A Master's Piece

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

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

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


A Master’s Piece by Jennifer Aikman-Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Thanks Be To God!

When The Going Gets Tough... The Tough Visit Their Moms!

We arrived safely at my Mom’s yesterday afternoon and tonight is Christmas Dinner part 2, complete with gift exchange etc. My two girls are in the midst of Nanny spoilage, cuddles and hugs while Nick and I are rediscovering the joys of just being able to go off by ourselves for a walk, a chat or an errand! We walked for 45 minutes this morning even though it was INCREDIBLY cold and slippery.

Being up at my Mom’s is a wonderful blend of escapism and being a child again. I was starting to feel like one of those perpetually tired and grumpy adults that I remember observing covertly as a child and wondering why they never seemed to have any fun. Here I can rediscover the fun of hunting for the right puzzle piece, singing around the piano or curling up with a good book and not be worried about schedules, deadlines etc. It is better than sitting at home staring at my eMac and having a continual pity party.

Now it is time to recharge my batteries a tiny bit and look ahead to the New Year so that I can set some new goals, challenges etc. I love this time of year and the promise that it holds. Only when we dare to dream really big dreams and reach way beyond ourselves to we break out of our comfort zones. If I dream big and don’t quite make it, at least I got farther than I would have if I only dared to take baby steps.

What would one of your impossible, crazy dreams be??

Am I the Glitch?
Honestly… despite all the wonderful e-mails and warm fuzzy thoughts from everyone, I continue to slide from the ridiculous to the insane… Nick braved the insane Boxing Week Sale crowds to return the iPod transmitter to the store where he bought it and came home with a new one. We loaded up the van, got the hamster ready to be dropped off at the neighbours, hooked up the iPod and discovered that it had been wiped clean!

Yes, apparently while updating the iPod last night with the eMac, it decided that I didn’t have permission to have the music purchased from the iTunes store on a computer that now thinks it is a new machine (for iTunes, Quark, Photoshop etc.) because of the new logic board. Without an internet connection to authenticate said programs and purchases, it triggers all kinds of error messages. So Nick and the girls ran the hamster up to my friend’s house while I sat there are reloaded all 757 songs from my music library onto the iPod. Then we could set off at last.
Sigh!

The good news is that the motel tonight has free wireless internet and as I much a few baby goldfish crackers, I can blog about my continuing adventures. The new transmitter did work like a charm for the whole trip today. Yay!!!

Ok… this is getting just a wee bit ridiculous now! We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas as a family and are getting ready to head to see my Mom tomorrow, but this little technology glitch that seems to have moved into our house is taking things a bit too far.

Nick bought me an FM transmitter for the iPod since our other one got stolen out of the van last summer. This one is really cool and fits in the cup holder of the van, but when we tried to test it out on the way to Nick’s mother’s house last night, we discovered that there is some kind of short in the power cord or the base! It will only turn on for a few seconds and only stay on if I lean over and hold it in position. Somehow, I just don’t think that I can do that all the way to my Mom’s place! So we might stop in at the store where he got it on the way out of the city tomorrow if the Boxing Week sale shoppers aren’t too numerous. Because New Brunswick stores have to be closed today (unless you are a drugstore) the crazy sales are all tomorrow.

If yesterday was all about family, both near and far, today was all about just getting stuff sorted and put away, organized and chilling as a family. Everyone slept in for once and Bethany even tidied her desk to have room to put some new things away! That was a Christmas Miracle in itself. We had some friends over for godson/goddaughter gift exchange stuff and packed, but the rest of the day was just spent at a truly relaxed pace. The weather outside was pretty messy since the snow they called for actually came as snow, sleet and rain, so we were happy just to stay put. Friends of ours had to drive up North where they were calling for a snowstorm but they headed off anyway.

It still feels weird to be blogging on Nick’s laptop, but I am getting used to the feel of the keys. I hope everyone celebrating yesterday had a wonderful time. Now it is time to look forward to the closing of one year and the dawning of another. This is one of my favourite times of the year because I love setting goals and the new beginnings that such a milestone offers. What is on your goal list for the coming year?

This Is Just Crazy!!

If it weren’t sliding so far into the absurd, I would probably be curled up in a corner having a pity party somewhere!

I was SO ready to yell in joy to the whole world that there was indeed a Santa Claus!! I got a call late yesterday afternoon that the logic board had come in and that my computer was ready to come home! I took a whole plate of Christmas cookies over to the computer shop as a thank you and was absolutely giddy until I got home and plugged the eMac in. Everything turned on perfectly, but it was absolutely unable to connect to the Internet! I called Aliant (our internet provider) for help and they walked me though everything, but had no explanation for why it wasn’t working other than it could be a hardware issue! By this time of night it was too late to do anything else or take the machine back to the store, so I stomped up to bed.

This morning, I decided to see if the problem was with Safari or with all of the web browsers on the machine, so I snuck down to the office as soon as I woke up and turned on both machines. It was then that I discovered that I no longer had ANY internet connection on EITHER machine. No email, no FTP access, no web browsers of any type at ALL!!

Trying not to panic, I called the help line at Aliant and they tried to help me check the modem that they provided to us. It began to look as if the ADSL was not registering at all on the modem, no matter how many times we unplugged it, counted to 20 and plugged everything back in. So, the helpful person on the other end suggested that I try the power supply and phone line parts of the modem in another phone jack elsewhere in the house. As I was cutting the zip ties to release those cords from the bundle of wires at the back of my machine, I accidentally cut through the modem’s power cord!! This sent us out to find a replacement cord from one of the Aliant service centers around the city on one of the busiest shopping mornings of the entire year…

Since the computer store is right near Zellers, we went in to see just what was on sale for the special early bird event… and I thought I would faint! First, let me set the scene properly. Way back in late October, Bethany and I were checking the Littlest Pet Shop website and she discovered that there was a Chinchilla Littlest Pet that had the cutest face she’d ever seen. We’d never seen that one around here so we checked the Hasbro site and discovered that it was unavailable. The hunt began and I was finally able to find the Chinchilla and Ferret as a pair on ebay (listed as VERY RARE) and won the bid for roughly 2.5 times what these little plastic toys sell for in the store… but that was what Bethany had put on her list to Santa, so I felt it was worth the price for a little Santa Magic. After a communication snafu, the items finally arrived at my stepfather’s US mailbox late last week! My Mom mailed them off to me via Priority Courier and they arrived late Wednesday. I was smug that Santa’s reputation was saved for another year for my youngest who still believes with all her heart…

So here we are in Zellers in the toy department where a new shipment of Littlest Pet shop toys have been brought out just in time for last minute Christmas shopping and I find myself looking at over 20 of the little Chinchillas, all smiling at me with their $4.97 price tag. If I could have screamed I would have. Bethany immediately went into acquisition mode and begged for one in case Santa couldn’t find it for her! I was able to calm her down and reassure her that Santa would come through for her and that she needed to wait until Christmas morning to see for herself. AAAAAaaaaaargh!

We brought the new power cord home, hooked everything up and tested the modem out in a new phone jack. No solid ADSL light. Finally, after testing quite a few configurations and possibilities, the nice helper at Aliant decided that we needed to have a technician come to our house and check everything out… but the earliest day said techie can come is the day we leave to visit my Mom!

So, I couldn’t even set up the little surprise that I’d planned for stitchers to tide them over. A friend DID help me get a newsletter update up this afternoon with his FTP and my passwords, but now that I’ve checked the site, I see that two files are still missing… so maybe I can be a total pest and get those files up to him on a CD tomorrow afternoon between the morning and evening church services so that he could send them over.

I can still blog though Nick’s computer and I will be able to do the same from my Mother-in-law’s and my Mom’s, but I will be basically blind and deaf on the Internet until January 5th at the very earliest.

That’s just the way the cookies crumble. As I said at the beginning of this blog entry, it has become such an absurd adventure that I can only try to laugh or groan. At least I’ll be able to spend time with my family guilt-free because there isn’t anything I can do to fix this over the holidays!

Lights In The Darkness...

It is amazing how just when things seem darkest, there are lights to remind you that all is not lost. A little stuffed elephant arrived in my mailbox with twinkly stars on the fabric that lines its fuzzy ears (thanks a million Erin!), a stitcher called from Toronto to see if I wanted the phone numbers of the Mac shops there who might have parts kicking around, a friend called out of the blue to say that she’d been sending happy thoughts my way because I’d been on her mind, I got lots of sympathetic and understanding e-mails about the delay in getting the Morning and Evening Dragons on-line... and after I came home from running an enrichment afternoon at Nick’s school there was a message on my machine from the contact person at Apple Canada telling me that my logic board part shipped out today!!!

Of course, with the holidays this weekend, it might not get here quite as quickly or get repaired in time for Christmas Eve, but I think I have an alternate plan in the works so that I can still get a tiny gift ready for stitchers to enjoy from the newsletter thanks to a few helpful elves!!

Upstairs as I write this, 140 cookies are drying after being iced with all kinds of colours. As soon as the Royal Icing is hard enough to package, they will be assembled into baskets, boxes and mugs for teachers, bus drivers, neighbours etc. When the dragon can’t be on her computer... she bakes! Actually, I do it in batches every weekend in advent and feed the freezer then take everything out the night before to ice/decorate. The only bad thing about being stressed and having baking around is the incredible temptation to eat it all!!!

So.... tomorrow is the last day of school for the girls. I am having a craft session at our house Friday morning with my girls and 4 neighbours kids who have chosen not to go to school for the 2 1/2 hours that it is open on Friday morning. It should be a half day, but because of the bus schedule, our kids would arrive at school at 8:15 and leave again at 10:30... which seems really silly to me. We’ll just take in all the teacher presents tomorrow and get them out of the way so that we can relax a bit Friday until their teacher parents come to our house and the real unwinding begins!!

If nothing else, these past few weeks have taught me that you need to be persistent and firm when trying to get an answer to a problem, to laugh when you feel like crying, to remember that there are always lots of other people who would still trade places with you in a heartbeat, that there are still many wonderful moments of light and hope amid the chaos... and that the true magic of this season is that it can work miracles through people all around you!

Someone Wake Me Up From This!!!!!

I guess the best news is that Erin was not barfy because of the flu, but rather a reaction to the increased asthma medicine to get her under control while she has this bad cold. She went off to school today sounding a bit better, even though getting up out of bed produced the same dizzies and gagging... she was fine after breakfast.

The nightmare is really with my eMac and I am reaching the end of what little rope I have left. What happens when the going gets tough? The tough get twisted....

‘Twas the week before Christmas
And all through the house,
A dragon was moping
And clutching her mouse...

(To the Tune of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”)

All I want for Christmas is my eMac please... my eMac please... MY eMAC PLEASE!!!!

(To the Tune of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”)

Please be FIXED by Christmas
Stitchers are counting on me!
They don’t want snow or mistletoe
Just dragons under their tree (or to stitch!)

After almost a month with a computer acting wonky and a week with NO graphics computer at all, I am getting just a little bit grumpy and panicky. I called the shop today and they told me that they still had no idea when that part would be shipping, so I spent almost 40 minutes on the phone with Apple Canada trying not to beg, plead, whine, cry, yell, use vulgar language or rant in order to get to the bottom of what is going on.

If the part is out there somewhere, find one and tell me WHEN I will have it. If there is a real problem getting said part and my 2 year old computer that is still under warranty (the store sold me THEIR extended warranty plan instead of the Apple one which I will never EVER do again!) then be honest with me and I will somehow find a way to buy a new one. I cannot survive without a Mac as a graphic designer and I have work to do for clients in the New Year as well as my own stuff.

I WANT MY MAC BACK!!!!!!!!! (dragon taking a deep breath so as not to melt the only working computer in her office into yet another heap of useless plastic)

I am REALLY sorry that everyone is having to wait for all the fun goodies stuck in the main computer. I should know in 48 hours whether that part can be found so until then I will just cross my fingers and toes.

At least I’m not looking at the flu sweeping through the house for Christmas!!!

Surviving...

Watching the final episode of Survivor and Reunion Show last night while batching up a Hoffman order, I was struck by several comments that players made about the primal nature of their experience. Becky, a lawyer, commented that when she’d first arrived on the island, she’d spent most of her time asking other players what time they thought it was. Her life was so defined by her watch and schedule that she had a hard time letting go of that structure. Ozzie pointed out what a primal experience just focussing on survival had been. He was right that only a few thousand years ago, even a few hundred years ago, most of us spent a good part of each day just trying to survive.

In our climate controlled, consumer driven North American society, as the mad rush of last shopping days until Christmas whirls around us, it is very hard to remember that there are corners of our planet and even our cities where the struggle to survive still rages on.

I read the girls one of our Christmas books before bed, about Laura and Mary Ingalls in the Little House on the Prairie. It was about the year that Santa couldn’t cross the rain swollen creek but Mr. Edwards still managed to deliver presents on Santa’s behalf. My kids were entranced by the story, but a little baffled at the joy Laura and Mary felt at receiving a tin cup, a stick of candy, a little baked cake and a shiny penny each. When I explained that people didn’t have as many things back then or as much money, Erin got very thoughtful but Bethany was still baffled at the lack of toys. It is amazing how much STUFF our children end up to play with that gets thrown in drawers or cupboards because they get BORED... I wonder if they ever realize how lucky they truly are to have that problem!

We got through the Christmas pageant, Erin’s solo in church, the two Christmas parties this weekend... all of which were joyful and wonderful and totally draining. I came home and just crashed for an hour’s nap after which I felt human again, but Nick and I are still feeling very drained. Everyone is just counting the days until the break...although I think much of my countdown still has to do with when I get my main computer back.

Would I ever be able to unplug completely? Like Ozzie, I think I carry a lot of skills that would certainly enable me to survive if thrown into a challenge like that (for real not for the cameras). I can cook well, swim well, sew, make things, invent stories, build good fires, weave, lash things together thanks to many summers of guide camp or fort building and I know quite a bit about First Aid. Would I choose to live like that instead of in comfort? I guess that depends on the day. While I can’t see anyone on this planet truly choosing cold and hardship over a comfy bed, regular meals, indoor plumbing and chocolate, there is that little voice inside most of us that longs for something simpler than the mad race to collect stuff, earn money, get to appointments, stay thin, be successful etc. These past few weeks with a wonky computer have taught me to go with the flow more instead of trying to control everything and plan it out. It has made me look more closely at the vulnerability of what I have chosen to do as a career and considering a back-up plan, especially as Bethany starts Grade 3 next year and has a longer school day.

This morning, things have been turned on their head yet again. Nick took the van in early to fix the damage from a little mishap in the parking lot of the video store two weeks ago and Bethany went up to the bus stop with a neighbour because Erin woke up and started being violently sick to her stomach. The flu / Norwalk virus has been going through schools in the area and has hit quite a few families that we know. I don’t know if this is what she has yet (because she’s been fighting more of a cold and cough) but it was instant quarantine to her room and LOTS of hand washing for me. I don’t handle barfies well and am very prone to rapid dehydration myself... so I am going to be VERY, VERY careful.

As I look about this week and think of all the ways in which I am NOT fighting for survival on a daily basis, I will remember to be thankful.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

Morning Dragon Stuck In The Shop On My Sick Computer!

I’m ready to climb the walls!!! My computer is back in the shop until the logic board arrives because they needed to recheck the serial number for the part (they’d ordered the wrong one and were told there over a MONTH wait or longer....) and I am NOT playing lug the computer back and forth any more!

Luckily, I found out about the mix up when I called Apple Canada to find out why the part would take so long... but my model is the one that uses the logic board that Apple DOES have in stock and by next Friday, all should be well... (dare I even cross my fingers?)

The new .pdf for the Morning Dragon chart is still stuck in the eMac at the shop, however, so tomorrow all these stitchers who read my newsletter are going to come wandering over to find a chart that isn’t there!! I can’t even put up a temporary page to let them know!

Sigh! As a graphic designer, having a working computer is as essential to me as breathing and eating chocolate.. a daily necessity! My stomach dropped to my toes when the computer tech said that it could be over a month to get the logic board (wrong model) he’d ordered. The only place in New Brunswick that rents Macs is over 2 hours away!!

Sometimes I miss living in a city like Montreal or Toronto where I can get around by bus or get my claws on some things in a pinch because there is a much bigger market, but I know that if we lived in a city that size, I would have gone back to being a full-time employee for someone else a long time ago! The lifestyle choices that we’ve made wouldn’t be possible in a bigger city where things are more expensive.

At least I got all my Christmas baking done!! When the going gets tough, the tough bake cookies!

At Least I Know What's Wrong Now...

A new week has begun and I am learning to cope with a tempermental computer. The new logic board is on order and will hopefully be here this week or early next. Funny how one thing can make such an impact throughout the computer, but that IS the part that controls so much of how things run. I was trying to explain it to Bethany... who can see that the computer is acting funny but doesn't understand its insides (I'm not sure that I understand it much better!). I told her that part of the computer's brain isn't working properly but that the place that keeps all the information will be OK. It turns out that the drive should be fine once the new logic board is in, but I am still trying to transfer as much info to my external hard drive just in case...

It is a bit frustrating to have the thing here and not be able to use it reliably... but at least I can get on now and then to try stuff. We have a meeting at church tonight and the poor machine has crashed twice when I try to print stuff out, so I am going to blog this and then turn it off again for a rest...

All I want for Christmas, Santa, is a working computer!!! (well... and maybe some chocolate or art supplies!)

Being Grown Up AND Being Childlike...

Well, the poor computer is still in the shop. It looks as if they will have to replace the whole hard drive, but at least it is still under warranty! In the meantime, I try not to mope too much when I sit in my office and stare at that empty space where the eMac should be...

Today was FREEZING, but by tomorrow, it is supposed to get warm enough to rain! Once the kids got on the bus, I ventured into the woods with my digital camera to record some of the Christmas Card scenery I saw all around me with each tree and branch coated in fluffy wet snow that froze to almost crystal perfection when the temperatures dropped last night. As snow crunched beneath my boots and I kept my camera tucked inside my coat between shots, I was reminded once again of just how much I love looking through the lens of a camera and capturing the world around me. I used to go for long walks like this in University where I majored in both photography and printmaking... looking for the right lighting and composition to make an interesting shot.

Keeping that childlike wonder about our lives, even in the face of minor (or major) challenges isn’t always easy, but it is important. Crunching through the snow slowed me down and really made me look at how beautiful our world can be when we aren’t rushing past the scenery to get somewhere.

Of course it is also important to know when you have to be grown up too. Getting things done, even tasks that you would rather avoid than tackle, is an important part about being a mature individual. Without a computer, I have no reason not to sort out the little piles and bags of receipts from shows or trip or other things that have piled up on my office floor. I think that I’d rather floss a cat than sort and tidy, but there is a slight satisfaction as some piles get smaller and pieces of paper are either sorted or tossed. Dare I hope to have a tidy office by Christmas??

Wanhhhhh! I want my computer back!!

Two Steps Forward... One Step Back!

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so happy on Thursday about getting the computer back, getting the website updated and finally being able to blog again! By Friday at noon the computer was worse than ever and wouldn’t even run the diagnostic disk I’d purchased... so as soon as Nick got home, in it went for another check up. The technician did admit that he’d done nothing more than defragg the drive and then check the programs with the most basic diagnostic tools he had. This time, I asked him to crawl through there and find out what is WRONG!! My poor computer!!!

The weekend was a flurry of sleep overs, swim lessons, planning for the Advent Gathering at church, baking a new recipe for Christmas cookies etc. Last night’s turnout wasn’t as good as we’d hoped for, but those who came certainly enjoyed themselves. The girls and I will finish colouring the window ourselves this week.

So, instead of working on one graphics project, this morning is all about getting to one particularly stubborn pile of clutter on my office floor and making sure that all the tiny pieces of paper, receipts, fabric bits etc. get filed or put back in their proper places. I just can’t procrastinate about it any more!!!

Sniff.... I want my computer back and working properly!!!

Plugged Back In...

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

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

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



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

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

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



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



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



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

No Computer... sort of

Well, my poor computer seems to have a bad case of the hiccups, flu or something. I did manage to run a full virus check and found some suspicious files, deleting them, but the poor thing is still prone to freezing or locking and I lost work twice today. The NBed site was compromised this month and maybe when Nick goes to check his mail on my machine, something is able to get in... so he’s off limits for mail on my machine. After all, teachers in NB were able to get those new laptops, so he can use that!

I’ve just spent almost an hour on the phone waiting or speaking with people from Symantec and apparently, the version of SystemWorks 3.0 that I bought just over a year ago can still check for viruses, but now that I have system as my operating system, I can no longer boot from that CD in an emergency to fix problems with Norton Disk Doctor or de-fragment my drive with Speed Disk. I now have to go out and find a local retailer that is selling the SAME version of the program I have, but the 3.0.1 version that shipped just a few months after I bought this one.

Honestly... I could just about scream!!

A New Addition To The Family!

What a crazy weekend! They say that the best pets kind of find you... and the latest addition to our family was no exception. I’d been moping around the house with no hamster to talk to since Wuffles passed away while I was in Toronto. Though I didn’t miss cleaning the cage, it was strange not to hear little scurry noises outside my office and get up for a stretch break to see how “my fella” was doing. In those last few weeks of his life, Wuffles was actually in my office with me so that I could keep a close eye on him after his first stroke.

We headed out as a family to do groceries on Friday night before all the stores closed for Remembrance Day on the 11th. It was a ZOO!! We stopped into the pet store near Sobeys to have a peek and there was a batch of new grey dwarf hamsters that has just arrived from the breeder that day! I put my hand in to check gender (we’ve had better luck with boys) and they were all still hand tamed! I found one male, a cute little grey fellow with white paws, who seemed friendly enough, but Nick and I try not to make rash decisions. We decided to do groceries first, but that meant that the girls skipped along beside us, up and down each aisle, asking if we were going to get the little grey smudge of a hamster. It didn’t help when Nick said it was all up to me!! That meant their entire energy was focussed on convincing me that we needed to bring this hamster home! I decided that we’d go back for a second look while Nick was loading the groceries into the car... and sure enough, we came home with SMUDGY! The girls thought that when he gets older and chubbier, we can call him pudgy Smudgy! (Groan!)



We left plenty of food and water out when we headed to Prince Edward Island the next day for an overnight stay with friends of ours. It was great fun to see them again and very hard to drag the kids away from playing with their friends for a noon departure, but Erin still had a major project to finish up back at home and I didn’t want the newest family member to feel too abandoned! By mid-afternoon, I started feeling a little under the weather and have taken it easy today. There have been quite a few bugs and flu strains roaming around, so it didn’t hurt to take it a bit easy on the third day of the long weekend. Nick went into work for a few hours, I proofread the last part of Erin’s project and made sure that got done. My darling husband has taken them off to choir to give me a few moments of peace & quiet to get the blog done before another chaotic week begins. Thank goodness for that nap this afternoon and the companionship of a new tiny furry friend!

This Is Just Too Cool!!!

Ok... I’m a bit punchy from getting up every few hours on Wednesday night to check the basement, and I did run the pump most of yesterday, but I am pleased to report that no water got in the office this time. I’ve plugged everything back in and even managed to sort out one pile of junk!

This morning, I checked Amazon to see if the book was up yet and THERE IT WAS!! How cool was it to use my name for the search and have the book pop up on the screen!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! By the tenth book I illustrate, some of the novelty may wear off, but for now it is a wonderful way to celebrate the start of a long weekend here in Canada. The girls have no school on Monday and we are heading off for one quick overnight to visit some friends, but now that Nick is back from his meetings with all the principals in the province, we are looking forward to some major family time.

The first batch of books went off to Amazon yesterday, so that’s why it shows the longer shipping time. I am sure that once they get them in stock, it will hopefully show a much shorter shipping time. Having just waited almost 5 weeks for a birthday gift from my sister to arrive, I can understand the frustration of having to wait. Dragons do NOT like to wait for their treasures. Hopefully, this will let some of you, who have been e-mailing me about how to get the book in the USA or overseas, get your claws on a copy! The author is also in the process of revamping her website so that you can buy either book from the site.

I went back to check Amazon for the URL, but it is way to long to quote here and it remembered the book from my last visit, showing a tiny thumbnail in the margin. WAY COOL!!!

I Wish It Were Snow Instead!!!

Nick has been away since yesterday afternoon at a gathering of all the Principals in the Province of New Brunswick in St. Andrews. I’m so glad he’s having this chance to network and expand his horizons professionally, even if I miss him like crazy. The only nasty thing is that, just like the last time he went away this summer, we are under a heavy rainfall warning until tomorrow afternoon and I keep wishing it were snow instead of rain. Snow cannot seep into your basement office!!

This time I am prepared. I won’t even bother with the shopvac like the last time he was away... this time the pump will go right into the window well to suck the water that seems to seep into it from below when the backyard hits critical mass. At least the ground isn’t completely frozen, so perhaps it can absorb the rain between bands as they hit. Two of them have been through already tonight and so far, so good.

It’s been so busy while Nick is away that I haven’t really had time to miss him as much as I thought I would. Erin’s volleyball games and practices are certainly reworking our routines, but their team won again this afternoon by a narrow 2 point lead in the fifth game to get the “3 of 5” needed. This makes the second straight win for the team and Erin had a marvelous save in the 2nd game. What a proud mother I was knitting on the stage while Bethany played Go Fish with one of her friends behind me. Had the light been better, I might have stitched... but I knit by feel, so that lets me watch the game at the same time. After all, I have presents for the holidays to finish up just like every crafty person out there!!

So cross your fingers that our basement won’t look like my NOT FORGOTTEN design by morning!!!

SNOWFLAKES, LAUNDRY & LESSONS LEARNED AT RETREAT

The very first snowfall of the year is falling softly outside my window. I don’t have iTunes blasting yet, so the only sound is the hum of the washing machine and dryer as I try to get the laundry done from being away at a cross stitch retreat this weekend and the click of my fingernails on the keyboard.

Retreat was just AWESOME!! Like the CreativFestival in Toronto, it went a long way towards recharging something deep inside and bringing back a joy that had begun to fade.
So here are the lessons I learned at Retreat:

- Food always tastes a million times better when you don’t have to cook it yourself.

- Pack your digital camera FIRST! I forgot it and missed a lot of great shots!

- Listen to your body more and take naps when you really need them.

- A brisk walk not only makes you feel much better, it might just go a teeny tiny way towards offsetting at least one bite of a gooey treat!

- Listening to other’s life stories is important. It teaches you empathy, how to really listen, how healing a hug can be, how cleansing tears are and how much laughter can ease the aches deep inside our souls. It also reminds you to count the blessings in your own life.

- Watch out for flying, howling monkeys! (If I can get the picture that they took of me as the toy monkey came flying at me, I will post it hear. Dragons CAN be startled!!)

- A real fire is comforting on a crisp day.

- Women can be strong and generous. We raised over $500 for Breast Cancer and 5 of our survivors drew the names for the baskets of pink things we put together to raffle off.

- Stitching Over One is hard on my hands and a bit hard to see late at night when your eyes get tired, but the results were spectacular. I wish I’d had my camera to capture my ornament for the exchange... because I doubt I’ll stitch that design again over 1!

- I rediscovered how much FUN it was to stitch something that’s NOT MINE!! When I stitch something that isn’t my own design, I rediscover all the fun of NOT KNOWING how it will turn out, what neat colours another designer will put together and how much better it looks that the photo!! I have decided that I need to stitch at least 15 minutes a day on something that isn’t mine, just to remember how much fun this hobby is!!

- Retreat never lasts long enough... and then you can’t wait for the next one!

I’m Off To Retreat...Wheeeeee!!!!

Where did the week go? So many changes, so much activity, so much chaos... I am SO ready to jump in the car and head to the cross stitch retreat as soon as Nick gets home and my ride gets here!!!

Let’s see.... a job for a client that needed to be wrapped up wiped out most of the time I’d hoped to spend on my new illustration project, but now I get to invoice them and hopefully see a cheque before Christmas.

Bethany got her ears pierced last night and is just thrilled, but she’s also fighting a bug of some kind because she’s had a headache and gone really pale twice today. Maybe she knows I’m going away!

Erin made the volleyball team for school and is the only Grade 6 on the team, but she’s also the tallest one on the team already! Heh! Heh! Just wait until she’s in Grade 8 and is almost 6 feet!!!

I got orders off too this week, but didn’t get to the website. Guess what? I am feeling so burned out right now that I am just going to run away to retreat where I am not teaching, I am not a designer but one of the girls and I am going to spend the weekend stitching stuff that ISN’T my own design! Wheeeeeeeee!

Back to Reality With A Bang!!

Well, I’ve been back from Toronto for a whole week and it doesn’t even feel like 48 hours! I’m not sure where last week went. I arrived home to 6 meetings, volleyball tryouts for Erin, 2 projects, a Brownie Hallowe’en party, 1 temperamental computer and a very messy office once I got the luggage back out to the shed with the promise of sorting it all out when I had time!! Free Time... what is that??

Thursday and Friday were PD days for the school district. Thursday was Parent/Teacher interviews for both girls, a book sale and a supper meeting. Friday morning, I took care of 2 other girls along with my own for a friend who had morning classes at University and didn’t want to pay a second full day of daycare. We planned a “princess day” watching Over the Hedge (thanks Erica!!) and painting nails, but I had forgotten how exponentially giggly and wild a bunch of girls can be when you put them together!! Yeeeeeesh!

Today the car went in for its last service appointment before the warrantee wears out. New snow tires, new front brakes, 50 point inspection etc.... and OUCH!! It can be scary how fast car things add up, but you just can’t play around with safety, especially since we only have the one vehicle.

I had a great chat with my sister today and that helped more than she will ever know. It is funny that even though there is an ocean between us physically, I felt as close after the call as if she’d been right here at my dining room table! Once the girls got home, the rest of my day was a blur of making Orange Rice Krispie treats for school, checking costumes for tomorrow at school and tomorrow night, planning my Weight Watcher meetings, cutting out hand-drawn ghost stickers, batching part of a Hoffman order, updating files on the computer, saving e-mail, watching Heroes as a break and then getting my blog entry done at last.

Tomorrow promises to be total chaos, but I do want to write about the wonderful show in Toronto on Wednesday...