“What do you DO all day, Mom?” my son asked me, a small tone of jealousy in his voice. “I mean, we’re at school for seven hours. What do you do?”
Wow. What can I say? That I sit at the kitchen table all day, eating ice cream? Does he really think that I find all the hidden Snicker bars and scarf them down with no one to stop me? They do go really well with ice cream… Okay, I’ll be honest. That could have happened.
But really, that is his fondest dream; to be left alone with the refrigerator for seven hours, with no one to stop him.
That’s not quite how it is. Since you asked, Son, I will show you what happened at the kitchen table while you were gone.
Wow. What can I say? That I sit at the kitchen table all day, eating ice cream? Does he really think that I find all the hidden Snicker bars and scarf them down with no one to stop me? They do go really well with ice cream… Okay, I’ll be honest. That could have happened.
But really, that is his fondest dream; to be left alone with the refrigerator for seven hours, with no one to stop him.
That’s not quite how it is. Since you asked, Son, I will show you what happened at the kitchen table while you were gone.
These are a couple of statues that a very patient person has been waiting to be painted for a long time. Today is the day...
The kitchen table turned into this: It was gloriously quiet and deliciously fun.
The statues now look like this:
While I was painting the seeds in St. Francis's bowl, I thought about how much I love my brushes. I have a lot of them...Some are fancy and luxurious and delicate, some are rotten-looking things that don't appear to be worth keeping. They might look like garbage to someone who looked in my paintbrush box. But all my brushes are needed, they all have a special purpose. Here are two of my favorites:
The one on the right is a luxurious, expensive oil painting brush. It is sleek and soft, the finest Red Sable Filbert. It is 100% reliable, and far more sophisticated than I am. It blends colors beautifully. It softens the lines that other brushes leave behind, smoothing all the imperfections.
The one on the left is a 99 cent cheap thing from the hardware store. It is ancient, hardened, crusted over and pretty much destroyed. But that's why I like it so much. That old brush can do things that no other brush can. Like paint abstract, splotchy spots to make seeds in St. Francis' bowl, for example. None of my other brushes can do that. It is precisely because that old brush is ruined that I like it so much, and use it so often. I need it. At times, I have taken a scissors and snipped some of the inside bristles, thinning it out even more. There's not much left of it, really.
That's why it's so valuable.
As I painted today, I did a lot of pondering about brushes and people.
People are just like my brushes... They are all unique, for their own special purpose.
And we need them all.
The one on the left is a 99 cent cheap thing from the hardware store. It is ancient, hardened, crusted over and pretty much destroyed. But that's why I like it so much. That old brush can do things that no other brush can. Like paint abstract, splotchy spots to make seeds in St. Francis' bowl, for example. None of my other brushes can do that. It is precisely because that old brush is ruined that I like it so much, and use it so often. I need it. At times, I have taken a scissors and snipped some of the inside bristles, thinning it out even more. There's not much left of it, really.
That's why it's so valuable.
As I painted today, I did a lot of pondering about brushes and people.
People are just like my brushes... They are all unique, for their own special purpose.
And we need them all.
So Son, that's what I did today. But don't worry. The kitchen table is now cleaned off, and ready for you to eat again.
And I made cookies.
And I made cookies.
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