The Action: Pt2
I set aside naptime for coffee and my blog. I am so excited and I hope they sleep well. That’s the toy box next to my chair where my coffee and books nestle in among my two-year-old’s neatly aligned cars. (The lining-up-cars stage has been one of my favorite for each child. I love finding little stacks around the house.)
My house looks a lot like this these days:
I’m ok with a messy house because less primping inside the house means more time for my family to spend living outside our house. But when I start to FEEL messy, I know something has to give.
Andy and I spent five days in Indianapolis for the Christian Community Development Association’s national conference. I met artists who are doing some really cool things that sparked some thoughts for upcoming sessions of Youth Art Team:
- Mary Beth Jackson in Indianapolis developed a really cool photography curriculum she shares through her work in The Viewfinder Project.
- Community developer Dennis Nordmoe told stories about antigraffiti projects in his Detroit neighborhood. Through his organization, Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, residents and businesses hire neighborhood youth through summer employment programs to paint murals over graffitied walls. Over time, their neighborhood became a living art gallery as an outside group started organizing and charging to take people on bike tours through the neighborhood. Very beautiful. Mural pics here.
- And after the Youth Art Team determined a play (yes, a play) should be their next big undertaking, I quickly emailed Heidi Lyda of LYN House in Indianapolis who helped lead a couple of the workshops I attended. She uses The Viewfinder Project curriculum in her work, pointed me to Know No Stranger who helped her young people create a play… in just one week! Read an article about KNS here.
I share all of this here first because I also have to say that this is the first year I returned home from the CCDA conference confused and troubled. Mostly about time (the conference was excellent). Sensing a theme in all of these posts? I feel a shifting and a tension in things that at once seem like shining hope and nothing but brick walls. Ah, tension…
What else?
Andy won his first fight since the Iowa Golden Gloves this spring. I mean, fought his first fight since the Iowa Golden Gloves and he won it. Beat a really big guy from Illinois, so I’m especially happy he came out with a win. And not just a win… a great win. (He found a boxing gym in Indy and worked out with a trainer while we were there… he did not like Andy’s socks, but he did help him out a lot.)
And… I helped FLASH MOB my friend’s wedding reception with my girlfriends from home as a surprise gift for her fiance. I have been dying to say that… seriously, we started planning during girls weekend this summer and we agreed to not even tell our husbands to maximize the effect. We finally did it just over a week ago. The band teacher among us pieced the song together so we weren’t dancing for an ungodly period of time, and the former cheerleader choreographed the whole thing and posted it for us all on YouTube so we could practice remotely. We never even rehearsed together… just pulled the darn thing off. I mean, you girls are amazing. I love you all.
So back to time… I forced a break for myself over the weekend and just chilled with my kids at home. It was some of the best time I’ve spent in awhile. Here are my caped Waterloo avengers trick-or-treating downtown Saturday morning:
The Downtown Waterloo Farmers Market and the streets were packed, so I don’t know how I managed to get such a deserted shot but I love it!
And today, my Halloween baby turns eight. My-oh-my… time:
And down come my boys from their naps… right on time. School’s almost out…
