Tuesday, June 28, 2011

It's been quite a day

I think this picture sums it up.It started before breakfast when Daniel poured a cup of (lukewarm) coffee over my favourite jeans AND the quilt design I had almost finished tracing onto interfacing. It continued through much whining and hanging off mum, as well as several changes of little boy clothes (involving mud, paint and more).

It wasn't all bad, though. We got another coat of varnish onto the studio desktops. It's almost ready to be inhabited! However, because I have plans for more quilt cutting this week (and I don't want to wait for the three coats of varnish to dry) and Phil is out of town, I decided to set up my studio in the kitchen for the rest of the week. I rather like the set up too (that's the fridge in the background up there) - we had a spare door floating around which got propped up on the bar stools for a fabric table, and the ironing board on the kitchen benchtop (hiding in the picture below) is a small tabletop version from IKEA.
And that's Caleb, hard at work on a self-portrait.(We found some yarn offcuts as we sorted through the mountains of stuff in the studio - perfect for hair!)

And then, in the last light of day, right about the time that the spatula broke just as it was being applied to the behind of a rather naughty little boy, God gave us some low-lying clouds to make us pause, admire and refocus.

3 comments:

Phil said...

Thanks for the view into your day... Missing you and kiddies very much! See you soon. xo

Janet said...

I've been thinking about this for a month. It's been haunting me. I love your quilts and love your blog. Your children seem a treat, but seeing that broken scraper and knowing it was broken on a little boy's body just makes me Ill. There are much better ways to teach self-discipline than hitting.

Ruth said...

Hi Janet, thanks for taking the time to comment. I'm sorry this has been bothering you for so long. I did actually think twice before posting that image, knowing that there are people who don't agree with using physical discipline. I decided to keep it honest, though. We are very deliberate about our physical discipline. That is why we don't use it in the heat of the moment, and it is also why we only use a spatula (to sting but never injure) on the back upper leg, not our hands or a wooden spoon. If we apply physical discipline, it is accompanied with a process of restoration so that the child knows that he is forgiven, and loved no matter what. I can guarantee that the breaking of the spatula did not mark the child, it just happened to be at 'breaking point' when it was used - more from the warping of the timber handle in the dishwasher than anything else... I could write more about how and why we discipline as we do, but I also realise this will remain controversial topic, and I'm sorry to have been so 'confrontational' in this post.