So Long, March

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

I’m not about to cry over March ending.  Sure, there were some good times, like when I got a little sun browned drawing this picture outside:

I drew this and the next day the trees had buds, I was astonished and wondered if I just hadn’t seen them, but I was paying pretty close attention.

I followed that up with a rousing game of badminton with my husband in our driveway.  That was a good day, and I thank thee March for the beautiful moments. 

But most of the month we were sick.  We were a little sick at the beginning, and nearly as soon as we recovered, we got hit with this truly horrible respiratory evil, which is still sitting on top of my family like a slow moving storm system or a foggy Pacific day.  Some of us are in recovery, some of us are still dealing with it, and some of us are just now getting it (me— and I hope after passing through so many people it’s mild; I have a big dinner to cook on Sunday for Easter!).

A box of tissues and a bottle of hand sanitizer have become decor staples in almost every room of our house.

It’s been said that March roars in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  I used to think the lion somehow transformed himself into a docile, mild mannered little lamb, but I’ve come to believe instead that the mighty, blustering lion is actually conquered by the meek lamb.  This has obvious Easter connotations for Christians, (Christ conquering death through becoming our sacrificial lamb) but I also began thinking about the microscopic struggle going on inside as my family wages germ warfare against an illness.  It’s a comfort to think of the hacking, horrible, roaring, coughing cacophony being beaten back and killed off by our conquering immune systems.  I see in this struggle the classic tale of good over evil, life conquering death. It’s never a clean and easy struggle, is it?

In my more mundane, daily struggle for household cleanliness, I like to listen to audio books. I listened to the book Ben Hur, by Lew Wallace earlier this month. I thought it was excellent and there was much struggling of good over evil. I can vaguely remember the Charleston Heston movie version playing around Easter when I was a kid. If you’ve not read it, I do recommend it. It brought the Easter story to life in an unexpected and beautiful way.

My copy of Ben Hur on a shelf, under a wooden candle holder that my dad made for me.

We have largely skipped school this week due to constant sniffling and coughing and just all around misery.  The kids are now bouncing off the walls, though we did a little art yesterday and planted an herb garden, too.

Today we studied Fauvism and Expressionism; looking mostly at Henri Matisse, Andre Derian, Edvard Munch, and Franz Marc. During our art lesson, one kid tried collage and another one tried painting a still life scene. I think both attempts were pretty successful!

My husband has Friday off so I am sending this out today because I’ll be spending my day tomorrow with him and the kids.

Hopefully a good deal of this while we recover, and maybe a badminton rematch, too.  

---

If you are interested in viewing my art, I have some original art on Etsy, and different links to stuff here if you’d like to browse.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and thank you so very much for checking out my scribbles! Happy early April, and Happy Easter, and happy spring as we turn the calendar and start fresh yet again.

-Jenn