When you break it down to its most basic activity, my day is typically filled with one of two things: cleaning up or making a mess. Typically I am in cleaning mode. This is sad for two reasons: one, though I am cleaning hard--putting stuff away, organizing this, spraying off that, wiping away this, finding a home for that—at the end of the day, you can still hardly tell. It hardly makes a dent. But more importantly, reason 2, I don’t like cleaning. I mean I like the results (need the results, can't live without them), but to be perfectly honest, organizing taxes my brain like nothing other. It causes such fundamental confusion as to put permanent wrinkles in my delicate forehead skin. I don’t know where this thing goes! Should we even keep this? How should I know that? Should I, the mother, know this? Isn't knowing everything fundamental to good motherhood? Bhaaa!
Despite the wrinkles, it must be done, so I do it; (typically) all day, everyday.
But yesterday was special. Yesterday was Veterans Day and this means I have one-two-three-four-five-six kids home from school. All day. Six Kids. What would be the point of keeping up my regular organizing routine with 6 professional disorganizers in the house? So we opted for making a mess instead.
It was glorious.
We crafted. All day long. There was modge podge, foam brushes, stacks and stacks of paper, scissors, glitter, cerm coat paint. And we were in the zone. Apparently the time kept on ticking, but you couldn’t feel it moving. It was as if time stood still. (Could messy crafting possibly be connected to the fountain of youth?) I crafted for 5 hours straight with nary a hunger pain. The kids fended for themselves eating yogurt and applesauce, cottage cheese with pineapple on saltines. By the end of the day there were over 1,000 tiny scraps of paper on the floor, foam stickies adhered to the dining table, one entire bottle of modge podge had been spilled (but onto a paper plate, nice save!), glitter lined my floor, and I had 3 of my 4 Thanksgiving craft projects done (okay, semi-done). It was beautiful. [As an aside, let me say that I was feeling that Thanksgiving doesn't get its due in terms of art work/crafts. I came up with some fun ideas to replace the Halloween decorations. If we can have sleek silhouettes of bats and cats, why not silhouettes of pilgrims and Indians?]
And it was Veterans Day. Freedom to craft with your crazy kiddos. God bless the U.S.A. I love my country.
Capturing our creative process: template for this year's Grateful Tree, foam stickies for the little ones, glittering neighborhood pinecone finds, deciding that our "mossy green" background looked more like spring than fall and painting over it.
And now that its over you wanna
guess what I'll be doing to day???
And now that its over you wanna
guess what I'll be doing to day???
6 comments:
I can't wait to see these displayed on Thanksgiving. May I bring crafty name tags and napkin holders? Hooray for productive messes.
Looks like you found your pine cones! Hope you had lots of fun blinging them up!
I feel exactly the same way about the cleaning. I think I might copy and paste your prose for my blog.
Good luck on your race.
So glad you and the kids got to spend a holiday doing fun things. The kids here weren't even out of school on Veteran's Day! I am looking forward to seeing all your great Thanksgiving Decorations.
Your template looks better than my final tree!
now you need to show us more about the grateful tree idea, I want to see the completed project. I don't like cleaning either, so I just have to pretend to be my own cleaning lady once a week and barrel through, it seems to work.
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