Mother’s Day!!

It’s Mother’s Day and though it was a bit quiet because I am still getting my strength back, it was a wonderful day. It is VERY hard to believe that I celebrated my first Mother’s Day a dozen years ago! I love both of my girls and notice that every age just keeps getting better and better.

I spent a lot of time today being a mother... from helping sing an anthem in church to teaching Sunday School, from having a wonderful nap after lunch to helping Erin assemble a project on Hawaii that is due next week. She passed her Baby-sitting Course on Saturday with flying colours and has asked me to help her put together a flyer to hand out to some of our friends who have young children and two of the new families on the street. She has also been “asked to go out” by one of the boys in Grade 7 that she has been friends with for a while. Bethany also needed help getting all 8 of her new Brownie Badges put onto her badge scarf. It is very strange to suddenly notice that your children are growing up and experiencing things that you can still remember doing yourself so vividly. I really don’t feel old enough to have daughters of my own going through all these milestones!

On Mother’s Day, my thoughts also turn to the wonderful ladies in my life who have been friends and role models for me. My Mom not only gave me a loving example to follow of how to be a parent, she continues to be an example as I watch her with my kids. Someday, after all, I may be a grandmother too!


It can’t have been easy, going back to start a new career (especially one that is as much of a calling as the Ministry) and then becoming a single parent as well. The year that Mom started back to school, I was the same age that Erin is now. I was able to be a help around the house just like she is. As I begin to explore what else I may do in the fall when both girls are in school for the longer day, I can understand where Mom must have been. There really is a point where you begin to understand that your children don’t need you with the same intensity as they did when they were infants. In many ways, they may need you more, but not while they are attending school each day.


Mom also showed me that life can often lead to new adventures and unexpected wonders. She fell in love with John and married 20 years ago this summer. He has brought so much joy, love, music and laughter to our family that it is hard to imagine our lives without him... but I can still remember watching the depths of her sorrow as her first marriage crumbled. I learned about healing, acceptance and transformation from watching her not only survive and move on, but also rediscover new joys. After wanting a puppy all of her life, she and John also bought Maggie and jokingly refer to her as “the child they never had together”.


I am also blessed to have another Mother to celebrate this day and every day of my life... the one who brought my husband into the world. I grew up watching my own Mom’s great relationship with her own mother-in-law but quickly realized that there were a lot more horror stories out there than happy ones. I can honestly say that I am truly blessed when it comes to my other mother!


Mum is someone that I can talk to and ask advice from who doesn’t come with all the emotional baggage from growing up together. We are similar in many ways and she has made me feel loved, welcome and treasured in my own right, while still giving our family space to be ourselves. Perhaps it was her own experiences of having her mother-in-law living with her that gave her this sensitivity. She may never know how much I admire her courage and strength as well as her kindness and creativity. Leaving her family behind and coming to a new country with young children cannot have been easy. Working most of her life to help make ends meet and moving SO many times as Nick was growing up meant constantly starting over, making new friends and settling into new communities. Like my own mother, she found a second chance at love. She and Jerome built up a business to be proud of with their bed and breakfast, but also knew when it was time to sell it and switch to a slower pace. I say that with a bit of a smile because my amazing Mum continues to fill her days with quilting, knitting and fellowship as well as walks on the treadmill.

What amazing role models they provide!!

Thank you girls for a special day with lots of hugs, adorable handmade cards and the treat of eating lobster for supper!!

Thank you Mom for reminding me to celebrate life in all its glory each day that you have!!

On The Mend...Slowly

It has been a long week of feeling like a sack of wet mice, but I am slowly regaining my energy. Yesterday, I spent the day doing STORYFEST, a literacy enrichment activity for some of the kids in School District 2. It was great fun, but being “perky and bouncy” for 6 hours with groups of kids as I taught them to use their imagination and draw Petitcodiac Muck Monsters took a lot out of me. Staying up until midnight to stitch didn’t help either, but at least I was sitting down!

My walking buddy and I went for our walk this morning and then I came home and napped for a 1/2 hour! I just don’t have the strength and energy that I did before this round of flu and don’t seem to be bouncing back as quickly as my kids. I am sure that the age difference has nothing to do with it... right??

I have a lot to look at this weekend. I am starting to think that there is just no way I will have Santa’s Dragon ready for to ship to Kreinik for the Columbus show without it costing a huge amount for overnight shipping. I got the deadlines for product from Hoffman for that show and the leaflets would have to be in their warehouse by the 28th of May.

Santa’s Dragon WILL come out this summer, but I am honestly looking at how much it would take to get everything wrapped up, proofed, framed etc. in 3 weeks or less and having a slight panic attack. Especially since we discovered yesterday that we lost our digital camera during the trip home from Montreal. I couldn't find it before the event yesterday and when I got home we tore the house apart. We remember having it out at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, but whether it got left there as we changed into street clothes and raced to the airport or in the rental car itself... we just don't know. I could have cried!!! I called the rental company and the club to leave all of the information for them to check, but since it has almost been 2 weeks, I'm afraid someone may not have read our address inside the case but just helped themselves! Getting ready for a show with a borrowed camera would have been a real challenge. I feel so weak that I am almost happy it didn’t work out to attend the show in person this year because I just don’t know where I would find the physical strength. The dragon’s will is strong... but I feel as if all my scales are falling off and I am trying to hold them back in place with both hands!

A Picture Says It All...

The dragon did not manage to stay healthy after all. I started feeling rotten late Saturday night and by 4 am Sunday, I took a cab to the hospital. Nick was too groggy from his Tylenol 3s to drive anyway, so I snuck out of the house by cab.

It turned out to be quite possibly one of my worst experiences with the health care system in Moncton. I arrived at the Emergency department around 4:15 am with only one other person in the waiting room. I checked in and had to rush to the washroom to hurl before they could get the bracelet on my arm. I saw the triage nurse a few minutes later and explained that I needed the shot of Maxeran to shut down the nerve that controls vomiting. Mine has been so badly damaged from gallbladder attacks during my 1st pregnancy and 8 month of morning sickness with my 2nd that once I am sick more than once, my body just keeps hurling... whether there is anything to hurl or not.

For whatever reason... I sat out in the general waiting area hurling for 3.5 hours until the shift changed at 7:30 am and I stumbled over to the new triage nurse to explain that I was going to faint soon. Perhaps the prospect of a weaving 6’5” female towering over her was enough to tip the balance because within 5 minutes three names were finally called and mine was among them. After donning the obligatorily humiliating johnny shirt, I curled up on the stretcher and hoobed in private until the doctor saw me.

Because I had been sick so many times, the first shot of Maxeran didn’t do the trick this time. After 45 minutes, I was still having dry heaves so they decided to try an IV and a further dose. Unfortunately, by this time I was so dehydrated that the nurse had to make several attempts to find a vein... this dragon really does NOT like being a pincushion!!

Just before noon on Sunday, I was able to grab a cab home and collapse into bed for a sleep until everyone else got home from church. The girls immediately went into Florence Nightingale mode and brought me crackers or ginger ale (with the bubbles stirred out) to see what I could keep down. This morning, I am dizzy and weak, but at least able to get up and move about a bit. So I did what any stitcher would in recovery mode. I sat in bed and stitched!

The girls keep asking me what is for supper tonight. I think that it will be a “must go” meal of leftovers so that I can just have some dry toast and not stand over the stove cooking anything just yet!

MAYDAY...May Day... may days

I almost posted this on May 1st, but I was too busy mopping up Bethy barf!

We got back VERY late on Sunday night and got home safely to sleep in the next day. I had been planning to keep the girls home from school anyway and Nick took a bereavement day. We got a few errands done, but neither girl seemed quite themselves and Nick and I were feeling pretty drained as well. The weekend had many wonderful and many poignant moments that left us feeling very connected to family and uprooted at the same time. Helping clean out parts of the house was not only hard emotionally, the dust and mold made it hard for Nick’s allergies and Erin’s asthma.

By Monday night, Erin was feeling terrible and all the glands on one side of her neck were up, so we headed up to the after-hours clinic nearby and they told us how to modify her asthma meds. They checked for strep and mono as well then told us to wait for the results.

Tuesday morning I was set to leave Erin home alone for a few hours while I did my Weight Watcher meeting (which she can do now that she’s 12) and call in to check on her. Bethany kept complaining that her tummy hurt, but I assumed that was because she didn’t want to go to school without Erin. One bite of breakfast proved otherwise, so when I couldn’t find a replacement on such short notice, Nick stayed home with them for a few hours and then headed up to school as soon as I got home. Between the boxes of kleenex for Erin’s nose and the barf duty for Bethany, I was pretty worn out by Tuesday night. A little thing set me off and I suddenly found myself sobbing with all my might as the emotions of the weekend and a good cry for my Grampy and the goodbye to all that really ties me to Montreal bubbled to the surface.

The girls went back to school for 2 days and then stayed home again today as every child had the day off for a provincial teacher development day. Nick drove all the way to Saint John for Early Years sessions, but came home and went right up to the clinic himself. He has pulled something in his shoulder and is now on painkillers and anti inflammatories for the weekend. Sigh!


I think I won’t even brag about being the only healthy one right now in case that jinxes something. I’ll just keep stitching the last of Santa’s Dragon and get to my website updates as soon as I can.

Off To Say Goodbye...

Our bags are packed. The girls went to bed early. Nick and I figured out how to check in on-line with Westjet so that we already have our boarding passes for the 5:45 AM flight to Toronto tomorrow morning that continues to Montreal. Our alarm is set and I am just taking a few minutes to blog before I crawl under the covers myself.

I know that this weekend will be hard. Erin broke down and cried tonight because the reality of going to Montreal to close the chapter on my grandfather’s life is suddenly here. “It wasn’t REAL before!” she wailed tonight.

This will be a celebration laced with laughter and tears. It will be a farewell tour of sorts for many places, including the Royal Montreal Golf Club, that I shall probably never have the occasion to visit again. Places where I spent the summers of my childhood that I may never revisit, but that shall sparkle forever in my memories.

Right now, I just can’t wait for the hugs. I can’t wait to be swallowed up in the hugs from my baby brother who now towers over me and will be amazed at how tall his nieces have grown. I can’t wait to see my cousins, share limericks, laughter and fond memories.

My Grampy would have loved being the center of attention at this gathering... and in many ways, he still will be!

Sore Hands Again

I’ve been stitching so much lately, that my hands hurt. I know... I can just hear the groans of envy out there. “I’d love to have that problem! I’d love to spend 6 hours stitching in a single day...”

I am NOT a fast stitcher. That is why so often, I rely on the amazing model stitchers that have helped bring my designs to life over the years. Santa’s Dragon is different. I keep changing things and it is driving me crazy!!

I got behind with Grampy dying and a few other bumps in the road. Now it feels like the impossible deadline is breathing down my neck and so I stitch until my hands cramp. It was the same last summer working on illustrations for 8 to 12 hours a day. Such a fragile balance between demanding the best that my hands can offer and trying to protect them from damage. I will massage them well with hand cream before bed.

The one great thing about this design is that I know how much fun stitchers will have bringing it to life... especially if they don’t set crazy deadlines for themselves.

When Things Get Dark...

Tomorrow at last the weather promises to be beautiful and warm after a LONG month of snow, sleet and windy cold. Usually April is a lovely month with just the occasional sudden storm that melts almost the next day. It was hard to thaw out my hands the past two days after playing with the icy water of the pump outside when sleet switched to rain and rain to snow or more sleet. I am hopeful that tomorrow and the weekend will indeed be lovely. Our whole city will probably throw open windows to air things out, hang laundry on the line, go for walks and take a deep breath in the hope that winter is finally over.

Life is like that as well. We go through times of darkness or sorrow and it feels as if icy rain lashes us every day. We cannot seem to get warm or feel happiness. The news does not help with stories of such aching tragedies, so we make up our little survival tactics and lists...

1) Give thanks for waking up.

2) Hug those you love and tell them so.

3) Put on clean underwear like your mother always told you to.

4) Eat a good breakfast.

5) Briefly contemplate the merits of hiding from the world under a comfy blanket with an
uplifting book and lots of chocolate....

6) Go out into the world with a smile and try to say something nice to everyone you meet.

7) Do the best that you can that day. Slow but steady wins the race. Find one task,
however small, to accomplish.

8) Hug everyone when you get home.

9) Be thankful you have more than one meal to eat today.

10) Have a warm bath or shower and be glad the water is clean.

11) Wish those you love good night.

12) Before falling asleep, think of all the things that DID go right in the chaos of the day.
Avoid watching late night headlines.

Repeat daily... but occasionally give in to urge for good books and chocolate!

A Productive Storm Day!

Spring has NOT sprung here in Moncton! Yesterday saw our second snowstorm in less than a week for a total snowfall between the two storms that almost passed the amounts of snow we got ALL WINTER! Of course my 3 kids (Erin, Bethany and the big kid I married) LOVED having a snow day, as did Mum and John who are here for a visit. That gave them a whole extra day of fun and frolic with the kids. Nick went into work for several hours in the morning before the roads got so miserable that I called him to come home so that I could get the plastic organizers that I desperately needed to finish my Storm Day project.

What project? With an impending rummage sale at church and that warped urge known as Spring Cleaning rattling around in my life and too much play and excitement underfoot to do much serious work, I decided to tackle our family craft cupboard (I have my own extra supplies that they are NOT allowed to play with). For the past 6 months, the contents of this cupboard had grown and began to take on a life of their own. Contents had begun to leap out and attack anyone who so much as peeked inside the doors let alone actually needed to FIND something in there. The minute I opened the cupboard to begin, no less than 8 things fell out at once. In my enthusiasm to get started I forgot the number one rule of bragging about completed projects... I never took a BEFORE picture! You’ll have to trust me that when the contents of the cupboard were removed, I had very little kitchen floor left.

Now, the cupboard is all set up with craft supplies that the kids can grab easily. One of the ladies who solved the nightmare that was our Sunday School cupboard at church told me how easy it was if you just gave everything a home with a label on it. As you can see, I took her words to heart. Instead of 6 or 7 boxes of coloured pencils to choose from, there is one drawer to paw through. Same for crayons, markers, glue sticks & brushes, etc. The drawer marked “misc. craft supplies” now has little plastic bags full of leftover pompoms, foam stickies, glitter, beads etc. each sorted by kind. The fabric in the cupboard is the collection of tablecloths that always seemed to get stuffed back in instead of folded properly. What a sense of accomplishment!!! Here is my proud AFTER photo...



Nick left mid-afternoon on still snowy roads with his team for a tournament in Fredericton. He’s been playing on a 35+ basketball league this year and having fun, even though he comes home limping or bruised most of the time. Once, it was even a bite mark on his elbow... but I’m told the other fellow’s teeth felt wobbly afterwards. He called when they made it safely to Fredericton so that we could all relax and stop worrying.

Supper was a fun belated birthday celebration with a SMALL cake for both of them to share and some ice cream. Sigh! I had hoped to avoid the cake temptation... but at least it was only a small devouring. Now it is time to head to the gym for their swim lessons & sportfit programs. I’m going to walk some of the sugar off on the treadmill!

Surviving The Birthday Gauntlet... and the Snowstorm!

I can’t believe that it has been over a week without blogging! Life happens in all its chaos sometimes and you just have to ride the wave until you can paddle again.



Of course the excitement really began with Nick’s birthday back on the 21st of March. He was a bit surprised that we actually fit all the candles on his carrot cake!

But most of the adventures took place between April 4th and 9th in this house, especially since it was a long Easter break from school. Report cards had just come out so there was NO school from April 4th until they returned April 10th. No wonder local radio stations were calling it “Spring Break Part 2”!



Erin celebrated her day off by having her best friend over for the entire day and a sleep over. They decided to make lasagna from scratch for supper (with a bit of help from Mom), rent some video games, make macramé belts and paint heart shapes as a craft. Of course I bought one for Bethany and one for myself as well. I just can’t sit around and watch if crafts are involved. I have to get right in there and get messy! Once we’d painted things, we added some 3-D craft paint for a lot of fun and whimsy. Mine is now going to sit in my office to keep me company!



For supper, along with the lasagna, Erin decided to forget about birthday cake and concentrate on ice cream with a make-your-own-sundae bonanza. Thanks to bulk barn, there were almost more toppings that the bowls could safely handle. I was good and just had a few gummy bears and mini marshmallows freeze on top of my ice cream.



You know your daughter’s tastes are shifting when she gets more excited about all the books she got as presents than any toys in the pile. I think I have successfully raised a reader!



The first part of the Easter weekend was spent enjoying family time, although some temperamental issues with our modem and internet line did add a bit of frustration I’d rather have avoided. The services we attended Thursday night and Friday morning were meaningful, especially amid the increasingly secular orgy of gifts and chocolate that seem to be evolving around this holiday. I need the dark of Good Friday to truly appreciate the joy of Easter Sunday.



Of course, waking up Easter Sunday here in Moncton brought quite a surprise... and I don’t just mean the treats (yes, the Easter Bunny brings more dimes that chocolate in our house... because then the parents don’t nibble) !!!



After a green Christmas Eve where I wore dress shoes to church instead of boots, helping Nick shovel and snowblow (I shovel, he snowblows. I like my fingers too much to touch the beast!) the drive was a shock! Even the poor robins in our tree looked puzzled as the wind buffeted them around.



We got to church early with our fruit tray for the fellowship breakfast before the service... only to discover no other footprints! I had my key to the side door as CD chairperson, so we stomped our way in to discover that they were just in the process of canceling the service! We called a few people that weren’t on the voicemail system and a few brave souls showed up so we made tea and hot chocolate, raided the last of the hot cross buns and devoured our fruit tray before we all headed home to wait out the storm. Our service was rescheduled for that evening, but only 30 or so of us made it back out.



Bethany enjoyed the snow the following day on her birthday. We had a lazy morning in our jammies while Nick made his famous blueberry pancakes. He can get very creative with shapes and Bethany ended up with “B8” while Erin devoured her “E12” (battleship anyone?) One of the little stuffed animals ended up with slightly stained paws from getting too close for the picture, but Bethany insists that gives it more character. She chose a new kitkat blizzard from Dairy Queen as her birthday treat instead of cake, so we made sure that while they were each spending $20.00 in mad money from their birthdays, we got one for her. She chose penne pasta and salad for her birthday supper before opening her presents. One of the highlights was a special pottery “bunny bowl” sent from BobDoc and Barbara in Tulsa. She fell in love with the painted hopping rabbits around the rim and has put it in a place of honour on the living room shelves because “it would be safer there than in my room for now”.



Mum and John arrived late yesterday for a week and I am trying to get laundry on the line this morning. Today is going to be warm enough to melt the last of the snow from Sunday, but guess what... overnight a huge storm is supposed to hit for tomorrow.

I’m not putting away my boots or the shovel just yet!

My April Fool’s Brother!



36 years ago, I woke up on the morning of April Fool’s Day to find my Nanny there instead of my Mom and Dad who had gone out to a Montreal Canadians vs. Boston Bruins game the night before. When she told me that I was a big sister again and that I had a new baby brother... I replied “Is that an April Fools funny?” . I was 5 and a half.

We called David before we left for church to sing Happy Birthday to him half a world away in Switzerland. It is hard to have him far enough away that hugs are treasured things and photos or phone calls reveal each time how fast my niece and nephew are growing up. I plan to stock up on lots of hugs at the end of April when we see him in Montreal at our family gathering to honour Grampy.

My little brother grew much taller than me and got harder to pick on. Looking at the man that he has become and the father he is to his own children, I can still see the pesky little brother who ruined one of my Barbies by trying to sit it astride a stuffed pig. Both the memories of the boy and the reality of the man blend into one incredible, unique package that I am prouder of than he will ever know. Happy Birthday Dave!

In his honour, and to add to a silly little dragonlet that I put up on our website quite a few years ago, there is a new April Fool’s Dragonlet to enjoy. I spent most of Saturday in pain and a few hours in the Emergency department on Saturday night, so I am a little behind with the website updates, but those who read my blog can pass the link on or e-mail the chart itself to friends. The pain baffled the doctors, but at least they were able to determine that it wasn’t anything critical and after some blood tests and a few shots, I was able to sleep in my own bed. Today, I feel like myself again so I am baffled too. Was it another sneaky April Fool’s joke? I hope this is one April Fool’s surprise that stitchers enjoy!

Signs Of Spring...

The first few hints of spring are always teasing moments that make you long for more warmth and yet balance that longing with the knowledge that there is still a bit of winter left. Nick’s mother took the girls Friday night so that he and I could join another couple for dinner at a new Italian restaurant in town. It has been a while since I put on a dress and went out to dinner at a nice mid-range restaurant with just adults for company. I know this for a fact because Erin peered rather intently at my eyelashes when I came down the stairs and said “It must be somewhere fancy because you’ve curled your eyelashes and gooped them!” My eyes are fairly sensitive and as a contact lens wearer, I keep the mascara use to a minimum... so she knew it was a special event. Waking up alone with my husband on Saturday morning was also a nice treat!

By 11 am, we joined the girls and grandparents at the the country church on the outskirts of town near a huge sugar bush. They do a pancake breakfast every Saturday morning for 4 weeks leading up to Easter as the sap begins to run in the maple trees. Once we finished the delicious meal, we walked deep into the woods along the muddy path to visit the 4 sugar camps along the way. At the very end, they were doing maple taffy (which I grew up calling “tire” in Québec) which is boiling maple syrup poured over snow until it becomes a sticky, chewy, sweet mess that you wrap around a popsicle stick. Usually, I am the one that gets messy, but this year it was Bethany’s long hair and pair of mittens that got coated with sugary goop when she tried to savour the stuff instead of gobble it! We had a few tears and had to soak both mittens and child upon our return home, but this is always one of the first true signs of spring in our region. The days are warm enough but the nights still below freezing for the sap to run well. To have such a wonderful resource so close to the house is something I treasure. Moncton has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, but I hope we don’t lose some of the more rural touches completely.



Yesterday afternoon was also a bit warmer and very sunny, so a friend and I went for a walk in the woods near our house along the park’s trails. Compared to our frigid walks in December when there were almost no other humans in sight, yesterday was a zoo! It is as if everyone around me is shaking off that winter slumber and sticking their noses out for spring!

Today was spent getting a freelance writing assignment done, working with a translator on a joint project for 2 hours and trying to get a few things tidy around the house as well. I’ve told Bethany that since I have proof she is able to clean bathrooms now and Erin has needed to help with some laundry, that their chores are going to expand to reflect their new capabilities! That statement was met with groans, of course, but I do have the goal of producing capable, resourceful daughters who will know how to take care of themselves when they go out on their own...



Speaking of which, it is far too quiet upstairs. I must go check and see what they are up to!

Goodbye Grampy


Memories can be such wonderful things.

When I was a little girl, I had long, blond hair and I used to pretend that I was Goldilocks, especially when visiting my Nanny and Grampy. I used to sleep over at their house fairly often, but the year that I was 3, my mother needed bed rest while she was pregnant with my sister. I remember staying with Nanny and Grampy for many nights in a row. Every morning of that stay, my Nanny would make me a bowl of oatmeal porridge and I would eat it at the dining room table, sitting on the Yellow Pages phonebook so that I could sit high enough. I would pretend to be Goldilocks and as my grandfather came down to eat before work, he would stomp down the stairs, booming in a loud voice “Someone’s been sleeping in my house!” I would tremble with a mixture of excitement and terror as he rounded the corner and sat down at the table. He would peer over at me, lowering his eyebrows in a scowl and demand “Is it too big?” looking at my bowl of oatmeal. I would shake my head or squeak out a “no” in response. “Is it too small?” he would growl next and again the answer was no. Finally, I would pipe up and say “It’s JUST RIGHT!” Then everyone would smile and the game would be done.

With the passing of my grandfather on Monday, I have become deeply aware that his death also marks the end of an era for our family. He was the last of my grandparents to die and with him passes the memories of life in a very different age. The world was much larger when Nanny and Grampy were my age. Oceans took longer to cross. Letters often took months to arrive from my Grandmother’s sister in New Zealand. I can still remember her telling me how jealous she was that we grandchildren could keep in touch by e-mail. My grandfather was part of an era where golf was a gentleman’s sport, fine art and literature were meant to be appreciated as was a fine glass of red wine. At his dinner table for Sunday dinners, no slouching was allowed and no fidgeting, even when the second half of an episode that you really wanted to see was going to be on Disney. Limericks and risqué jokes were as respected as the poems he could recite from his school days. Children might be seen and not heard, but we listened, learned and joined in as soon as we were deemed able to carry on an intelligent conversation. From Grampy, I also learned the art of debating an issue and making your point clearly, though to my great chagrin, I seldom won any arguments. Grampy was able to argue his point in true lawyer fashion. As a young adult, I grew to understand that his deep love of the law and its interpretations is what called him to accept an judgeship with the Quebec Court of Appeal.


My grandfather was also a frustrated artist. Born with an eye for colour and deep appreciation for Fine Art, he was never truly satisfied with what his hands produced when compared to the vision in his mind’s eye. Yet, he continued to sketch scenes and people whenever he had a moment and paper at hand. I often wonder if he would have pursued an “impractical career” in art if he had been born with more talent. His love and appreciation of those who created the paintings was evident in every book of masterpieces that he showed us when we were growing up. A.J. Casson and the Group of Seven, Renoir, Matisse, Manet and Rembrandt were all familiar names to me, long before my first art history course. After his retirement from the bench, he rediscovered the true joy of painting through local art sessions in the Town of Mount Royal. My grandmother began to proudly complain that she was running out of wall space in the house as the living room and sun room walls began to look more like a gallery or artist’s stall. His painting style became far looser as he continued to age and in many ways, his paintings grew better as he focused more on shapes and colour than exacting detail. During the time that I lived with them during my first job after university, or whenever I was home for a visit, we would try to paint or sketch together. In Grampy, I found my finest supporter and harshest art critic in one powerful combination. One of our last truly clear phone calls together was when he received his copy of the children’s book that I illustrated after it was released last fall. He kept telling me how proud he was of the vivid colours, the detailed illustrations and how much my Nanny would have enjoyed seeing the book. Memories of those words comforted me as phone conversations grew vaguer and vaguer.

Both of my daughters have been fortunate enough to truly know their great grandfather, though it makes his passing hurt a bit more. They have eaten meals around the same dining room table where I sat eating oatmeal...



they have sketched with him and shown off their drawings...



they have posed for generational photos... (the one on the sideboard behind Erin is of her as a child with my Nanny and I. I actually had lots of hair back then!)



they even got to meet WHUMPY, a mischievous puppet that used to nibble noses whenever it was on my grandfather’s hand and hid in the lowest drawer of the kitchen where every grandchild or cousin could find it.



Instead of celebrating his 95th birthday at the end of April, our family will now gather to celebrate our memories and his passing. Most of us already have airline tickets that we cannot change or come from distances too far to make the journey twice. My mother and aunt will attend the funeral service next week on behalf of the whole, far-flung family.



Grampy lived to see each of his 6 grandchildren settled with people that they loved and meet each of his 8 great-grandchildren. He wrote limericks for almost every big occasion in our lives and read them aloud at the events. His love of art and literature was passed on to us and through us, growing in many ways.


The frailty and confusion that he experienced over the past few years and most intensely over the past few weeks is not how I will remember my Grampy. It will be with the same joyful excitement and terror that I felt as I waited for the Papa Bear voice or his reaction to a piece of artwork. I will remember and honour his command of the english language, writing limericks of my own for relatives and friends as well as teaching my girls how to count out the meter of a poem. I will visit places that he told me about as a child with my own children. I will appreciate quality over quantity with every fine cheese that I eat or glass of wine that I drink. I will remember him in all these ways... and I will always miss him.




Goodbye Grampy. I hope that you and Nanny are holding hands and dancing together again.

Too Numb...

Today’s post was supposed to be all about the adventures that Bethany and I had at Brownie Camp over the weekend, complete with pictures, details of snow and rain and slight flood tragedies at the camp... but everything turned upside down this morning when my Mom called to tell me that my grandfather was found dead this morning when the staff went to wake him. A blessing really, but I still feel numb. Chats with family helped as we get ready to turn what would have been the weekend of his 95th birthday into a memorial service over his ashes.

Then... I meant to sit down and write a post about my grandfather... but I have to hold everything together until tomorrow night after the last meeting at church. Then, I think I will find a nice piece of Brie and a good glass of red wine (since I can’t really abide his favourite Port & Stilton cheese combination) and say my first goodbyes to my grandfather. This is the end of an era.

Letting Go...

The snow is melting at a rapid pace incredibly early this year and winter seems to be letting go of its hold on us. I have been in the Maritimes long enough now to know that Spring won’t be here for awhile... but the longer days tell me that the seasons will change eventually.

Letting go can be hard, no matter what our age. After buying some new stuffed animals in Florida and having to get rid of older ones, Bethany is still in mourning for the stuffies that have left our home. The fact that they spent most of their time in a drawer being ignored or that they have gone to others who can appreciate them offers little solace to her. All she can see is that something she had is gone and cannot come back. Letting go is hard when you are not quite 8

This March Break was also a taste of freedom for Erin as she was allowed to stay up some nights with the grown-ups and hang around the hot tub or get into more serious discussions. She had her own room for all but the last 2 nights and her own money to spend on things that mattered to her. Letting go of that vacation freedom has been a bit hard for her this week as she heads back to homework, piano practice etc.

Letting go is hard for my grandfather. While we were down in Florida, my mother and aunt helped him move into a home that could provide better medical care than the assistants who were coming to the house where he lived with my grandmother for over 50 years and continued to live after her passing. His grip on the world around him is slipping quickly and yet he seems so frantic and agitated all the time. Letting go of life, of intellect, of control cannot be easy for such a strong personality. We have already turned in our air miles to go up there for his 95th birthday at the end of April. I am torn between hoping that he will be there to visit... that he will recognize me... and not wanting him to suffer.

Letting go is a lesson for me as well. My girls seem to be growing up overnight before my eyes. Suddenly, they go off to do their own thing after homework or meals and I am left somewhat baffled by the time to myself, especially when Nick’s schedule keeps him busy with evening meetings. It is important for any creative spirit to know when to let go of self and let the work, whether it is a design, a story, a painting or other creation tell you where it wants to go and when it is finished. Can I do any less for those I love? I cannot keep them trapped. Sometimes, the best way to show love is to give someone the freedom to be themselves within your togetherness rather than to hug too tightly.

Home Again, Cold Again, Sick Again... But Happy!

Well, March Break is over and we’re home again safely after braving a snowstorm on the 2nd of March to drive to Bangor, Maine to fly out to Orlando. Yes, we braved a snowstorm to do the Mouse! We did it on the super cheap this time, which is why we drove what should have taken about 5 hours in almost 8 hours of driving snow and wind to save over $300.00 per ticket in airline costs. We rented a wonderful house in Kissimmee, sharing it with another family. Karen is Erin’s Godmother and I am Ben’s... so our girls got to experience first hand what it was like to have a little brother around! Since the house had a full kitchen, we were able to pack water and snacks for the days’ adventures and then come home to cook a meal! The pool and hot tub in the backyard also meant that we could soak off the days exertions or cool off the grumpy, tired kids. It was also good for my kids to learn that a budget means not buying everything in sight but rather looking over all the treasures and temptations during the week to go back and buy the one or two things that mattered the most on the last day.



Unfortunately, some germs played havoc with our holidays. Nick suffered through a strange cold virus that hit him the first 3 days of the trip while Mike and I came down with it on the last day and traveling home. Bethany came home from school today with the same aches, runny nose and chills, so I’m watching Erin like a hawk to see if she’ll get it or not.

After a week of temperatures in the 70s and 80s... we are all feeling a bit cold, but the hint of Spring is in the air with temperatures hovering around freezing instead of 20 degrees below that. There is also the sense here, as there always is by March, that we really only have another month and a half of winter to go before we rush madly into that odd spring/summer blend. Spring is a fleeting season here in the Maritimes rather than the graceful procession that it is in other parts of the world. A snowstorm can come as late as April 10th (like it did the year Bethany was born) but the snow seldom lasts past the middle of that month and life just bursts forth in a frenzy as if to make up for lost time!

All in all the trip was wonderful although each adult had at least one moment of Disney overload. To mangle a Borg quote: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! YOU WILL BE MOUSIMILATED! It can get a bit overwhelming trying to see everything that 7 people want to do. There were truly magical moments...such as getting a taste at last of what it must feel like to launch into space. I cried unabashedly on Mission Space when the blue sky shifted to a starscape after so many years of only imagining what it might be like. Expedition Everest is quite possibly the most TERRIFYING roller coaster that I have ever been on and after the first time, when I didn’t know what to expect and thought I was going to die, I enjoyed the thrills such a well crafted ride provided. As Erin said “That was the best ride EVER(est)!” The girls meeting Alice at Epcot was also a riot because when she asked them their ages, she started to say that they’d been eating the cake to make themselves so big but then she looked over at Nick and I and said “Oh My! It looks as if you come by this naturally!”



Now we are home and slowly getting back to our routines. The laundry monster has been tamed, my nose isn’t running like a faucet quite as much, my voice is almost back to normal for the second time in 5 weeks and any time I feel cold, I can just look at the photos of the trip and feel warm again until things thaw.

Busy Times...

What a week! Friday, after my post, I went into a frenzy of sketching so that when the author came by that evening, I had everything ready to go. He loved the rough pencils and couldn’t wait to see the results in colour...





Most of the weekend was spent drawing and painting. My hands were tired by the end of it all, but I was very satisfied! This time, when I began to get scared, I just kept drawing or painting. I refused to indulge in a panic party because I just didn’t have the time! It was also much easier this time to truly understand that this IS my style. That is what my hands produce and so that is what I need to showcase.

The two character sketches were done with coloured pencil, brush markers and inked outlines. I showed Owen in his dinosaur jammies...



and then “Butch” the dinosaur when he is crying during one scene.



After those were done, I transferred the sketch of the main scene to watercolour paper and soaked it before attaching it down to the board. When I went looking for my roll of special tape to seal off the edges (and help the paper stay flat) it was nowhere to be found and by then the stores were all closed... so I just got out the staple gun and anchored it as best as I could. It meant a few more waves in the final painting but I can probably press them out if they ever decided to use this. Here’s how it turned out:



And here’s the page guide overlaying it to show how much of the image will actually be on the page (a bit more actually since it is painted at 110%)



So Monday morning, the copies went off with the manuscript and some other samples. Of course they may not accept either, they may assign their own illustrator, they may just tell us to go on a LONG fossil hunting trip... you just never know unless you take that chance.

What I did learn is that the pro artists at DragonCon were absolutely right. The more you do, the easier it gets.

The minute the envelope got off, a huge graphics assignment came in that has eaten most of my waking hours since then and is now in the final proof stage. Since March Break starts tomorrow, the timing is perfect. I plan to do ABSOLUTELY nothing work related (and maybe not even a blog entry) for the duration of the break. With flu and project deadlines, school assignments, colds, meetings, spelling bees and essay awards, February has left us all feeling just a wee bit frazzled. It is time to just be a family!

Be Careful What You Wish For... It Just Might Land In Your Lap!

Panic! Excitement! Terror! Joy!

Today has been absolutely INSANE!!! I got a call from the local author that I am working with that Nimbus Publishing in Nova Scotia answered his query letter. Not only are they willing to review the manuscript that my sister and I helped him polish, but they will look at my artwork as well!! I made sure that he put this line in his query letter:

“I am working with a published illustrator here in Monition who has been able to offer me some advice. She has advised me that most publishers prefer to assign their own illustrators to projects, but has agreed to prepare some drawings for this story as samples for her own portfolio. If you wish to see the full manuscript, with or without some sample illustrations, please contact me at your convenience.”

They answered that this was indeed correct, but that they were interested in seeing what said illustrator had done with the characters. So tonight, Paul came by to show me the final printout of the manuscript and approve/ offer feedback on the main pencil sketch as well as the two character sketches. By Monday, all three will be final illustrations.

On top of that, I got a phone call from a client that is going to require totally reworking a layout that sat on their desks for a few days while they were busy with something else, but now they need the new proofs (with WAY too much information crammed into a page to look nice) redone for Monday!!

I know that it is better to be busy than bored... but this is a bit too crazy.

I can’t believe that they will look at both his story and my pictures!!!!! EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Full Circle Joys...

I’d meant to write something entirely different tonight as my post, but I am sitting here with a huge lump in my throat and tears of joy just stinging my eyes a bit. After Internet hassles for much of the Province this afternoon and being completely off-line, I snuck down to check my messages. There was an invitation to take part in School District 2’s Storyfest 2007 as an illustrator!!

Last May, Erin’s school called me the night before and asked if I would be a parent chaperone because the guidance counselor had to go to an emergency meeting and they knew my schedule could be flexible. I wrote a long entry in my journal about how I was dreading it... sitting through presentations by people who had actually made their dreams of writing and illustrating come true! I was already feeling like I was at a crossroads and not sure if I’d made the best choices by putting so much energy into something that could be so easily stolen.

I went and followed the kids and sketched and ultimately met Nanny Kay. Within 2 weeks, I was doing pencil sketches for the book and the summer’s adventure of illustrating her 2nd book became a reality.

Tonight, the invitation sits in my e-mail program and all I can do is smile. What a difference a year can make! I guess it really never is too late to chase a dream and bring it to life!!

Of Timelines, Tonsils and Triumphs...

It’s a bitterly cold Friday with another night of -30° C with the wind chill. I’m pretty sure that’s close to zero °F. It’s been another hectic week with little time to blog and I somehow feel more out of touch with myself for not having anchored my thoughts in entries.

Erin had to do a timeline project of her life thus far for French class. It was amazing how many things she found as highlights in her vast almost 12 years of life... from first steps and words to finding out this week that she won the Legion’s Remembrance Day essay contest for School District 2 again this year.

One of the primary sources for Erin’s timeline project was digging through some of my journals to double-check dates and facts. One of the reasons that I love to keep a journal is because my thoughts and experiences are anchored to those pages in time and far less subjective that memories. It was quite amazing to look back at the wide variety of freelance things that I did before cross stitch really took off and how I am moving back to many of them once again a dozen years later. Maybe there is something to the 12 year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac!

I’ve really enjoyed speaking at the schools this month about being an illustrator. My last scheduled appearance is this Monday at Havelock Elementary about 20 minutes from Moncton. My only worry is that I seem to be coming down with another throat or sinus infection because I’ve been losing my voice all afternoon. I’m actually wondering if maybe the last sinus infection that Bethany and I had over the Christmas holidays didn’t quite clear up with the antibiotic... because we’ve both been sniffling again for about a week and then yesterday I started to feel awful again. At least one of the best things about working from home is that I can put on my big fuzzy sweater, sit a box of kleenex beside the computer with a mug of something hot and just honk or hack my way through the day. It also guarantees that no one else will want to touch the germy keyboard of my Mac!!

Erin’s Guide Camp this weekend was canceled because of the cold and the fact that one of her leaders has an elderly mother who is in the hospital, so she’ll have time to finish off her other project. Her week ended on a very high note today as a letter arrived in the mail from the Provincial headquarters for the Legion congratulating her on winning the essay contest for the entire province of New Brunswick again this year. The local branch forwarded the winning essays on to Fredericton and now her essay will now go on to the National level! The cheque that came with the certificate and letter is safely deposited in her savings account towards University and she is hoping again that this time her essay will win for the entire country. Ah, the confidence of youth... or maybe she inherited the ability to dream big!?!

I think an early night and a bit of dreaming is just what this dragon needs!

How Can It Be FRIDAY?

This past week just feels like a total blur. How can it possibly be Friday? My grandmother did warn me that as I got older, time would move faster... but this week has just raced by at Warp 9!

Monday, I spent at a local Elementary school with the Writers/Artists in the schools program, getting paid to talk to lots of classes about what it was like to be an artist as your job. It was great fun, although I did sit down on the floor with most of the groups since the little kids were getting stiff necks looking WAY up at me! They all squealed like crazy when they saw the little dragon holding the heart that I put up on Cafe Press (the coloured pencil version) in my portfolio. Cuteness has universal appeal!!!

Tuesday, the whole province was under a Wind Chill Warning. The kids have actually had to be inside at school for all of this week and most of last week, so temperatures are starting to fray a bit. Attendance was off a bit in the two Weight Watchers meetings that I lead, and it was a very cold walk home, but I was well bundled!

Wednesday was completely taken up with finishing off an assignment for Dairy Farmers of Canada that took up most of the weekend. We are trying to get a Parent Piece ready for distribution, but I found it very challenging to squeeze 5 pages of a Word document into 2 sides of an 8.5 x 11” piece of paper!!

Wednesday night, Bethany had Brownies and Erin was in the School District Spelling Bee as one of the top two from her school. She made it halfway through the evening, but then wasn’t sure about the h in chronic. She was a bit teary about not going farther, but since she wants to audition for Canadian Idol in 4 years, I figure this was good practice in not always getting what you want on the first try. I was SO proud of her for just getting that far and trying her best!!

Yesterday was spent working with another local author who is trying to get a story published. Drawing a dinosaur is going to be right up my alley, but I’m still trying to encourage him to submit to a publisher in Halifax first, just to see what their response is. If I do a drawing or two to send along and they assign someone else, I still have new work for my portfolio.

By last night, both girls were cranky, teary and just feeling miserable for some reason. I decided to keep them both home with me today to see if I can get them back to normal. I don’t think it is a bug, I think that they are both just feeling out of sorts from the weather, the pace of life this time of year and in Erin’s case, the stress of dealing with 3 major projects in one month. She handed in the first this week, but the other two are due on the 21st. Next weekend, she is away at Winter Camp with her Guide troupe, so this is the last weekend to get them finished. She has finished writing her book report in French and is busy typing it in on the other computer as I write this. Bethany began an illustrated book project today as well, but has demanded to take a break “because her arms hurt” after printing sentences on 3 pages and doing one of the drawings.

Part of me is also feeling strange because for the first time in 4 or 5 years, I am not in Nashville right now setting up for the show this weekend. I made the decision months ago not to attend when I looked at what Nick’s schedule and mine were going to be like between Christmas and March Break... but it is still strange to know that the vast majority of my friends and colleagues are at the show and I am not. Not bad... just strange.

My meditation for today reminded me that each day is a new blank canvas... but this week has felt more like I am painting one long mural that just zipped past because I was on roller skates. My goodness! It really is Friday already!

Speaking of Cuteness...

Any artist will tell you how rare it is to have your hands to exactly what you want when you pick up that pencil or brush. So often, you keep working and reworking the initial sketch until you get it to something you can be happy with, even though it doesn’t live up to the vision which burst into your head.

This little dragon was an exception. I’d been thinking of the big eyes from Puss In Boots in the movie Shrek and some of the expressions on the animals in the manga Fruits Basket that the girls and I have fallen in love with in both Manga form and on DVD. Suddenly, this little dragon was staring back at me in blue pencil on my sketchbook page.

Inking him was easy, but deciding how to colour him wasn’t. I’ve only just installed my tiny Wacom tablet on the eMac (because it never really worked right on the older mac) and started to play around in Photoshop Elements and Painter. Compared to what I can do with real pencils, this feels like trying to draw with a cast on. I know that it will get easier and more instinctive, but when I see some of the digital art out there that the generations behind me are able to paint right into their computers... I feel a bit old and clunky.

I streamlined the inked dragon once I had scanned it into the computer and tidied it up as a vector drawing, colouring it with flat colour in Freehand. I liked the results, but part of me really wanted to do some shading... so then today, I got out my coloured pencils and played at the dining room table for while colouring the dragon in by hand. I then brought that back down to scan in so that I could add the text in Photoshop Elements.

CafePress recommends that you print your files out on the printer to check for crispness before sending them over. That created the only real dilemma of the day. The version that was coloured in by hand and then scanned in, just didn’t have the same punch as the Vector version. It looked much softer and I couldn’t get the black outlines to jump without making all of the other colours too dark or spending 3 hours that I didn’t really have playing with the magic wand tool to isolate all the black lines and darken them. Some Photoshop expert out there could probably teach me a way to overlay the line drawing as a transparent layer... but I didn’t know how to get around the softer look in this version.



In the end, I decided that the one with more punch would look better on the products, especially the ones being done onto clothing as transfers. This little dragon is now up on all kinds of products on my Trading Emporium (shameless plug) not just for Valentine’s Day, but to adopt and bring home as yours any time you feel like adding something cute and mythical to your surroundings.



In the meantime, the little coloured version will nestle into my portfolio and probably have a nap. I somehow don’t think that I’ve seen the last of this little dragon...

Cuteness And Getting Around A Subzero Photo Shoot...


In past years, when the temperature dipped this low and I had photos of models to shoot, it involved MANY layers of clothing, ice treads on my tripod and hoping that the shutter wouldn’t freeze on my poor camera.

Luckily, technology has improved and I have gotten smarter. I figured out how to do the photo shoot today with just the french door into the living room open to give me the sunlight I needed and the models set up on a chair right next to the door. It was still cold. I could see the waves of heat shimmering as the warm air of the house met the frigid air outside... but with a digital camera, I could tell right away if the shots were good. I think I like progress.

Digital cameras are also good for capturing cuteness. Smudgy was eating his veggies last night and we managed to get a good close-up of our fuzzy grey bundle. He’ll never be as much of a people person as Wuffles was, but at least he doesn’t bite the way Nipper and Jellybean did. They would latch onto you with their teeth and kind of dangle!

Today was also a great day for drawing. Every now and then my hands are able to just create something that I am proud of with very little changes. I’m working on a little cartoon dragon for some stuff on my CafePress site that I want to get up for February 1st, and it turned out SO CUTE! Both girls squealed in the supersonic range, so I think that it a good sign. Hopefully I can ink it tomorrow night and then get it into the computer on Wednesday.
This little dragon reminds me of a cross between Puss-In-Boots doing the big eyes in Shrek 2 and all the cuteness of Japanese Chibi Manga!

Acceptance and Blessing...

Don’t you just love it when something you read excites you, makes you think or totally challenges your intellect for the day? For two days in a row, I’ve had mental meat to chew on when I am stuck in bank lineups or waiting for something to download because of the words that I read first thing in the morning.

Yesterday’s passage was all about acceptance. That instead of being in denial or wishing things were different and getting caught in that stress and anxiety, we have to learn to accept the reality of the day before we can truly begin to change it. We have to accept what the scale is really telling us before we can commit to making it change for the better. We have to accept the demands of our job or the balance of our chequebooks or the state of a relationship before we can truly decide if something needs to change.

Reading this right after spending Monday surrounded by brown envelopes and receipts as I got the last of the information ready for a new person to do my corporate taxes was very humbling and liberating. I was able to look and see how much income from cross stitch had dropped with the loss of the chain store orders, how income from different sources was up or down and see where and what had paid off. When you are just tucking receipts into the proper files and waiting until a set time to look at all the information, it is easier not to see the big picture. Acceptance of a situation or problem is the first step towards changing it.

Today’s meditation is the one I am finding a bit harder to chew on. It talks about moving from acceptance of a situation to being able to bless it. I can think back on many moments or events in my life that I don’t really feel like blessing, but maybe in hindsight, since they helped to form who I am today, that makes sense... but I am still working on the blessing bit. I like a challenge.

I also was reminded today of why I love keeping a journal. Bethany wanted to know exactly when she broke her arm last January, so I pulled out the journal that I just finished filling to the brim on New Year’s Eve and looked up the entry where I’d written about that. I also stumbled across the very tearstained entry that I’d written exactly 365 days ago during a 2 am “pity party” of angst, self-doubt and sadness. The words and the blotches are there permanently anchored in time to those pages, but then I am also able to read how things changed... or see where I am a year later.

‘Here I am at 40, still too afraid to chase that dream of illustrating children’s books- still finding new ways of getting caught up in daily tasks like getting ready for Nashville, Austin and Toronto!’

At 41, I accomplished that dream and worked through the fear and self-doubt while working on the project. It never vanished... I just got stubborn and did it anyway.

‘My life feels as cluttered and as messy as my office. I just feel as if pieces of me are scattered everywhere and I can’t put them back together!’

My office floor has been clear for almost 2 weeks now and most of my desk. I have thrown out an incredible amount of “Stuff” in the past 3 weeks that really wasn’t necessary or essential to my existence. I am also learning to get things put back where they belong as soon as possible instead of just letting them pile up and spill over. I can still see my carpet... it is such a nice blue colour when it isn’t buried under piles of junk and paperwork or projects!

‘Like something precious that gets dropped and shatters- sometimes you just can’t put those pieces back together as if nothing happened. Sometimes you just have to leave them behind or melt them down and forge something new. Maybe I need to stop clinging to the shards of things that might have been... I just wish I knew how to scoop up all of these itty, bitty fragments and pour them into God’s hands without slicing my palms to shreds...’

I am learning that my life is not about a whole or pieces. It is about patterns. Like a kaleidoscope where the pieces keep shifting to make something beautiful and new each time change comes and the tube turns again. It is all about how the pattern changes into something new. We humans have an incredible capacity for change, redemption, courage and transformation. It’s just easy to forget that sometimes in the day to day chaos. One day at a time, one action, one page in a journal, one blog entry, one hug, one kind word, one dream, one moment of courage to take the next step in a journey. That’s how the adventure moves forward. Sometimes I can only truly appreciate that when I look back at where I have already traveled to see how far I have come.

Hoarding Gratitude...

Every now and then, there are books that reach out, grab you and speak to you deep in the core of your being. I am experiencing that on 2 levels right now...

The first is in watching Erin discover Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising sequence that so enchanted me as a young girl and having the pleasure of rereading it myself. What fun to totally soak myself in wonderful fantasy about good vs. evil, dark vs. light and being heroic when times are tough. This kind of classic literature never goes out of style and is timeless enough that my own children can read it over 30 years after I did!

The second is exploring the many thoughts that I have while reading my Christmas present from my sister. Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnatch was first written over 10 years ago as a daily meditation/day book. It is perfect for women who feel overwhelmed, unsure of where to head next, in transition, in crisis or frustrated at the sense of chaos that our world sends our way with its “have it all, get it all, do it all, need it all” mentality. As the title suggests, the book helps the reader look at all they have, how to find serenity in having less and how to live more joyfully and gratefully than they were before. Since I read back over some of my posts from last year and noticed that when times were tough, I sometimes tended to get a bit whiny, I think this book may be perfect for me!

One of the tasks that I have enjoyed most from the book so far is the creation of a Gratitude Journal. Anyone who’s ever watched Oprah or listened to some popular motivational speakers will be familiar with the concept of ending each day counting the blessings that it had contained and writing down a set number of them into a journal... I certainly was. What I was not prepared for was the incredible difference it has made in my ability to fall asleep with gratitude instead of anxiety. I am thinking thankfully about what has gone right in the day that has just ended instead of making mental notes to myself about all the things that I need to accomplish the following day. Not that I am skipping around in a daze of non-productivity... in fact another book that my sister sent me is making a HUGE difference in that area as well, but that will be a whole other blog entry.

I am discovering the pleasure of hoarding gratitude. Just picture a dragon curled around a treasure of little glistening, translucent bubbles and sparkling crystals of wonderful memories or special events. Not gems or jewelry that might be stolen by some pesky knight, but precious wisps of things intangible...

I knew that I had a journal in my box of blanks that was perfect for this project because it was covered with little smiling hippos. I had given it to my grandmother about 14 years ago for Christmas and my Mom returned it to me a year or so ago when she found it while tidying out my grandfather’s house. I thought it was completely blank and so did my Mom who glanced through it quickly before sending it to me. Imagine my surprise, delight and slight twinge of sadness when I opened the first page to begin and found two brief entries from her written a few years before her death in October of 2000! Now I think of her each time I sit down at night to write my gratitude list before bed. Since she so often lived this type of simple abundant life and spoke kindly in almost every circumstance... it is wonderfully appropriate that she share those pages with me...

I am grateful for all the wonderful memories I have of her in my life!

Storm Day... Ski Day and My Baby Is Back!!

With most of the Maritimes under the worst storm system to hit our area in 2 years, the decision to cancel school today makes sense NOW, but at 6 am this morning when they had to make the call, there wasn’t a flake in sight! Once we heard the news, Nick and I went back to sleep after calling out to the girls that it was a snow day. They must have slept right through that announcement because I woke up around 8 am to hear them whispering in Erin’s room about being late for school and arguing over which one would try to wake parents that had obviously slept through their alarm! When they found out it was a snow day, the squeals of glee were almost ultrasonic.

We did race out to do a few errands before the storm hit, including a run to the blood lab for both Bethany and I. By the time we got home, the flakes were falling fast and furious, but the forecast still warned of a switch over to rain by mid-afternoon. We ate our lunch and then I went out for my first cross country ski run of the whole winter! It was exhilarating as well as exhausting in the wet sticky snow. I am sure that by morning I will hurt in places that I’d forgotten skiing used, but I got a solid 45 minutes of skiing in before it switched to rain. We shoveled the driveway as soon as I got home to make sure that it would be clear before things froze and switched back to snow by midnight tonight.

Later this afternoon, I was sitting at the dining room table and suddenly heard the sound of water dripping right outside the door to the deck. The soft wet snow had started to melt off the slope of the roof and blocked the rain gutters with slush and ice, so they were overflowing in the heavy rain. Being TOTALLY paranoid about water getting into the office via that stupid window under our deck, I threw on my rain gear, grabbed a metal soup ladle and raced outside to climb up on my laundry bench to empty the gutters! I am sure the neighbours are used to me being strange by now! When this freezes and turns to snow again it is going to be a skating rink out there! The plow has gone by once, but there are reports of sewer drains being blocked by ice and snow causing flooding around town. How I wish it had all stayed as snow like in the middle of our province! It is time to face the fact that Moncton’s climate is shifting to be more like Halifax as everything warms up on our poor planet.

The girls have been lost in one of the most intense Barbie games they have played all year and for once seem to be getting along well. There must be an “Idol” component to the game because there seems to be a lot of singing going on upstairs, including a few duets!

I have my computer back at last!! They were able to undo whatever Nick had done for just over $100.00 and install my new system 10.4.6 at the same time. I am still getting used to a few Tiger quirks, but it is just SO great to have my machine back. After the teasing he got about sending it to the shop in the first place, I think he’s just going to stay away from the machine for a long time. I did tell the girls that Mommy’s work computer is totally off limits to anyone but ME on the keyboard. There are 2 other Macs in the house for them to use, even if only one can connect to the Internet at a snail’s pace... Paws off Mom’s machine!

Creatively Murdering My Husband...

I’m going to have to be creative when I kill my husband. The ground is just too frozen to dig a grave anywhere. Given that the temperature has dipped to -36 degrees Celsius with the wind chill factor, I think I will just put him out on the back deck in his underpants, throw a bucket of water on him from Erin’s bedroom window and let Mother Nature take care of things for me...

He messed up my computer. While I was working at Weight Watchers last night, he just went down to my office to play a game and check one thing on the Internet... but somehow random clicked on things to get Internet Explorer out of the endless loop it goes into with System 10.3.9 and now it gives the “kernel panic” message that you NEVER EVER want to see on a Mac... it kind of an “I don’t think I’m a real computer anymore and I need to be reset completely!” kind of panic message. A few minutes on my machine, however unintentional the incident was, and I am back to having no machine to work on, work with or make work for me.

Luckily for him, he’s cute, he’s handy and it would take too long to break in a new one. But the urge was there last night amid the tears and the panic and the bashing of the head against the desk when my Recovery Tools couldn’t even find a hard drive to try and read...
I mean... after all the computer woes, terrors and hassles I’ve had since the middle of November, it’s actually amazing that I still have any of the following: fingernails, a waistline, hair on my head etc.

This morning, I was able to run another diagnostic program on the poor machine amid the random freezing and kernel panic messages which told me that the bit mapping was all messed up and the volume couldn’t be read in order to check files for damage... so off I went in the subzero weather to haul the eMac’s sorry self into the store. I brought warm coffee as bribes and they promised to have it ready by tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

Well, something came up. I just called to check and they told me that they haven’t even looked at it yet, so I am blogging out my frustrations and indulging in a brief fantasy or two about wreaking havoc and harm upon my poor spouse.

At least all of my information got backed up on Friday when I thought I was going to install the new system 10.4.6... so I won’t loose more than a few files from the weekend and first of the week if they have to wipe everything.

If the machine ends up being beyond repair for whatever reason, I will just have to buy a new computer and not do the show in Columbus this summer in person. Having a working computer as a Graphic Artist has to be the priority... but you can bet that either way, the machine I do my work on is now going to be off limits to ANYONE but me!!!

Of Storms, Struggles and Clipping Hamster Toenails...

One week after the last storm day, the snow is falling fast and furious outside the window of my office. All of our family activities and one meeting I was supposed to attend tonight were canceled because of the storm that started around supper time and should last until tomorrow morning. We decided to get into our jammies early and play a game as a family since all of a sudden we had no where we had to be... but the other three people in the house are doing their storm dances in the hopes that school will be canceled tomorrow morning! I may actually be the only one going out of the house to work!

Tuesday is the day that I lead 2 Weight Watcher meetings, so in the morning, I will see how bad the storm was and determine if the morning session needs to be canceled. Since I can walk up there, I only cancel things if the roads are dangerous... so we shall see. I am sure that by the supper time meeting, everything will be plowed out.

I am waiting patiently for Apple Canada to send me a new install disk after the one I purchased from the store on Friday turned out to be a dud. My eMac will play all kinds of DVDs and has had no problems with other install disks, but this one just spins in place for about 3 minutes trying to read and then the computer spits it out. Once I can update to System 10.4, then I can start working with jAlbum to get the illustration side of my website revamped. I have kept myself busy in the meantime with mundane stuff like tabulating receipts for the accountant who needs to do my corporate taxes and tidying my office. I can actually see carpet and desk surface for the first time in many months. Another huge garbage bag of paper and older leaflets that I’ve now destroyed went out the door for the trash man to collect in the morning. Ah the joys of de-cluttering!!

My sister and I had a great chat today. Its funny how the distance between us geographically has no effect on how close we feel emotionally... other than I don’t get hugs from her as often as I’d like. We’ve both fallen in love with people who took us to places away from where we grew up and neither of us would change that for the world. She is a wonderful sounding board about stuff and a great friend as well as my sister. Today was just one of those days when I really appreciated having her in my life. Every time that Erin and Bethany get into a yelling match or go through a stage of being absolutely nasty to each other, I remind them that when they are older, that 4 years won’t be such a big deal and that they will be the only ones who can commiserate with each other about what a pain their Mother is!!!

This transitional time, early in the New Year, as I am still mapping out the next few months, setting goals, trying to get some new things started etc. is both exciting and frustrating. I meet on Thursday with another local author to see about helping him get a children’s book published. Unlike the last project, this author may choose to send things off to a publisher first, but I may still end up helping him publish it on his own if he can afford to invest in self-publishing. LIke many cross stitch designers who self-publish, you have to be able to look at what it will cost you to print the product and sell it yourself, even if the theory is that you keep more of the profits that way. You could also end up with lots of boxes of printed stuff that is paid for and isn’t selling! He’s still thinking about which route to go, but since the story involves a dinosaur, I am game to do some sketches.... dragons and dinos are not that far apart!!

It’s funny how we’ve been conditioned to want results or answers or solutions immediately. The storm tonight reminds me that we do not have control over everything in our lives. Spending 10 minutes trying to grip a tiny, wiggling ball of feisty fluff to clip Smudgy’s back toenails was also a good analogy for how difficult it can seem sometimes to get something accomplished. We had all 3 girls working to keep him calm. Bethany baited him with a large flake of American Special K cereal (MUCH better than the Canadian version!) while Erin held the squirming bundle in her hands and I reached out to try and immobilize a back paw to clip even a single toenail or two with the baby nail clippers. Smudgy doesn’t bite... but he does wiggle!! I think I managed to clip at least 4 nails... so that’s it for tonight.

If you’ve never watched the CAT HERDERS EDS Trilogy on YouTube... give yourself a laugh and go search for that title. It’s Monday... and you can never have too many laughs on a Monday!

Back To Health At Last... Computer And Dragon!

Well... Bethany and I are finally on the mend after spending the first week of 2007 with one of the most horrible sinus infections I’ve ever seen. We’d been fighting the same cold that put Erin on antibiotics before we went to Mom’s, but by New Year’s Day, I felt horrible. The sinus infection produced a horrible tickly cough that just left us both gasping and wheezing. We tried to tough it out so that we could get home to New Brunswick and our own medical system, but that just gave the infection more time to flourish. By the drive home, Nick made a stop at a Super Walmart to get me some cough syrup so that he didn’t have to smother me at night or leave me in a snow bank somewhere. As soon as we passed through Fredericton on the way home, I called our clinic and told them we would be back in the city by 2 pm, January 4th. Bethany and I got our appointments for 2:15! Of course the clinic was very backed up with other wheezers, hackers etc. so it was about 45 minutes before we found out we were both going on the same antibiotic as Erin had just finished... but yesterday was the first day I really began to feel human again instead of some tall Darth Vader sounding dragon!

I’d been looking forward to shooing them all out the door back to school and maybe crawling back into bed... but it turned out to be the first Snow Day of the school year because of the transition from snow to rain, so we ALL went back to bed and slept in.

So life is getting back to normal now and my computer is working and connected to the real world. The technician was VERY thorough and we now have wireless for Nick’s laptop as well...FREE because of the teacher’s laptop program!

I’m still going to crawl into bed early for one last night because after leading 2 Weight Watchers meetings today, the voice is a bit croaky again, but I wanted to share the photos that I took on the last snowy day when my eMac was off-line.



This is really what New Brunswick SHOULD look like this time of year. Right now, there is less than an inch of snow on the ground that a heavy rain and then freeze has turned to hard, crusty brown and white ooze.

Doesn’t this tree look like a strange hunched dragon shape emerging from the woods? Or do I just have too vivid an imagination??



May 2007 be a path of adventure and wonder for us to walk down...

A Master's Piece

It is the last night of the year and today has been a great day, despite the fact that I seem to have finally lost the battle to fight off Bethany and Erin’s cold. The minister at Lennoxville United church had the chance to go away and spend some time with his family and Mom offered to plan the service and put everything together, as long as she didn’t have to do the sermon (that always was Mom’s least favourite part about being a Minister)! As part of her Christmas present, I volunteered to do that part, as long as the local church had no objection to a lay person preaching.

As I sat down to write tonight’s blog entry, I realised that what I spoke about this morning already summed up all my hopes, dreams and outlook for the year ahead... and so I have posted it here for you to read.

If you would prefer not to read anything of a religious nature, please just skip over this entry and catch me in 2007, knowing that I wish you well.


A Master’s Piece by Jennifer Aikman-Smith

There’s something about a blanket of freshly fallen snow...the way it turns everything into puffy, marshmellow-like lumps...the way it brings out that inner child longing to race though the backyard and be the first one to make any tracks.
Yet all to soon, tires and boots turn roads and sidewalks, parking lots and store entrances into brown slushy swamps.

Today is New Year's Eve... the brink of a New Year with all its possibilities, all of its potential - a NEW BEGINNING of sorts.
Surely I'm not the only one who is hoping that 2007 will be different from the year 2006!

Have you been asked yet what your New Year?s Resolutions will be?
When you think about it... it?s no wonder that many people hate making them, because we seem DOOMED to FAIL from the very beginning. Just stand in line at the grocery store and REALLY look at some of the magazine titles!
"Lose Ten Pounds Before Swimsuit Season" one banner cries.... superimposed over a glossy photo of a double decker cheesecake drenched in hot fudge sauce and the headline "Quick and Easy Chocolate Desserts Your Whole Family Will Love!"

A New Year is like a new piece of paper, a new journal, a new sketchbook or a brand new set of coloured pencils.
None of the tips are worn down yet. There are no silly doodles or drawings with mistakes... no words we wish we'd never written or said. Why do MISTAKES, or the making of them, scare us so much?

When I was a student in Fine Arts at Mount Allison University, one of my printmaking professors was the engraver David Silverburg. His studio was filled with over a hundred sketchbooks from his travels to different countries and each book overflowed with the most amazing line drawings I had ever seen. He would capture people and places with just a few beautiful lines. There were no rough pencil marks beneath the ink drawings to guide him. He simply sketched in ink.
I was in Awe!

I tried to do the same, sketching in ink or felt pen so that my first marks were the ones that stayed.
You couldn't go back and erase anything...
you just had to work with it.
But all I could see were my MISTAKES.

You would think that in the 20 years that followed, I would have learned to live with the fact that even famous illustrators such as Norman Rockwell are seldom satisfied with what their own hands produce. This summer, I finally had the chance to illustrate a children's book for a Moncton author and that same fear of making mistakes haunted me for the 10 weeks that it took to create the 30 illustrations for the book.

Most of us tend to find fault even in those things that we do well.
We look for mistakes and point them out before others have a chance to.

My Mom has a board game where you share memories and stories from your past with those around the table playing the game with you. As each player reaches the end, they have to sit and listen to all of the other players say something nice about them. It is amazing how hard and embarrassing it is to sit there and listen to those words of praise... even for me- the ultimate extrovert!

Why do we find it so hard to accept compliments? Is it because we can only see the mistakes, or flaws,
when we look inside ourselves and think "If they really knew me... they wouldn't think I was so wonderful!"

Yes, here we are on the brink of a New Year... with all of its new beginnings and possibilities, but we can also feel as if we are bringing all of our baggage... our mistakes... our "slush" with us into those bright new Tomorrows.

Who we have been is a part of who we are. The things that have shaped each of our lives cannot just be dismissed...
but we can look at them in a different way.

As a cross stitch designer, working with threads instead of paint to create my images has taught me to think of my life as a tapestry. There are the bright golden and silver threads of special times and places or things that I have done well...
There is the incredible variety of colours from my everyday living and
actions that weave and blend to create row after row... and there are the darker threads which add richness and depth to the pattern.

It would not be as rich a design if any of these threads were missing!

I also remind myself, sometimes daily, that I cannot always see the whole pattern of my life's weaving yet... and that there is no thread that I work into my life that a Master Weaver cannot use to make the whole a thing of beauty.

The message is there if we can listen to it through the din of the world around us...
whispered in Psalms, shouted in the Miracle of the Resurrection.....
if only we can even begin to truly believe it.

We are NOT alone. We live in GOD's world.

There is no mistake, mark or blemish on our life's drawing that keeps it from being beautiful when we give it as a gift to our Creator... for when we feel like scrumpling up that picture and throwing it in the trash... it is God who, like a proud parent, smoothes out the wrinkles and puts it up on the fridge for all to see.

In Life, In Death, In Life Beyond Death... God Is With Us!
We Are NOT Alone!

We do not have to be a Masterpiece in the world's eyes....
for we are already a Master's piece.


Thanks Be To God!