Everyday should be Mother’s Day

Making the decision to have a child is momentous.

It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking

around outside your body.”

Elizabeth Stone quote

Posting an entry about Mother’s Day just slipped past me.  I had already planned the things I was going to do that day.  In the week prior to Mother’s Day I ruminated on what I wanted for Mother’s Day and how I wanted my day to go. 

Mostly I wanted an easy day.  A stress free open-ended kinda day.  A day to do the things I like to do: workout, relax, read something.

I made phone calls and sent texts to all the moms I know.  Mostly at this place in my life I want to love the people I love and be at peace inside myself.

I count my blessings.  I am thankful for the health of my sons. I do work I love.  I am stepping out of my comfort range. 

To all the Mother’s out there I say: honor yourself.  Love yourself, find your joy, find joy in the everyday experiences of raising little people to grow up and be big people.  Thus, everyday should be Mother's Day, honor what you give in the world.

The Art of the Felt Board Story

Felt ducks
Five Little Ducks went out one day...

  

I have always loved literacy and storytelling with young children.  I think that books are windows into a big beautiful world of imagination inside us all.  Stories can make us laugh, cry, reflect, connect with another’s experience and many other feelings.

As a teacher I was really interested in learning how to make a felt board story.  It’s more storytelling than reading a book, you can take a book and make the characters out of felt.  Kinda like making them come alive.

That is the creative part that I absolutely love. And found very hard. Not hard, but like my art, I have a certain style and wanted the pieces to be the way I envisioned them.

Children enjoy the visual added component to a story.  I have seen them connect and love the characters as if they were old friends or new friends.

Turning a book into a felt story was fun.  It is a bit of sewing and cutting and using felt.  Another creative material, with many possibilities, I loved cutting the felt pieces and trying to figure out how to make the most from them.

The children love them.  And that gives me great joy.  To see them interacting with and giving their own interpretation to a story.

Elmer

Animals and Tree with Elephant colored berries

Light and reflection - I love

One of my favorite things in the whole world is  reflection in a pool of water.  Especially after it has rained.  Or any other time.

There is something so magical about the reflection of buildings and things in water.   I don’t know what it is but it always takes my breath away.

I love water anyway, I am a water girl.  Give me a pool, steam sauna, Jacuzzi, lake, river or hot bath.  I just love water. 

Water is deep and mysterious.  Water is there is something intuitive about it.  They say still waters run deep.  But I love the reflection on a clear pond of water.