An artist

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso


Katya's drawing of my sewing machine. The wiggly bit in the bottom right corner is the presser foot lever and it looks almost exactly like the real one. After trying to explain her drawing to me without much success, Katya finally climbed onto my table to be able to point to my sewing machine and the parts she drew.

Katya's drawing of a mushroom. A new friend (she has a son, who's only one month younger than Katya) gave us pryaniki (Russian gingerbread biscuits) made in the form of the mushrooms and I think they made an impression.

Short weekend

We were supposed to be preparing the downstairs walls for painting; but the sun was shining outside, the skies were blue and since rainless weekend summer days are rare in England we decided to spend the day outside. (there seems to be plenty of sunny spring & autumn workdays) After looking through my big bag of travel brochures and changing my mind few times I settled on going to the Hall Place & Gardens.

It was lovely to look around the House and to walk in the Gardens. Of course as always I took too many photos of the flowers.

In the evening we did prep the walls and will probably attempt to paint them over the next few evenings as my poor husband has to work tomorrow. And painting the walls with no one else around to distract a toddler is just asking for trouble.

Not in control

There is so much beauty, knowledge and wisdom hidden in the blogosphere that when I need advise or information I often turn to blogs instead of books. And that's my excuse for not blogging for the last few days - I went a bit crazy with reading the archives of the new blogs I found. I'll label the time spent as research and learning instead of wasted.

Allow me to enquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term, such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow?
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (I think I'll re-read it again sometime soon)

I'm trying to come to a decision on something and the more I read and think about it the more I know that I already decided long time ago and now just need to let go of the desire to pretend that I can control uncontrollable and start following the path I choose long ago.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Two weeks later

As of today we have a working fridge! And an oven (though I didn't try using it yet, there are too many controls - may have to read the manual)

After two weeks of odd food, Katya finally asked for peas. She loves frozen peas and good luck to anyone, who offers to heat them up - warm peas trigger bouts of loud screaming. After explaining my inability to produce frozen peas, we went in search of a place that has peas on their menu. No luck (to my horror I found out months ago that the local pub serves tinned peas with their fish & chips! yuck). But fortunately the local veggie shop had some fresh garden peas and they were met with enthusiastic approval.


Now I wonder how long it will be between Katya realizing that the fridge is working and asking for the frozen peas.

I wish

Here’s the truth: if you want something, you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you’re willing to risk failure.
from Clockwork or All Wound Up by Philip Pullman

Some wishes are carelessly uttered and are as easily forgotten. Some dreams are harboured deep inside for a long time and become part of our being. I had few of these hidden dreams for a very long time. They grew and shrank as my life followed its unique course; sometimes they hid away even from myself; occasionally I would re-examine them only to put them away again for later. And now I have the chance to turn them into reality. But remember that old saying “Be careful what you wish for”? So I need to think carefully about the implications of finally living my dreams and how they will affect the rest of my family. And to help myself focus and to find some time for contemplating my future I created a little dream book by altering an old kids board book.

The stamping of the flowers didn’t work, especially after the little hands grabbed the book before the stamped images had time to dry. I didn’t want to repaint the cover, so used some of Katya’s glitter and shiny shapes to fix (or at least somewhat hide) the problem. The butterfly was crocheted from one of My Picot’s patterns and hand-dyed together with some fabric using Procion MX dyes.

I know it sounds silly to spend time on altering a board book in order to carve the time required for the self-reflection, but doing something with my hands helps me to relax and switch off from daily tasks and worries.

If you want to try your hand at modifying an existing book for your own purposes Art Junk Girl has a post with Chunky Book Tips on her blog.

Lucky me

I learned to crochet as a child and crocheted on and off for most of my life, so it is one craft area in which I feel reasonably comfortable. It is also one of the things I can do while Katya is awake. So when talented Barmyowlscoo mentioned having idea for the quilt with crocheted doilies I offered to make some for her.


In return she sent me all these goodness: tinny owl, kiddie fabric (I should write down all ideas I have for it, so I can choose one and get it done), potholders created by herself and a painting set for Katya (not included in this photo as the Little One wanted to try it out straight away). Here is a close up of the potholders - aren't they gorgeous?

Why do I always feel that I got a much better package than the one I sent?

A week later

I took this photo today in the morning, so there was even more progress by the end of today. I find the noise and presence of strangers in the house somewhat stressful, specially because Katya thinks that they are great fun and periodically screams about going downstairs to help the builders or calls them upstairs to play. So most of last week we spent outside visiting museums and parks until I caught a cold. This week we spent at home with only short escapes to get food and tomorrow is promising to be even worse than today (and it was one long boring & tiring day) since Katya is now also sick.