A Quiet Evening

The brunt of my heavy study load has been completed and I have survived (again) to tell the tale! My group handed in our big assignment on Thursday night. Deep, collective sighs of relief. Doing a group assignment by distance learning sure does have its difficulties...fortunately they gave us a chat room to use on our online site, which meant we could sit and discuss how we wanted to do the unit planning 'live' with each other. Anyway, it is done. Handed in. Yay! We are now entering the first of two weeks of study break. Boyo has no classes. Neither do I. He has various assignments to complete though. I have one big one. That feels a little more managable. I have a much lighter study load for the rest of the semester, and I am hoping that it will help me feel a little less crazy and a little more calm about my life.

I have had to reprimand myself a little today though. It is our sponsored girls' birthdays in May. And I had yet to get to organising them a gift or card (we send a monetary gift through Tear Fund/Compassion which a local worker helps the child/family choose a gift with). You have to allow at least a month in postage time, sometimes it can take up to 3. I kept telling myself that I "just don't have time for it right now." Which was kind of true. Assignments do take priority. But with that finished, there's nothing really holding me back. I thought about watching a movie on tv tonight. Both I had seen before, and in all honesty probably didn't need to see the first time so definitely won't miss too much by not giving them a second viewing! Tv is very alluring in the evenings, particularly after I've studied as it helps me to wind down so I do actually go to sleep when I head to bed. But it is such a dead zone. I mean, not a single useful thing gets accomplished. Oh, except a few rows of knitting while I try to avoid watching any ads. Grin.

So tonight I decided to can the tv. Instead, I have been creative. It is a rather satisfying feeling to know that in one evening I have made 2 posters, one for each of our birthday girls. I find that it is oh, so easy to procrastinate on anything related to our sponsored kids. It is so much easier to just let the automatic payment go out each month and for the most part forget about their existence. I frequently find myself saying "I don't know what to write" or "I don't have time to write" but have realised that often this is just an excuse. Let's call it what it is: lfrequently laziness, poor time management perhaps, maybe a dose of tiredness and lethargy thrown in for good measure. But when push comes to shove I probably do have time in my life for all the things I consider to be REALLY important. Or I can make time somehow. By watching less tv, for instance!

I decided to send the kids posters recently when I was thinking about how to treat them more as a part of our family. Posters like these were a bit of an informal family tradition when I was growing up, so seemed a logical thing to do, as well as providing a big splash of colour and life for the birthday kid! Here's my artwork from this evening: It took me the grand total of 1hr and 1ominutes from deciding to pull out the paper and crayons, to having put them away again afterwards. And I must say that it was an incredibly relaxing time...brush stroke after brush stroke, just me and my thoughts, crayon in hand, the paper in front of me.

From this: nice easy writing to do!

To this: Mariam is turning 9 this year. I used words in her own language from the pictures she sends us (I think there is something so special about using a person's own language).

And this is for Shipra: She is turning 18!!! I have sponsored her for at least 8 years now. You can see the inspiration for the picture in the background - a recent gift from my wonderful man.

Amy

Sunday, 17th April, 2011