January

My elementary school kids have 5 weeks off starting the week before Christmas.


What can I say after that?

Actually, it's historically (the last 5 years anyway) been by turns chaotic and wonderful. Just like you'd think, it depends on your perspective. Which is not fair at all. If I'm suffering of course it has to be chaotic and too long and where is that cavalry (the mounted soldiers riding to my rescue)? My house, oh, my house may never recover. And yet, this year (I know, it's the antidepressants) there have been some bright rays of light. One - the variety in the weather really lifted my spirits. Two - a friend loaned me a book about busy activities for busy Toddlers or something like that. Even though I only have one mostly outgrown Toddler left, the book started out so positively and with such practical ideas (a crazy can for the time when dinner isn't quite on the table yet) that I felt the possibilities start to bubble up like carbonation in my favorite root beer. Surprisingly, reading about Willa Cather left me a little mad and anxious - discontent. I walked around with a scowl a lot. Reading about toddlers put that discontent back on the road to productivity because it's all about creativity. Especially the discontent. Believe it or not, mothers have to be creative all the time to keep up with, and occasionally get ahead of, their Junior Anarchists. Whose needs often supersede their mothers' creative efforts. Back to Willa Cather. As part of that book review, I read some about Minerva Teichert, an LDS contemporary and fellow artist, though in painting. Cather was widely published and well-known and Teichert's paintings grace the interior walls of the Manti Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two women who worked hard for their art and saw a measure of success in their lifetimes. While Cather never married or had children, Teichert raised 4 children on a ranch in Wyoming while painting, cooking for the ranch hands, and keeping house. So, back to me, I am neither a world-class writer or painter or musician, but I have talents - creative things I like to do. We need to continually create in order to stay alive - to keep the cobwebs at bay. I picked 5 projects to work on before the children went back to school and we had a great time finishing two of them. We painted, perler-beaded, sanded, made plate designs,sang, read, danced, and somehow the house is coming back together and I don't feel anxious and discontent anymore. O, pioneers!