It’s Never Just One Thing....

Last night was a late one, going over several forms that I’ll need to make copies of once I arrive in Charlotte, making the changes to the Evening Fairy design that I’ll be handing out to shops that place an order there and trying o sit comfortably in our old office chair. It just wasn’t the right height for the new desk and by this morning, my hands were sore. So today was also the quest to find an office chair once we were done painting the nursery at church.

Every now and then I am reminded in a rather obvious way that I am just built on a different scale. Almost every chair we tried had the back support in the wrong place, wouldn’t go high enough, didn’t bring the armrests up to the right height, even on full extension etc. We finally found a model that was fairly adaptable and comfortable, but they didn’t have the black version in stock at the store nearest us. Having just redone the colours in the office, I ended up sounding like such a picky artist when I told the clerk “I just can’t buy the burgundy version because it will clash with absolutely everything in the room!”

Then of course I needed a drawer organizer since I haven’t had a drawer in a desk in YEARS, and that led to getting an extra little slidey tray... surely we do that all the time in a stitching store! It’s never just one thing!

Nick is upstairs stitching on a project for me and I must go thank him, so until tomorrow...

Less Than A Week...

A week from now we’ll be in a hotel in Bangor, trying to convince the girls to grab a few hours sleep before a very EARLY flight to NY and onto Charlotte. The new office is all tidy! Except for one box of papers that have yet to be filed and sorted, everything is in its place and I am just getting the last things ready to take with me (forms etc.) I’ve learned now to find a Kinko’s or Office Max down there and pay US$ to avoid lugging the already printed forms with us on the plane. Suitcases can only handle so much!

I have to work on the website tomorrow night, but the design for Evening Fairy got some tweaking tonight when I came up with a perfect sub-line. The chart has the caption “Evenings are meant to be Magic” and I suddenly modified the design to include a box of chocolates and the words “especially if they include chocolate” beneath the big text! While this chart is a special gift for shops that order from us in Charlotte, it will be up on the site in December, so don’t worry!!!

Tomorrow morning I have to take a break and head over to church where the girls and I are going to team up with another family of 3 girls to help add a bit of fun to the nursery. It was repainted and repaired this spring, but the colour is a bit.... boring, so we’re going to paint 3 sheep (and do the fleece with sea sponges and paint for a nice texture) on the main wall that you see from the door. Along the side wall, we’re going to paint a vine that has various sizes of hand prints in different colours as the “flowers”. Since the girls tomorrow range in age from 10 to 3, I think we’ll have a good variety of sizes. I wonder how much paint will end up on them instead of the walls??

Half an Office Back...

What a busy day! We headed off to the dump early this morning to drop off the two old and disassembled desks to the recycling depot. Then we went to St. Pat’s for our morning workout while the kids played in the TV room. They have the full cable there and we usually have to tear Erin and Bethany away from the cartoon channels that we don’t have here at home.

After that it was off to the smaller of the two farmer’s markets in town which we try to support. The large one in Dieppe is nice, and very new, but you have to really want to be squished in a ground and have to push your way through aisles where people just stop to chat with friends instead of moving on or buying things. I picked up a custom-designed ankle bracelet that I had ordered from the young girl who makes them. I wanted a certain pattern but all in dragon greens of course! I also came home with two new plants for the garden and tucked them into place before lunch.

Nick got the whole office painted in the afternoon and then right after supper, while the girls watched a DVD, he and I assembled the hutch part for the desktop and the shelf/drawer unit that goes to the left of the desk. He wheeled one shelf back in for me and I now have about half my office set up again. I LOVE the new colour, a deeper blue called Limerick that looks more Maritime than the cornflower blue I had before. I can’t wait to get the lateral file part assembled tomorrow afternoon so that I can start sorting and moving things back into place. I threw out a whole bunch of “stuff” today and it felt great!!!

Total Office Chaos...

Friday nights are usually “date night” in this house where the kids go to be at a reasonable hour, even though it is the weekend, and Nick and I get some time together as a couple. Usually, that means playing a game or watching a DVD, but tonight the poor guy had to bring his screwdriver down to my office and help me tear down two desks, then assemble the base of the new one so that I could get at least one computer hooked back up enough to blog!

Tomorrow, we’ll paint the office and then move most of the stuff back in. I say most, because anyone who grew up a bit packrattish knows that you end up with little piles of “stuff” that you mean to sort out sometime but just haven’t gotten to yet, or things that you are pretty sure you’ll need sometime soon.

Part of my “getting ready to turn 40” has not only involved cleaning up my eating habits and getting in shape, it has involved learning how to let go of “stuff” and just hang on to the memories instead of the object.

So I am trying to make sure that any “stuff” I really don’t need or haven’t gone looking for lately, doesn’t come back into the new office!

Procrastination or Productivity??

With less than 2 weeks until the show, what happens today? After months of searching for the right desk to replace the 2 I have in my office an hopefully get both computers a little closer together, I had pretty much given up when we found the perfect model... and on sale! It’ll be delivered next week (since this is a long weekend here) and Nick pointed out that this would be the perfect time to paint the office before we rearrange everything and get it just right! Aaaaack!! At least the borken keyboard tray from the one desk won’t keep falling out on my toes!!

He has to go down to Petitcodiac for the day tomorrow to do some muscle work of his own, turning a work room into a book room and moving boxes around, so that will give me some time to just get a few things out of the way on the computer and then start lugging things out into the family room so that we can paint.

We also went into the pet store for “just a peek at the animals” and came out with a second cage for Wuffles, our dwarf hamster. We bought the set of tubes as well and now he can run back and forth between the cages or through a tube that runs along the outside. We even got the little “potty” with the scoopable litter to see if that will coax him to pee elsewhere than in the tube that leads to his bed! He ran around like a crazy thing for almost an hour checking everything out and then fell deeply asleep for a few hours, all tuckered out from his explorations!

I still haven’t decided whether this is procrastination or productivity, but I can wait to get the office redone!!

Two Weeks From Today...

It’s a bit scary and hard to wrap my head around that we’ll be arriving in Charlotte exactly two weeks from today. Part of me wants to run around like Chicken Little screaming at the top of my lungs... and part of me is quite amazed at how much farther ahead I am than usual before a trade show!

I get like this before every show... its part of the charging up, revving up and gathering in energy to use during the event, but you also have to be careful not to burn yourself out before you even get there.

I am also so incredibly aware of how you cannot take anything in life for granted. So many of our friends are going through turmoil right now, facing life-threatening battles, coping with legal battles, facing the sudden injury of a loved one, struggling not to lose a job... it makes me very grateful for the hugs from my children, the ability to do a job that I love and the fact that I have a roof over my head at night. Those are the things that we really cannot ever afford to be complacent about when so many in the world spend every day on the brink of survival.

The newest piece, that will only be ready to show off the model of in Charlotte, has just gripped me and shaken me until I got it all on paper. It is for all the strong women in life who face challenges, even when afraid. The design features a frog with a little gold crown lounging in a glass slipper. Above him read the caption “Forget the Balls & Kissing Frogs” and below the slipper it says “I’ll make my OWN Happy Ending!” I’m trying to think of a charity that really helps women in need (other than breast cancer) towards which some of the proceeds could go... but there really isn’t a National program here in Canada that would apply...

Getting Ready To Juggle 2 Blogs at Once!

I must be a sucker for punishment, especially with a trade show just over 2 weeks away... but it was time to set up my blog about becoming She-Hulk, since tomorrow will start the 40 day countdown until I paint myself green and get on stage at Dragon*Con to celebrate turning 40 with a bang.

If you are interested in this second blog and the details of the transformation that a crazy extrovert has decided to undertake, you can check it out at http://becomingshe-hulk.blogspot.com

Today was productive in many ways... the first harder workout with Nick... getting the Hoffman order off by courier so that this replacement order for the two boxes that the Canadian and US postal services still can’t agree who lost will get there... finishing off the sketch for the middle of the design Nick has been stitching from my roughs so that he’ll have a chart to work from at last... and getting the new blog set up to launch.

Life is going to be hectic for the next little while, but it WILL be memorable!

Unexpected Adventures... Playing Tourist In Your Own Province!

We just got home tonight after deciding to turn a chore into an excuse for a family getaway. I knew that we needed to take our passports to the passport office in Fredericton in order to get them back for our trip to the USA next month. The girls now need passports of their own, so with three to submit, it seemed easier to drive them there.

We endured a drizzly, damp Saturday and found out that the forecast for Sunday was going to be bright sun and fairly warm temperatures, but that Monday would be back to cold and drizzle again. We decided to call Fredericton to see if there were any hotel packages at the Lord Beaverbrook hotel downtown... and sure enough there was a wonderful Summer Sizzler package that included two queen size bed and breakfast for the family in the morning! We threw our stuff in a bag Saturday night and hopped in the car Sunday morning to head for Fredericton.

Kings Landing is the most awesome historical settlement that takes a good 3 hours to walk through. Houses from the early to late 1800s were moved and restored to recreate this settlement or farms, churches, mills, print shop, smithy, houses and general store. Everyone in the town is dressed in costume and stays in character for the period and shows what life was like in that era. They cook their meals over the hearth or stoves in the house, work the land, apprentice in the businesses etc. This time the girls were old enough to really fall in love with the place. Erin has even decided she might like to try the “Visiting Cousins” program next summer where you attend the camp for the week and act as a character during the day, learning skills from the era and even attending school in the schoolhouse for a few hours every morning. She got the chance to hold the reins of the wagon as we drove back to the main entrance and was absolutely thrilled!

After most of the day at Kings Landing, we headed for the hotel and a nice swim at the pool. We dressed for dinner and walked off to the greek restaurant we knew about in town about 5 blocks from the hotel. Unfortunately, when we got there, we and several other tourists were disappointed to find out that it is closed on Sundays! This was the beginning of our half an hour, 5 block maze chase around the streets of downtown Fredericton, desperately trying to find ANY restaurant that served something other than fast food! We finally found a great pub called the Snooty Fox and had a fabulous supper that did much to restore our spirits and get rid of the “grumpy whineys”. We headed back to the hotel for a massive game of Harry Potter UNO and then read in bed while the girls fought over who was stealing the covers and who had toes on whose side... Even in a Queen sized bed, they still managed to get on each other’s nerves until they fell asleep. My sister could probably correct me, but I don’t remember fighting with her that much over sleeping space!!

This morning, after another quick swim and breakfast, we headed off to the Passport Office under grey and cloudy skies that left me wishing I’d packed a sweater. We got through our business there with one little flaw... seems Quebec has changed birth certificate information to bring it in line with the rest of Canada and Vital Statistics... so my old Birth Certificate is no longer valid. Even though I used it to get my last passport (and it is still me) I have to send away for this new version. Sigh! If they had let me know about this when I was up there in June, I could have taken care of it then. Just as we left the Passport Office, the heavens opened, so we ran a few blocks down to the Science East hands on science center and spend over 2 hours exploring the exhibits, helping the staff move baby stick bugs onto new raspberry plant stalks to eat, setting up domino mazes etc.

On the way home from Fredericton, we stopped to explore Old Orchard Crafts and the village of Gagetown where Flo Greig, a potter whose work I adore, has her studio. Nick and I received a magnificent salad bowl of hers as a wedding present 16 years ago and have added a few pieces to our collection since then. We have always meant to try to find her studio and stumbled across it today as we tried to find a place to eat a much overdue lunch! She happened to be there when we wandered in out of the damp and it was such fun to let another artist know how much her work has meant to me! We headed home a new addition to our collection and some great memories of a village we’ll go back to explore again.

Sadly, New Brunswick seems to lag WAY behind Nova Scotia in terms of properly promoting its craftspeople and making it easy to find them through brochures, signage etc. Having been in Nova Scotia just a few weeks ago, I am saddened by the difference between the two provinces...

Now we are home again and ready to get orders off in the mail etc. It was fun to turn the chore of dropping the passports off in person into a fun family adventure and strange to think that we’ll be doing that run again in two weeks time to head down to the show in Charlotte! Where has the summer gone??

Thank Goodness It’s Friday!

Friday night is Date Night in our house and the kids are just finishing up their turn on Animal Crossing before we bundle them off to bed, pour ourselves a nice glass of our new favourite wine. It is called Terra Rosa by Jost and is a light red wine that can be served chilled. The perfect thing now that the thunderstorm has rolled through and the humidity has broken a bit. My files are at the printers and so will be ready for Charlotte. We have one model to stitch up to show off for a September release, but Nick has done as much as he can from my rough pencil sketch. I need to graph out the image in the middle for him to be able to work from a real chart for a change.

Tonight, the work stays in the basement, the Hoffman order can ship out on Monday instead of racing to the airport to catch a plane that leaves in less than 15 minutes... I’ve spent most of my week in the basement staring at a computer screen and it is time to take a break!

Life is good. I know that Laurie and Yoshi are safe, although my sister was out and about during the latest round of mayhem in London. I can’t wait to see my new nephew and my fast growing niece in just over a month at a family wedding the in Ottawa area. I had an awesome workout at the gym today and in less than 45 days, I get to be She-Hulk at Dragon*Con. Life is cool!

Have a wonderful Friday night!!!

Crawling Through Files...

Sometimes this is the stage of the design that I hate the most, even if it is one of the areas I am most qualified to do (and one where I am able to save myself some money). Being a graphic designer lets me layout all the files and hand a CD over to my printer camera-ready, but the larger the files or the more complex the design, the more chances there are that you will overlook something important, miss a spelling mistake etc.

I get to the point where I peer at the screen or at artist’s proofs so many times, I can no longer be objective about them. I grab friends, teachers and sometimes even total strangers to look over the proofs, begging them to read them through in case there is an error. Most times, I find them about 3 days AFTER they come off the press as I am folding them to send to distributors. Sometimes it is eagle-eyed stitchers who notice things as they are stitching them while the design is only a few weeks old. (You know who you nimble needles are!!) Then there is nothing to do but grit ones teeth, scream loudly in the basement where the neighbours can’t hear you and call the funny farm, post corrections to the website if the FTP is cooperating and then hope that next time you will catch everything.

Back to peering over files to avoid the basement screaming in a few weeks if at all possible. This is the only cool place in the house. Poor Wuffles is still upset about living in a fur coat through a Canadian summer, but at least our dwarf hamster is down here in the basement with me!

Tea With The Dragon...

This past Saturday, Moncton played home to a new needlework show. I had been asked by fellow designer, Jo Gatenby of X’s & Oh’s who organized the CNSS, to do an afternoon event that ended up being called “Tea with the Dragon”. It was great fun trying to explain to people, who didn’t understand exactly what I do for a living, what the event was all about once they’d seen the posters around town. Several people I know asked me how long I had been involved with Dragon Boat Racing!!

It was really fun to spend time with the people who showed up for the event, despite a glorious summer Saturday outside. Nick and I had driven back into town from Nova Scotia, where we’d rented a cottage for the week to share with my Mom and John. They stayed with the girls at the tail end of a drizzly week to enjoy the sunshine and beaches while Nick and I drove back for this special event. Our local shop even got to premiere Dragon of the Deeps fresh from the framers!!

What fun it was to spend time with those who gave up their Saturday afternoon to share tea and goodies, laughter and stories with this dragon. It was such fun to meet new fans, new colleagues and to look out at the audience that included some of the wonderful stitchers I have grown to know over the years through the spring and fall retreats at Camp Wildwood. Seeing your smiling faces around the tables meant more than you will ever know!!

As much fun as it was to unplug for a week and even end up totally out of cellphone range, vacation and escape time ultimately is made more precious by the very fact that it can’t last forever. I’ve come home feeling recharged, replete with lobster and other great meals, card gamed out, slightly sunned and far more in touch with my whimsical side as I explore a new passion... painting rocks found along the magnificent beaches here in the Maritimes into fantasy landscapes and magical wizards. I have plans for these in the fall and am having great fun bringing out what is already trapped there in the rock. Best of all, no one will be able to slap these suckers on a scanner and share them!

So it is good to be home in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, though I miss those ocean breezes. This is the weather we thought would never arrive back in the depths of January. Canada is such a country of extremes!!

The Essence Of Summer...

I remember what summer felt like as a child... open days of possibilities, fluid time and warm sunshine.

My Mom and John are down for a visit and our adventures are recapturing that sense of endless possibilities that I remember from the summers of my childhood.

We need to all take the time to just PLAY. For designers, artists, writers and musicians, I think it is crucial to be creative in ways that have nothing to do with our “job” so that we remember what is is to play and to get lost in that creative spirit that was so effortless as a child. Children turn any opportunity into a moment for pretend or impossible adventure. Good movies or novels carry you away into other worlds. The simple act of unplugging from a daily routine can help us remember that each day holds a thousand possibilities in it for change, adventure, creativity, compassion and imagination.

What magic will you create in your todays and tomorrows?

Tragedy and Relief...

I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night with one of those “panic attacks”... a rush of adrenaline and fluttery stomach then the long tossing and turning to try to get back to sleep. They sometimes happen before tradeshows or big events when my list of things to get done feels a bit too long. Sometimes they have happened when tragedy has stuck someone that I know, so I am always a bit jumpy when they happen until I find out that everything is OK.

I dozed off a bit but woke up before everyone in the house and snuck down to work on the cross stitch design that I’d worked out in my imagination while trying to fall asleep. Funny how some designs just flow out onto paper so easily when others take over 2 years to get just right! The queasy feeling persisted and then Nick turned on the radio as everyone got up and heard about the explosions in London!

I’m not sure if my feet even touched the stairs as I flew down to the kitchen to dial my sister, Laurie, who is now living in London with her husband for the next 5 years. We turned on the computer as well in case we couldn’t get through by phone, but luckily, she answered the phone and we were all able to hear her voice. She is staying put today and watching the news for updates as so many of us here in North America did on September 11th. After the sense of optimism and celebration that Live 8 and yesterday’s announcement of London winning the bid for the 2012 Olympics, this is a sad reminder that the world can also be a dark and scary place.

My prayers go out to everyone involved and all those who have been struck by this tragedy... as well as prayers of Thanksgiving that Laurie and Yoshi are all right!

The Magic of Grandparents...

Canada Day weekend was such a blast!!! We went camping on Prince Edward Island in the backyard of one of our best friend’s parents and got adopted by the whole clan for the weekend. “Nanny Harrington” bakes far too well for me to live anywhere within walking distance of them! The kids played on the beach for hours, visited a petting farm and held baby bunnies and kittens, watched fireworks over the North Rustico harbour until almost midnight, raced on red dirt roads, played soccer on a homemade field against the grown-ups, ate lobster and mussels galore and had a wonderful weekend with their friends.

Now, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Mom and John for a summer visit. All day long it has been “how long until Nanny and Grr get here?”. I’m just not used to having them home, under foot, when they are this excited!! Of course, I am also excited too because Nick and I are going to disappear for a night, tomorrow night, to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary one night early, so maybe I am eager for them to get here too!

Mom tells me that being a grandparent is full of all the magic and less of the pressure of being a parent. It is nice to know that someday I will be driving MY girls crazy as I spoil THEIR kids rotten!

Celebrating Your Country...

Tomorrow is Canada Day and we plan to celebrate it in the birthplace of Confederation, Prince Edward Island with some very good family friends. We’ve checked the tent, packed plenty of sunscreen and bug stuff, but I need to get my web site updated for the weekend before I go. Nick has taken off his watch for the summer since he officially finished at noon yesterday. This year may take a little longer to unwind from, but this weekend away should help.

For most of us in Canada and the USA, this weekend (Canada Day for us on the 1st and the 4th of July for my family and friends in the USA) is one of get-togethers, celebrations and also, some patriotic pride in our countries. This year, while I still feel incredibly glad and privileged to live in a democracy and in a country with as many resources, opportunities and wealth as Canada, I cannot suppress a twinge of regret.

Canada’s Health Care System USED to be the envy of many countries. We used to be a country that prided itself on taking care of our sick, our elderly, our poor... We used to be a country that built great rail and roadway systems, made sure that green spaces were protected, invested in science and education so that our futures would be bright...

Sadly, our country seems to be placing more emphasis on business above all, rewarding the friends of those in power and of cutting “costs” (ie. education, health care, etc.) while still wasting MILLIONS of tax dollars on frivolous things.

My girls are learning to speak out for causes they believe in and that they have a place in any democracy. They drew posters and we went as a family to a City Council Meeting to protest a land swap that will see over 23 acres of the park near us turned over for commercial development. They are frustrated that their lives are affected by a bunch of “grown-ups who don’t care about the bunnies and squirrels whose homes they’ll be hurting”. But they are also learning that their actions can be noticed. The whole group of supporters trying to stop this “done deal” clapped when the girls posters were praised in the council meeting.

What does it take to turn a country around? I’m not sure. I do know that it begins with each individual doing their best to make their town or community a caring one. It grows stronger every time that someone speaks out against injustice or tries to correct a wrong. ... and it blooms into something beautiful every time a group of people remember to look towards the future with a vision for what a country could be instead of just reacting day by day, crisis by crisis. Let’s all take time to dream this weekend!!!

School’s Out For The Summer!

I remember that ineffable sense of freedom. Coming home on the last day of school with my report card in hand and the sense that the whole summer stretched before me full of possibilities to play, sleep in, read and draw.

Today was a blaze of summer glory, despite a weatherman’s prediction of thunder showers and rain. The girls brought home their report cards and bags of papers that look as if they have been shoved into desks all year long. Our neighbourhood gang of bus stop moms and kids gathered at one person’s house (thankfully not mine this year) for a party this afternoon as we nibbled on wonderful food and watched the kids race around with water-soaked sponges to lob at each other or bounce on the trampoline. The kids topped off the party with bowls of ice-cream sprinkled with “pop rocks”, a type of candy that fizzes and explodes in your mouth.

How different to look at summer through an adult’s eyes. Why do we lose that sense of wonder and play so easily? Is it because our routines are interrupted without school to keep things on schedule? Is it because most adults wish that they too could have a long summer to rest, recharge and just play? Perhaps we tend to romanticize that freedom a bit as well because I can remember all too well those mornings of sheer boredom once I had run through my initial list of things that I wanted to do. How long will it be until I hear my girls complain that “There’s NOTHING to DO!!” ???

After my rant and sadness at the beginning of the week, I come full circle to a sense of peace. I have had the files removed from the site thanks to a supportive contact in Russia. I have let my colleagues know about who can help protect their designs and even if those files spring up somewhere again, I have stood up for my rights. I only wish that one of the infringers who really felt they were doing nothing wrong had the courage to use their own identity so that we could see who a court of law would side with. I guess that is why so many of them lurk behind false identities and petty words.

I also have a sense of Joy and Wonder. Dragon of the Deeps has been such a pleasure for me to stitch. Even though I am painfully slower than my model stitchers, it has given me great satisfaction to watch this design come to life beneath my needle. I can’t wait to see what the reaction will be to this pattern in Charlotte. I am also glad that I have a career where I will be able to enjoy some of the summertime with my children, even if it means doing most of the work at night or when they spend some time playing together. They are at such a fun age!!

So here is a toast to the arrival of summer holidays for our family. I can’t wait until Nick joins us after HE finishes working on Wednesday!!

FInding Hope Through Tears In Song...

The transition to reality after being away is never easy. At least the girls were excited enough about seeing their friends and all of the last week of school activities to get up out of bed even when their bodies were still on EST.

The first day of summer here was glorious and the kids ran through “Ollie” an octopus sprinkler after school with some friends while the moms tried to stay out of the way and chat on the deck.

Not to bad... but then I needed to send an e-mail off to close down a Russian site that had 36 of my designs on their pages for trade or sharing. A Dragon Spotter had reported the site to me while I was up at Mom’s, but since I didn’t have my contact’s e-mail with me, I waited until I got home, not knowing how much was up on the site.

Tonight it drove me to tears. For whatever reason, I just sat there and bawled. At that moment in time I thoroughly understood Teresa’s decision to take a break from cross stitching. Why pour so much of yourself into a design and pay to have it printed when someone can steal it and share it will others so easily?

I took a break to watch this week’s Canadian Idol and called in to support the young girl from New Brunswick, but as I watched her chase her dream, I felt even more discouraged tonight that after almost a dozen years of designing, I certainly had far less to show for all my efforts in terms of financial stability than someone who had spent the same amount of time in another job. I called my Mom, just to have her say “awwwww”, which sort of helped, and then got down to work on some graphic files for a client.

I put iTunes on in the background on my other machine and one of the first songs that came up was from the Touched By An Angel CD... the song Testify to Love by Wynnona. When it hit the line of the words “Every corner of Creation lives to Testify” I felt oddly comforted with the sudden knowledge that I was being true to what I have always felt called to do... create images.

If the ones that I make in cross stitch are more vulnerable to technology, I will keep shutting things down, speaking out, trying to find ways of protecting my work better etc. I will also continue to explore other, less vulnerable ways of using my images, but I will not let this take away the joy that I have in creating things that try to make the world smile, or hope, or dream a bit more than they did before.

I will learn from and be inspired by those around me facing adversity with such incredible courage, instead of watching how the world encourages “having it all” regardless of who you hurt.

Fatherhood...

It’s Father’s Day today and we have to head back home on the train tonight. The girls called Nick this morning, sad that they couldn’t be with their Daddy on Father’s Day and yet delighted to spoil their Grandfather, Grr. Not having had children of his own, he inherited my brother, sister and I in our late teens and has merrily thrown himself into the role of grandfather with complete abandon.

My own father gave me far more than someone to look “up” to (I still do because he tops me by almost 5 inches!) I learned how to dream impossible dreams from Dad, how to imagine worlds beyond our own through science fiction and fantasy, a love of travelling to new places and meeting new people and how to sing Tenor harmony to name a few of the things that spring to mind.

I was glad we had the chance to see my grandfather in Montreal this visit. It is wonderful to still be able to have a Grampy around in this year that I turn 40. I have been hoping all day that there will be some good golf on television for him to watch.

Father’s Day is also when I think about the people that cae into my life through my marriage to Nick. Since Nick’s parents also divorced and remarried, Ken and Jerome became new people to appreciate in our lives.

Today, half a world away, my brother Dave also celebrates Father’s Day with Owen Charles and Anne safely home from the hospital. I wish him sleep enough to be able to function at work tomorrow and the joy of having all of his now larger by one family under the roof together at last. Sleep will come again eventually!

I also think of my sister’s husband, Yoshi, who has embraced his role as uncle in a totally different culture with such grace and enthusiasm. Whether playing Barbies and Uno or discussing Pokemon and Disney movies with his nieces, he is adding a richness to their lives that they treasure.

Father’s Day is not just a celebration of biological procreation. It is a day to honour the many men in our lives who build us up, grant us wings, challenge us to be more than we are, soothe our souls, inspire us, nurture us, enchant us, make us giggle or simply add richness to the tapestry of our lives.

Happy Father’s Day!

Missing The Connection...

Funny how sometimes being apart can make you appreciate someone even more. This has been a tricky year with Nick taking a Vice-Principalship at a rural K-12 school about 40 km (20 minutes) from home. We remained a one van family by choice, but that also meant juggling things around sometimes or the girls and I taking the occasional taxi. I also learned to cope with longer hours on my own with the girls. Most mornings, Nick left before 7 am and got home after 5 pm. I know this pales when compared to what most parents in major centers lose to commuting time etc., but it was quite a switch from the family schedule we had the year before.

Since I was lucky enough to marry my best friend, I also found it hard when I couldn’t do much to help him adjust to what was less than a welcoming atmosphere at the new complex. It made me mad to see how hard he was working to help solve problems and not really getting the support he needed. Especially when he had gone down to that school at the request of the District, giving up a nice position at a great school in order to help the District as a whole.

With the school year almost over, and the objectivity of having spent a week away at my Mom’s, I can now see what a great learning experience this year has been for Nick. Even the darker moments taught him things about how he will or won’t run a school once he has a chance to become a Principal. It has also re-affirmed for me why I chose the type of career that I did while the girls are younger, so that I can be there when they get off the bus and help them with homework etc. Yes, sometimes that means staying up late to complete work after they go to bed, but they won’t be this age forever. Rereading my Mom’s collection of For Better Or Worse comic anthologies has reminded me of that.

It is great to know that after almost 16 years of marriage and 21 years of being together, I can miss someone so completely. I have missed all of the chats with my best friend this week, even though we have tried to call each other amid the chaos. Nick very rarely gets that “alone head space” time that I do when I go to trade shows or have an empty house all to myself during the day to get work done. I hope it has been restful in some way for him as the hectic pace of school closing time tries to run all teachers ragged.

When you marry someone, you really do create a bond/fusion of two lives that, if you work hard enough, are lucky enough and support each other enough, stands apart from other family bonds. You remember and love those who gave you live and with whom you grew up. You love, nurture and raise your children until they go off to have lives of their own. But through it all, around it all and in spite of it all, remains the bond that you forge as the years go by. I can’t wait to get home to my friend, my partner and my love!

Our Family Just got Bigger!!!

What an exciting day! Owen Charles Aikman was born at 11:45 am this morning in Lausanne, Switzerland and we’ve already seen pictures via e-mail. The girls are thrilled to have a new baby cousin and “Aunty Dragon” is counting the days until I can hold my new nephew in August when my brother, his wife Anne, Juliette and Owen come to Ottawa for my cousin’s wedding.

I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in a family where connections are important and blood matters, but Nick and I have also had the wonder of having new people join our family as all of our parents remarried after divorces and in my case, I ended up with a new brother and sister!

Family can be ties of blood, but there can also be people who come into our lives and hearts who become as close or closer than family we are born into. The ties that bind us are what make our lives richer... and Owen Charles is the latest treasure in our lives. Welcome into this big, bright, wonderful world with all its adventures and challenges. I cannot wait to meet you in person and watch you grow up!!

Making The Time To Make Memories,,,

Considering that I will be turning 40 this fall, it is kind of impressive to still be able to visit my grandfather whenever I get back to Quebec. This morning, we packed up all of the ingredients for lunch, car toys, books, knitting (I get car sick if I stitch in the car, but my stitching came along too!) and headed off to Montreal, about 2 hours away from Sherbrooke. We ran into heavy rain and big city traffic about half an hour out of the city, so we were almost 40 minutes later getting to his house than we’d planned.

Grampy still lives in the house that he and my grandmother bought more than half a century ago. It is the only house from my childhood that I still have any tangible link to, since Nick and I have now lived longer in our own house than in any place we spent time as children. At 93, Grampy is getting a bit frailer and a bit more absent minded each time I see him, but what a gift for both of my girls to have such detailed memories about their great-grandfather. He was the one to inspire 3 other generations of art loving people and we had a great time doing some sketches to leave behind for him.

The brief hours of the visit flew by, but they were filled with hugs, photos, laughter and memory making moments before the long drive back to Sherbrooke. Was it worth spending the 4 hours on the road to be there today? Of course! Each visit is made more precious by the knowledge that this pilgrimage will not last forever. I spent time as an artist today capturing some of my favourite spots or architectural elements around the house forever on film, and time as a granddaughter, with my arms draped around thinner shoulders, capturing the moments and memories forever in my heart.

The Magic Of Taking The Train...

The girls and I arrived safely in Quebec EARLY this morning after a wonderful train ride up to my Mom & John’s. Both girls just love taking the train, especially when we can get the bedroom with the 3 beds. When I looked at how long the school year was this year and how badly Nick needed time to do all the end of year paperwork, file writing etc., I decided that instead of going to Columbus and leaving him in charge of everything, I would pack up my work, pull the girls out of school for a week and leave him with an empty house, no fixed schedule and the chance to work late or eat out of a pot over the sink to save on dishes whenever he felt like it.

So as soon as Erin’s last school project for report cards was completed, we got ready to go! We boarded the train last night before supper in Moncton and waved goodbye to Nick, then settled into the sleeper room. Bethany has to take the couch that converts into the bed because I need place to hang my toes over the end of the other bottom bed and Erin always claims the upper bunk bed, but this time she was kind enough to let Bethany come up for a few minutes of play time.

Our meals were included on this section of the trip because the only way the 3 bedroom car was available was as part of a special “touring package”. It meant that we went down to the dining car for dinner (a luxury we probably would have avoided otherwise) for a wonderful gourmet meal. They did have a children’s menu for Bethany that offered her a small personal pepperoni pizza, a glass of cherry kool-aid and a pudding cup, but not being used to the rocking motion of the train caused an immediate kool-aid catastrophe on the first sip. Boom! Bright pink drink all over the nice white linen napkin in her lap and halfway down her shirt. She began to cry, of course, in that 6 year old mix of sadness & embarrassment spurred on my by cry of “Oh, Bethany!” but then a lovely waitress came over to comfort her and told her that often SHE was a mess by the end of the night if the train lurched while she was serving food! She brought Bethany another warm roll to munch on and made such an impression that Bethy went up to her later to say “Thank you for making me feel better!”.

After dinner, we went for a ride in the observation car to watch the sunset near the Baie des Chaleurs. Erin, or course, was hoping to see the famous burning ghost ship, while Bethany was more interested in the new game of Pokemon Emerald that I’d purchased for us to play on the trip. Knowing that excitement would keep them awake and wiggly, I didn’t push the jammies until almost 9:30. They wanted to have a paint the nails party, but I managed to explain that Mommy couldn’t possibly do a good job while the train was so wobbly. I am severely challenged at putting nail polish on when everything is still...

Finally, around 10:15, both girls each told me a story before I told them one and we all fell asleep to the rocking motion of the train. Waking up at 5:30 am to get a quick breakfast (also included in our ticket price...so worth eating) wasn’t too bad because Quebec is on EST... so it was 6:30 for us. I am sure that we’ll all be in bed early tonight!!

In A Perfect World...

• Meals would be nutritious, taste good and cook themselves.

• It would be more acceptable to be happy than rich.

• Garden beds would remain weed-free.

• Clothing would recycle into inert matter so that a machine could spit out a clean outfit
every morning that fit perfectly and was guaranteed to be a colour that you look good in.

• Technology would always work when you needed it to instead of causing you to want
to beat your head against the screen.

• People would have more respect for the world that sustains us.

• Grocery shopping could be done on-line and delivered to your door by a smiling
person who would have been as picky on your behalf with produce as you would
have been at the store.

• Schools and hospitals would have all the money they needed.

• There would be such a thing as Tribbles (but they wouldn’t reproduce that fast!)

• We would all finally realize that EVERYONE is “different” and that there is no “US”
because then there has to be a “THEM”.

• Chocolate would contain NO calories or fat.

• We’d ba able to see the real light show of the starry skies overhead every night, even
in the cities, to remember how very small a part we are of a much bigger picture... then
make a wish on the brightest star.

Roots and Wings...

I’ve been rushing around trying to get two out of print designs ready to switch over to the full colour cover format before I take the girls up to my mother’s for a week. School doesn’t end until the 27th of June here, but once Erin turns her last major project in tomorrow, most work that counts will be done. At this point, getting out of Nick’s hair so that he can get all the paperwork done before the end of the year at his school, spending time with my Mom and immersing the kids in French for a week far outweighs the stuff that they will miss at school.

Activities are also winding down at last. Erin’s piano recital was last week, Guide Camp amid swarms of nasty black flies was this past weekend (no, the dragon did not go and get bit this time!) Bethany’s Sparks closing was last week and Erin’s final Girl Guide meeting is tomorrow night (I guess I should now say tonight!). Luckily we have started writing everything on one central calendar. Last week, there was a conflict over events that we only discovered after it was too late to get a sitter!

Erin had been asked to try out for one local swim team and after two sessions, which she enjoyed immensely, we began to realize how tricky getting to the other side of town was going to be during rush hour traffic for a 6pm evening practice. Tonight, she went to the practice of the swim team that meets at Université de Moncton’s CEPS building. It is a bilingual swim team, but much of the coaching and instructions are done completely in French. She was determined to try swimming tonight even though she was still tired from camping this weekend so that she could have a second session with them on Wednesday night before we leave on Saturday to visit Quebec. By the time we get back, the pool will be closed for cleaning and the coach’s evaluation would have to wait.

I doubt I could explain how I felt tonight to anyone who has never been part of raising a child or watching one grow. I looked down at Erin trying her hardest in a new and challenging situation and felt this wave of admiration and astonishment. I felt a bit like a bird peering at the Mockingbird chick that hatched from the egg in the nest. Could this child who is constantly running, jumping and now hauling herself through the water in all kinds of strokes really be the child of someone who was always picked last for every team? I have only fallen in love with physical activity in the past 5 years. Before that, I always wanted to sit and read, draw or stitch.

I have two daughters that constantly amaze and enchant me. I hope I am always able to give them both roots and wings. I hope I can support them in their wild and crazy dreams, encourage them to at least try a new challenge to see if they like it and comfort them or help pick up the pieces when something truly becomes impossible or unreachable.

I’m still chasing new dreams in this my 40th year...

OK! This is getting too philosophical. Time for this dragon to head to bed!

Soggy, Croaky But Satisfied...

It was a wet, cold miserable long weekend here in the Maritimes. We got over 4 inches of rain on Sunday and I kept checking the street to see if any animals were lining up two by two anywhere! Luckily, though we did get quite the pond in the backyard, it didn’t come near the windows to my basement office. We ran the pump for a tiny bit just to get some of the pond water out to the front of the house. I can see a bit more terra-forming in our summer plans!

The girls and I have all been fighting horrid colds and sinus infections, so we’re a coughy, croaky bunch. Maybe it is all the cold and damp that have made this start to 2005 so wicked for germs. We seem to all be on the mend at last, so perhaps it was better to have a quiet weekend indoors after all. Nick couldn’t tackle any of his outdoor projects, but did replace the taps in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. Our house is now almost 17 years old (we’ve been in it for 14 years now) and so we’re getting into that fix it or move stage. Nick often laughs when I insist on staying partly because of all the early leaflets out there with our street address on it rather than the PO box. I’m also just getting my backyard to where the perennials are nicely balanced and would hate to have to start over with just a square of green grass!

It was very ironic that on the same night as the American Idol finals, I went to speak to Erin’s Girl Guide troop about what it is to be an Artist. One of the Second Year badge components has the girls learning about what an artist’s work/job entails, so I brought along my portfolio and shared some artwork with them. I say ironic, because here were two young people who had spent the past 6 months singing their hearts out in front of the public eye to win a title that would bring them fame, fortune and probably great riches. I actually used them in my talk to the girls to explain that when you really want to do something, even if you have a lot of talent, it still takes work, practice and lots of determination. It doesn’t just come magically. I also pointed out that for every famous person who becomes a “Superstar”, there are lots of other people who make a perfectly good living doing what they love as their job.... singing in a production on Broadway, doing back-up vocals, putting on shows on cruise ships or at theme parks (I can almost hear Simon’s comments now!) The point I was making to the girls is that with any creative job such as acting, singing or art, you have to work at perfecting what it is that you do and sometimes making your OWN way to get noticed rather than waiting for someone to “discover” you. A very big part about making a living from your talent actually has more to do with being able to look after the everyday things like paying bills, collecting on accounts, sourcing new clients or promoting yourself.

It was incredibly satisfying to sit there and share with them that I first decided to “draw pictures for my job” when I was 11 years old.... almost 29 years ago. It hasn’t always been easy or as lucrative as some people imagine, but I have been blessed to do what I love to do for my career. Sometimes I use paint, sometimes I use the computer and sometimes I use thread... but I have created images that have made me smile, touched other people and will last longer than I do.

That is what I always wanted to do as my job!

Wounded Dragonlets...

I’ve just about had enough of the Canadian Health Care System in the past week. The fact that so many cuts have absolutely cannibalized what used to be the pride of our country while millions of our tax dollars were spent funding bogus Sponsorship events in Quebec or lining the pockets of politicians and ad executives is enough to make me SCREAM!

Thursday night, Erin had her first mountain bike accident and we spend over 4.5 hours in the Emergency Department of the hospital, 4 of which was just waiting for a chance to get down to X-ray! She was scrapped up and shaken, but the right hand pinkie finger that she landed on with most of her weight was just badly sprained rather than broken. She has it “dummy splinted” to her ring finger and we’re waiting to see if the swelling will go down. Nick felt horrible because he was the one who took her out to the trails so that they could both try out their mountain bikes and apparently Erin’s front tire caught his back one as they came down a slight hill a bit too close together. Considering the fact that there were people in the Emergency department who’d been there for over 7 hours, we got off lightly, but it has left a very sour taste in my mouth to see the Prime Minister who campaigned on fixing health care beg for more time in office until the full extent of the Sponsorship Scandal is known.

Friday night was family activity night at St. Pat’s right after Nick and I finished our deep water running class, so we dried off and met the girls in the gym for some summer fun of badminton, beach balls and frisbees. Unfortunately as Nick tried to show Bethany the neat trick of “skipping” the frisbee off the floor first, she rushed forward to try to catch what she thought was a low throw and the frisbee bounced right up into her bottom lip, curling it over the bottom teeth so that they went right into her lip and started the blood flowing everywhere. Bethany is like her father and goes absolutely WHITE at the sight of blood. I don’t think I realized how many freckles she had until they all stood out against her pale face! We got some ice and managed to staunch the flow of blood, but her lip puffed up like crazy which scared her further. “Can lips break forever, Mommy?” she kept asking. I explained how fast mouths heal and sure enough by this morning at the bus stop, there was hardly enough to show off to her friends except on the inside of the lips where the scraped area is trying to make new skin. Poor Nick felt horrid and hardly even cracked a smile when other people started teasing me that I would be next! Had she needed stitches, it would have been HIS turn to go sit for hours at the hospital... if I’d been able to pry my little Bethany possum from my body.

Now the house is quiet on a grey, rainy, cold May morning. It looks and feels more like November outside unless I take in a deep lung full of air. Then I can smell the wet growing things making the most of this moisture. I have paperwork to sort through and a missing receipt to find in the chaos of my office. We received a damaged pile of patterns on Friday from the US Post Office that looks like HALF of my last Hoffman shipment in pieces, so I am hinting for the insurance receipt that seems not to be in the postage file. Sigh! I think if I wrap my claws around something warm and put on some good tunes, I can pretend that I am actually looking for treasure in the piles instead!

The Mothers In My Life...

It was, despite the pounding 40 mm ( almost 2 inches) of rain and high winds, quite a wonderful Mother’s Day! I woke up early in the morning to the sound of the rain and wind lashing against our bedroom window. The sound of running water always produces a rather predictable result with me... and I needed to leave the warm coziness of our bed for the bathroom. Peering out into the back yard, I could see that a rather large pond was forming at the end of the deck and so raced downstairs to be sure that nothing was coming in the basement windows again. The sound of Mommy thumping down the stairs in her bunny slippers woke the girls, who were then in a panic about getting my Mother’s Day gifts to the table before I got there. They decided instead to pounce on me the moment I returned upstairs and present me with presents in bed! They were quite keen to serve me breakfast in bed as well, but the thought of bits of Shredded Wheat finding its way into my bed sheets or frozen blueberries hitting the duvet cover were enough to have me begging for breakfast at the dining room table “fancy restaurant style”. I was ordered to remain in bed until they were ready. When Nick and I were called down (after much cupboard slamming and thumping sounds), we found the table set up for a romantic candlelight breakfast with the frozen blueberries and milk in their own special containers and water in fancy glasses near our lovingly pulverized Shredded Wheat biscuits. Erin explained that the candles were left alone because “they weren’t allowed to touch the matches yet!”

Erin and Bethany both sing in the Sunbeam Choir at church. They repeated their new song from last Sunday night’s concert where many of them got stage fright in front of such a huge audience. Bethany had missed her closing solo entirely and had to repeat it under prompting from the director, so this morning she was in an absolute panic that she would “mess everything up and ruin it again!” I explained that making a JOYFUL noise did not mean making a PERFECT noise... but when one of the boys doing a solo right before her failed to get out of the way to let her to the mike, she missed her cue during the first practice and promptly burst into tears. She and I spent minutes cuddling while the senior choir practiced their number. One of the older girls in the Sunbeam Choir who is also quite shy, like Bethany< came over to tell her that she got scared too having to start off the whole song. With encouragement from everyone and some clever blocking by the Choir director to get one boy away from the mike as soon as his turn was done to make room for Bethany, things went much better during the second rehearsal. When it came time for the performance during the service, everything went beautifully. Erin’s confident solo carried all the way to the back of the church and she anchored most of the piece without overpowering everyone else. Then, as the end drew near, Bethany approached the mike, took a deep breath and out came this lovely sweet voice to close off the piece with her solo. As soon as she was done, her face split into this radiant grin that I could just make out through the tears of pride and joy streaming down my face.

After church we raced home to check on the backyard, run the pump for a bit and then grabbed the lobster out of the fridge to head down to spend the afternoon with Nick’s Mum and Jerome. We had a wonderful feast with homemade rolls, light salads, lobster and a lovely low-calorie dessert she’d created. They’ve been losing weight steadily since Jerome’s heart problems at the beginning of the year, so it was nice to have a meal that satisfied taste buds without making us feel stuffed. We curled up in the living room and Mum (I stopped calling her by her first name recently because she really is my “other mother”) showed me how to turn my 10 skeins of wool into balls. I’d spent almost 2 hours grumbling and untangling one skein the night before to wind it into a single ball. As I held the wool skein on my hand, she showed me how to create a ball of yarn that I’d be able to draw the wool from the center instead of the outside. It does cut down on the amount of escaping and rolling your ball of wool does as you knit!!

We drove home before dark past swollen rivers and almost flooded roadways to call my own Mom and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. I then tucked Bethany into bed, got Erin set up for her 20 minutes of French reading and disappeared down here to reflect on Motherhood and the women who have mothered to me in my life.

I have been blessed to have a Mother who took the time to make things with us, left little notes, inspired us to find our wings even as she longed to keep us close to home, showed us that it was never too late in life to try new things and always made us feel loved, even when we fought with her. Her example gave me so much to draw from as I became a Mother myself. She still chuckles sometimes when I call to say “SORRY!!” for stuff that I did as a child now that I can see it from the parent’s perspective!! While she told me many times when I was young that I would understand better when I became a Mother, she has never said “I told you so!” in all the years that have proved her right!

Instead of a “Monster-In-Law” that some describe, I found in my husband’s mother a wonderful lady whose creativity and pursuit of excellence I can very much understand, whose compassion and determination I try to emulate and whose objective tenderness I have come to appreciate and treasure since it comes without the parent/child ties that sometimes get so tangled. Between Mum and Mom, I have great women to keep my own journey through Motherhood a bit saner.

There have also been other strong women who have “mothered” to me at various times in my life whom I also think of on this special day. Mothering does not necessarily have to involve the act of giving birth to forge those ties of heart or spirit between lives. The physical act of bringing a new life into this world does not create a Mother in the truest sense of the word... I doubt that I could ever put it into words that would do justice to the power, the empathy, the compassion, the vulnerability, the sacrifice, the separation, the terror, the pride, the fears, the joys, the dreams and the depth that true motherhood calls forth from a person who “mothers” to another. Those gifts and memories, those deeds and bits of wisdom become a part of my own Motherhood tapestry that will someday weave on without me as the thread is picked up and continued on.

Home Sweet Home...

I finally arrived home late Monday afternoon.. almost 20 hours later than I was supposed to thanks to Canjet’s lack of planes and communication. While I was thankful for the hotel room Sunday night and the token meal vouchers, I wish that they’d been more up front with all of us on the two flights that ended up being canceled. It wasn’t until we all gathered at the airport lounge the next day that we began to piece together what we think must have happened.

When the first plane was affected, they looked at which flight had the least amount of people booked on it (the Moncton flight) and delayed then canceled that one. When the plane arrived late from New York for the flight that needed to go to Halifax... it was mysteriously canceled after the waiting flight crew was sent off somewhere. Many of the people on that aborted Halifax flight believe that their plane was instead commandeered to head down to Florida and rescue the stranded passengers there to bring them to Toronto. A few of them ended up on our newly created Monday 12:35 pm flight. At least.... it should have been 12:35.

Most of us got to the airport in plenty of time. I even managed to find some “Make it up to the Kids” goodies while waiting. I also did a cartoon sketch of a dragon stranded in a waiting lounge with other passengers as the rain pours down outside with a caption that reads “Really? My flight was grounded due to bad weather too!” As the time to board the plane grew closer, the girl at the check in counter came on the intercom to explain that although the plane was ready to go, they were still waiting for the crew that was being bussed in from Hamilton!!! You should have heard the groans, screams and general cries of outrage when that announcement was made. They did give the crew a standing ovation and round of cheers when they did arrive, and we all clapped ourselves silly when the plane finally took off. I didn’t kiss the ground when I arrived safely in Moncton, but the thought did cross my mind. Instead, I headed home to hug my family!!

Now, I am tackling my last two big deadlines for May 1st... then I can’t wait for life to switch to a calmer pace... I have a dragon to finish stitching!

Grounded Dragon Stuck In Toronto

Well.... I never made it home last night to the utter dismay of my girls. The flight to Moncton was cancelled entirely. In an Amazing Race moment, four of us tried to jump on a flight to Halifax and then rent a car to drive to Moncton... but just as we got our luggage back, raced up escalators and went to the head of the Check-in line, they cancelled that flight as well!So I got on a hotel shuttle and spent another night in a Toronto hotel room. At least I got some stitching done! I just can't wait to hug my family!!!! By 4:00 pm today I should be there.. they created a new flight just for all us strays. I certainly wish this dragon had wings of her own!!

Stuck When I Want To Be Home!

I finished teaching my classes at the CSNF in Toronto this afternoon at 4:20 and raced right to the airport to check in for my 6:30 flight home. I was so excited to get a connection that would have me on the ground by 9:30, which meant that Nick could meet me at the airport!
When I arrived here, I discovered that Canjet was flying one plane short... so my flight had been rescheduled to leave here at MIDNIGHT! Wannnnnhhhhh! I can feel for all the scrambling they've had to do, but compared to our experiences in the US this past March Break, flying on Canadian airlines leaves a LOT to be desired... no meal voucher, nada.
Now I'm going to be flying home through icky weather, heavy rain and only getting home sometime after 2:30 pm. There's only one thing to do... go find a comfy seat and stitch!
I can't wait to hug and hold my family once I make it home!!

Toronto Bound...

I get on the plane tomorrow morning at 6 am to fly up to Toronto for the Spring Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival. I’ve survived the barfies and 2 week queasies that came with that rotten flu, celebrated both my girls’ birthdays, finished another major graphics assignment, nursed everyone else in the family through another round of head colds and tried to keep on top of things with what still feels like only half of my regular energy.

I had to admit to myself after the flu that “Dragon of the Deeps” was NOT going to be ready for Toronto. It was so hard to feel like I had “failed” a deadline of my own making... but the design is turning out so much better than I expected that I refuse to cut corners and rush it. The border just “sings” and I think I might even like it better than the one in Moonlight Guardian! I know that I can release it through Hoffman for the June show in Columbus.... but it still feels strange. A decade ago, I would have gone the week or two on 3 hours sleep a night to get it done. Does that make me wiser now or less single-minded?

Mum and John are here to help with the girls while I am away, especially important since the teachers are on Work To Rule and the daily schedules are all wonky. Bethany isn’t quite as sad... or wasn’t until I tucked her into bed tonight. How do I explain to her that as much as I love her, I also really enjoy the time being away and “ON” like I get to be at these shows. Meeting stitchers and spending time amid so many different crafts is one of the most wonderful things about the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival. It is unlike any show I have ever attended. I get SO inspired to try crafts of all kinds... that I hope my inner batteries get a real boost.

Once I get through May 1st, I hope life will return to a more reasonable pace and I can catch up on all my e-mail. I guess the April Fool’s joke is that my website got stuck in a time warp of that weekend for the whole month!

I HATE Being A Barfy Dragon!

Yesterday was horrid. The one thing I hate most in the world is being sick to my stomach. For some reason, when I had all the morning sickness while carrying Bethany inside me and gallbladder attacks during my pregnancy with Erin, the nerve that triggers the gag reflex got out of whack. If I am sick to my stomach at all, it just keeps going and going and going.

I know to get myself right to the hospital, so once we got our girls to the neighbours for breakfast and off to school, Nick drove me right to Emergency before heading off to work. I will say this for our medical system - if you are being violently ill to your stomach, they get you off into a room rather quickly!

Since it has been over a year since my last “barfy adventure”, the standing order for Maxoran was no longer on file. It actually took two separate drugs in two sequential IVs to shut everything down and made for a very long morning in a short hospital bed.

Once I was released, I crawled into bed and pretty much stayed there until this afternoon. I stirred my own bubbles out of the glass of ginger ale... but it’s not quite the same as having your mom do it. Funny how easy it is to feel like a little kid when you are sick. The girls were actually a big help because they knew I just wasn’t up to much.

I hope I can curl up on the couch and stitch a bit tonight.

Of Floods and Stresses, Swim Badges, Pant Hems and Hamsters!

What an odd mix in the title .... I know. Coming back from vacation is always a bit stressful as you have to leave behind the carefree days of very little schedules and structure to jump back full tilt into activities, responsibilities and MOUNTAINS of laundry, but last week was so wild that I didn’t even have my computer on for 48 hours!!

We arrived home half a day later than expected, having volunteered to be bumped on an overbooked flight from Detroit to Bangor, Maine, thus earning our tickets for next year’s Spring Break, only to find a note from our cleaning ladies telling us that our basement had flooded! There had been a rain storm with high winds on ground that was still very frozen, so much of the water around the city had almost nowhere to go. They’d managed to catch the worst of it in my office and the family room with the wet/dry vacuum and set the dehumidifier running, but I still lost a few boxes of product to some water damage for stuff that had been down on the floor. I also wanted to be sure that everything was nice and dry before powering up either computer! I guess we were lucky compared to some of the people in town who actually had INCHES of water in the basement instead of just puddles, but it made coming home to reality a bit more abrupt than we wanted.

As soon as the computers were back on, I jumped right back into a huge assignment for one client with two complex layouts and way too much information to fit in them. Nick also had a week at school with the principal out on preretirement leave, but neither of the 3 Vice-Principals really in charge of more than their own section. Murphy’s Law demands that that’s when everything will go “snakey-bananas” right?? Right!

By Friday, we were all feeling tired from a week back, so we had a fun family evening to relax. Saturday morning, both girls were tested during their last swim lesson of this session and passed their levels with flying colours. Bethany completed Level 3 in the red cross series while Erin passed Level 9!

After lunch on Saturday, we took Nick off for some much needed wardrobe upgrading and found a wonderful outfit for his job interview today. He is applying for a Principalship of an elementary school here in town for next year and is both thrilled and nervous to have the interview fall on this, his birthday. The pants of the outfit needed to be hemmed right away, so we took a walk to the pet store in the same complex to see what they had.

I’ve been missing Nipper incredibly since her passing after Christmas, but we wanted to get through March Break before adding a new hamster to the household. The shop where we’d purchased Nipper had a litter of babies that were almost ready for sale, but they would be one step even more inbred than Nipper since it was two of her siblings that mated. Diabetes being so hereditary in Dwarf Hamsters, I just wasn’t willing to take that chance again. It hurts too much to say goodbye to them when they die so quickly!

We saw one little dwarf hamster in a cage all by itself (or so we thought) and asked the clerk if we could see it up close. She smiled and told us that this new batch had just arrived from the breeder and were VERY friendly! She poked the bedding and revealed a few more fast asleep, but the little one we’d been watching walked right over to her and climbed into her hand! She handed him to me and he promptly tried to climb right up my coat sleeve with nary a nip or nibble!! What a change from Nipper who certainly lived up to her name and only achieved marginal tameness at best. He clambered out of my hand to Erin’s and then back into mine, sniffing everything in sight, and we just beamed at the store clerk and yelled “SOLD!” All the way home, he kept sticking the tip of his nose out of the holes in the box to sniff the air and “wuffle” his nose about, so Wuffles he became. He is the friendliest little fur ball I have ever seen and even Nick has held him!

Welcome to our home, Wuffles!!!

Taking Time To Be...

The chaos of post Nashville has finally calmed down just a bit and everyone is on the mend from the colds, asthma attacks and general mayhem. I’ve managed to nurse everyone back to health without getting more than the sniffles.

Now, as everyone else in my family will be enjoying March Break, it is time for me to unplug from the world a bit and just take the time to be...

...time to be with my family and remember that they come first.

...time to just lose myself in the pleasure of trying out a box of new crayons in a colouring book or just drawing in my sketchbook for the sheer pleasure of it instead of to come up with ideas.

...time to catch up on sleep.

...time to laugh more with my kids.

...time to spend evenings with my husband where neither of us are batching leaflets as we chat.

...time to go out to a movie or dinner or maybe both!

...time to recharge my hug batteries.

...time to just watch the world around me go by and not fill every moment with things to do or deadlines to meet.


I think I am going to enjoy this!

Tired...But Happy!

My ears are still ringing a bit from the concert tonight. Even though it was a Monday night and a school night, it was the Kaylan Porter concert here in town! Erin’s best friend stood in line and bought our tickets when they expanded the venue since we were stuck in swimming lessons that day, so tonight was their first concert experience. It was an enjoyable show, but the seating was so tight that I finally moved back two rows to a section of empty seats where I could put my legs sideways a bit. I could see the expressions on Erin’s face as she and her friend giggled and screamed their way through the evening beside her friend’s mom and grandmother, but I wish I could have shared more of the time with her.

We came home late and I got her tucked into bed before coming down to the office to update the website. I am really proud of the sample chart for HOPE, but I am really ready to crawl into bed now that all the files have been transferred over to the site. I wonder if the snowstorm that’s supposed to barrel down on us soon will keep everyone home for a quiet day tomorrow?? I’ll wait and see...

The Struggle To Breathe...

It’s been a rough week since coming back from Nashville. I fought my own cold for a few days, then Bethany’s cold got worse and she spent a few days home with me last week. Erin started to get the sniffles and went for the follow-up visit with our family doctor to see how she was responding to her asthma medicine, then headed off to Winter Guide Camp for the weekend.

Bethany loved being an only child for almost 2 days! She kept grinning and looking around the house saying “I have Mommy and Daddy ALL to myself!” We even took her to a hockey game on Saturday night but had to leave in the middle of the second period when she started to fall asleep against us!

Erin came home from the weekend at winter camp with lots of wonderful memories and stories about tobogganing down “Death Hill”, but her cough was almost nonstop and taking her breath away. We went up to the clinic that night where the doctor on call suggested adding some bronchodilator to help her breathe better and reassured me that when anyone with asthma gets a head cold, it makes the breathing more difficult. We headed home hoping the new medicine would make breathing a bit easier.

Halfway through school on Monday, Erin had to come home. The teacher explained that she was coughing almost nonstop and seemed unable to catch her breath. She was right!! Erin could hardly move without setting off a round of chest-shaking, rattly coughs that left her winded and sore, so as soon as Nick got home to be with Bethany, we headed off to the Emergency Department after the “Tele-care” phone medical service advised us they would probably want to do a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia or bronchitis.

It was one of those nights when the waiting room at Emergency was a veritable canvas of all that can go wrong in a growing city. We knew that she wouldn’t be as high a priority as breaks or cuts, but there seemed to be an endless supply of accidents, heart attacks and other emergencies coming into the trauma side. At times, over half an hour would go by without anyone new being called down to the non-acute side. I watched the faces of other parents as they waited with sick children, knowing that their expressions of helplessness mirrored my own. It was the most horrible sound hearing her cough so hard behind the mask they’d made her put on as soon as we arrived, knowing that I couldn’t take that pain away or make it any easier to breathe. I watched the resigned look on the faces of the adults, injured or elderly, as they waited for attention that might take hours and hours to receive. It made me angry to think how hard our current Prime Minister campaigned in the last election about improving Health Care and waiting times. How can such a rich country like ours have a health care system that is falling apart at the seams?

We read, we talked, we walked, I knit and wrote in my journal. Finally, almost 5 hours after arriving, we were taken down to one of the non-acute rooms where we waited to see the doctor. Once he examined her and listened to her lungs, he ordered an aerosol mix of medicine and oxygen administered by mask to help stop the coughing spasms and then told us we’d go for the chest X-ray after the medicine. I will never forget watching the panic look in Erin’s eyes as the misty mask closed over her nose and mouth switch to relief as she was suddenly able to take deep lungfulls of air without coughing for the first time in almost 24 hours.

The chest X-ray was clear and the doctor spent a few minutes with me explaining how to modify her medications until she gets through this cold. We arrived home shortly before midnight and I tucked her into bed, glad that she’d be able to sleep better than the night before.

She’s been home with me for 2 days now and slowly getting better as the cold virus works through her system and stops making the asthma worse. It does make me glad that I can rearrange me schedule to work around what she needs... or batch orders beside her as we work on the homework they sent home from school. This will be a learning curve for all of us and I doubt that I will ever take breathing for granted again.

But I have also learned that I would trade my drawing hand, my worldly goods, almost anything short of my soul to keep either of my children from suffering... I hate not being able to “make it better”!!

There’s No Place Like Home....But Getting There Bites Without Ruby Slippers!

I’m home from Nashville and finally coherent after a day of mostly sleeping and fighting some nasty cold/flu symptoms. Quite a few of us at the show were hacking, stuffy and scratchy-eyed by the end of the weekend, so perhaps it was something with the climate system... or just that you get so tired getting ready for a show like this, you are more prone to germs.

The show was a blast! We had a great response to the Fantasy Faire pieces for 2005 and people seemed a little less shocked to see us all in full garb this year. We did make a very impressive bunch as we walked down to breakfast the first morning in everything from leather and swords to velvet and satin. As soon as I get some of the pictures from folks with digital cameras, I will try to add them to the site. The response to the new designs was great as well and I am hoping to put them up on the site by the end of the week.

Traveling back and forth to the show was NOT fun. Going out, I was just ahead of a snowstorm and the plane took off 2 hours late, so I had very little time in Toronto to get through customs and onto my next plane. Luckily it hadn’t been a tight connection or I would not have made it to Nashville!! Coming home, I ran into ice rain through Chicago and Toronto, so the flights were late and the turbulence pretty icky. I got home about an hour later than they’d scheduled. My big plastic tote on wheels was also smashed beyond repair. One handle got sheared off completely and the top lid was cracked in several places. Thank goodness the models weren’t in there since I sent them on to A Stitch In Time where we will be visiting in just over 2 weeks! We had to tape it shut in Toronto with bright Orange tape that read DEFECTIVE on it. I felt like screaming at them “You are the ones who made it that way!” but there wasn’t time to raise a fuss in TO when I had a connection to make. Nick had a good laugh as I dragged my “defective” trunk over to the counter in Moncton and filed my report.... but it WAS Valentine’s Day, so he didn’t try to tape any scraps of that to my butt. Instead, there was a lovely pair of earrings waiting for me in a little velvet box on the seat of the van and the girls took me out to dinner. We settled for something fast because I was SO tired. I was fast asleep before 10 last night and went right back to bed once I got the girls on the bus this morning.

Tomorrow, I will spend unpacking, sorting, filing and getting the site updated as quickly as possible with the new releases. Boy, it is good to be home!!!

Nashville Bound.....

Well, I am pretty much packed and ready to go. I’ll get the girls on the bus this morning and come home to check through my list one last time before heading to the airport for about 10 am. I am ahead of the snowstorm that is headed our way, but still not sure if that will make going through Toronto any trickier. We are supposed to get most of the snow late this afternoon and into tomorrow, so I am very glad to be leaving this morning.

My hair is now red with highlights to add some fun and punch to the weekend with the sword. I love changing my hair style or colour to suit my moods!!!

Regardless of how this show goes, it is fun to see fellow designers and shop owners who have grown to be friends over the years. Working “in isolation” though connected to the whole world is a bit weird for an extrovert, so it is fun to have weekends like this where I get to totally immerse myself in activity and crowds... then come home to rest and be creative again.

Time to get some girls ready for the school bus!!

Luckily I Love What I Do...

When worlds collide......... I just finished saving all of the illustration files, fonts, etc. to CD for the illustration/design job I have been working on since early December. Almost every deadline I had tried to set with this client (in order for things not to clash with Nashville) was ignored, so here I am less than 48 hours before my major trade show of the season, burning the midnight oil on something other than my own stuff.

Luckily I am pleased with how these illustrations look... but I am too tired to really do any back flips. I still have to pack tomorrow so that it won’t be another late night before I go. Yawn.... off to bed at last!!!

B is for Bethany... B is for BARF!!!

It’s the sound that every parent dreads... the sound of their child being sick in the night. I was still downstairs in the living room, around 1 am Sunday morning, signing and numbering charts for our Limited Edition design being released in Nashville when I heard that horrible sound of someone being violently ill. I raced up the stairs to discover Bethany on her hands and knees in bed wailing because she’d just barfed all over “Monster” her favourite stuffed animal!

Having been so violently ill during both pregnancies, I can totally sympathize with those gut-wrenching heaves that leave you breathless, but I also am totally paranoid about being sick myself because that reflex got so damaged it can no longer shut down on its own. Once I start, I need a drug called Maxoran to turn it off, which is only available in an IV here in Canada... so I usually let Nick do Barf Patrol.

This time, I was the one wide awake and available, so I helped Bethany get to the bathroom and began cleanup duty while she stayed near a toilet. I kept having flashbacks to how wonderful it felt to be taken care of by my mom when I was sick as a child... and they were warring with the voice in my head screaming “Oh my gosh! This is SO gross!! This has to be one of the ickiest things about being a parent now that diaper changing is over!! How did this much stuff come out of such a small tummy... Ewww! What is that??...How will I ever get Monster clean again?? What if I start barfing before Nashville?? Where is the Lysol?? Oh please let me get through this! Make it go away!!”

I finally woke Nick to get his help because we needed to clean right down to the mattress. Then I had to wake Sue in the basement to put everything in to soak. A very good friend of ours (one of my “Twisted Sisters”) stays with us overnight every second month when her kids have custody with his parents here in town. I’m not sure she signed up for that type of wake-up call when she checked in for the weekend, but we’ve seen each other through much worse!

I got our Barfy Bunny info some new jammies and back into a clean bed. There were a few tears about not having her purple teddy to snuggle with but I assured her that Monster would be all clean and fluffy by the following night. I then changed into my own jammies after scrubbing myself with antibacterial soap and tried to get to sleep.

Any Mom or Dad will know that when your child is sick, you sleep with one ear open, listening for them, so I was able to get up with Bethany the next 4 times before the waves finally stopped and my poor barfy princess was able to sleep at last. The skin on my hands was looking a little raw from all the antibacterial soap and scrubbing... so I slathered on the moisturizer and got some sleep.

It’s now Monday morning and Bethany is feeling fine. Like most flu bugs, it swept through her and was gone in less than 24 hours. I got her off to school with Erin and have started to pack for Nashville.... hoping that there won’t be a Barfy Dragon before then!!

Goodbye Nipper!

Nipper did pass away peacefully in her sleep. We woke up to check on her yesterday morning and though the soft, furry little body was still there, the spark was gone along with her life's breath.

I have just finished washing her cage pieces and taking it apart to put away until we add another little furry bundle to our lives in a few months. It was hard to do and yet wonderful closure as well. Harder yet is to see her box every time I open the freezer.

I can hear the “ewwws” right now. It will be winter here for quite a few more months and the ground is far too frozen for a proper burial. I had wanted to take Nipper’s body out to the vast woods near our house and find a little hollow beside a tree to place her in and put a nice rock over the body. She’d always tried so hard to escape while she was alive that I thought she’d appreciate being in the wide outdoors as a final escape... but the kids figured out that some of the other things in the woods might eat their beloved Nipper.

I tried to explain about the body just being a shell... I tried the “Circle of Life” kind of thing from Lion King about food chains... but instead, Nipper is now tucked in a little cardboard box, carefully shrouded in tissue, with a label to mark the box like a headstone. Erin even illustrated around my words.

I finally had to make a drawing to go with my website update because it was such good therapy to draw a dragon cradling a little hamster in her claws as she cries.

Now if I could just stop talking to the hamster that is no longer here.....

To Everything There Is A Season....

Our lives are such a tapestry of light and dark threads, weaving in and out of our life’s design. Today contained so many joys and sorrows, frustrations and blessings that it reminded me how unique and precious each collection of 24 hours truly is. It never passes this way again in quite that combination.

To everything there is a season and sometimes those seasons collide in such holy paradoxes.

...Like finding out that a colleague’s daughter had lost her battle with cancer on the same day Bethany discovered buds on some of our bushes (pretty unheard of here in the Maritimes this early)

...Like hearing some exciting news from my brother and sharing all the joys of their impending addition to the family this summer, but having to cut the call short as my daughters realized that our hamster was dying.

...Like cuddling...really cuddling a tiny, furry body in my hands with ease for the first time because she has always been so hyper and great at biting.

...Like taking such joy in working on an illustration project about such gloomy subjects like Stress, Anxiety and Depression.

... Like working on an anthem at choir tonight that had a whole section in a minor key that made the major resolve that much more beautiful at the end.

...Like hearing from another friend that she too has doubts sometimes because the stuff she creates just looks like “her stuff” to her instead of like the artwork she admires that others create.

...Like feeling far away from family today only to have my sister call with the same urge to hear a voice and feel close despite the miles. Would we have such quality talks if we were in the same city or would we each get busy with our own schedules?

Without contrasts, everything would be a dull average grey existence. Without opening our hearts to love, despite the risk of loss, we would never experience the richness or depth of feelings that we can when we are willing to take risks... to dream impossible dreams.... and to never stop reaching for those stars.

Being A Ding-A-Ling...

It was two hours that I could have used to do work tonight... but ever since they switched the hand chime practice to Monday nights, right after the girls have Junior Choir, Erin and I have joined the Belles. We played for the first time on Sunday with the full choir and it turned out so well that everyone broke into applause!!

It is fun to learn a new skill. Frustrating at times, but also incredibly joyful and fun. I did learn that I need to ring my chimes left handed. By the end of the day, my right hand is tired from drawing, mousing or stitching and I don’t want to risk any injuries.

I needed the joy of losing myself for that time tonight before I hunker down to finish this illustration assignment that has landed right amid preparations for Nashville due to the client taking Christmas to relax instead of meeting deadlines.

I almost think that we should have to try something new every season... or every year to keep us fresh and having fun. When you think of the awesome amount of information that children learn all the time, perhaps getting our older grey matter to move a bit more would keep us all younger in mind, body and spirit.

I think I like being a ding-a-ling.... though some of those who love me would say that I always have been one!

The Storms Of Life...

The winds are howling down the street again like white winter wolves. This is our third blizzard in a week with some of the coldest temperatures we’ve ever seen in between the storms. Certainly a week to make lots of soups, stay inside.

This past week has also been a stormy one in our lives. Friday morning, Nick’s stepfather had to be airlifted to Saint John to the hospital that specializes in cardiac care. Nick left work as soon as he could make arrangements and then drove his Mom down there. By the time they arrived, the hospital has performed some tests and discovered that the blockages they could see didn’t match the level of pain Jerome was experiencing, so they decided to schedule further tests rather than perform surgery. They got him fairly stable, so Nick and his Mom spent Friday night in a local hotel but then woke up to all the storm warnings about today. Since most of the tests needed to wait until Monday, Nick and his mother decided to be snowed in here with us instead of a hotel room there, so they came home late last night and were with us when the blizzard began after church. As soon as the snow stops and the roads are clear, they will head back down to Saint John.

The girls have been great, especially Erin. She is on that brink between child and young woman.... incredibly helpful and wise beyond her years one moment and then a giggly little girl then next... but she has been great to have around.

All of the snow and all of the upheaval have made me do a lot of thinking about the storms that happen in our lives. Unlike the weather radar or forecast, we can’t always know what lies around the corner in our lives. Sometimes they are things which can be prevented or foreseen, but many times they catch us unawares, like a sudden snow squall, mud slide or giant wave.

I have comforted my girls as they wrestled with the mortality of those they love for the first time in a tangible and personal way. I have learned that I can pray in my sleep because I have drifted off in the middle of one prayer only to wake up midway through another. I have rejoiced in the everyday moments of silliness that still happen in the midst of stormy times and I have continued to get ready for the show in Nashville or help with Sparks bowling tournaments and Sunday School or prod Erin to work on her big book report because Life must go on, even in the midst of what feels like total chaos.

Today in the middle of the storm, a flock of tiny birds came to perch on our Mountain Ash and eat some berries. Every time a strong gust of wind would blow one off mid much, they would flap to a different branch and peck at a few more berries. Finally they flew off as a group to seek shelter in a thicker tree, but the storm did not deter them from getting their food. They didn’t wait until it had passed, but just braved it instead to get what they wanted.

One of my favourite posters when I was younger showed a grove of birch trees in the snow and carried the words “A tree which learns to bend with the winds of a storm will not be broken or uprooted.”

I think I shall try to be a flexible tree instead of a solid one... maybe I will lose less branches that way!

Once In A While Days.... TWICE!

Monday the winter winds howled down the street and made it almost impossible to see the houses on the other side. The snow whipped sideways in a mad ballet that scoured some spots of the lawn bare and piled huge drifts elsewhere. Since school was canceled and most of the city was at a standstill, we stayed warm and cozy inside as a family. Nick and the girls treated it like the unexpected holiday it was and I puttered around getting stitching and some computer work done. I was a bit leery of the power with the high winds, so I didn’t try to do anything too essential or crucial on the computer.

Tuesday, the sun came out and the mercury plunged! The girls were heartbroken that there was all this new powdery snow but almost -30 Celsius with the wind-chill!!

Today, we woke up to hear that school was canceled because of another storm about to sweep down upon us, but though the skies looked heavy, there wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen. Our school district is the largest one in New Brunswick with over 12,000 of the 16,500 students being bused, so I am glad if they err on the side of caution. There would never be enough buses to get everyone home in a single run if the storm got bad enough to cancel midway through the school day.

Nick’s mother stayed with us overnight because her husband, Nick’s stepfather, had taken a turn for the worse at the hospital and she didn’t want to be 45 minutes from town if the storm hit or he needed her by his side. We all left the house by 9 this morning to sneak in a few errands or hospital visits and by 11:30 am the snow had begun to fall. It is now fast and furiously white again outside our windows, but the girls did get a good play with the neighbourhood friends for half an hour in the fluffy flakes and returned home totally snow covered and soggy as only kids playing in snowdrifts can get.

They are watching some of the DVDs we picked up with their hands curled around mugs of hot chocolate. Nick and his mom are upstairs too, which has given me the time to run downstairs and do a bit more on the computer. Just one chart left to get camera-ready for Nashville, then it is time to print and assemble the stock to take with me in a few weeks.

I sure hope these storms sweeping up the East Coast take a break that weekend!!!