We have been busy around here. We are all sick, of course, but I'm beginning to accept that this is our natural state of being in the winter now. It wouldn't be fun if one of us didn't have a sore throat and copious amounts of snot. Good times! But, we are soldiering through, and turning cabin fever into crafting fever. I have discovered that Will loves to do "projects" with me, and my long dormant art major side has come uncovered in full force.
First we made Valentine's Day cards for the grandparents, my sister, and Will's cousins in AZ. I gave him some pink and red construction paper, markers, glitter glue and sequins and he went to town. Then I cut the "cars" and "trucks" into large hearts and glued them onto our cards. I printed out a couple of cute, recent pictures of the kids and included them inside. Viola! 45 minutes of peace and quiet for me, messy, sticky fun for him, and refrigerator art for the grandparents. Then we decided to bake cookies for his classroom at school. I don't know if I ever blogged about what happened with our day care dilemma, but the short story is that we switched him from the in-home day care provider to a wonderful preschool about 1 minute from where we work. It was a major transition (2 weeks after Emma was born; horrendous timing), but we are glad that we did it. He has tons of friends and looks forward to going.
So, he wanted to take cookies in and I thought it would be fun to make cut-out hearts. I love to bake, but I don't make a lot of cookies. I had forgotten how time consuming this type of cookies is to make, especially with a three year old helper. Mixing, chilling, rolling, cutting, rolling again, cutting, decorating with icing, decorating with sprinkles...I would have been a little less stressed had I thought it through and done most of the prep without him. But he had a great time and we were all kept entertained for a couple of hours, so what more can you ask for? Perhaps someone to clean up my kitchen afterwords.
What else...I've been reading a ton of books. I was so sick last weekend (some sort of flu that mutated into an incredibly sore throat for a week) that I spent most of it on the couch or in bed, reading. My life is so sad right now that this was a luxury, despite the high fever and general body aches. Because I got to read for HOURS uninterrupted. N. took the kids everywhere he could think of, and I read and slept, and shivered and took Tylenol and drank hot tea and read some more.
Here's what I've been reading:
Undertow by Sue Grafton--if you like the Kinsey Milhone series, you will like this one. Great read. Grafton makes basically no attempt to actually keep the mystery a mystery to the reader, but you don't care because it is such an enjoyable book.
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver--I'm only half way through this one, but I love it so far. Mexico in the 1930s from the viewpoint of a teenage American boy who ends up working in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym--Loving her books right now. Funny, sweet, cozy stories.
Delicate, Edible Birds by Lauren Groff--I liked this book of short stories more than I expected. A couple of the stories put me off a bit, particularly the first one, but I kept reading and grew more and more enchanted. I like her best when she lets her imagination really go.
Finally, I've been doing some sketching and painting. I've wanted to get back into this for awhile, but two babies and a serious addiction to reading keep pushing it to the bottom of my list. Art used to be a HUGE part of my life, and somehow it's been years since I've done anything that I would consider "art" and not craft making. Sad. So, I bought some new watercolors on line and some pricey paper, and I unpacked my old sketchbooks and pencils and paintbrushes. I've just been trying out the paints (and I haven't touched the nice paper yet--too scared), but it's been fun.
I feel like I'm at about a rusty, fourth grade level right now, but you have to start somewhere, right? I am forcing myself to sketch every day, and trying to paint at least twice a week, if only for an hour. I can kind of feel it coming back, but man, am I out of practice. I tried to do some life drawing using Will as a model and the results were too hideous to save. It will be still lifes and basic color compositions for me for awhile.
I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day!
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