Saturday's

Every single saturday of every single month we wake up and have pancakes,while daddy stays in bed groaning with fatigue.

  Then we each take our wicker basket of dirty clothes from our rooms down to he washing machine and dump it out, mom runs about 60 washes on saturdays, fun

Then daddy gets up and sweeps the whole house, top to bottom, while mom waters our 800 house plants. 

The big kids windex the windows, whilst complaining.

But what marks our saturday tradition more then anything is this,

Our saturday lunch/all day meal:

Grits or rice with butter and soy sauce

Chard or kale

Red lentils cooked with butter, shallot, cumin a dash of tomato sauce and chicken broth (the turkish way)

Avocado and sweet potato on the side, sometimes tomato salad.

Its soo good.

The kids hate it.

Happy saturday!

More watercolor patterns

 I have been doodling with watercolors a lot lately, playing with prints and patterns

I'm calling these two: "rose petals and river rocks"

Unfortunately my camera is just not doing justice to the colors, art is hard to photograph, and my camera is dulling down these most vibrant colors

 

Happy wednesday!

An abstract watercolor

 This burst out of me when the kids, who have been home with me in various states of sickness for the past THREE WEEKS, actually left the house for 20 minutes to go sledding with their dad.
Whew.
I realized when I finished that it looks like it could, or should be a fabric pattern..
 for the love of fabric, wouldn't that be just cool?

Have a great patternful day~

For the love of mustard

I love this color, i love all shades of brown, especially on my childrens skin, I love yellow, 

and mustard is the perfect combination of both.

I bought this gorgeous wool and decided to make mister M a new winter hat, practicing a new stitch, the bobble or puff stitch. It requires LOTS of time and patience, and LOTS of yarn.

Worth all the trouble,

We love it

Thursday thrift

We have another one down for the count, M has been so sick , day after day of fever, snot and cough.

Winter, i'm breaking up with you.

On a brighter note, yesterday I slipped into a thrift store while out on errands, and came out delighted by a few treasures I found !

this beautiful little (turkish?moroccan?) lidded basket

some kind of clutch  (india? )its big, beautifully hand embroidered and embellished, and I am storing artwork in it for now

these amazing african tablemats, the beadwork is so vibrant and beautiful

this vase (thanks ma for the flowers)

I bought new succs  

THIS.  I am always on the hunt for carribbean ocean/island/jungle themed childrens books for my little ones,

 they so resonate with them, this one is totally beautiful, and a little sad

Have you thrifted something oh so good lately?

Happy thursday!

Imani's artbook

Imani has a lined journal that she keeps at grandmas house, and a box of markers to go with it.

When grandma babysits her she doodles in it sometimes.

Although I dont encourage her to draw with markers usually, and I dont love the way they bleed on the back of the pages, I loved all these drawings, and the explanations that went with them all

-Little boy staring out the window at the snowflakes-

mama knitting on the left, little girl showing her dance moves to her mother

Village scene, women baring fruit and little girl on the left playing with her doll, little boy on the right peeing! 

girl on the wharf waving to her dad in the boat, i love how the boat is tied with a rope (such a real and true detail, remembered by this boat going girl of mine) and the turtle sunning itself on a rock

pregnant african woman (black and white dress) and other women bearing fruit

another african village scene

girl and her horse

fairies "waking up the flowers" for spring

indian girl in teepee

fairies perched on branches

her notebook

What I found most astounding was her cultural references, and how she over and over depicts african women, tribal scenes, brown girls, caribbean and native ways and life.

Her little consciousness is tuned in.

Happy monday