Drawing Talent

I was "tooling around" Pinterest yesterday and found a pin for free online drawing lessons. One link led to another and I found myself at fivepencilmethod.com. I signed up for the free email tutorials and started watching a few of the videos. So far I really like the format and I think I could definitely get something out of this. I think the teacher used to be a drafter and I like how thorough and systematic he is (like, he starts with the proper way to remove a sheet of paper from your tablet). I like having things broken down into finite steps, I'm all OCD like that.

Drawing is one of those things at which I "used to" have some talent. I say this about drawing (and painting, singing, playing the piano...) because when I was about 10 I was considered talented at these things but then I eventually stopped practicing and my talent stayed where it was.

Anyway, after getting a little inspiration from Mr. Darrel Tank (he is SO from Idaho) I pulled out my old sketch pad and a picture of Jacob as a little baby (he's a toddler now) and put pencil to paper for the first time in years.

Results

Both of the sketches are from the same picture. The one in the middle-left of the page was my first try, but I wasn't satisfied at all so I drew the one below it. 

Definitely not a spitting image but I was happy to see that my second try really was better. Looking at it on the computer like this is actually helping me see where some of the problems are (I'm so going to have to go back and fix his left eye now). And of course, this was just sketch paper and a #2 pencil. I've told myself that if I'm good and practice with what I have, I can save my pennies and justify spending money on nice pencils and other supplies. We'll see how that goes. 

I guess I should probably go practice the piano while the little man from the picture is napping... Either that or fold laundry. Why is it that laundry is always more pressing? I know, I'll put on Pandora and clean while I also practice my singing. :-) That should do it.

"How High?"

For those of you who may not know, our 3 year old son was diagnosed with Autism at the beginning of January. You can read more about him and his development on our family blog.

A few days after Alexander's appointment at Marcus Autism Center I found and joined a website called MyAutismTeam.com. Everything is still pretty new but I'm really glad I found that site. Alexander is an anomaly in many ways but it's so nice to connect with other parents who can mostly relate to my current circumstances, whether emotionally or in the technical aspects. Right now I'm more focused on the practical parts. Because in fact, I find that my biggest anxiety-causer isn't Alexander at all; it's the red-tape. We want to get our little man all the help and services we can, and that requires paperwork.

And it requires cold-calls, and doctors' consultations, and IEP meetings, and waiting on hold with the insurance company (again). And being rerouted to yet another person at the insurance company who has no idea what I'm talking about or "no authority to make that call," (again). It means waiting in line at DFCS and "willingly" handing the state information that I, frankly, wish they didn't have. It requires, over time, filling out 57 different forms for 11 different offices, some private and some tax-funded, all with that same information! (Those numbers are guesses but I promise I'm not trying to exaggerate.)

Bureaucracy is the bane of my existence and has been most of my adult life. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Alexander's pediatrician at least seemed to agree with me. I commented to him the other day that I'm working toward a gold medal in "Hoop Jumping" for the 2012 Olympics. He paused briefly in his scribbling under yet another "To Be Filled Out Only By Child's Primary Care Physician" heading. He glanced at the mountain of case files on his desk. (Alexander is his 4th patient to be diagnosed with Autism this month.) Then he gave an exhausted attempt at a chuckle and said, "That's actually a good joke."

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

I've noticed in my life that there is something about the turning of a new year that somehow puts the kibosh on Christmas messages. Not that it's necessarily a conscious decision people make, just that the new year lends itself to 'life' starting again full tilt. The decorations come down, we go back to work and school, we make New Years' resolutions, our insurance deductibles reset - things like that. There's paper work to do and we have to do it (at least in my house). Also, I do think that for some people it IS a conscious decision because they are bored with Christmas music and other assorted aspects of the season. So I wanted to take a second to remember that Christmas was only a couple of weeks ago and we don't have to forget about it through the year: in fact, it's best that we don't forget.

I absolutely loved the First Presidency Christmas Devotional that the LDS Church broadcast about a month ago. The most memorable part for me was when they shared clips from the new Life of Jesus Christ: Bible Videos the church has commissioned. The videos and accompanying pictures are a free gift from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to the world. You can download and share them as you see fit. (Which of course I looooove.) Anyway, my favorite shot from the clips was this one...

It's kind of hard to see it the picture, they show it better in the video, but Mary is sleeping next to the Baby on the straw. This touched me deeply when I saw the clip. Since I've had children I've always wondered a little when I look at Nativity scenes that Mary seems so fresh and is generally kneeling or even standing. I wonder because in my heart of hearts, I hope that the Mother of our Lord got rest soon after the Birth. (I also hope she was one of those people who have reeeally quick easy labors, not like myself.) I know after the birth of both of my sons, people told me over and over, "You sleep when the baby sleeps," and I've come to recognize that axiom as wisdom of the highest order. Of course I'm sure the Baby Jesus was the Perfect Baby, but He still had physical needs that His Mama would have to meet.

So that's why I love this video so much. It's a little thing, and maybe only I noticed it (although I very much doubt that). It shows the very real nature of the people involved. Mother and Child zonked out cold while Joseph guards them closely, a watchman for his brand-new family. I see so much more of my own family in this version and I treasure it dearly. So, if you haven't already, and even if you have, please watch and enjoy...

A Gift to the World

My "Done List"

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately. (I know I'm not the only one!) That site has got to be one of the most addictive things ever! At least for an OCD *nut* like me. I finally decided that I needed to make some "rules" for myself to channel my pinning obsession. My main rule includes the use of my "To-Do List" board. It's a board where I repin things I've pinned onto my other boards that I would like to actually do or make in the immediate future. This gives me easy access to my immediate goals so when I'm in a productive mood, I can cut right to the chase instead of getting lost in an endless sea of pins. The "rule" I've been trying to live by is that I'm not allowed to pin anything new unless I've done something off my "To-Do" board in the last week. In other words, if I go a whole week without actually USING the resources I'm pinning, I'm not allowed to waste time adding more. 

This is an exclusively self-imposed rule. I really can't say if I've been officially sticking to the week time frame or not, but having this goal in the back of my head has helped at least some. The only real documentation I have so far of the things I've done is moving them from the To-Do board to my Tried It and Loved It or Experiences Worth Having boards. So I wanted to post more about it on here and motivate myself to keep going. So here are the things I've done since I started this goal-oriented approach to pinning. :-)

Recipes Cooked (with Kevin's help):

    

Long-term Project Begun:

Ingredients Purchased:

     

Family Activities Done:

(Link to pictures on family blog)

If any one happens to read this and is inspired to make a similar board (or just set more goals), I do have a piece of advice: start small. It's GOOD to put recipes on your "To-do" list that won't require major shopping trips; ones that use stuff you have on hand already. Pin things you're already planning on doing anyway, like I did with the Corn Dawgs family activity. This is NOT "cheating". This is just a way to find motivation by having linked resources handy and to aid in making your inner awesomeness an outer reality. The awesomeness is something you already have, the list is just a way to remind yourself. As my old buddy C.S. Lewis always says, "Do not mistake it for the thing itself: and if it does not help you, drop it."

Something I was thinking about today

It is not a mother’s job to see her children the way the world sees them. No matter the reasons, there will be tens, hundreds, THOUSANDS of people out there who will be more than willing to tell our precious babies that they are not good enough: not talented enough, not outspoken enough, not calm enough, not quick enough. A entire horde of influences will do all within their power to lead them to believe that they don’t fit the ideal and they need to be different, bigger, better, stronger, smarter, faster. There will be plenty of that, so a mother need not fill the role. A mother’s job is to turn her back on all that nonsense. Her job is to teach her children what it is to love and be loved. It’s to embrace the truth that a mother’s love is blind. To start at day one and then continue to kiss, and hug, and gush over her children long after she has become an embarrassment to them. To make such a habit out of adoring and appreciating her children that they know to expect nothing else.  Of course, she should strive to help them to grow and, yes, to be better. But not for the sake of the world that would “fix” them or break them.  A mother’s job is to see her children as what they are, angels with the potential to be gods.

Read to a Child!

You may have noticed the new button at the top of my right hand column. If you haven't already, you should absolutely check it out! It's a link to a free online magazine that features a new story to read to your kids every single day!

"knowonder!" magazine was founded by Phillip Chipping a few years ago and he just started it back up again last month. The site is full of awesome resources for kids and parents alike. And guess who's helping him lead the charge...?

My mom! (Check out the "Our Team" page)

The woman who read to me and made up stories so I could star in my very own fairy tales. I'm so excited for this new project and I'm hoping to be involved as much as possible with getting "knowonder!" off the ground for real. So go check it out! For me, for my mom, sure, sure; but mostly for YOU! Read to your kids! Submit your own writing! Get your child's stories published!

Move it people! Get that imagination going!

Reverse Life Cycle for Moms

There is a quote by a man named Robert Benson called The Life Cycle and I've seen it floating around the internet for quite a few years. This probably means you all have seen it already also but in case you haven't...drum roll please...

“I think that the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get that out of the way, then live twenty years in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You go to college until you’re ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a little child, you play, you have no responsibilities, You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in someone’s eye!”

I thought this was quite amusing the first time I read it, probably 10 or 15 odd years ago. It still gives me a little chuckle but it occurred to me today that it was lacking a little in relatability to my own personal life. I spent most of today making phone calls and jumping through hoops and doing laps in preparation for jumping others in reference to my kids' various healthcare needs. I was feeling ever so slightly (intensely) exasperated by the fact that moms don't receive training for this stuff. I know that the idea that there isn't a manual is not original but I guess what I was really thinking about was a mommy internship. 

So here's my take on Benson's idea.

Reverse Life Cycle for Moms

“I think that the life cycle is all backward. You should die first, get that out of the way, then live twenty years in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you celebrate 50 years of marriage. You receive diamond earrings from your husband, endless praise from your adoring children and go on a trip to Italy. You watch your grandchildren being raised until you know enough to raise your own children. Now you get a diamond ring to go with your earrings. You go to college until you’re ready for high school. You go to grade school, become a little child, you play, you have no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating, and you finish off as a gleam in someone’s eye!”

Copy Away!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

This means you may copy, share, tweak, overhaul, build upon, print and/or manufacture for personal or commercial use any of my work on this site. This particular license actually says you have to attribute any copy or derivative made from this work. I'm not even going to insist you do that, though. I'd appreciate any props or acknowledgements you give me but if it were up to me it wouldn't be forced upon you. Just don't turn around and try to copyright the work and keep me from producing it. Then I would have to defend myself. You just shouldn't say you did it first. Especially if you're selling it. Because that would be lying (see: fraud). Unless you really did have the exact same idea and created the exact same product without ever seeing my work. Then you can say whatever you want. Just don't tell me I stole your idea. I can promise you I didn't.

If I share another person's work, be advised that this blog's license is superseded by that of the original author/source site. Such work will always be noted and attributed (out of mere courtesy) and I would recommend going to the source site to see what their license excludes you from doing.

Happy Sharing!

Musical Confessions

Who here can't get enough of Pandora Radio? I for one love to put on my "MMMBop" Radio station whenever I'm cleaning and rock out to 90's pop tunes to my heart's content. I realize I may be dating myself a bit by that last admission and even more by this next one, but the first concert I ever went to when I was in junior high was Hanson. I went through various phases in relation to them over the years. I spent that first concert screaming, crying, yelling "I love you Taylor!", and talking my friend Julie into holding me on her shoulders so I could see better over the crowd. I went home and spent the next few months using my allowance to buy the Tulsa, Tokyo and The Middle of Nowhere tour video, the Snowed In Christmas album (on cassette tape) and every Teen Beat or Seventeen magazine with their picture on it I could get my hands on. I was mostly obsessed with Taylor (even after realizing if you looked at the two of us from just the right angle, we looked remarkably similar.)

That first phase also overlapped a bit with my next one, which was my "oh yeah, Hanson is lame" phase when I didn't have enough self esteem to have or express my own opinions on just about anything. Around the end of high school was my "Taylor's married?? I guess Ike just got cuter" phase. I was reintroduced to their music with "Penny and Me" on the radio around 2004 and was finally at a place in time where I was confident enough to acknowledge my likes and dislikes without thinking twice about it. I liked it.

I'm sure each of you will have your own powerful reaction ;-) to the knowledge that I will be 26 in May and am a one-time closet Hanson fan. I have screamed myself hoarse at a Backstreet Boys concert in my lifetime. If you care to know, I also love me some Country music. Darius Rucker is awesome as a country solo artist AND in Hootie and the Blowfish. Both my husband and I are suckers for sappy 80's love songs. I could go on but the question I have to put to you is: can it be a guilty pleasure if I don't feel guilty?

What are your guilty/not-so-guilty musical pleasures?

Dream Big

It's 3am and my son just went back to sleep (he has a bad cold). I needed to cool down (not really emotionally but physically, it's hot as heck in here) so I got on to do a little blog hopping. On one of the blogs I looked at they were giving away a sign that says "Dream Big."

This is a phrase I have seen thrown around on motivational signs and posters all my life, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's a lovely sentiment. Catchy.

I think that until recently, however, I had a rather problematic misconception about what those words actually meant. I spent a lot of time thinking that in order to be "Big" my dreams needed to be conspicuous. You know? *Flashy*. They needed to be dreams of Academy Awards and Grammys and Miss America and Broadway and New York Times Bestsellers. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that originally gave me this idea; it's been floating around in my brain for as long as I can remember.

Now let me be clear, for any of you out there that actually want the things I just listed, I am NOT knocking them as dreams in and of themselves. If that's what you want, you go for it and feel free to mention me in your acceptance speech. But my dreams are actually a little different than that and thinking they weren't good enough is the problem I'm learning to fix.

I enjoy acting and singing so I just assumed I should be shooting for the oscars, but somehow I find I get all the excitement I need out of singing the occasional solo in a church program. I still think that seeing my name on a New York Times Bestseller list would rock my socks off (the money wouldn't hurt either) but a couple days ago I got something like 150 pageviews in 24 hours on this blog and I felt about as fulfilled and happy as could be.

So do you want to know what some of my big dreams are?

Alexander learning to call me Mommy.

Raising kids who know that I love them. Who know that their father loves them. Who know that God loves them. 

Learning to bake cookies without a recipe (and without trashing the kitchen in the process).

Serving on a mission (or two) with Kevin one day.

Learning to keep my house clean.

I don't think that anyone here would claim that these are easy things to make happen (except maybe the baking thing for some of you who need to come over and share with me).

There are others and for me everyone of them is way "bigger" than winning any number of contests. You might not think that my laundry is important enough to equal winning a nobel peace prize but I would have to disagree. I've learned that the universe really does revolve around me. It revolves around every single one of God's children individually. Everything in the universe is working for the best for each one of us and there is power in every decision we make.

So there are my dreams. What are yours?

A message from my son

SPF 50

For Labor Day weekend we went with another family and took our boys to Tybee Island (our closest beach). Monday morning, after I slathered my kids with SPF 50 from head to toe, I had some sunscreen left over on my hands, so I rubbed it on my face. I covered my nose and ears really well and then smoothed the rest over my cheeks, forehead, chin. Then we got our stuff loaded in the cars and headed to the beach. We had a lovely time. Three hours of pretty perfect, not-too-hot-not-to-cool weather. The wind kicked up a little for a minute and we thought we might get rained on but then it passed and we went back to playing in the water and relaxing on the sand.

It wasn't until around hour 2.5 that I remembered I hadn't put on sunscreen anywhere else but my face. Oops. I figured I wouldn't burn too badly, though. We went in the morning, we were about to leave soon and the September sun didn't feel that hot.

Boy was I wrong. My husband (who didn't use any sunscreen) and I both had turned a very painful shade of fuchsia by the time we pulled into our driveway that night. But the SPF 50 had done its work for our sons. And for my face. My freckles weren't even any darker. So even though my back and shoulders are just now (four days later) starting to feel better, I was spared the agony of a pealing nose.

So...

I told you that story to tell you this one...

The past couple of weeks the hubby and I have finally started trying to get the little man to sit still for family scripture reading and prayers. Now, daily prayer and scripture study is a habit that I have always struggled to maintain. I'll finally get in a groove where I'm doing it every night and then I'll miss just one night, the habit is broken, and it'll be weeks or even months before I get my feet under me again.

But, with our son, it's different. I know it's only been a couple of weeks but I can just tell that this is a habit that I'm going to keep. Knowing that I'm responsible for another person's eternal progression is a strong motivator. And even though you would think that wrestling with a toddler would make the acts of reading a book without pictures and kneeling down to pray a lot more difficult, I've found that it's actually soooo much easier to remember to do it when it's part of his bedtime routine. So it's great. Because reading scriptures to him means I'm reading scriptures. And praying with him means I'm praying.

And I've discovered this beautiful thing about being a mother.

You can't give someone else something good without getting a little on yourself.

Real Quick

I just updated the "About This Site" page and my 2-year-old is having a melt down so I think that will have to do for a post for today.

5 Year Plan

Last year all the way back in March I started a list that I called my 5 Year Plan. I didn't get very far on it before I decided I wanted another baby and morning sickness was reintroduced into my life. But I wanted to put that list on here as a jumping off point for this new blog. So here it is all nice and linked for future reference.

Those Women

I've always wanted to be one of THOSE women. You know the kind I mean. The awesome wife/mother/friend who other women secretly hate just a little bit because she makes it look so gol-durn easy. The superhero of the homemaker set. With the well-behaved, well-adjusted, recently-bathed children and the lemon fresh kitchen to match.

Now, I'm probably never going to become one of those women. This is true mostly because I am the mother of two young boys and no matter how "recently-bathed" I get them they will probably never appear to be so. However, I feel that a lot of what I have admired in other women is attainable.

And so I have started this blog. I work best when I have a To-Do list and this will be just that. My "That woman I want to be" To-Do list. And I invite anyone who wants to to join me in my journey. Come on! It'll be fun! ;-)

~Amy