a (not so) quiet week

A quiet week on this blog can mean so many things…

Like it could mean

my thoughts crept up on me and ambushed me in the night. They chloroformed me and took me to their secret lair where they held me hostage for about 5 days. They stood over me and said words I didn't like. They poked at my dark spaces and made them come out. Then the dark and my doubts hulked over me and said, "So what could you possibly have to say for yourself?"

And I, having become tiny, said, "nothing."

Until…I took myself back to bed this morning and felt the dark wave rising. Then…slowly, and with one hand over the other, I listed the things that were good, about my life and about myself. I listed them and I gave myself permission to look at each and every one. And then…

I believed them.

At which point the dark stopped gleefully rubbing its hands together, and the negative thoughts looked startled and afraid.

And, when I sat up, opened the curtains of my room, and sat to play with the kitten, the dark and the negative and the sad simply

scuttled off.

A quiet week on this blog could ALSO mean

that we were very very very busy!

It could mean that

a boy played music at the mall again,

this time with his latin jazz buddies and his gorgeous dad

 (this man danced through almost the whole concert. Gorgeous)

A quiet week could mean

we had to go on a wonderful excursion to Jumbulla Aboriginal Discovery Centre

where we watched films,

painted dreaming stones (with symbols you can learn more about here),

saw Indigenous art and learned about hunting tools,

pretended to hunt animals with balls, watched a man tell stories about a spooky Hairy Man, drew patterned hands, and

learned how to pull a bush leaf without cutting our hands (and the leaf could then be used to weave baskets. Very cool).

What a great excursion that was!

(and three days later, this wonderful space closed down, 

because it just wasn't getting enough people in to cover costs… 

A huge shame. It was lovely there.)

A quiet blog week could also mean

my boy was busy finishing Life of Fred: Fractions! 

He worked so hard on those final chapters and Bridges. I sat with him the whole time, learning alongside him, helping him through the hard parts, bringing him Gatorade and mopping his brow… (well, okay, maybe not the last two). We were together as he answered the last Bridge question, as I checked over his answers and declared him DONE! and together as we hooted and hollered and whooped. My boy was so, so pleased with himself. That book got HARD at the end!

Then, he rested. And two days later, my boy decided to start the next Life of Fred book! It's Decimals and Percentages. A new workbook was bought, and both workbooks covered (with a hand-drawn copy of the Life of Fred cover). And a new adventure began…

A quiet week could also mean

we had to go to pottery class 

where beading was the order of the day!

these beads prepared earlier 

by our beautiful pottery teacher

And…

we had to go to writers workshop (not just one but three!) 

where kids chatted and shared stories and talked about books and poetry and where they 

wrote.

And…

we had to play all those games …

Doubles Wild 

Menagerie

(plus Zeus on the Loose, and our Family Math games, all of which I forgot to photograph!)

Plus

art and stories 

had to be created

by a girl (at her truly beloved desk)…

And 

a LegoQuest had to be attempted

by a boy who loves his Lego…

(Coral reef, complete with submarine and lost treasure!)

And finally,

music

had to be heard…

performed by Synergy Percussion,

in a hall in our much loved art gallery (which used to be the town hall I think),

and watched from the secret balcony above…

It was a magical show.

So,

a quiet week on this blog might mean 

I have slipped into sad…just a little (and not enough to stop all the doing)…

then found my way back out,

and it might ALSO mean

that our days have been bursting at the seams

with full

and fun

and learning 

…and joy. 

I'm so glad I got to live and breathe and see these overflowing days, 

because every single one of them was, and is, beautiful. 

Seriously. They always are

when you stop and list the good things, 

one by one by one.