this place mat was made for a woman, whom we've met through her incredible enrichment program called una familia. unfortunately she is needing to close her 'school' to be 100% available to her aging parents. she finds herself scurrying here and there....each parent in a different town, each with their own ailments....she teaches an art and movement class here...theater class there....her regular classroom an hour from either major town in which her parents reside. she is amazing with the children, today they worked on beautiful watercolor paintings....she opened up the class looking at some beautiful books, talking about the process, asking questions, started one as an example, provided lessons on friendship, communication, art, all in a matter of 5 minutes in a very gentle loving way, then off the children went to create, with her readily available if needed or her there drawing out idea's in the children who just didn't know where to start...she taught for years at a local elementary school (lucky children who had joan as a guide). it is an honorable thing she is doing....giving up her dream to care for those who cared for her. as she does scurry about, she finds herself eating her in car often, not being able to find the time she needs for herself to slow down....she relates it to being that new parent.....realizing the things that need to be given up for a short time to be all she needs to be for someone else where they are at. anyway, we made this for her....she will have to take at least 5 seconds to unroll it and lay it on her lap.....even this little gesture she will do will be caring for herself.
i think of the little self sacrifices i make or should be making.....i don't know what tomorrow holds and i want so much for my girls to simply love living. we read a sweet little book ocean grabbed as we were heading out of the library yesterday.....it's not one i would buy, but borrowing from the library was nice. it is called queenie farmer had fifteen daughters.....she is a single mom raising 15 daughters and at different ages (not every age or year, but now and again) the girls desire different things: their own birthday cake, bed or new dress....and each time this happens the book reads "her girls asked for so little, and queenie wanted to give them so much, that...she drafted designs on monday, sawed wood on tuesday, wove bedspreads on wednesday"....ect....ect she was a busy hard working momma....in the end however, every sunday her daughters bring over all their babies, queenie feeds them, bathes them, changes them, sings and reads to them because they all mean so much to her....then, they all go home and every other day of the week queenie does whatever she wants.....which, in the case of the last page of this book, is paint.
joan and queenie are both inspiring.
ps. i will post photos of the girls watercolor paintings sometime in the next few weeks...after they are finished, dry and brought home.
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