When given the homework of doing something artistic, I never thought I would actually follow-through. In fact, I gave myself permission to skip this exercise because when I say that I’m a terrible drawer/painter/Play-doh sculpture maker, I’m not being humble, I’m being accurate.
However, I decided to give it the old college try. Feeling somewhat artistic for my daughter’s birthday, I decided to draw a fish as a place holder for the fish I was going to buy her as one of her presents. I drew Fish #1 and my husband and my oldest daughter laughed hard and long. I made a second attempt and a third with the same kind of reaction. My first three attempts looked like bombs from olde thyme cartoons.
My daughter grabbed the pen out of my hand and she made her first drawing. Fortunately it was as bad as my own but she’s more tenacious than I, and kept trying. Then my husband got into the act. His first attempts weren’t as bad as mine but they were laughable. The main difference, however, is that he figured out how to fix his picture by the third try. At least his looked like a fish.
But then Devon suggested creating a fish bowl. Alas, my homework became a group project where my daughter drew the fish bowl and cut it out, Nick drew the fish, and I colored the fish in, added some kindergarten algae, gave it its monologue, and named it.
The best part of the whole endeavor is how much we all laughed and the birthday girl loved the gift. We went the next day to PetCo to buy the latest addition to the family, ‘Jazzman’ because he’s a boy Betta fish.
This week’s homework from the e-guide, 52 Weeks: 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self is going to be easy. I played this game last year with Estrella Azul. Notice I called this a game and not homework?? Very telling. It’s called 6 word days and it works like this: you have to summarize your day in only 6 words. Here’s an example I could have written about my day yesterday: Am so stressed I could vomit or Shopping for exercise clothes relieves stress. I’m sensing a theme, how about you?
Estrella and I used Twitter with the hashtag of #6WordDays to communicate with each other since she lives in another country and our time zones are very different. It worked so well that we continued for two full weeks which is surprising because I have ADD and following through on things like this don’t come easily for me.
You can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text, email, or any way in which to communicate with someone (or someones!) your 6 word day. If you’d like to play and have no one to play with, use Twitter and send me the summary of your day. I’d love to play with you. I will be putting my days on Twitter and Facebook. Use the hashtag of #6WordDays–maybe we’ll even start a trend!
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This sounds fun! I might give this a try. Though I wish I had a lot more time to play these days:)
I agree. I was so busy yesterday that I forgot to follow-through on my own game. Face plant! I added my #6WordDays this morning which was “Massaged the knots out of neck.” In other words, I got a much needed massage to help with stress.
Oh, I am so happy that your “homework” turned into something fun you almost certainly haven’t done with your family except maybe when your girls were little. Those laughs are definitely not stress, so enjoy it to the fullest!
I’ll play the six word days with you, starting this evening since I’m so late to read your post this week. Maybe you’ll feel like continuing with them if I tweet at you even after you’re six word days are completed.
I was so bad with following through this week. Insomnia has reared its ugly head and I’ve forgotten more often than I’ve remembered this homework. So glad we’ll be playing again together. I will have to get more clever!
Sorry to hear about the insomnia, but glad to hear playing with me will help you follow through! *Hugs*