I'm often asked what we do with all our spare time. I guess it depends on which of us we are talking about. Dennis works long hours and often when he gets home, he will have several more phone calls to make or take from the states or other work or church related stuff to do. It's been hard to get him to slow down or relax. I finally found something that at least a partial distraction for him. Puzzles. I did a 500 piece Eric Dowdle puzzle I had shipped from home and it was fun so I decided to get a puzzle with a Dutch theme. It was only a 1000 pieces but it was tricky because the pieces were so similar that we were constantly finding pieces that were put in the wrong places. I would have given up on it after the first week but Dennis kept after it and we finally finished it yesterday. (We started it on Nov. 1st) We probably won't put out another one till after the holidays because although it provides a nice break for Dennis, I have other things I really need to work on.
Alyna usually has lots of homework and of course has to chat with friends but in her spare time she usually watches the Office or Psych. She keeps the missionaries here up to date on what is happening on the Office.
So what do I do? The bigger question is why haven't I done more? More reading. More sewing. More sightseeing. More blogging. More organizing of files on the computer. More paper filing. More studying Dutch. I've done a little of all those things but nothing to brag about. I'm still reading the book about Einstein that I started when we first got here. It still takes me a couple of weeks to get through reading any other book. My sewing machine is in the shop so I have an excuse there. So what are my passions of late?
Other than just the normal day to day living stuff, my biggest use of time has been spent studying and preparing little lessons on great Dutch artists. Alyna won't have a chance to take a humanities class and we are surrounded here by incredible works of art. So, I've been researching Dutch art history and artists. I tried to think of an easy way to present it so that she could learn as little or as much as she wanted without being burdensome for her. I decided that if I could put info and pictures up in the WC (our toilet room, which is seperate from the "bath" room) then we would be able to spend as little or as much time as was needed there and have some interesting reading material. Last week, I put up a little introduction and this week we are learning about Frans Hals. Eventually we will get to the more famous ones like Rembrant, Vermeer and Van Gogh but there are so many others that did amazing works that it will be fun to learn more about them.
This is one of my favorite Frans Hals paintings because the guys are possing with thier swords and other hardware along with their beautiful laces and scarfs. It reminds me of a favorite show - Scarlet Pimpernel which takes place about 200 years after this painting was painted.
2 comments:
it sure makes going to the bathroom enlightening as well as relieving! thanks mom.
Good job Mom! That sounds impressive. You'll have to update us periodically on how this is going. I heard a good time was had at the Riksmuseum.
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