Storm in a Teacup
What's your storm in a teacup: the petty argument you keep having that you wish you could stop?
Draw it in your tea-leaves, then wash the stress away with a nice cuppa...
Click on the image if you want to stop and read one.
instructions
You don't have to have a cup of tea if you don't want one, but being British, of course I never turn down a cuppa. It always calms me in a crisis. A rare (best of all, maybe even still hot) cup of tea marks out my precious me-time. A flask in the play-park is an excuse to stop and chat with friends. And turning the kettle on is about the only moment when I get up from my crazy working day and pause to think while I bustle round the kitchen.
All you need for this task however, is a cup and a used teabag (or some freshly brewed tea-leaves if you're classier than I am).
Think about your latest argument with a loved one. That one you have over and over again... and really wish you didn't.
What picture could you make in your tea-leaves to illustrate it?
It's quite fun getting your fingers in the tea and squidging it about to try and make a shape - and quite difficult. I had to poke mine about with the end of a kid's toothbrush... (I did try this with coffee grounds too but it wasn't half as good as the tea-leaves).
Create your tea-leaf 'reading', take a photo and give your argument a title.
If you want to tell us a bit about your row to get it out of your system, we'd love to hear about it. What do you argue about, and what does it all mean deep down...
(After a few cups, I discovered what it was that I was really arguing with my husband about, over and over again. It wasn't all the things I put in my tea-cup. It was how I felt about me...)
Here's to shared cuppas and brighter futures.
I can cope with a certain level of chaos - quite a huge amount of chaos in fact. Then a switch suddenly trips and it drives me bonkers. An extra pile of paperwork, a wardrobe's worth of clothes thrown over the sofa, a toy pile that has exploded over more than half of the room... and suddenly I'm seeing all the unfinished promises all over the house - the attic that needs sorting, the 'storage solutions' that clearly haven't solved anything...
What I rarely want to do though, is spend much of our limited family time tidying up - I want to play, go out on an adventure, do something FUN. And I make my husband come with us. So why I then have a go at him for not having had the time to tidy up the house, I don't know...
The washing up. Should you rinse everything off before putting it in the bowl of hot soapy water so the water remains clean, or leave it to soak while you get on with doing something else and then come back to it when it's easy to clean...? It's amazing how many arguments it is possible to have about this. And how impossible it is for us each to believe that our approach might not suit the other person...
Money, money, money. Who earns what. Who pays for what. Who works harder for their money, and who does loads of things that aren't paid for but which are still really really hard and really really important...
We rarely argue, but when we do it is always over silly things and aways when we are all tired.
My storm is to do with my littlen being a wannabe hermit. Trying to get him out of the house can be a bit of a struggle #somum #autism
My husband often says things to me that I just don't hear. Not because I don't want to, but simply because I am in the thick of dealing with the kids, or listening to them instead, or on my computer working, or on my computer tweeting... so very rarely, he has a point.
This is a mini-me in the middle, holding up a VERY weighty sky with a canvas in my left hand (I'm left-handed). Hubs and I often argue about whether my art is 'worth it' and if I should 'do more, or get a 'real job'. This was made with the tea leaves from my Peach Champagne cuppa.
What does it really mean to feel loved? To feel appreciated, seen and heard?
It only takes a "thank you" most of the time.
