Plugged Back In...

It’s funny how cut off from the world I have felt this past week as my computer acted up, shut down and went in for repairs. I have it back, but for the first 3 days, it was still locking or freezing at the oddest times, especially whenever I would try to switch sites online.

Isn’t it amazing how fast we have come to take the Internet, e-mail and the speed of our computers for granted? When they are suddenly absent or not working properly, it throws us for a loop.

Of course there were still things that I could do, digests I could read and some e-mail I could access through my older machine, but I certainly felt as if I was stuck on a virtual desert island, trying to figure out how to stuff a message in a bottle!!!



I can’t believe that December is here already. Smudgy is growing fast and has been good company this week, but I’m still not certain where this fall has gone? I certainly didn’t get all of the artwork I wanted to get done for my next project, a book I wrote this summer while I was illustrating the one for Nanny Kay... but sometimes, you have to serve the gift and where it calls you.

I had an interesting chat a week ago with a friend about how the talents we are given can sometimes demand things of us that we didn’t expect. I was feeling frustrated about my computer being down and suddenly, along came 3 projects that needed my talents. They weren’t for pay, but serving your gift isn’t always about money... especially when the projects help others.

The first was creating a square snowman for the school float in the Santa Claus Parade. He was used to cleverly hide a pole that kept one part of the float from looking like a giant snow globe.



Bethany’s teacher asked me if I could make up some signs for around the classroom with vocabulary words on them, so I printed out the words on photo paper and then drew and coloured the illustrations with markers. I did up 34 words and the whole class was thrilled. Madame said she would laminate them to keep for a long time!



Finally, I drew out the rough for the 77” x 30 “ window that we are going to decorate at church. Tomorrow and Saturday, I will ink the final version on a piece of semi-opaque Mylar drafting film with a Sharpie marker (several probably) so that families in our church can help colour it on Sunday night at our Advent Celebration. Once it is coloured, the Mylar “window” can be taped into one of the 3 large glass windows near the office door of our church to shine out for the neighbourhood to see during this holiday season.



It is good to be plugged back in and have my website updates done... but I did find plenty to do while I was unplugged!