What are we doing, anyway?
Inspired beauty from Suzi Banks Baum of Laundry Line Divine. Thank you, Suzi!
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Posts tagged ‘motherhood’
May 16
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Mar 14
Kathy: Simply Sick
Normally the kids are like me, strong like ox, but a nasty bug has been making its way around the community and they are stricken like chicken. They’re on the mend but it’s been almost a week of being completely off our schedule and normal daily rhythm. Like, not even getting outside. Kale’s looking a little grey around the edges but his cough is unsettling so inside it is for a couple more days.
Though it’s weird to see my normally screen-free kids veg out in front of with that glazed ‘sicky’ stare, I decided to surrender to the novelty of it; letting them do nothing at all other than quiet activities and naps while I dove into my projects in my studio while stopping every few moments to warm up soup, make more tea, and assist with many, many tea pees.
I have to admit I fought it at first and was grumpy, a little anxious even and concerned about the effect of not doing anything would have on the kids. But then I heard the sultry voice of Danielle Laporte say how life balance is a myth. The essence of life is fluid so it’s only natural that shifts in what needs to be tended to will unabashedly morph constantly. The best thing to do is to see these as opportunities for growth and to reassess what is important and needed in the family right now.
In the meantime I made sure the kids were lubed up with lots of liquids and did implement the bare essential rhythms; mealtimes and bedtimes and our Smokey Sunday pancakes (whipping them up smokes up the whole house — just to explain). I surrendered to life that happens, was reminded of the balance myth (which was a catalyst for reviewing some major life decisions), and saw an opportunity to tend to my own needs at a pivotal time in my career while the children’s growing bodies took on the necessary challenge to strengthen.
Do you want to share your bare minimum rhythm you adhere to even in times of crisis, transition or upheaval? Perhaps a little ritual? Please share in the comments if you feel inspired.
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Editor’s Note: Kathy Stowell is a homeschooling, simplicity parenting mother of two small kids, and a hobby farmer’s wife who blogs and offers Backwoods Mama Sew Camps over at Bliss Beyond Naptime, from which the post above is generously cross-posted. Kathy recently released The Bliss Filled Mama: Self-Care for Soulful Mothering, an e-book and audio recording on proper crafty mama care.
Annette: Creative Practice is Fertilizer for Your Soul
Editor’s Note: I’m delighted to introduce you to Annette Varoli, a smart and talented creative mother who I connected with during Jennifer Lee’s Right-Brain Business Plan course last year. Annette is the real deal. When Annette recently told me that she had firmly committed to a daily creative practice — and that her practice was life-changing — I asked her to share her journey with Studio Mothers readers. Enjoy.
Annette Varoli: I am the proud momma of 6-year old girl, I’ve been married 11 years to a guy who is a modern day “MacGyver” and I’m in love with my cat, Coco. I’ve lived half my life in New York and recently returned to my birth state of Maryland but I love traveling, having been to over 100 cities in 20 countries. I am the artist of my life. My mission is to live my life in FULL color and inspire others to do the same. This has taken the form of architect, project manager, and holistic health coach to name a few. Currently, I’m a budding entrepreneur, exploring the next best fit for my creative expression. Three themes that have run through the course of my lifetime: making heart-to-heart connections, the creative arts, and abundance. This is what inspired my new blog. Check it out!
Fertilizer for Your Soul
Recently, my six-year-old has been asking me to keep her company in the bathroom, specifically for “number 2’s” — and not just for the wiping part.
Although I don’t particularly enjoy the aroma, I know that this is the time of day where she either imparts deep wisdom or where she philosophizes about life, so I go willingly. I sit on the floor of the bathroom ready to listen to what my little Buddha will teach me each time.
Yesterday, she did not disappoint. She assumed her position on the throne and within a few seconds, she says in a voice that sounds like when you rave about your favorite dessert, “Mommy, why does pooping feel soooo good? It just feels sooooo good. Why is that?” Her angelic face alternating between an inquisitive look and a squinching one, whenever she unloads her bowels.
She’s dead serious so I do my best to contain myself and say, “Well, sweetie, it’s because it’s a great release and a way for your body to get rid of the icky stuff… imagine if you couldn’t poop, then all of it would get STUCK inside you.”
That’s when it dawned on me that doing daily creative practice is like having healthy bowel movements… it just feels soooo good. It helps you get unstuck and feeling like yourself again. Like taking all the crap in your life and turning it into fertilizer for your soul!
I know this for a fact because over the past 15 weeks, I’ve been doing a daily creative practice and it has been life changing. Although most people know me to be a creative person, it feels like it took me a hundred years to arrive at this particular place in my life. One where I finally understand how essential regular creative practice is to my life, my success and personal happiness. But how did I get here one might ask? Allow me to share a bit of my creative journey.
Creativity Controlled
As a toddler, I got spanked for drawing on walls and climbing up on the bench so that I could play the keyboard (not before they took a photo for posterity like the one at right). My parents wanted clean walls and feared for my safety if I sat on the bench unsupervised. They meant well but that marked the beginning of my creativity being controlled.
Later in my early education, elective classes and extracurricular activities fed my creativity. I loved anything music and arts related.
However, I didn’t realize at the time that my creative pursuits were being filtered through my young, naive, brain. The one that bought into the idea that these activities were called extra or elective because they were outside of the normal curriculum, optional… in other words, “not really important.”
At the same time I was an academic, excelling in my normal subjects. Unfortunately, my achievement in what society deemed “serious subjects” led me to pick a major using only my head and not my heart. It was a decision based on this equation, “I’m good at math, science and art. What does that equal? ARCHITECTURE.”
With that decision, I entered my first semester in architectural school and quickly learned that they frowned on extracurricular activities, wanting the students to focus solely on architecture. Thinking I was taking a vow for creativity, I willingly followed the rules, not realizing that I was trading in my 18-year-old creative self for a creatively stifled 50-year-old.
My inner child decided to leave the building, while the school’s climate and a few misguided professors helped grow my inner critic.
Everything became very serious, very quickly. Ironically, all the creative passion that I threw into my portfolio which in fact, got me accepted into the college would be exactly what the school intentionally wanted to strip away. My passion for mixed media, vivid colors and freehand drawing was replaced with ink line drawings and white box models. Color was forbidden.
Once, I was getting a desk critique from a visiting professor, whose teaching style was unlike the majority at my school. He looked at my sketches and looked at me and then said, “You’re a young woman, why don’t you draw like one? Be more young and free in your drawings.”
The school had successfully controlled my creativity. I made drawings that finally fit the mold and yet I didn’t recognize myself in any of my drawings and neither had the visiting critic. I had failed at being myself but my true creative spirit didn’t leave me. She just ended up biding her time in once again “elective” classes, taking every type of dance class offered.
I’ll admit that architecture school allows more individual creativity in the latter part of your education, but by then for me, it felt too late. One of the only places that my authentic self overlapped in the architectural world was when a few students and I formed our own acapella group and sang at architecture events.
My education culminated in me on stage at the graduation ceremony singing “Blackbird.” I had partied a little too much the night before drowning my sorrows in disbelief that my education didn’t feel more fulfilling. The next morning, I actually woke up without my voice and barely squawked out, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night… take these broken wings and learn to fly… You were only waiting for this moment to be free.”
I don’t think the universe could have sent me a clearer sign that my creativity was stifled. Read more
Feb 15
Giveaway! Bliss and Soulful Mothering e-book/audio
Last week at Studio Mothers you met Kathy Stowell, the homeschooling, simplicity parenting mother of two little ones who blogs at Bliss Beyond Naptime. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know Kathy over the interwebs and on the phone. She is truly an authentic, deeply creative soul who is dedicated to a life of simplicity, creativity, and presence. I’m always inspired by women who are so clear about the path they want to follow — and walk the talk, with all its challenges and rewards.
Kathy recently released the e-book and audio recording The Bliss Filled Mama: Self-Care for Soulful Mothering. I’m delighted to offer a free copy of this magical resource (e-book AND audio file) to a Studio Mothers reader! Simply leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered to win. You have until 5:00 p.m. eastern time on Friday, February 17, 2012, to enter.
In The Bliss Filled Mama: Self-Care for Soulful Mothering, Kathy shares the strategies and practices that help pull her through the “delicate dance of being a loving, present mother who also has the time and energy to tend to her creative spirit and life calling.” These are the basic self-care approaches Kathy swears by that help make every day an opportunity to keep her needs front and center while “ensuring my genetic makeup flourishes, happily, for generations to come.” And because being a busy mama can make it tricky to sit down and read a whole e-book, Kathy recorded herself “whispering these sweet somethings into your ear.”
The Bliss Filled Mama offers over 10,000 words of insight into:
- Kathy’s approach to optimum health
- Simple yet saucy mama style
- Ladies’ night ideas to maintain your precious friendships
- Ways to garner your partner’s support in your bliss quest
- Protecting your boundaries
- Housekeeping; simplicity style
- Exploring and pinpointing the joys in your life
- Carving out pockets of time to indulge in these joys
- Kathy’s own parenting philosophy that accommodates more mama bliss
If you aren’t the winner of the e-book/audio package, you can purchase it here for $14 USD.
Good luck, creative mamas!
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Feb 8
Kathy: The Crafty Loft Nest Monster
Editor’s Note: Kathy Stowell is a homeschooling, simplicity parenting mother of two small kids, and a hobby farmer’s wife who blogs and offers Backwoods Mama Sew Camps over at Bliss Beyond Naptime. She recently released The Bliss Filled Mama: Self-Care for Soulful Mothering, an e-book and audio recording on proper crafty mama care. You’ll be hearing more about this new release here at Studio Mothers next week!
I remember the first time we laid our eyes on our home — it was like love at first sight. It was kind of like spotting a soulmate for the first time. After getting over the initial giddiness of its strawbale walls, I was stoked about the open loft smack dab in the middle of the floor plan, right above the kitchen. Typically the deep inhales of my day are taken while I prepare meals while my exhales are lavished all over any one of my many crafty pursuits so it was kind of cool how this setup offers both of my breathing spaces the opportunity to be literally layered on top of each other.
Regardless of where we ended up, I knew I needed a space of my own; even if it only consisted of a corner in the basement like in our two previous homesteads. But to have a space right in the middle of all the action — that was kind of a symbolic bonus.
And here I sit now. I call it my Crafty Loft Nest. And I feel at such times like a legendary Loft Nest Monster lurking up in the clouds. This is my happy place. Typically, I get up the earliest; before the little ones, and get my blog musings down (which often report on any sightings of or debris left over from the creature) or dive in deep into the current creative project. For the rest of the day I am able to dip back into the loft for mini bursts of spinning or sewing in between homeschooling my daughter, keeping the home fires stoked, tending to the farm critters, and minding my etsy shops.
These days the calling is pulling me deeper into the world of mama creativity and simple living. I’m in the process of pulling together my Bliss Beyond Naptime coaching practice where I will be serving mamas toward a life of more peace and simplicity while embracing and nurturing their creative spirit. And these last few weeks the Crafty Loft Nest has been the location for a Simplicity Parenting workshop I’m facilitating as I spread the word of a childhood well savoured as we embrace a simpler approach to family life in terms of mindful scheduling, more distinct rhythm, and less cluttered and filtered environments.
I’m so happy to be invited to share this space with you here and get glimpses into your creative nests. Your studio, mothers; in whatever forms they appear. With such a sacred task, this raising the next generation in the most conscious way possible business, it’s of the greatest importance to see that all our own mama needs are met and creative desires fulfilled. The key to help keeping me centred as I take on this divine endeavour is ensuring that the well of all my needs is continuously filled. And most of that filling happens here at the heart of our home — one of the major love hubs in my life.
Jan 25
Cathy: Editing Hump
This morning I had every intention of zipping along through a few hours of editing the final pages of my manuscript. My mayhem dictated otherwise.
1. Honey woke up late, and I didn’t feel like getting out of bed either, even though I heard the boys stirring downstairs. So we got off to a later start than usual. And then Toots slept in a bit and didn’t want to wake, and for about the third time in six years of living together, I woke up Grandma, who I knew had an earlier exercise class on Tuesdays, to ask her if she would take Toots with her so I could edit. And, by the way, Toots only wanted Grandma to get her out of bed this morning, too.
2. I was getting into the shower when the last family members to leave for the day were already out the door — that put me about an hour into the precious writing time.
3. I experienced a few technical difficulties that caused much smoke to emit from my ears and unsavory language to disembark from my mouth. Good thing I was home alone, but that did not prevent me from calling my tech support, Honey, at work to fume and swear in his general direction. Poor guy was working on a big project at work. Like he needed my vitriol in his ear at that moment, too. Thanks for putting up with me Hon, even though you didn’t really help and I ended up figuring out ‘go arounds’ myself.
4. I figured out ‘go arounds’ myself. Even re: stuff I didn’t bring up to my dear spouse.
5. I opened the Document.
6. I stared at it, knowing full well what I needed to do to it, and I stared at the critiqued copy which was telling me what to do with it, but apparently I did not have my listening ears on.
7. I called a fellow writing friend who thankfully was home sick from work up in Boston (how selfish of me, I know, but I did wish him to feel better, and he did help a lot with giving me a better perspective of why I was using a device that I was at the moment struggling to edit).
8. I listened to a couple of songs on youtube. Those youngsters today are making some good music. Please check out bands: A Day To Remember, Rise Against and Snow Patrol. Be forewarned, these are my rocknroller teen’s current favorite bands.
8.5 I whined on Facebook.
9. I kicked myself in the figurative butt and started typing.
10. I ended up pretty happy with what I got, and called my Boston writing friend again to confirm, and he gave me one more good piece of advice: put it dialogue instead of the main character’s thoughts. Actually, I think I screamed it over him as he said it, but it would have taken me longer to get to the realization if I hadn’t called Mr. Snuffles.
11. I saved it, in two places (always back up, lesson learned a long time ago when I was writing my thesis and my hard drive crashed taking my thesis with it, and I had 3 days and nights to cobble it all back together from old notes while hallucinating from sleep deprivation) and then
12. Grandma walked back in the door with Toots.
So I will finish the last few pages another time, maybe when Toots goes down for nap. Or tomorrow morning before I go to work…
I guess, I’m saying (and I have to thank the same friend in Boston for this one, too): “Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” ~Doris Lessing
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Crossposted from Musings in Mayhem
Brittany: Making a Mermaid
Sometimes, it seems like cruel irony that me, the doll maker, ended up with two boys. Sewing with little boys around presents some challenges, too. I was forced to guard my sewing machine and its accouterments from marauding pirates, save my straight pins from little doctors intent on giving “shots,” and watch the floor beneath my feet turned into a garbage dump, all the while listening to the following:
-The garbage truck is coming back. It’s my turn to dump it.
-Be careful right here, there are cans here, and you might slip and trip.
-Uh oh, it’s raining, but the garbage truck is going to work at his job and pick the garbage up in the rain.
-I picked it up and said, “Oh, no! Ow!”
-Did you pick up garbage and rain drops?
-Yes, and when I pick up the rainy garbage it will be scary.
As I poured my female, doll-loving soul into my newest creation, I took stock of the reality of my life and had to laugh. My boys couldn’t have been less interested in what I was making (although Sam had some strong opinions about the doll’s hairstyle — he was all for the Veronica Lake look), but they did want to be in the room with me, and were happy to cheer me on whenever things were going well (and clear out whenever they weren’t). Luckily, that was more often than not.
The last couple of days I’ve been in a work-with-my-hands kind of mood, and I’d seen this doll pattern online and wanted to try it out. I love Waldorf dolls, and after many years of doll making, I finally have the skills to make one. Plus, there was a special little girl having a 5th birthday, so the doll would be guaranteed a good home. I ordered the pattern from Margaret Lunn here, got started on it yesterday, and finished her up and got her in the mail this morning.
I’d never made a mermaid doll before, but she was a lot of fun to make. I was really happy with the way her multi-color hair turned out, and had a lot of fun designing her jewelry (with some of Sam’s left over beading supplies). I’m still not 100% happy with my dollmaking technique — I’m still learning and experimenting with machine sewing/type of fabrics to use (note to self — silky fabric is hard to work with!)/following a pattern. It’s considered an “easy” doll pattern, and it probably would’ve worked a little better if I had used the recommended materials for the body. I substituted polyfil stuffing for wool batting (since I am sooo allergic to wool), and some silky polyester fabric I had instead of cotton interlock knit because the cotton wasn’t available when I went to the craft store. The end result looked okay, but had I used different materials I think it would’ve handled better, and the end result would’ve looked a little more professional.
But this doll turned out much better than the last one I tried with the same materials, so hopefully someday I will be good enough to design my own dolls and sell them.
[Cross-posted from Re-Writing Motherhood.]
Mother Writer Interview: Hazel Gaynor
Editor’s note: This interview is generously crossposted from Head Above Water.
Hazel Gaynor describes herself as a “mother slash blogger slash freelance writer.” Her blog Hot Cross Mum has been ranked within the top 50 UK parenting websites and has won several awards. She has appeared in The Sunday Times Magazine and on Ireland’s TV3. Hazel writes for several national Irish newspapers and contributes to UK and Irish parenting magazines and websites. She is the featured “Real Mum” in the March issue of Irish Parent magazine and will soon appear regularly on an online parenting TV channel. She has blogged for Hello Magazine. Hazel has been a contributor on the national writing resource www.writing.ie and tutors on the online course Blogging and Beyond. She is currently launching an eBook based on her blog. Hazel has two boys aged 5 and 3 and lives in Dublin.
When did you start writing? Had you established a writing rhythm or career before or did it happen alongside the kids?
I started writing after being made redundant in March 2009. With the children both being preschool age, I made a decision to stay at home to look after them. I looked into freelance writing as a way to generate some income whilst being at home and everything started from there. I had written nothing, other than tedious management reports, up to that point!
What impact has having children had on your writing career?
It has been the reason for my writing career! My children are my inspiration and the basis of most of my subject matter. If it wasn’t for them, I simply wouldn’t be writing.
How do you organise your writing time and space — do you have a routine or is it more ad hoc? Read more
Jul 28
Christine: The Crooked Path of Creativity
I’m Christine. My path in the creative life is, like most, not very straight.
I have been a trained, professional dancer, and am now a trained, professional speech pathologist.
I used to only view my creativity in terms of my physical and emotional ability to respond to music and choreography, but now I see that my gifts extend far beyond what I could do as a dancer, to encompass all the things I can do with my hands and my mind.
Right now, the majority of my work is in artisan jewelry, but the essence of my soul is one of a teacher and a student. I truly love any creative work I can do with my hands — fabric and metals and glass are my main media at this time. The physicality of swinging a hammer to forge copper, the intense concentration over a flame and melting rod of glass, the feel of textiles that I shape into three-dimensional objects feed my soul and fire up my life. There is really no art or craft I don’t want to try.
I am the lucky mother of three beautiful children — intense creations in their own rights. My eldest daughter is thirteen, my middle daughter is five and a half, and my son is three (“and a half, Mommy!”). When my son was born, I left full-time clinical practice to be home with my children. The creative work I do is not required to maintain our standard of living, and the professional work I do part-time (which does maintain our lives) can be done by telecommuting, by working off-hours, and by setting my own schedule. So, technically, I suppose, I am somewhat of a stay-at-home AND work-at-home mother.
Navigating the work, the household responsibilities, my children and their needs, and my own desire (NEED) for time to create is often exhausting on many levels. I admit to feeling a significant amount of stress whenever I considered ALL that I had to do or was responsible for in the course of a day. I often felt like I was running out of time, or that I needed to accomplish EVERYthing EVERY day. Read more
Writer Mother Interview: Laura Wilkinson
Editor’s note: This interview is generously cross-posted from Alison Wells’s Head Above Water.
Laura Wilkinson grew up in a Welsh market town and as a child was a voracious reader. She has a BA in literature and worked as a freelance journalist, editor and copywriter. Her first novel, BloodMining, the story of a young woman’s quest to uncover the truth about her origins to save her son’s life, will be published in autumn 2011 by Bridge House. She currently lives and works in Brighton, England.
Tell us about your children, Laura.
I’ve two boys: Morgan, twelve, and Cameron, seven. They’re glorious redheads; I call them Ginger1 and Ginger2, and people comment on their extraordinary hair colour all the time, especially as both their parents are brunettes. You can imagine the comments!
When did your writing begin?
As a journalist, copywriter and editor for many years before the children came along, and then alongside them. Fiction came later, around five and a half years ago, once I was out of the totally sleepless nights period with my youngest. Both my boys were horrendous sleepers! My routine has always been fixed around the major needs of the kids and, so far, it seems to work for all of us.
What impact has having children had on your writing career?
Having the boys focused me. I’d harboured a desire to write fiction for years, but work and other stuff (like going out, partying, and other hedonistic activities) got in the way. As well as fear. After the children came along I became more aware, more centered, and the brevity and preciousness of life hit me, hard. I knew that if I didn’t at least try to write I’d have let myself down, and the boys somehow. Now I use the little free time I have doing something that stretches me, challenges me, surprises me, and I find that really, really exciting.
How do you organise your writing time and space? Read more
Jun 14
Miranda: One Dreamy Day in June
Yesterday was one of those days. No, not one of THOSE days, but one of those days. Those rare, crystalline days when the clock seems to slow its frantic pace — and magically, there’s time for everything.
I woke up before my alarm went off, feeling refreshed after an unusually restful weekend. Seemingly without effort, I went through my morning routine (20 minutes of meditation, breakfast and lunches for the family, planning the day and a brief intention journal entry, tidied the house, and started a load of laundry). Then I took Liam (my youngest) to preschool and came home to finish a client writing project while Aidan (my 6-year-old, already out of school for the summer) played Lego Star Wars. Then I completed the week’s menu plan, cleaned out the fridge, and took Aidan and the dog for a thoroughly enjoyable walk. We then went off to do the grocery shopping, run an errand, and read a few pages in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the parking lot before it was time to get Liam.
Already feeling in the flow, we came home and the boys played in the driveway with a fresh set of sidewalk chalk while I put the groceries away. Then we went downstairs to the teenagers’ man-cave to hear some new Dear Hunter tracks that my oldest (Russell, home from college) wanted to play for me. The little guys jumped gleefully on the sectional and wrestled on the floor while I enjoyed a cup of coffee, smiling as Russell tackled Liam, who screamed in glee. It’s amazing to watch my children, in their wide range of ages, enjoy each other.
The rainy morning had cleared into sunshine, so after I advanced the laundry we all moved out onto the patio. Russell tried to focus on his own book as I read another chapter in Harry Potter to Aidan. Liam was in and out, playing with the cats and absconding with my iPhone. After a good long reading session, Aidan ran off to join his other older brother, Matthew, who was playing hacky sack in the driveway with a few of his friends. I figured this was a good time to work on a short piece I’m writing for the upcoming CCA newsletter, so while Liam was still busy with my phone (and nearly falling asleep) I sat with him on the couch and knocked out the short article. It was one of those beautifully satisfying writing sessions where the piece comes together on its own. I sent it off for review, feeling utterly content. I had finished both of the writing projects that I’d planned for the day.
With a bit more time to spare (how was this possible?) the little boys and I played a long game of Sorry and then had Loud and Crazy Dance Time while I assembled dinner (chef’s salad night, where I put out a dozen different salading items, make some fresh salad dressing, and everyone fixes their own). My husband hadn’t come home from work yet, the older boys were busy with friends, and my daughter was passed out cold (more on that here) so Aidan, Liam, and I had dinner on our own, followed by an overly gluttonous feast of organic kiwi. Read more
Jun 9
Wendy: An Introduction
Growing up, my family moved around a lot (I popped in and out of 5 elementary schools) and then later, as an adult, I kept on moving around in Scotland, Italy, Montreal, Toronto, and lastly, Vancouver. So, I was a practised mover/drifter, through schools, cities, jobs, and relationships.
I used to draw and paint a lot, though mostly with the right side of the brain, and I sort of think it was a compensation for my itinerant behaviour, but who knows? I have a lot to be grateful for that side of my brain, but in art-making, it was just a bit too domineering.
I finally did stop; when my son was born — I stopped working and I even stopped painting and I didn’t know how to carve out time for art-making. But that’s okay; I needed a hiatus from my right-brain drawing and painting, and then, when my son was four, he helped me discover another creative outlet. I began making soft toys based on children’s drawings. And Child’s Own Studio was born.
The thing about children’s art is that there are no rules, about proportion, colors, number of eyes… anything goes and so I come across lots of fun ideas. These days, I work at home on soft toys and other creative projects, and blog about them. From what I’ve learned from children, including my son, and since I stopped moving, I’ve been letting the left side of the brain start calling the shots, and that’s where I am right now, and where I like to be!
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