I just might do that too.

Learning Peace

God is teaching me about peace.

I am a stress head. I stress and worry a lot. If there is nothing to stress or worry about, then I will find something however meaningless to stress and worry over. It will usually be an issue for me for a couple of days and then it will pass and I will find something new to stress about. I don't like it. It is a heavy way to live. To avoid it, I have developed a mechanism of well, avoiding it, so when I am feeling strong, I stick my head in the sand. Being an ostrich, my husband says. Ignorance truly is bliss for me. It feels peaceful, until reality smacks me in the face, or I open the door to actually thinking about it. So I am thinking that this peace that I think I have is actually not peace at all. This way of living is a contradiction to the life I am called to live in God. Far from freedom.

I've heard lots of stories about how our personal problems and failings in our personality are magnified through our children and this is something I do not want to pass on to my children. I want them to know peace, true peace that is promised to them as heirs to the kingdom of heaven. Not ignorance, but true peace despite the storm they may be passing through. I want this for me and for them. How wonderful to go through life with a peaceful heart no matter what you are going through.

A couple of weeks ago, the Holy Spirit gave me a word through a visiting pastor at my church. He said my mind is like a clothes dryer, going round and round. I'd never thought of it like that. It is exactly how it feels. The loads change but my mind keeps going round and round, drying out the new thoughts. I love hearing words from the Holy Spirit. Why does it amaze me so much that God could have such and accurate understanding of my mind and care enough to help me fix it? But I guess that is another topic. Anyway, the pastor said I need to go back to God's word. So I have started to study peace in the bible. I went out, bought a new notebook and embarked on my new spiritual adventure of learning peace, the true peace that is my (born again) birth-right.