Last month (July 11, 2016) was International Edcamp Leader day. Not only was I super excited to be part of this day, learn from and be inspired by local Illinois leaders but the organizers of the Edcamp thought it would be fun to have ignite speeches after our lunch. I jumped at the chance to give an Ignite Speech (actually I squealed in happiness and then thought what the heck have I gotten myself into…eeekkk). After a day or two of brainstorming I had my theme. As I wrote the speech, I knew I wanted to use this opportunity to really push myself as a creator and as a presenter… not only would I share a belief I am deeply passionate about, I would draw the entire ignite speech. Continue reading “WHY NOT: The Story Behind my “Why Not” Sketchnote”
Me and My Ship…A Lesson Learned
I have shared with you about this school year. I have shared that when this school year started I quickly realized it was collectively a classroom of the most challenging students I have ever taught, but I haven’t shared with you this part of that journey yet…this lesson learned. Continue reading “Me and My Ship…A Lesson Learned”
The Sheriff of Everything
This summer was full of fun, giggles, adventures and tons of time with my daughters. Each day I got to see more and more of their personalities and the young women they are becoming. Continue reading “The Sheriff of Everything”
My First Digital Drawing Challenge
The tweet flowed through my stream.
Anyone up for an Easter weekend “Digital Drawing Challenge”?
“ooooooo I don’t know?!! Maybe I could?! I’m not the artist these people are. I don’t draw like they do. I don’t know…but what if? What if I do? It could be a lot of fun! What if my drawing turns out ok? What if it’s awful compared to theirs? What if its fun? What if I do ok?” the thoughts, the words of doubt, the possibilities and the battle for bravery flowed through my head.
“I want to do it ,” I tweeted excitedly!
The link to the challenge came through my twitter stream later the next week. The prompt was inspired by the Wreck In Journal. We would have to digitally create: “figure out a way to attach these two pages together”. Ideas and thoughts for it danced through my head…”Oye, it also had to be digital. I still can’t find my comfort zone handwriting and drawing more complex pieces digitally…yuck. I stink at them. Pages…two pages joined together…hmmm. Maybe I would get my daughters to pick a page from their favorite book and I would find a way to creatively join them. Maybe I’ll just take two pages and join them some how…hmmm. Hmmmm.”
So as fantastic creative peeps and artists (and can I just share how incredibly warm, friendly, supportive and just as nice as a new artist could hope to find in this space) shared their imaginative creations I peaked in on them when I could and I spent time enjoying…. A sister’s night, a birthday and an early easter celebration but even with all that wonderfulness…it left me with plenty of time to come up with an idea and very, very little time to draw it.
When the days finally slowed and time for me finally appeared, I sat down and digitally drew my interpretation of “attach these two pages together”. I decided that my joining of two pages would be inspired by me…be inspired by the me I have been working to embrace all year. I decided to join the part of me I have known for sixteen years, known I have wanted to be since 5th grade and still love to my core doing and being everyday and the part of me that is new, that I am learning to embrace equally and learning to allow it to enhance, infuse, electrify and color my life and my teaching more then it ever has before.
My interpretation of “attaching these two pages together”…
I had so much fun creating for this challenge. While I love to draw, I generally only just draw my characters on the iPad. This challenge gave me a push to create it all on the iPad. I learned that it is more time consuming than my pencil, paper and sharpie creations, that I need to maintain more layers for easier editing later and that I need to (like all things that need practice) create on it more and continue to practice my lettering and lines. Most of all I am so proud of this super fun, colorful joining of the two pages of me!
If you would like to check out these amazingly kind, welcoming, supportive, talented and inspiring artists you can follow them on twitter via the #TodaysDoodle hashtag or here on their Twitter accounts: Marc Bourguignon, Rob Dimeo, Tracy Levasseur, Lilpeanut, Mauro Toselli, Dr. Makayla Lewis and Monica Lopez
Cleaning Shout Outs…said no kid or mom ever!
Cleaning…chores….sighhhhhhh is an infinite battle in my house (I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about that lately haven’t I). Well I can say we have reached a 80% no whining, melt down, do it because I am supposed to do rate but woooo momma that other 20%….lordy help me.
After years of battling and attempted “behavior modification” with my ever feisty and perpetually determined to make me crazy oldest I decided a few months back to take a route unfamiliar with me…I compromised with her. I decided we she would select the household chore that she could tolerate. This all in the hopes that the tantrum, whine factor and incessant battling over doing your chores would significantly decrease… and what do you know…it really did…well mostly…until last week.
“Go upstairs and separate the today’s laundry.”
{sighhhhh} overly dramatic grumpy face (because I didn’t already know how unhappy she was about doing her chores after say… years of tantrums and stomping and refusing) with a bit of mad stomping up the stairs for added effect.
“Hooowws the laundry separating going,” I ask from downstairs.
minutes later…..nothing…no sound….
I walk upstairs to see what is up (duh….I totally know what is happening)
“What’s going on?” I say looking at the rolled up mound of an unhappy child trying to make a statement that is way past very clearly being made.
“I hate this.”
…cue mom speech about responsibility, her job as a member of this family….you picked this chore blah blah blah…you know the speech (heck she knows the speech).
She stares back at me.
“Let’s try something,” I say, “How about every time you think something negative, something or some reason about why you don’t like doing your chores you scream at the top of your lungs a super silly no way it is possible true shout out about what you are doing!”
{Perplexed look}
{aahhaa moment}
{Smile}
Getting back to my chores I hear a my oldest shouting from upstairs at the top of her lungs …
“I just LOVE separating the families dirty underwear into piles! Nothing makes me happier”
From the dining room craft room I hear my youngest shout…
“I just love cleaning up a million gazillion rainbow loom bands that someone left on the floor…oooo fun!”
and from the bathroom…
…and in that instant the Baughcum Family Cleaning Shout Out was born.
WARNING: Teaching children the shout out method may cause rolling on the floor laughter during cleaning and may slightly….oh shoot really reduce the amount of cleaning that actually gets done!
1/2 The Laundry…A Life Lesson
My daughters never cease to crack me up. Their perspective of life…even the littlest moments, the ones that seem so routine, the so everyday can leave us in giggles. So when I asked my daughters to put away some laundry, empty a laundry basket and bring it downstairs for me I couldn’t have imagined the on the floor belly holding giggles it left me in and a life lesson I felt compelled to share…one big sister to another!
…see more #SuperFunDoodles here
Crazy Holiday Fun
Well that was fun!! I don’t know about you but I have a serious love hate relationship with Christmas. This year my procrastinating tendencies caught up with me and honestly I didn’t handle it oh so well. There may have been some anxiety and stress. In the end, as always we I got through it and I was able to look back at it all, laugh, smile and see all the fun we had!!
Motherhood…Living on The Edge
Last week was one full of those on the edge moments! You know those moments you want to run out of your house screaming someone save me from this insanity. Those moments you count down the time until your husband will be home from work so you can tag him…”you’re it”! Those moments you filter so much, your families mouths would drop if they knew the things you really wanted to say. Well…wrapped up in all that insanity there is awesomeness. The you wouldn’t have it any other way moments of motherhood.
Last week was a smidge more on the am I going to survive side…
Giggles, Fun and Christmas Lights
Early this week I shared my new found love for what I have now learned is called #sketchnoting (I personally think it is so much more then a boring name like that. Don’t worry, I’m working on a new name, prettier and way more creative name for it). Even with a boring name my love for what I like to think of as writing with intertwined words and drawings continues….
Last weekend my 9 year old asked if we could decorate the outside of the house on Saturday. How could I possibly say no. So we brought the lights up from the basement and got to work. It was so much more then I could have expected.
40, Teary, Thankful and a New Happy
I started this post the day of my 40th birthday…over two weeks ago. I wasn’t short of words. I didn’t need any ideas. I knew what I was going to say. The post was simply waiting for a finishing touch, a picture, some word art, some splash of heck awesome.
So it sat… unpublished.
A Google+ post came into my stream. It was a post about Lynda Berry’s illustrated syllabus and homework assignments. The article shared how she uses humor, creativity and drawings to write her syllabus and homework assignments. It is just too cool and seriously, who wouldn’t want to do that homework.
Mt daughter’s drawings stared at me from the magnets they hung from on the fridge as I ate my breakfast. Their collages of words, imagination, fearless free thought, full of color, ideas, flowing, oozing with the details of their life, shouted their creativity.
I had been missing something lately. Something that kept me from doing more, from writing more, from creating more and it finally hit me…I’ve been missing drawing.
Suddenly it hit me. I knew what was missing. I knew what I wanted to do. So, I asked Olivia’s if I could use her sketch pad. I got out my favorite black pen and I began to draw (big step for me as I usually draw on the iPad, drawing on the iPad means I can fix my mistakes, I can make it perfect and hate what my drawings look like on paper). The drawings and words began to swirl and became entangled on the paper. My heart warmed and happiness flooded me as I felt my personality, my words and my story illustrated on the paper.
My daughters joined me on the floor, each with their papers and pens. We sat and drew together. We smiled and giggled and passed crayons to each other and admired each other’s drawings.
I knew in that moment…this type of writing, this type of drawing, this type of creativity filled my like none before. (Mommy BONUS…it also gave me a half way point with my daughters and our time together. It allowed us all to write and draw and create the way we love to do. It allowed us to spend time together, doing something we all loved.) I had finally found a creative outlet that was fun, artsy, free flowing, portable and most of all it made me feel like I have wanted to for so long… like an artist.
I give you the first of many, many _______(I am certain there is some fancy smancy name for this type of writing/journaling. I have no idea what it is called. I just call it my art…my happy)….
Mom Always Said…
I don’t know about where you are at but winter has gone from …
“Ohhhh look at all that snow! Lets go play in it”
to
“We’re stuck in the house againnnn??!!”
to
“Moooommmm she’s touching me again!”
“Mooooommmm tell her to leave me alone!”
to
“Do I have anything warmer then an undershirt and a long sleeve shirt and a sweater and jeans and socks and boots and a scarf and mittens and a down jacket…cause I’m still cold!”
to
“Are you kidding me?! Is this ever going to end?!”
to
“I’m moving to Florida!!”
…but even with all of that obvious love for winter Moose has his own opinions
No Swimming
My daughters are a constant source of inspiration for me. Their amazingly fantastic view the world around them makes me smile. The heck awesome places their imaginations take them to leaves me in smiling in awwww. The times I get to spend drawing and doing crafts with them… inspired and filled with ideas.
Like most of my doodles, this one stared with “Mommy come draw with meeeee!!!!”
It quickly turned into a paper crumpling grump, “I can’t draw fish!!!!”
And ended with a mini-fish drawing lesson and then it….well you’ll see! Continue reading “No Swimming”