When Hands Don’t Work.. Or I Am My Own Worst Critic...

Erin had another rough day. She seemed fine this morning and even played with her friend who also has had chicken pox this week at our house so that the other mother could have a break like I did yesterday... but then by mid-afternoon she had another painful “flare-up” and was running a low grade fever again.

I’ve been working on some illustrations, because it is easier to draw near her than be down in the basement office on the computer, yet my hands just are not cooperating today and it is VERY frustrating. This is one of those days where I can see the images so clearly in my head... yet I am just not satisfied with what is coming out on the pages before me. Drawing is like that sometimes. It’s not really a block, just a sense of regret that my hands don’t seem to be living up to the images I can see in my head. Nick always tells me I am being picky at this stage... but I can’t help it!!

It’s also been a few weeks since I have drawn on anything but graph paper... and there is no doubt that it is a transition back to pencil, pen and ink. I often think that I should find an hour each day to just draw... so that my hands will keep limber... but where do I squeeze it in?? I shall just push on and know that either the flow will be easier in the next couple of days, or I shall get an outside opinion to tell if I am being too picky or hard on myself.

But those beautiful images in my head still haunt me... sometimes it is so hard to be able to see one way and have my hands feel so clumsy trying to bring them to life. It is like trying to hold on to a shimmering soap bubble or a summer afternoon or the last hug with someone you love before they leave...

STIR CRAZY....

Erin is finally feeling better enough to drive us both crazy today. Actually, that isn’t really fair. Considering all the itchy-scratchiness she’s been through, she’s been a real trouper ...but it has been grey and rainy and cold here all week...she misses her friends and she is starting to get a bit bored. She did go across the street to play with her friend who was 12 hours behind her catching chicken pox, but they both got a bit tired and cranky.

I keep peering at Bethany in the bath at night watching for spots. It is so much harder with the second child!! With Erin, I knew she was a bit “off” on that last day home with me before Toronto, but I never imagined it would be chicken pox!! Now we know that Bethany has been exposed to them, and are truly hoping to just get this over and done with, she is getting just a wee bit tired of Mommy pulling up her shirt to see if she has any spots yet, and yet also hoping for her turn to stay home and “be sick and spoiled by Mommy”!

I’d best get Miss Erin some paper to draw on or a mug of hot chocolate... but at least I had a chance to check e-mail while she was out and can now stitch on something while she watches a movie! I’ve been trying not to do work in the evenings this week and just knit on the scarf I am making with the BOA yarn. It is much more fun and relaxing to “play” than work in the evening!

Back From Toronto To Save Super Dad... ‘Cause What Are The Odds?

I got in from Toronto late last night to a bitter wind and the sight of softly falling snowflakes as I was driven home from the airport. Nick was waiting for me eagerly... because, as those taking classes from me this weekend heard, Erin broke out with CHICKEN POX on Friday night!!! The poor thing has got a very bad case indeed and is not only covered from head to toe in the telltale red spots, she also has waves of getting huge welts and sudden almost shingle-like rashes whenever the Benadryll wears off. Yesterday morning she could hardly move her hands because they had swollen so badly, but Nick took her up to the clinic to be seen and they said to just keep doing all the things he was. I know that he’s glad to have me home to help nurse her through this, especially since Bethany may be a few days or even weeks behind, but right now doesn't understand why pestering her big sister reduces Erin to tears. Poor Nick... what are the odds that he’d have to cope with this on top of just being a single dad for the weekend?? At least that explains why she was feeling so sick on Thursday as I was getting ready to head off to Toronto!

The show was SO much fun!! I truly enjoy spending time with stitchers, seeing familiar faces and getting to know people face to face when I’ve only had a chance to talk by e-mail. I found it a bit grueling on Friday and Saturday to be teaching 2 classes each day, so I am going to be more careful next year when I submit my class proposals. I also really valued the feedback that many stitchers/students shared about what they like, what they’d like to see in the future and what keeps them passionate about needlework. While I never had the chance to meet her, I did hear about one woman at the show who had won some money in the lottery and was there to spend her winnings on things that she’d always dreamed of but never been able to justify. Sound like the ultimate stash enhancing experience and a dream come true if I ever heard it! The most incredible thing about the CSNF in Toronto is that it combines SO many different things in one show; quilting, knitting, sewing, weaving, beading, needlework, crochet, doll-making, teddy bears, soap and candle-making, scrap booking, tole painting and much more!! I simply don’t have enough lifetimes to do all the wonderful things I saw in 4 days!!

I also really enjoyed the intimacy of teaching/spending time with a limited bunch of people for a 2 hour or half day class. The camaraderie among stitchers, to be among people who share the same love of seeing rows of colours or discovering new fibres or techniques, really does recharge my creative batteries on some deep level.

Even now that I am considered a more “established” designer, I still incredibly humbled by the fact that people want to spend time with me or consider that a big deal! (I guess since I live with me 24/7, I don’t see what all the excitement is about! ) I am just another human being, more scatterbrained that some... a bit less shy and demure than others... but still just a person following a dream and working hard to make it a reality. It is I that should be thanking all the stitchers out there who stitch up the designs my crazy imagination has come up with!!

Now that I have caught up on the blog and downloaded my e-mail, I am going to take the rest of today and just spend it with my two girls... who have been down about 3 times to check on me as I write this. It is cold and grey and rainy, so I think perhaps some warm chocolate chip cookies are in order.. and tonight I will look forward to knitting with the incredibly cool BOA yarn (Nick thought it would be CONSTRICTOR colours... not fuzzy like a feather boa!) that I picked up in Toronto at the show.

Toronto Bound Until Tuesday

Today was my last day to get everything wrapped up for the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival in Toronto this weekend. The alarm is set to wake me at 4:15 so that I can get out to the airport for the first flight out. It is harder on my body to get up that early and teach all day, but much easier on my girls to have one less night of Mom not there to tuck them in.

Today was also supposed to be picture day for Erin at school. We were in the process of curling the ends of her hair under with the curling iron after bringing some of it back in a ponytail when Erin was suddenly and violently ill into the bathroom sink.... so she stayed home with me. Was it the flu making a rebound in our house or was she just very aware that Mommy was heading off and had a “nervous tummy” as Nick’s mother calls it?

I always find I am more nervous in the last 24 hours as I try to remember everything I need to do or bring. I can’t exactly run home if I forget something important!! Once I am there, I love being with people.... the extrovert in me loves being out and sharing my love of needlework. Nick calls it being “ON”, kind of like the same high you get acting in a play, but I get to be myself.

Yet it is also such a wrench when Bethany burst into tears. I had been saying good night to her when she replied “See you.... when you get back and NOT in the morning!” and then began to cry in big gut-wrenching sobs. Last year at 3 1/2, her mantra was “Mommy don’t go to ‘Ronto!”

My sister, Laurie, once gave me a wonderful book called “A Question of Balance” by Judith Pierce Rosenberg which profiled artists and writers to see how they had balanced Motherhood and the professions. It is going with me on the plane instead of a new novel to read because I remember loving it so much when she first gave it to me as I struggled to start my freelance business from home with a newborn underfoot.

I won’t be blogging until at least Tuesday afternoon... so until then, the Dragon will be keeping her musings to herself and her journal. May your dreams be inspiring!

Do I need more hours in the day... more time on task ... or just more hands?

The thing about Nick and I being the only ones in the company until Erin’s concept of straight and mine get a little closer (as in glued on straight or cut straight) is that there are just the two of us to do everything, and he already has a very demanding full time job. He is a permanent member of the “Honey can do no wrong” club for even offering to help after a full day of being a Vice-Principal... but the fact remains that big projects or shows leave me more acutely aware of the time crunch. So once Toronto is done, I need to sit down and look at my plate again... make some notes about things I could have done differently... and how to change some of the time crunch issues.

I know that it is always hard to be objective right before a big deadline like this show in Toronto... but part of the “growing pains” is also to determine if I want to grow in a particular direction. I always wanted a job that would dovetail with my family more than it would take me away from it....

Maybe this dragon needs to contemplate her navel (doesn’t that just make me giggle at the image in my head) once she gets back from Toronto!

Of Apple Orchards, Loose Teeth, Turkey Feasts and Floss Snipping...

We’ve been looking forward to yesterday for weeks.... For eight years now, we’ve been driving down the Dieppe side of the Petitcodiac River towards the Belliveau orchard to pick apples as a family. Most of the time, we’ve been accompanied by the same two sets of families and so the photos I take of each family in the orchard have chronicled our children as they grow. There have certainly been changes since that first picture of Erin as a toddler holding a juicy, red apple beneath a tree. The Tremblay clan has jumped from two to four kids with the addition of twins..and at almost seven months, we had the fun of watching them gnaw on their first apples.

The weather was just perfect! It was so warm and sunny that many people wore t-shirts... and no one brought a jacket this year, yet the fall leaves around us on the drive down where in their glory thanks to a few cool nights earlier in the week. The tractor pulled wagons led us over bumpy, winding paths into the orchard, past trees that were laden down with apples of all kinds. We bought our bags and began to fill them.. the kids taking the low branches, our friends the middle branches and of course Nick and I reaching up on our tiptoes to get all of the nice, big apples that no one else had been able to reach without a ladder. We’ve each got one built in!

All was going fine until the kids asked if they could each eat one apple, as is the tradition. Bethany took a big bite of the hard, crunchy apple and let out a howl!! She began to cry and gibber that she’d broken her tooth... so when I looked inside her mouth, sure enough, one of her baby middle teeth on the bottom was bleeding and loose. She’s going to take after me and loose her first tooth at 4 1/2 instead of after she’s 5... but since I’d never noticed that it was even getting loose, and Erin hasn’t lost a tooth in a few months, Bethany hadn’t really figured out that HER teeth would get loose someday. She thought she’d done something wrong and BROKEN it!! The hard apple probably did snap the baby tooth’s root a bit and speed up the process, but for about 10 minutes, she was inconsolable!

Finally, as each older child tried to help by explaining about THEIR loose teeth and Tooth Fairy Loot (leading to a rather over-inflated idea of what she can buy with her “monies”) we got her calmed down enough for the yearly pictures. I took everyone else’s photos first to give her blotchy face time to calm down a bit. As is the nature with kids, but the end of the car ride home, she was joyfully showing us how she could use her tongue to push that tooth forward!

Now... the only dilemma I have with this as a designer... is that the Tooth Fairy Pillow I designed for Erin (almost a year before she ever lost her first tooth since a magazine asked me to create one) has her name on it. It is also only fair that I create something new for Bethany (you just can’t have a “Hand-me-Down” with your sister’s name on it!) but what are the odds of this happening right before I leave for Toronto?? We may have to come up with something fun and temporary since I doubt that tooth will hang on until I get back. I am hoping she will lose if before I go...just to share in her milestone. I’d better design something on the plane or in my hotel room!

After the orchard, with apples, pumpkins, apple wine and fresh veggies in tow, we headed back to the home of one of our friends for a “potluck” Thanksgiving dinner. I’d cooked the turkey Friday while I was home working on the computer, so we brought it already sliced. One family looked after snacks and beverages, while the other handled veggies and amazing pumpkin pie!

I still had to bring a bit of work along... boxes of floss to snip and assemble on cards for the show in Toronto...but that was actually a fun thing to do as the big kids played downstairs, the twins rolled around on the floor at our feet and the grown-ups had a chance to talk. Nick even joked “So is this what’s it’s like to be a famous, glamorous designer?” as I sat in my jeans with piles of 18” strands of floss down one leg of my jeans (I have a nice long space from hip to knee) and the floss cards on the other leg as I looped each bundle through the cards in a half-hitch. No Martha Stewart or Debbie Travis gophers behind the scenes for me... but Nick did sit and stick needles into little bits of aida last night to help out, so I do at least have a “hunky helper”!

It was also wonderful to gather around the table...squeezing all 13 of us on chairs, stools and lap (for the twins when they got fussy) to eat the meal that we had prepared in friendship, and each come up with one thing that we were thankful for as our grace.

Today, after church, we head down the other side of the river to Nick’s Mom’s bed and breakfast for a meal with family. I know that even after the chaos of the past few weeks, I feel truly blessed and very thankful.

I am done crying over spilt milk...

I’m over the urge to put my fist through the computer or just sit in the middle of my office floor and scream... so I can write a semi-coherent blog now.

Tuesday night was a late night getting all the cow files done for Milk Maritime and I made jpgs of the files for the client before shutting down the computer and crawling off to bed. Others who had this flu warned me that there was a backlash a few days after you started feeling better, and yesterday was definitely an off day... and a hectic one with Bethany “helping” do groceries and other errands. Erin had a marvelous run at cross country practice and I had choir practice, so by the time I got home, I went right to bed intending to start fresh this morning.

This morning when I turned on the computer and went to make the three tiny final corrections to the Teacher’s newsletter files, that both the French file and the most recent English version were somehow corrupted and unable to open. Talk about feeling sick to your stomach!! I now know how stitchers who have something spill onto a piece of needlework that they have put countless hours of time into feel when they first see the ruins of their work.

I did get a few graphics friends around town with the same or newer versions of the program to see if they could open the files, but alas... no luck. All my other files are fine and the Parent Newsletter built in a separate program is fine, but the task of recreating and re-typesetting the French version (and bringing the older English version in line with the newer one will have to take up the whole night. Final electronic proofs have to be sent off to Fredericton for government approval tomorrow morning no matter what.

I love the lamentations in the Psalms... because the writer goes ahead and rants to God at the beginning... WHY did this have to happen?? WHY me?? WHY now!! WHAT are the odds and why couldn’t they have been the lottery type instead of the unlucky type.... but like the psalmist by the end of the passage, I can only think of what I DO have...

The files will build faster the second time around....

Nick has been an angel helping with the kids and giving up a night at the gym for his workout so that I have extra time on the computer....

Only the files are toast, not my computer....

Nobody got hurt....

I live in a country of more than plenty....

I can’t wait to teach my classes in Toronto...

“I complained I had no shoes... until I met someone who had no feet....”

Sometimes you just can’t cry over spilled milk. You just do what needs to be done and count the blessings that you do have!

Two steps forward... one step back...

Another nice, quiet Monday morning.. and yet I seem to have so little energy. Perhaps a rebound from the flu that hit our house last week, perhaps a reaction to so much elephant left to eat... but I feel about as sharp as a sack of wet mice!

I slogged away on the corrections to the English Teacher’s newsletter and got all of the French translations in place except one recipe which they forgot to send the French version of... but then the English layout got all moved around about 3 pm this afternoon! I could have just screamed! Now I have to try to compare the French version and figure out which paragraphs to move where... so it is a darned good thing that I can speak both languages to make heads or tails of what I am doing! It would have been SO much easier if they could have gotten the English version to EXACTLY what they wanted and THEN sent if for translation!!!

This morning Bethany asked about next Monday (which is Thanksgiving Monday here in Canada). She knows that she won’t have to go to daycare and that Erin and Nick won’t have to go to school... but then she looks up at me with those big blue eyes and says “can you take a break from your computer too, Mommy?” Ouch! Out of the mouth of babes!

I told her that I would try to have a whole family lazy day... but with leaving for Toronto on the 17th... and all these changes to Milk stuff that should have been wrapped up two weeks ago if the information had been on time may make for some late nights!

This will give me one more twisted grin to make when someone says “Oh... you must love having so much control over your own time working from home!!”

Of Rummage Sales and Fall Delights...

I had forgotten just how much fun a rummage sale could be when you are a child! As adults, we tend to love the bargains that are available, as well as the possibilities of finding treasures in someone else’s junk... but we tend to look things over with a critical eye. Erin and Bethany were in their element at our church rummage sale... poking through the piles with a five dollar bill clutched tightly in their fists.

Bethany found a giant ziplock bag of assorted plastic farm animals and equipment (though there was also a hippo, a cactus, a palm tree, a stop light, two construction workers and a few road signs... so that sounds like a pretty neat farm to me!) Erin had seen a small plush kitten last Sunday in the piles of stuff waiting to be sorted for the rummage sale. When I brought my own boxes of stuff in to donate (does it ever feel good to clean out some closets!) and told them that Erin had her eye on that kitten, the plush toy disappeared into the kitchen to keep it safe for her. Erin also found a rose pin and a small wooden chest with 3 drawers that is also a music box... and her eyes just shone as she brought everything to the cash. Bethany has still not grasped the concept of how much “monnies” really are, but Erin was just thrilled when the lady at the cash told her that the prices of things depended on your age!! She charged a dollar and a quarter for all of Erin’s treasures and so Erin was thrilled with the amount of change she was able to keep.... then she turned to Nick and I and announced “Well, you’ll have to pay a lot more because you are both so OLD!” (Hmmmmph!)

After all our workouts, swimming lessons and gymnastics this morning, we got the laundry on the line in the crisp fall breeze and I made myself a big mug of tea to stave off the urge to have a LONG afternoon nap. I have finished all of the English layouts for the School Milk pieces and the teacher’s newsletter, but it was time to squash and squeeze all of the French translations into place. While the basic layout remains the same, you often have to really play with the type sizes and move things around to get the longer sentences to fit in the same amount of space and still look nice.

Erin has been studying apples in her French Immersion class and had a recipe for microwaved apples to make, so I tried to find that fine line between letting her do it all and helping her learn how to do stuff like cream margarine and brown sugar together without sending the sugar everywhere. I must call my Mom tonight and thank her for all her patience in teaching ME how to cook.

Now that the girls are down for the night, it is time to assemble the 300 chartpacks, whose covers printed out in batches on the other computer while I worked on the Milk stuff this afternoon, while we watch a DVD.

On the Mend...

Our family is on the mend at last.. though I am still VERY tired. Nick went back to work today having spent most of yesterday sleeping or taking it easy like I tried to do. It is a struggle... when you know there are things that are supposed to get done and you just don’t have the strength to do them. Today, I feel at least 75 percent back to being myself, but I can tell it will still be an early night... and my shortest blog yet.

I Can’t Even Have the FLU in Peace...

I know why I felt so awful trying to work last night. This morning I woke up feeling like dog’s chew toy that has been shaken a bit too hard. Luckily, though I feel pretty queasy and have little or no interest in food, I haven’t been sick to my tummy. That would mean a trip to the hospital and several hours on an IV with a drug called Maxoran. One of the leftovers from gallbladder attacks during my pregnancy with Erin and over 6 months of medicated morning sickness with Bethany, is that my stomach can’t stop once it starts being sick- that nerve that acts as the OFF switch is just not working properly.

Erin has been fighting an ear infection and Bethany a sinus infection, so I kept them both home to give the antibiotics time to kick in. They were angels about playing as quietly as they could at 8 and 4 while I grabbed a few more hours of sleep once Nick got off to work... but then he called at lunch time to say that he felt about 12 hours behind me and was coming home!

So the cave is full of sooky feeling dragons and this is about all I have the strength to blog right now. Thank goodness this is hitting now, even if it is in the middle of cows and kitting for CSNF... I’d hate to have something like this hit when I had to be traveling or away from home!

It could be worse.... I could be sick in Halifax where they still have no power after Hurricane Juan!!

Up To My Armpits in Cows and Eating Elephants...

I forget where I first heard the expression “Eat your elephant one bite at a time”... but being a visual person, I loved the idea that something so huge could be tackled one little bit at a time. Notice that it doesn’t say “in one sitting”. With our deadline conscious world and frantic pace, it is often easy to think that we must accomplish everything on our “to do” list each day... then we beat ourselves up if we don’t get through it all!

I am up to my armpits in cows... but luckily not cow patties. A few years ago, I was one of a few artists to submit a mascot for the Elementary School Milk program that the Dairy Farmers of Canada - Maritimes promotes throughout the schools. My “pikacow” (I told them that short, cute and pudgy à la Pokémon style was in...) called Moo-Moo got the best reviews from the panel of test kids and I have been drawing cows for school posters and newsletters ever since. Due to some TV campaigns and other marketing things this year, the information was a bit late coming my way, but we still have press deadlines to meet... so the cows and I have been spending more quality time together than I would like on evenings and weekends. The English layouts are now completed and waiting to be proofed and approved. Once the translations are complete, I just have to take the same layouts and squeeze the French text into the appropriate places. French is usually longer, so you have to play with the spacing a bit... but essentially, once the layout and design is done, creating the French version is relatively easy.

So I feel as if my elephant is getting eaten.. but with the CSNF show in Toronto just 19 days away, the two projects have overlapped WAY closer than I’ve liked!! The only wonderful things is that, in the middle of the chaos, I am able to go outside and hang a load of laundry or save a brown and black fuzzy caterpillar from being sunburned on our deck or look out at the sweep of trees finally changing colours in the park at the end of the street. Remembering to take those pauses... those moments between bites... is SO essential -
otherwise you choke!

Explaining Needlework to Strangers....

Well, Hurricane Juan walloped Halifax, but Moncton got off with only a bit of rain and wind. The storm tracked further East than expected, for which we are grateful, especially as we watch news footage of the stately trees in Halifax that have toppled onto houses and cars.

I had some time to sit today in a waiting room to get my blood pressure checked (I’d been feeling a little off, but the doctor thinks it might just be the start of a flu because everything checked out OK) and took out some Illustrative Blackwork to stitch on. It is quite funny to watch how people try to look at what you are doing without it being obvious that they are trying to look. Finally, one of the ladies spoke up. “That’s not cross stitch is it... there’s no colour!”

I began to explain about how it worked and suddenly the woman’s face light up. “It’s all backstitch!” she smiled. “I like that effect!”

We are such a more insular society these days... far fewer quilting bees and community gatherings where people would bring out their whittling, knitting, piecework or needlework. There are far fewer opportunities for people to see others doing something that they enjoy outside the sanctuary of their own home.

I think I will make a point of always taking some needlework along with me to meetings or to wait at sports meets now that Erin is getting into stuff at school. Who knows how many people may ask me what I am doing with those pieces of string!

There’s A Hurricane A Comin’...

Juan is on its way to the Maritimes tonight... and even though we know it won’t be anything like what Virginia and other states experienced with Isabelle, we are still battening down the hatches and putting the lawn furniture in the shed.

Today I could tell from the way my kids behaved that there was something afoot barometrically.... when I owned cats, I always knew when there was a storm coming because they would get the “kitty wilds”.

The winds of a storm can be both a wonderful and terrifying thing. I remember the summer we visited my mom and stepfather in Sherbrooke during a “micro-burst” that ripped huge trees out by their roots, demolished buildings and knocked out the power for several days. (back when I depended on that Barney video to give me one half an hour sanity break now and then...)

Storms, both weather related and the kind that happen in our daily lives, are often something that we’d prefer not to experience... but we cannot always control where and when and to whom they may happen. I still remember a poster that was on my wall throughout University: “Faith can either calm the storm or give you the strength to endure it.”
This has been said many ways and probably in many faiths... but I know that tonight if the winds pick up and wake me from my slumber, I will think about this until the winds die down and the storm has passed.

Floss Patters Anonymous

The new colours of Waterlilies Silks arrived from Caron Collection yesterday, along with the specialty silks that I bought to go in the kits I am making up for the CSNF in Toronto next month. I just had to run them over to our local shop and spread them out on the counter... because very few people would understand the incredible urge to fondle and drool over small skeins of “string”. Just looking at some of the colours actually made me want to design something so that I could use them. One new colour just begs to be the tummy scales on a baby dragon... another is just perfect for something dark and mysterious like the inner wings of a dragon perched on some cliff looking down at her pile of treasure.... and some of them just make me want to pick them up at pat them like there are little tribbles. (any others out there who were kids during the airing of the original Star Trek episodes who wished they could have tribbles of their own?? My mom found me a bit of fur off an old coat or muff... but it wasn’t the same!)

Now the rational part of my brain understands that handling these fibres with dirty oily hands or even hands that are chapped and rough will do damage to the delicate silk fibres... but I just want to make a pile of them and pat them all... or rub them against a cheek to feel how soft they are...

Ok.... I’ll behave. But I never had the urge to do this with watercolour paints. Stitching is such a wonderful tactile medium!!

Knowing What You Want To Be When You Grow Up

I was reminded today, in conversation with a neighbour, just how early in my life I decided to “make pictures” for a living. I was 11 when I won a contest sponsored by Jack and Jill magazine and got to travel down to Indianapolis, Indiana from Montreal to visit the Saturday Evening Post Publishing Company with the 4 other illustrators and 5 young writers who had also won. The part of that whirlwind 4 days that I remember most was walking into a room where 2 grown men were planning out the order in which the drawings should appear for a colouring book. It was like being struck by lightning between the eyes. The light bulb went off... “Grown-ups can DRAW for their JOBS!!”

In some ways, it was very hard to know so early on what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure how or where or when I would accomplish that. I certainly never dreamed that the magic and sparkle of needlework would captivate me when it did. I wasn’t sure that my dream could come true living in a smaller city like Moncton compared to Montreal or Toronto....

My neighbour said, with a somewhat wistful smile, “You are so lucky to be able to do something you love!!”

I smiled back as I headed in from hanging the laundry and back to the computer to slog away at this huge graphics project that has consumed so many hours of this week. “This has more to do with hard work that Luck!” I muttered to myself as I began to mouse and click... but then I stopped and a slow smile spread across my face. She had been right about how fortunate I was to be doing something that I loved, even if it was grueling.

I think that sometimes it is a lot like being a parent.... It requires more work that others may ever understand when they look in from the outside.. but one sudden hug or “I LOVE YOU” makes all the work worthwhile.

Captivated By Limited Colours...

It’s funny how Art imitates Life... actually the parallel today was more between my graphic design work and my current fascination with Illustrative Blackwork. I have been working on a few projects for the Dairy Farmers of Canada-Maritimes. The newsletter for Elementary Teachers is designed to be printed in only two colours- a blue and black (I didn’t want to say black and blue because I always think of those “black and blue and red all over” jokes that I used to tell and that Erin finds so hilarious now... but I still said it!) Working with a limited colour palette really makes you pay attention to shade and tone as well as how you can combine just a few colours to create more. I had the pleasure of seeing the client’s reaction to the first proofs as well which made the VERY late night last night feel a bit more bearable.

Then there is the Illustrative Blackwork. I blame it all on Linn Skinner for starting the addiction by showing me her incredibly lovely work in Nashville almost 3 years ago.. and to the nimble fingers and amazing talent of Leon Conrad for keeping me fascinated with how much can actually be accomplished using tone and pattern and density in a single colour.

With the changes in technology, it is easier than ever to produce full colour illustrations and brochures and images at a fraction of the cost. Moving fonts and images around today with a client seated at my elbow made me very glad that I am designing in THIS age instead of when mockups were drawn by hand and a single colour or word change meant a whole new drawing. Yet I also thin of some of those older children’s books that did SO much with just a few spot colours and I marvel at the Mastery involved.

Isn’t it interesting that sometimes putting limits on something actually inspires us to be more creative... I shall ponder that one as I head off to bed... perchance to dream. Will I dream in just a few colours or patterns tonight??

Caught in the Whirlwind

There really is no other way to describe it. A whirlwind.. a supernova.. a tiger by the tail... a dragon perched on your shoulder with claws slightly dug into your skin... an ultimate rapture of creativity that almost transcends time....

Sometimes... on those very rare and special moments, a design springs forth in this kind of maelstrom and completely seizes me. It is as if I cannot stop until it has been brought fully into this world from the intangible swirl of the imaginary and anchored into the preciseness of the grid-lined paper before me. I have read about writers who have the characters in their stories take them to places that they never expected to go... and I think that during from very brief moments of my life, I have understood what they are trying to share.

The funniest thing is, although the very act of creating (or is it just helping to birth?) such a design is always an unforgettable high, it is in no way a guarantee that this new design will be any better a seller from a commercial point of view. Some designs that have taken a long time to perfect and craft can sell as well as designs which come in a creative fury. There is certainly a satisfaction in both ways of designing...as different as the two experiences are. Perhaps it is like relationships. Some friendships take time to grow and other times you sense an incredible connection with another “kindred spirit” within minutes of meeting them. Either way of designing brings me joy... but there is a certain regrettable sweetness to stepping back from the page or computer screen once the storm has calmed and the whirlwind died... to look at the page and know that this is how that design was “meant to be”. Moments like that sustain me through so much of the everyday business and busyness that may come with being a designer and business person.

Back into the FULL swing of things!!

Yikes! No wonder today’s blog is so late... the after school and evening activities are in full swing and I am not sure if I am a designer, mom or taxi driver!! Nick and I have been doing aerobics together every Monday night for the past 3 years together... but as our baby-sitters grew up and developed lives in the later years of high school, we were down to one wonderful set of sisters who lived much closer to the Gym than to our home. It somehow seemed wasteful on gas to drive all the way there, pick up the sitter, drive her home to be with our girls, both jump in the car to head down to one hour of aerobics, drive home, one of us drive all the way back down there to drop off the baby-sitter at her house and then return to our house for the night. For the past 3 weeks, we have tried taking the girls along with us and having the baby-sitter spend time with them there in the family lounge.. but 8:30 is just a little too late for Bethany to handle and still function properly the next morning at 6:20 am. So, we’ve decided to spell each other and take turns with that workout while the other one will go Sunday night.

Tonight was Erin’s first Brownie meeting for the year. Her group almost folded for lack of leaders since one was transferred to Halifax and the other got married and went back to school. One of our best friends volunteered to be the Brown Owl to keep the 8 girls from heading off to other troops on other nights. I got a few of those “you used to be a Guide” looks and comments from some of the organizers... but I just don’t have the hours to squeeze that in!

Tomorrow night Nick has to be at school late for Home and School elections, then Thursday night is the Meet the Teacher (Meet the Creature as Nick calls it) night at Erin’s school... so we will take turns covering home base while the other is out.

With the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival now less than a month away and some very big graphics project on my plate right now, (I even have to voice some demo radio commercials tomorrow with Bethany in tow!) I just have to hunker down and concentrate on family and work... but I know how many other parents out there are feeling as frayed and frazzled at some of the schedules we make ourselves keep. No wonder we long for the lazy days of Summer!

Erin was actually asking about other activities to get into when the Cross Country Running is done and I very firmly said “NO”! Kids need to have downtime. Adults need to have downtime and balance... and that is about all that I will write on the matter for tonight so that I can get to bed at a reasonable hour myself tonight. I wish that I could really just flap my dragon wings to get places quickly... wouldn't that be cool??

Tell Me Why.... I DO Like Mondays...

As someone who went my tweens and teens in the late 70s and early 80s, I remember that catchy song “Tell me why I don’t like Mondays” that had such wonderful music with such sad lyrics about shooting the whole world down.

I actually quite like the silence of Mondays, especially the morning. Not that the alarm going off in the dark now at about 6:10 doesn’t feel jarring compared to the blissful sleep in of Sunday mornings (it is amazing how luxurious it feels to sleep in until 8:30!) Nick and Bethany head out the door around 7:20 and I walk Erin up to the bus for 7:50. Right now the walk home is crisp but still pleasant and I return to an empty, quiet house to make myself a mug of tea and get the day underway.

Even on weeks such as this, when there seem to be far to many projects to handle than the hours will allow, there is a certain serenity to getting my day and week underway. I take the first half and hour, with my claws wrapped around a warm mug of tea, to set our my priorities... and then dive in to many tasks at once. I have checked e-mail for the morning and as I write my blog on one computer, the second is printing out covers for an order to the UK which needs to ship out tomorrow. The first load of wash is finished and I will take a stretch to get that on the line before coming back down to invoice a client for a translation job I wrapped up on the weekend. Once that is done, I have 3 projects on my plate for our local Milk Marketing board. I draw Moo-Moo the cow and am doing the graphic design work for the teacher’s newsletter, the parent piece which goes home to the kids and the poster to promote a new nutritional program for middle school students. Of course there are also the kits to get ready for the CSNF in Toronto in just under 4 weeks and a new design for a hard cover book that I have been invited to submit a design for...plus a few other projects I have my tail and claws into.

Mondays also hold that “clean slate” feel to them for me, because you just never know what fun the week will hold and right now it is all about possibilities... including the very real possibility that it is time to stop musing and get my dragon butt in gear!