Two Hours of Sunshine
It was my oldest daughter’s idea:
“This is what we are gonna do. Everyone gets to choose 5 things to take outside, and we all have to take our own blanket and lay in the grass. Pen-and-paper counts as one thing because they go together.”
(Somehow, three Calico Critters also counted as one thing, but whatever…)
For about two hours on Sunday afternoon, the sun shined more boldly than it has in a month, and you better believe we weren’t going to miss out on it.
So, I grabbed the following:
My daughter’s watercolor pad
Her palette of watercolor paints
A jar of water and paintbrushes
An old Jamie Oliver cooking magazine from 2012 with tons of seasonal recipes
A spring 2018 copy of Creative Countryside Magazine (both of the mags sent to me by my dear friend, Kyle, in England)
Clearly I was on a mission to create something, to be inspired, and to possibly make something drool-worthy for dinner. Or maybe I just don’t throw away old magazines. 🤷🏻♀️
We spread out four of our favorite blankets - the three of theirs making a circle with an empty space in the middle for mine. I flipped through the Jamie Oliver magazine until an illustration of spring produce jumped out at me, and I decided to try to paint it myself.
Steven listened to an audio book. The girls played Calico Critters. Norah drew in her notepad and than asked me every five minutes, “What are you painting, mama?” and “Oooooh, what’s that supposed to be?” Luci drew in her notebook for awhile and then abandoned her blanket to flitter off to the creek like a butterfly looking for a drink of water.
And oh, that sky. I didn’t know how much we craved all that blue until we had it again for a few short hours.
At the end of the two hours, I put the finishing touches on my painting, and the clouds were already shrouding us again like a gauzy fabric. It quickly got chilly and windy, and we gathered our things as big raindrops started to plop on our notebooks.
A wonderful two hours it was!
I went back inside reluctantly, recharged, slightly freckled, and more sure than ever that we are honestly and truly solar-powered.
