One of the side-effects of having a creative blog is constant day-dreaming about the next projects to include. I see visions of collage while loading the dish-washer, new ideas for painting while I'm packing the groceries into the car, and lots of sewing ideas everywhere I look. So I always make sure to keep my art journal handy for jotting it down, because life doesn't stop when you have a great idea!

This idea came to me while I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Kids were in bed, house was quieting down, and I was washing another lid to add to our collection. I looked at it, and wondered what to make it into. We'd used lids for print-making, sun-catchers, and stencils- but we'd never, I realized, sewn with them.

Not only did we play in Sweatshirts yesterday- no mittens, no scarves, no heavy winter coats- but we played as a Healthy family. Which means I am sleeping and functioning as a normal person again. I had a bad bout of kids-with-flu brain last week resulting in my looking all over the house for my keys- that I was holding in my hand, or finding our container of oatmeal (raw, not cooked) in the frig where I'd put it the morning before. So I took it easy on myself last week and tried not to blog unless I could triple-check my legibility and coherency. Which, between two sick kids and toxic laundry, wasn't a lot. So here's to a new healthy week and regular posting! (wink)

As I've shared before, our kids rarely stop and take a breath. They're the hit-the-ground-running sort. While they did crash in the beginning of the week, as we cuddled to a healthy dose of PBS kids, by the middle of the week they were over it. They wanted, as Isia calls them, "Activities!" So here are a few activities I offered to keep their hands busy while their bodies, and their Mama, were still recovering.

This week finds me in the middle of...

...nursing my last sick baby back to health.

...thankful for Western medicine. We don't like to use it often, but it can definitely come in handy.

...trying to remain positive as the flu and the snow remains. Although I definitely am...

...longing for Spring!

...trying to embrace this pause before the busy work of what's to come.

...succeeding some days more than others. (wink)

...borrowing the timely positivity of friends in the meantime.

...being grateful that I've remained healthy enough to care for everyone else.

...trying to rest so that I can remain that way. Wish me luck!

While I don't want to give up on big projects altogether, it's definitely nice to sit down and be able to create a simple project all-at-once. This is only one of the reasons that I Love this project. Another reason is you can use any papers you already have, and a variety of papers at that. And not just paper either... but I'll talk more about that in a second. They're also easy enough to create with kids, which I plan on doing soon. In the meantime, here's a peek into mine.