nurture

Who knew nurture was such a fertile word? :)

normal

I know I'm being dramatic here... But it feels traumatic, this whole playschool-thing. To me, anyway. To me, much more than to the kid involved. He goes, does his thing, and sort of whines when I come to pick him up. Funny. But not haha, necessarily. Not yet, anyway :)

ritualistically

mothers

Not my best work, but so heart-felt it hurts!

Squirt is going to playschool this Tuesday. I'm sending him away! I know I'm not, but ouch just the same. But hey - mums bloom in Autumn, so it's a matter of waiting for my moment. Right? I mean, right?!

Life's bitter-sweet, huh?!

collage

All done with the witch :) Cut & pasted, two-sided, and threaded to go up. Somewhere. Somehow. Still have to figure out the rest of it, but this is done :) There are days I'd love to join her, broom off into the great blue yonder... But that's another story, I guess ;)

@ Anne, don't worry, her shoes won't come off, I used decent glue ;)

witch

Spent all day on a Halloween-y sort of project, spontaneously :) I hope it's going to be a window bunting thingy when it's finished, but it all remains to be seen. It's ongoing. Got a sore back from cutting and pasting - in the literal sense, involving scissors and glue! So for today, I'm done.

This is the witch I drew. I think she's sort of cute :) Trying to teach Squirt that there are good witches too. He's just discovered the idea of witches, ghosts and the like, and he's not quite sure what to make of it all - & to be honest, neither am I! We'll figure it all out, head on, together, I guess ;)

I'll let you know if this witch turns into something finished!

personality

sprouts

Brussels sprouts, to be exact. In honour of the fact that, allegedly, according to my mother, I'm the only grown-up (also, allegedly!) who's never overcome her - let's say aversion to these abominations.

Of course, fate dealt me a kid who loves them. By exception (click!), he got lucky! I needed a couple to draw (note to self: it's hard to try and mix the same colours a day later!), he got to get rid of the evidence :)

I stayed at my parents' house for a couple of days last week. A little too long. Something about childhood indignations and their apparently endless shelf life seems to bring me Brussels sprouts. Go figure!

boring

I've been drawing & painting like mad over the past few days. I'd love to show and tell, but there's a lot of angst and negativity involved and I feel like I've been overstating that side of me, lately... These are times of transition, of growth and growing pains for me. I'm channelling lots of stuff into my art journal in stead of into words, and that's a huge step up. I'm slowly letting go of the idea that - if I can word things, I can grasp and control them. So I'm drawing them. It feels good, and I'm getting drawing practise in at the same time :)

But while dealing with things - or: look, pick apart, disect and study the remains - is a big part of who I've always been, life definitely isn't all bad. There's just not enough time in a day to draw all that and sweet smelling roses!

So for the sake of something completely different, I'm sharing our smallest room with you today :)

I'm trying to make it a happier place, seeing that we spend so many hours there, in a lifetime. The (ceramic) houses and cars are the latest addition, I stuck them up with double sided tape just this morning. We brought them home from South Africa, as an odd souvenir :)

My awesome neighbour and friend Tamar says Dutch toilets are the cleanest, but also the most boring in the world. She ought to know, she's a self-proclaimed, well-travelled expert on the subject ;)*
I started decorating toilets long before I met her, and it's a work in progress, but I'm bent on proving her wrong, anyway :)

*she said so in this awesome bit of stand-up comedy (sadly only for the Dutch speakers among you!):

carpet

I started this bit of art-ish-tics just to see how I could draw our carpet (using watercolour and coloured pencil, as it turns out). Then I got sucked into drawing the hoover - pun unintentional, but on point ;) And this is where it ended, quite unplanned.

This is not how we coexist in this house! Willing or not, you probably gleaned I'm not always one for letting things go easily (although I'm fervently working on that - really!), or to let sleeping dogs get their much deserved sleep ;)

But we did celebrate 11 years of marriage, last Thursday! At times, dust bunnies take over the house - small & bigger arguments left unresolved overnight, petty grievances unaired, random crap rehashed and chewed again, you know the sort of thing ;) It sure as hell isn't always easy, but then, no one said it would be! But we're still here. And as far as I'm concerned, we're sticking it out!

Happy anniversary, honey :)

fire

I am not a huge rugby fan. & rugby, she's not hot, really, here in the Low Countries. But husband is South African, so I get... contaminated, every now & then ;)

Just this morning, apropos of nothing much, I got this image in my head: a dog lives in the center of the Universe. And it barks and bites. Not a comfortable image to start the day with. For all sorts of reasons, better left undisturbed ;) But then I saw this:



I love watching the All Blacks perform the Haka!! I can't even begin to explain how this sets fire to my insides, so I won't ;) But I've decided to play this for myself, first thing in the morning, for as long as the dog refuses to wag its tail & do a happy dance!

1976

convictions

From my Morning Pages this morning;

'Some hope onto this page, into my heart! Because please! These convictions! They - none of them mean anything beyond the boundaries of my flourishing and over-active imagination: not really.
It's a beautiful idea to think of it all along Chinese (medicinal) lines: I'm diagnosing the (in-) balance of NOW & confusing it with ALWAYS!
Right now I'm disappointed & sore & tired. Of course I am! & Right Now can be a long moment - let's say the past 2 years. Almost. It doesn't matter. Right Now - including large chunks of 2010 & '11 - is not Always. It's NOW.
Everything flows & changes. It does. I know it does - of course. The Me who is, now, is the self-same Me who never thought she'd be a mamma, standing upright, here (and all that includes), to make Art! It's not the exact same Me, because we ebb and flow and change - but it's essentially the same lost soul of... 2002, to name a year. So things change, they heal.
If I believe that - and I do, I have to, I live it! - then WHY do my own home-grown + nurtured convictions (especially when I see they change like leaves, over a matter of just days at times!) settle into all that I AM?!
Grieve, cry, be sad about what isn't, sure! Healthy, even!
But to swallow it, to cartilage the whole thing & make it a Truth?! Not a good thing; not okay, not healthy, not helpful!, not necessary & definitely not Truth.

Amazing, awesome & soul-deep!
Focus on & cry for NOW, not Always!
What an insanely simple relief!'

Feeling a whole lot better, when I really didn't think I would, for a long time. I hope it might make you think differently about something you have been holding onto unnecessarily. There is hope, there always is. I don't usually do posts like this, but I needed to fling this out there. It just felt that way!

aloe