Excellent at math.
I've taken a break from writing after the last launch (which is going well, my loves, thanks for the reviews) and have been painting a bit. Painting, reading and writing poetry—trying to refill the creative well. I always have to remind myself that I am not a robot. I can't just program tasks for myself and then follow orders. And this applies to writing life and to home and family life. I have to be patient and kind with myself. I have to give space in the days for beauty and fun.
So painting is like breathing life into myself, like play.
Like Leafy making light sabers, or Kenya drawing face after face, in every pose and expression. Like Isaac dancing.
(Right now I see Leafy walking past the studio door every few minutes, on his thinking circuit. He walks in a large path, throughout the day, thinking and planning. I'm fairly sure he will come up with the solution to climate change pretty soon.)
My older two kids have taken my advice about making schedules for the school day, carving the day into blocks of time when they will concentrate on individual subjects rather than facing the whole big lump of work. They're loving it. But they are learning that though schedules are helpful, they aren't kind taskmasters. We are not robots. We need to block in time for rest, too.
(Tiny tip: the best advice I ever heard on time management is to put to-do items in the schedule, not on a list. If I want to paint, I have to block time out for it, not just add it to the end of an ever-growing list.)
But enough about lists. Here are some cool things:
- I found a spot on nearly-the-top of a mountain, and I discovered that I very much like to sit there and let the burdens and sorrows of the day flow away from me.
- My favorite noodle lady came back to town and I have eaten at her stall three times in the last five days.
- Isaac is excellent at Math and I just found Chinua and him talking through some addition and subtraction instead of a bedtime story.
- Asha can recite a string of numbers from Pi, speaking of kids who are excellent at Math.
- Every day I am thankful that I get to shop in an open air market.
- We talked about our Christmas gathering today. We have a big one every year, and it's nearly that time again!
- Leaf and I are going on an art retreat, which we haven't done since Isaac was two months old. But we both need to get visas in Laos at the very same time, so it seems as though it was written for us.
- I'm not so bad at Math myself, although I don't have any part of Pi memorized.
- There are so many days ahead, so many days that we can fill with thinking, knitting, praying, creating. I can't count them all, I can't figure out how the hours and scheduling should work for of all them, but I know each day contains the possibility of experiencing God's love in a different way. A knitterly way. A caramel cheesecake way. A watercolor way. How good it is, flowing over us.
Now you can support my writing on Patreon. Patrons can give as little as a dollar a month, and get extra question and answer video posts and other content. Thanks so much to this month’s new patrons: Brittani Truby, Alicia Wiggin, Kathleen Anderson, Timothy Silva, and Ami Thompson. Your support keeps this writer going!
Patrons in the second tier, there is a brand new Day in the Life post for you here.