My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Drawing and Painting

a write-up of the pens that I use to draw on rocks

and a tutorial for remaking ugly scrapbooking chipboard into something that you'll actually use

I painted these particular pieces of chipboard in silver house paint and black chalkboard paint, and as I was working, Syd came over and asked for some chipboard that she could paint for her own, so I set her up with a drop-cloth of aluminum foil (you've got to use something that the paint won't stick to as it dries), and she proceeded to have herself a big time, only accidentally painting a couple of pieces of chipboard in the process:

In the end, as you can see, that chipboard was entirely forgotten for the greater pleasure of fingerpainting on aluminum foil and rubbing deliciously slippery paint around on one's hands, smooshing and squeezing and mixing two delightfully complementary colors.

My big girls have impressed me lately with these types of activities in which they've immersed themselves on our rainy, sleety, chilly, windy winter days, ranging from a giant indoor sandbox in a clear plastic bin on the kitchen floor, to a building block and toy animal zoo that took up the entire living room carpet for two days, to cooperative imaginary games that send them downstairs and back up, outdoors and inside again.

It's a huge relief to have them so happily involved, frankly, since I am astonished, appalled, and outraged to tell you that after an entire day of feeling all better after my weekend bout with the norovirus, I have again been feeling low and puny for the past couple of days. I daydream of warm, fresh air and mild breezes, and fresh-picked salad greens and local fruit. I'm starting to think that my immune system has just about cashed out for the season, and will no longer lift so much as a finger in my direction. 

Schoolwork for the past three or more weeks has consisted of lots of worksheets, memory work, and documentaries, activities that are easy for kids to do while their mother slumps wearily in the chair next to them, or just "closes her eyes for a minute" on the bed beside them. Willow has discovered that she genuinely likes word problems, and is getting exposed to some new math strategies as she solves them, and Sydney is getting very comfortable with adding multi-digit numbers using Base Ten blocks. Fortunately, we'd dialed down to the mammal class in science before my endless crud began, and so many afternoons can reasonably be spent in front of the nine-hour documentary The Life of Mammals.

This leaves the kiddos ample swaths of free time, for their games, and for Sydney to listen to audiobooks (we did all of Peter Pan just this week, and Syd was VERY interested in this alternate, not so flattering depiction of Tinkerbell), and for Willow to play this old-school version of Sid Meier's Civilization that she loves. I'm trying hard not to TRY so hard right now, if you know what I mean, which is very hard for me, because I hate introspection, and I hate not being productive, and I hate not getting things accomplished, and I hate sitting around all day.

And there, now you know a few more of my neuroses--isn't that fun?