Sorry, Willa's House Blog is Finished!

Hello to anyone who might stumble upon this blog! I am no longer updating it, but you can find information about my home-based Preschool in Portland Maine, The Creative Play House, on our new websitewww.thecreativeplayhouse.com, or on our FB page athttps://www.facebook.com/creativeplayhouseportlandmaine?fref=photo

The Highly Sensitive Person

I wish I had discovered this book years ago. I guess I've always known I was a "sensitive" person, but sadly, I never saw this personality trait as a positive. It wasn't until my son who I intuitively knew was also sensitive, became an adolescent this year, that my tools for dealing with his sensitivity seemed to be used up.....or maybe, I just was sick of dealing with his sensitivity and wished he would "grow out of it". Reading Caring For Your Highly Sensitive Child as well as The Highly Sensitive Person has helped me enormously. I have a new understanding of who my son is, and who I am. More on these books later....Oriana is needing her Mommy.

Finally A Tourist

This spring was the first time I managed to do something touristy in NY with my daughter. My parents and 2 sisters still live in NYC. We visit as a family about once a year, but hardly ever leave Brooklyn (where my sisters live) except to go to the village (where my parents live.) This visit, though, I managed to squeeze in a trip to the Natual History Museum with Oriana, and she was enthralled. I have to say, I always love visitng when I'm there, but the planning and getting there oftens seems to take more effort than I can manage. I wish I was like some of my friends who seem to be able to zip down for a visit every few months.....

Magnolias Are Gorgeous!

Channeling Huckleberry Finn

My spring project has been to scrub down, bleach and finally paint white our 14 year old cedar picket fence. It is a Herculean task, but, the results so far make me feel it is worth it!!! I must admit, there is something very cheery about a white picket fence. Even if there aren't many flowers in bloom it gives the yard a happy feel. It took a while to get my family on board about it, but when my hubby introduced the power sander, my 14-year-old son Casey and his friend were convinced that for $5.00/hr. each they could possibly help a bit. And wanting to earn more money for gum, Oriana has helped out too.

More Art

Hanging Children's Art Without Ruining Your Walls

Hi Everyone,

I'm thrilled with the new paint job in my two play spaces for the Creative Play House that double as our living areas. My hubbie put up the new chair rail trim, which we actually put above chair rail height, and for the first time, we paid someone else to do the painting. What a luxury!! Not only does the trim give you the option of one color up, and one color down, it also supplies a solid place to put a discrete pushpin. One of the reasons why our walls desperately needed a paint job was due to the unsightly duct tape residue left from hanging children's art work all over. I tried that putty stuff, and it too left marks. I wasn't sure what my solution would be for hanging art on the new walls until I had a great light bulb moment this weekend. I used pushpins to hold a small clip which in turn held the art work. Yipee!! I think the results look beautiful. Soon I will put grown-up art work above the chair rail.

The Yearly MRI

Oriana with her french hair cut after finding uncountable numbers of lice in mid-July (breeding since June) and her cousin Etta.



Their Grandpa Carey with a now-adays girly haircut on his grandpa's knee.

My Father is standing at Left. His cousins and Grandpa with him.

Tomorrow at 6:45 am will will head over to Maine Medical for Oriana's yearly MRI. i did good today purchasing her toy that will entertain and distract her from any anxiety she may feel leading up to the procedure. At good ol' Rite Aid I found a cute little body lotion/body spray/lo fa sponge in a sipper pouch and for 50% off for the second purchase (can't resist sometimes) I got her these cute confetti bath bubble stuff. Those things were for the pretty factor, and then for the distraction part I got her this electronic word find game. She was thrilled with both!!! Yeah for me!

For the most part, I don't worry too much anymore about the MRIs, because I have learned the grand art of "not thinking" when it comes to certain things, but I did find myself overly sensitive when we went for her "heart and lung" last week at the pediatrician. We showed up at the time I wrote on my calendar a month ago, to be told rather testily by the receptionist that we were a half hour late. Then again this was pointed out by the attending nurse. When I explained my position, the nurse paused, and then with a "I gotcha" attitude declared, "I called you yesterday and confirmed the time, yes, I did!" I have loved our pediatric practice for the past 10 years, but this was enough to have me walking out the door, and/or bursting into tears. The doc. of course was all apologetic, but I have to say, the rest of the staff needs to learn the meaning behind the saying, "the customer is always right". Looking for new pediatrician is now added to my long list of to-do's.

My mother is turning 81 and my father is turning 88 this month. I am making them both photo albums using the photo company I have used since I was 13!!! York Color Photo Labs may not be the hippest site, but it has great prices and sales. For $19.95 you can make a hard cover, 20 page photo book. They have lots of fun backgrounds, layouts and boarders. For my father's book I have scanned some childhood photos of his which I am trying to pair with current family photos of his kids and grandkids that have similarities (ie. the kids show the same genetic pool, or groupings of people are similar.) I'm having fun. Here are some of the photos:

Left Overs From Christmas

It would be nice if the whole of my upper hall looked as nice as this little area, but usually just beyond where this quilt hangs is a mountain of stuff waiting to be brought up to the attic (also my studio) and stored in the knee-wall closets.  See the photo below of Santa, one of the last hangers on.....

The paintings are by Penelope Jones (middle) and Mary Harrington (sides). Both artists were nice enough to trade art work with me.  The quilt is an old family quilt my mom just recently gave me.  I should find out if she knows who made it before she looses all her memory to the Althzimer's.

How long do you leave your out door christmas lights up?  How many months after Christmas do you find things that still need putting away?  Well, for me it is well into February and even March.  This little Santa has been waiting on the landing to my attic for quite a while.  I decided to take his picture before hauling him up.  We took advantage of the warm weather this weekend to take down the out door lights, but there have been years where it is not until the snow has thawed that I get around to it.  Oh well...

Friends Make Boring Activities Fun and Hard Times Bearable

Thursday my friend Jen drove me down to Portsmouth so we could deliver our work for the upcoming "Enormous Tiny Art Show 5" at Nahcotta.  The drive went quickly of course, because it was good quality time to chat and catch up.  Jen asked how my daughter Oriana was doing, and she is doing great, but coming up soon in March will be her now annual MRI to track her benign brain tumors.  Time with friends can make a car drive go quicker, or can turn a stressful time into a bearable--even fun--experience.  For the 2 years Oriana was on an MRI every-three-months-routine, my good friends Jessica and Moira met Carter and I at the hospital, and hung out with us in the small waiting room for MRI patients.  Instead of sitting and reading bad magazines while attempting not to worry, I got to have 2 hours of good conversation with dear friends.

It's hard to imagine how people get through difficult experiences like having a child with a disease as Oriana does, (Neurofibromatosis), but the thinking about it is much worse than the actual experience (at least for me).  Also, I had a major epiphany a couple of years after Oriana's diagnosis: her experience of her life is not my experience of her life.  Children can't see into the future the way we do.  Their life is about now.  If, as a parent, you can make that now o.k., or even fun, when going through an otherwise difficult experience, great!  So, we established a routine that Oriana would get to choose a toy at our round-the-corner Rite Aid a few days before each MRI.  She wasn't allowed to open it until we were at the hospital.  This made it so her focus was on the toy and not about worrying about getting the IV etc.

This post is way too long, so on another I'll write about how her hospital stay for cranial surgery went so well that she later commented, "I wish all my friends could have surgery".

More Snow Day

A Beautiful Snow Day

Casey showing the Creatives how to change their voices into the "mouse" or "alien" voice on the computer.

Today the public school in Portland had a snow day, but I kept my home pre-school, the Creative Play House opened.  It is always special for my kids to have some time with the "Creatives".  Even my 13-year-old son Casey joined in (so sweet!).  The images of the "big" kids reading to the smaller ones and the gentle and caring way the big kids helped the smaller brought tears to my eyes several times.....

Like in any other family, my two kids Oriana (8) and Casey (13) squabble and bicker quite a bit.  It was very affirming to have a day like today where they both showed how they had learned the lessons I've  tried to instill about being a good friend, sharing, helping out, etc.

Valentine's Day is More Important in Maine!

I started Valentine's Day activities today with my pre-schoolers and one of the Moms who moved recently from Seattle commented that the holiday seemed to be emphasized in Maine more that back West.  We wondered if this was true do to our cold climate and the need for fun things to do and look forward to during winter. Well, I say any excuse to use glitter and pretty paper is a good one!!  Here are some Valentine's Day House Mail Boxes we started today using those crates from clementines.  I was scrounging around for more cardboard for the tops and ended up using the covers from some old out-dated books.  I wasn't thinking they would be "roofs" because the original cardboard I had used was just flat, but then it just happened! I think they're pretty great.  One year I had a parent who saved a bunch of those 5 Lb coffee cans and we painted those and used them for the mailboxes.

Whose the Accountant in Your House?

Hello out there.....

well, I'm the accountant in ours.  I'm the one with two businesses and I do the taxes for both each year.  Oddly enough, I get a strange pleasure from figuring it all out.  Of course, Turbo Tax makes it very easy.  The first few years I did it on my own and really learned how it all worked.  Also, now that I file my receipts regularly the whole ordeal takes much less time. (If you are an artist or family childcare provider and you are considering doing your own taxes, please feel free to contact me with questions.) 

To make the process less trying, breaks to check on my FB page or taking some photos of recent craft projects makes it O.K. This photo is of some milk weed pods I collected with Oriana this fall and then glittered up!   We are hanging them from gold and silver painted twigs which will serve as decoration for the auction tables at her public school annual auction. More about how to fit volunteering into your schedule on another post.....

A little about my family

In the summer we go to Swan's Island and spend time boating around from island to island.

Willa, Carter, Casey and Oriana

Everyone's an Artist

Hi!
As I mentioned in my first post, I'm going to say a little bit about the different roles I see my self as having. I would love to hear any comments you have that relate to this idea of "wearing different hats". I also want to make a disclosure that "writer" was never one of the hats I've worn. Good writing is a mystery to me, and I hope that I can manage well enough that people won't just go running!

There was a time way back when, when I didn't know the concept of "wearing different hats"--I just was an "artist".  First of all, I just want to say that I hate how people who don't think of themselves as creative seem to put "artist" types up there on that pedestal. I firmly believe everyone is creative and has the potential to be "an artist". It just takes practice and dedication and desire. Anyhow, that time seems long ago now. My life is much fuller and the "artist" in me has had to make room for many other things that are important. But through having kids and continuing my work as an early childhood educator, I have continued to find pleasure and satisfaction in the creative work I do. Mostly this is painting, but I also love collage, photography, using rubber stamps for card making, beading and trying new things.

The time that I have carved out for my painting is precisely Thursdays and Fridays during school hours, baring doctor's appointments and a million other things that can easily chew away at this time....

Do you have a set-aside time to do something for yourself whether it be exercising, something creative, reading etc?  If you don't and would like to than just start small...maybe it is one night a week that you leave the house and go to a movie or the library.  Part of finding satisfaction in anything we do is doing it on a regular basis.  If you make it part of your routine it will be something you can look forward to and something you think of as part of yourself.  

It took me a while after having kids to put myself first for those 2 days a week.  It required time, money and feeling I deserved it!  And to get to that place, I had to say "no" to other things--like renovating the kitchen--and yes to other things--like raising my rates and cutting back on the days I offered at my home-preschool, The Creative Play House (sorry families!)

If you need encouragement getting to the point where you have time to yourself, please feel free to email me or leave comments.

All for now, Willa

Floral Encaustics

A selection of these floral encaustics will be in Nahcotta's Enormous Tiny Art Show 5 in February.  See more now on Flickr.

about willa's house blog

Hello everyone,

Willa's House blog is for anyone trying to balance their many roles in life.  For me, this includes but is not limited to: artist, crafter, early childhood educator, healthy/fit person, friend, mom, parent of a special-health-care-needs child, volunteer and wife (in alphabetical order).  It's not easy to balance multiple roles, and generally, one role will take precedent over another for a period of time.  As a way to begin this blog I think I will focus on one role at a time and talk about how I fit it in to my life.  I plan on sharing lots of visuals too, since aesthetics are important to me.  I'm going to keep posts brief because of time constraints for all of us!