BLEEEeeeeeeeahhhhh!

Dragons do NOT like CT scans!

Let me back up a bit.

Halloween was fun, even though I was feeling kind of yucky. I brought back these COOL heart and brain growing things from Toronto that you put in water for 72 hours and they get bigger. Ours didn’t just get bigger, they got HUGE! Halloween night, we put them on top of a box in the front window which was lit up from underneath. It looked VERY creepy and GROSS! My kids tell me I am a cool Mom to bring them slimy things!



Speaking of the dragonlets... I had a pirate and a teenage witch to escort Wednesday night. Apparently, Swiffers get better mileage than brooms. Who knew? Since the cold metal pole began to freeze Erin’s hands after a while... guess who got to carry it? Yup... the MOM. I just got her to add a bit to my “mom tax” from her treats to make up for being her Sherpa. The tax is my favourite part of the night. Just enough tiny chocolates to make the dragon feel like she’s had fun and then I don’t raid their bags later... well... maybe not much.



One of the highlights, this year, was being able to Trick Or Treat at Nanny and Grr’s house for the first time in their lives! Now that my Mom and John live a block away, it was easy to hit their house on our rounds. Nick drove the girls across town to Grammy’s house as well, but alas... they were out for the night! John answered the door all night with “Hennery”, one of his puppets. Their street is much busier than ours, so I ran my leftover candy up once we decided to turn our lights off. I really didn’t need the temptation around!



Another cute sight that night was this teeny dragon skipping around our neighbourhood. Wouldn’t it be fun if they made a costume like that in MY size? It wouldn’t be as cute, but it would certainly stand out at Trade Shows!

Today, I went for my CT scan. Nothing to eat after breakfast and a totally icky drink to chug two hours before I headed to the hospital.



Here’s the proof that the dragon swallowed it all, nose pinched to avoid the taste. I forgot that wouldn’t help for burps afterwards! YUCK!



I got to the hospital, took a number, stood in line and then followed the red dots on the floor as instructed until they ran out. I sat patiently while they hooked up my IV, drank a smaller glass of the icky stuff (berry this time instead of banana... but not much of an improvement!) and then headed into the room with the machine. That’s when the problems started.

Apparently, they don’t often try to scan 6’5” dragons! They had me scoooch as far down on the bench thing as possible so that just my bum to head was on there. Which was fine until the machine slid me through and most of me just hung out there in midair!

There wasn’t anything to rest my feet or legs on, so I just had to tense my ab muscles and hold them tight as they ran the dragon through the machine... several times.... holding my breath each time.... legs dangling behind...

Definitely not one of my more graceful moments!

Now, I’m home and drinking lots of water to flush my system like they told me. With every test, I hope they either keep ruling stuff out or find out what is causing all this pain and discomfort. I am getting a bit grumpy after 4 months of this!

The kids should be home any minute from school. Nick, bless his heart, is taking the girls and our godson to a hockey game tonight and I am just going to stay curled up here at home.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Trick or Treat from the Dragon! There’s a calorie-free treat to enjoy on our website’s newsletter for the next 48 hours. Just click on the word FANG in our NEWSLETTER and you can get your claws on this little chart to stitch!

Happy Halloween!

CreativFestival Decompression

I’ve been at Weight Watchers most of the day teaching 2 classes, then racing around to pick up the girls with Nick from 2 separate Halloween events- a school dance and Explorers’ party. No wonder I just wanted to sleep and hide from the world yesterday, I knew how crazy today would be! The little white snowflakes falling this morning at the bus stop didn’t help either... ACK! Winter is on its way!!

So, what did I think about Toronto?


Dwaggy loved all the soft pillows and the cozy bedspread.



I really loved the shower that could be adjusted WAY up and the cool rainmaking disk in the ceiling. I got a little confused with 3 faucets to turn and a temperature dial to boot, but no serious freezings or scaldings of Dragon to report.



Toronto is big and busy! All the car accidents, sirens, homeless people, rushing bodies that don’t make eye contact etc. made me realize that I’ve gotten very used to living in a friendly little city of just over 110,000. I kept smiling at people and chatting with people at stoplights just to see if they’d answer back. It became a bit of a game... I also find the contrast of historic buildings and ultra modern ones very fascinating, so I kept pulling out my camera to take pictures...



I must have looked like a total tourist...



But how can you not be in awe of views like this?



This is one of the reasons I want to be able to upload photos and blog about them in the immediacy of the moment instead of having to wait until I get home!


The black squirrels are SO much more aggressive that our little red ones.



See the beady eyes on this one? Ok, so it’s just the camera, but I am sure this one kept checking to see if my ankles looked tasty!

The stitchers in all of my classes were totally awesome again this year. Many of them I now consider friends more than students and they are such totally fun people to hang with. I tried some smaller projects this year to see if I could push them out of their comfort zones by making teeny, tiny treasure chests out of perforated paper which we then filled with special beads and a tiny sleeping dragon with a teddy bear that we tucked into wonderfully unique felt beds.

I taught a class in beadpoint and encouraged stitchers to make designs with beads instead of Xs. We had more than a few beads go flying and some colourful language, but great results.

This is Andrea... she beadpoints REALLY fast.



She finished her project just 45 minutes into the 1.5 hour class and impressed everyone. Others told me to award a prize for the slowest person in the class, but then I worry that everyone might go slow on purpose!

We also played Monster Mix-up and I ended up doodling a communal monster near the end. It was designed by consensus... ie. Is it going to be cute or scary (show of hands). Can you guess that CUTE won?



I also LOVED the two lectures I gave. One was a huge blast and totally fun... the other was really important information to pass on. Honest... it had nothing to do with the power to make over 120 people “bow down” their hands like a giant game of Dragon Says. I was teaching stretching exercises at the time. They were a great crowd that laughed in all the right places. Maybe next time the mike won’t cut out halfway through the lecture though. I can feel how tired my voice is tonight after talking most of the day once again!

The CreativFestival truly is a unique event that combines so many crafts and classes in one space. It brings a huge variety of crafters together for 4 days, many of whom don’t venture beyond their comfort zone, but when you can get them talking about what makes them passionate, you can tell that deep down, we’re all the same. We love to make things and have them appreciated, which a Walmart-mentality world sometimes doesn’t value.

I truly needed to get away and get re-inspired. This festival made me realize what wonderful people there are in creative fields, how important good friends are (no matter what adventures you end up on), that I still need to be deeply involved in creating things with thread and that making people feel GOOD about the time they spend crafting beautiful objects is very important to me.

But it is time to make a mug of something warm and crawl into bed. The halloween treat is already up on the website early... share the link and SPREAD THE WORD!

Back... Tired... Smiling like an idiot!

OK. I’m back from the CreativFestival in Toronto. I slept until almost noon after a brief foray out into the freezing morning to put the kids on the bus then back inside to redose the sick husband with cold medicine and go back to sleep.

I have now unpacked both suitcases, tucked them back in the shed, answered or deleted over 195 e-mails, downloaded things from my camera and put away 90 percent of the post show mess. I will blog about everything tomorrow afternoon, but here are the highlights:

1) I really need to get some kind of portable device for doing Power Point presentations with, updating blogs, checking e-mail and uploading photos to or taking pictures with. I’ll have to start investigating whether a laptop or blackberry device would be better and how cheaply I can get one for.

2) Stitchers are REALLY fun people to spend time with!! All of the classes this year were really fun ones to teach and I think I may have inspired a few people to be more creative, try new things or combine techniques in new ways. Just wait until NEXT YEAR!

3) I love giving lectures and had a total BLAST when a room full of people “bowed down” to me. Ok... it was a stretching exercise, but it sure looked like that from the podium!

4) Laughter is very healing!

5) Good friends are worth their weight in gold, especially if you start feeling yucky or just need a hug!

6) Creative people need to be reminded about how FABULOUS their creativity is when the rest of the world tries to tell them it is a waste of time.

7) Dragons LOVE sparkly beads, new materials to play with and getting new ideas!

8) I have a kit to make a felted dragon.

9) ANY taxi ride in Toronto is a bit scary!!

10) I can’t wait for NEXT YEAR!!

Off to the CreativFestival!

I’m packed...

I think I have everything...

I’ll probably get to Toronto and still have to buy something...

I’m OFF!

I’ve discovered a new song called “Slow Me Down” by Emmy Rossum that is the new theme song for my life... AFTER the Festival!

This is a crazy, whirlwind adventure that I am VERY much looking forward to.

I’ve even got my camera along so that I can add photos to my blog about it once I get home!

How a Dummy Works...

The title refers to the book dummy overview that I promised a few blog entries ago and not in any way to the dragon at work, though I am sure on certain days, my family might argue the point.

The floor of my office is hardly visible, I am still tracking down a few things and I need to make up more of DD-98 Santa’s Dragon for the show since Because You Count keeps running out of it here! Yet in the midst of all this preparation, I must also remember to get birthday presents for the parties that the girls are attending while I am away, make up some chicken soup for another meal and get laundry done on this glorious, summer-like day. If Nick hadn’t offered to take the girls to choir tonight before he heads out to play basketball, I might have gone quietly mad.

So.... what is a book dummy? In the simplest of terms, a book dummy lets an illustrator plan out the book from the manuscript so that you know how many pages you will need, how many illustrations and what types of illustrations each page will contain. Not all illustrations are created the same way. Some of them are spot illustrations that appear on white space near the text, some fade out or wrap around the text, others have text go on top of them and still others are full bleed illustrations with no text anywhere on the page.

I always try to create my dummies about half scale or 50 percent the size of the book. I know of some artists who prefer to draw their dummies actual size, but since I have to make the final illustrations at least 10 percent BIGGER than actually size, that seems a bit frustrating to me. There’s more energy in the sketchy drawings I make while planning out a story when it’s a cute set of folded pages I can hold in my hand to flip through.

The dummy is also a fun and challenging stage of the illustration process because you actually have to figure out what goes where, how to break the story down into manageable chunks that make sense to illustrate together etc. Since we are printing this story ourselves, the author and I have a bit more freedom and control to decide exactly how we’d like the book to look. Even though we’ve planned out the full dummy and how many illustrations it will need, there may still be some surprises along the way...



Here’s the dummy lying next to the manuscript. You can see how marked up that copy has gotten as I planned layouts and played with the text.



One of the biggest challenges for an illustrator is how to make sure that your drawings support the story instead of competing with the words. The pictures don’t have to duplicate everything that the words are saying, but rather compliment them. This is especially important near the beginning of the book when the characters and setting are still being established. I made sure that the pictures here will wrap around the text, giving the words plenty of room. This book contains a lot more story and a lot more text that the first one I did for Nanny Kay, so it has been a fun challenge to use the space creatively!



Here’s how a page in the dummy gets closer to being a finished illustration. First, there was the dummy version of page 15 where Butch the dinosaur finally reveals himself to Owen. This page has a fair bit of text, but needs to convey the astonishment that dinosaur-loving Owen feels when meeting a real, but much smaller, dinosaur in person. You’ll have to buy the book to find out why!



Here’s the pencil sketch of the layout done LARGER than the final illustration needs to be so that the artwork will tighten up when sized to the page. Note how I have the borders of the page marked in Sharpie, but some parts of the rocks may be drawn outside those lines. Since this will be a wrap bleed illustration, some of the image will “bleed” off the page, but I still need to paint in there in case the page trim is a bit off. By doing my sketches this size in an area defined as the same shape as the book, I can make sure that the composition works and still leaves room for the text.

Here’s a close up look at Owen...



and at Butch (his real dinosaur name is unpronounceable!)



So there are the steps of how a dummy works and how it moves one step closer to being a final illustration.

Needless to say, the drawing and painting are on hold until I get back from Toronto. I want to go play with floss instead!

Restoring Balance...

Yesterday was discouraging, hectic, productive, inspiring and exhausting all in one. This morning, after getting the girls on the bus in the nippy cold of the morning, I decided to grab my camera and head down to Mapleton Park right at the end of our street.

Half of my Fine Arts degree was spent carving lines into metal plates and the other looking through the lens of a camera. I needed to restore the balance that you can only truly find when you try to capture the world around you through the composition of your photo, wait for the right light and then hold your breath as you push the button.

It was excellent therapy!

First, I stumbled across the weeds along the path, transformed into fairy plants by the coating of frost from last night. It brought out a delicate beauty that we usually ignore as we are hauling weeds out of our garden or trodding on them when they invade a path.



As I drew closer to the lake, I began to see the first hints that I was in for something truly spectacular... one of those magic moments for a photographer when light, colour and temperature combine to produce something truly amazing!



The lake was covered with a fine mist in the crisp morning. As I slipped off my mittens each time to take a picture, I was aware of how biting the air felt on my fingers. My fingers and toes are almost always cold unless it is summer time. This morning they ached in the cold. The air nipped at them as if to say “Hurry! Gather what you need... the cold is coming!” A red squirrel chided me as I stood beneath his tree to take this glorious shot of the perfect stillness before me.



The minute any human stands still near the lake, the local ducks think that this means feeding time. All of the shots trying to catch them landing on the pond were blurry, but I did like this one with the rings around each duck as they headed towards me quacking hungrily. Sadly, my pockets had no cracked corn to feed them.



I rounded the lake, taking a break to slip my hands back inside their mittens to thaw for a bit. My friend and I love to walk the trails of this park and we can do the 6 km loop in less than an hour. This morning was not about speed or exercise. It was about slowly letting the tensions of yesterday, the worries about remembering everything for Toronto, the aches in my body, the need to run at a crazy pace... I tried to let all of that twisted energy ripple out from my centre and fly away on the wind. Deep lungfulls of clean, crisp air reminded me how lucky I was to be able to have such a haven at the end of my street. We humans are a part of the world around us and sometimes we forget to truly see the places we inhabit.

One of my favourite paths lay before me, transformed by the early sunshine into a splendid example of Sunshine and Shadow. The Amish knew how to work both light and dark into their quilts... the bold colours standing out even more against the stark blacks and greys of the other fabrics. Each day of our lives can hold both the light and the dark. I loved how the path seemed flanked by sunshine on the left and shadow on the right. What matters is that you walk the path and take the adventures that life offers you.



Rounding the other side of the smaller pond, I looked back to see an almost alien landscape as the mist swept through the rushes where the ducks usually hide their nests in the springtime.



The ducklings are all grown now and the urge to test their wings on a longer journey must be growing inside them as the days grow cooler.



The rushes themselves are pillars of fluff and seed now, the smooth brown that I loved to pat as a child have exploded into clouds of softness. I wonder what a nest lined with such fluff would feel like and can almost imagine a squirrel, chipmunk or field mouse nestled warmly in a den lined with bulrush down as the winter winds swirled about outside. My fingers twitched with the urge to sketch a scene that my camera could never capture.

I headed home and just before I walked up the path leading out of the park to the end of my street, I saw this tree, standing alone in a blaze of colour against all the others around it.



It is OK to be different and not blend in. It is OK to speak out against something you know is wrong even if it is easier and less work to stay silent. We are called to be lights to others around us, to live fully in a blaze of wonder and glory that the mundane tasks of the everyday world can never truly snuff out.

This tree is saying “Tadahhh!” to the world in its moment of glory before all the leaves fall off for the winter and it waits, patiently for the chance to have that moment of glory next year!

Now that I’ve captured this morning’s ramblings, it is time to go draw some dinosaurs at my dining room table with my iPod on!

The math is simply SCARY!

Cross posted from my Multiply site...

One designer posted a link on a Picasa site for us to check out to make sure that our work wasn’t being abused or shared illegally. I spent about 40 minutes there (when I really should have been working on the kits for Toronto or the illustrations for the author I meet with on Friday) and picked 20 users at random to visit. Between them, they had 1,755 albums of illegal scans of patterns for everything from cross stitch and needlework to crochet, knitting, felting, tole painting etc.

Just 20 people had more than 10,000 illegal images there to share with others! It made me wonder why anyone would ever pay money for a pattern when there are more designs out there illegally than any stitcher could complete in 8 lifetimes!?

But if it is going to be so easy to steal and share a design, why would any new designer go into this as even a second job? If there are no new designers creating the next trends and exciting designs... won’t stitchers get bored?

I still just don’t get what the appeal of doing this is...

Home With A Sick Bunny!

Bethany was running a fever last night and had a rotten case of the sniffles, so I let her sleep in this morning and sent Erin off to school to write her provincial English Language tests. Now that my “bunny” is up and around, she seems to be quite a bit better. The fever is way down and I am giving her plenty of liquids. It might be the same head cold that had Nick and I feeling off last week. Needless to say, I will NOT give her any of the cold medication that we took!

This is one of the nice things about my job and working from home. Although I do end up rearranging my day a bit and taking more breaks (which is probably better for my hands anyway), I am able to be home when one of the girls is sick, unless it falls on a Tuesday. Even then, there would probably be another Weight Watcher leader who could cover for me.

I almost thought about getting her to help assemble kits for Toronto. My mind went a bit blank when I looked at the calendar and realized that in 10 days, I will be heading to Toronto for the Creativfestival! Child Labour Laws not withstanding, I thought it better to keep the germs off the kits just in case!

I am about to go wrestle packing beads into tiny bags over a cookie tray for the Beadpoint Basics class. This should be interesting.... I’m going to be sure not to sneeze!

Swimming Through Oatmeal...

OK... the title should have been the clue as to how today started out. Anyone who has ever stirred a pot of regular, quick-cooking oats and watched it turn from liquid with flakes in it to a thick, gloppy mass should just imagine trying to swim through a pool of that stuff!

No... I was not a contestant in a bizarre game show or radio morning show stunt.

Nick has been battling a bad head cold all this week and when my head started to feel like a balloon late yesterday afternoon, I decided that I didn’t need yet another reason to be deprived of sleep. Before bed last night, I took a dose of Tylenol cold medicine- the nasty blue tasting slime with “ice minty freshness”. BLEEeeeeaaaaah! Then, someone hit me with a sledgehammer.

Not literally, but the effect was the same. I should have done the math when Nick told me that it made him groggy in the morning. We took the same adult dosage (as everyone does) but he outweighs me by about 100 lbs.! What made him a bit groggy almost drugged me senseless, so what would it do to a regular 5’4” female?

The next thing I knew, the alarm was beeping and I fell back into a deep sleep dreaming that I was in a hotel room trying to sleep and all kinds of people kept walking in and out of my room. My poor brain was probably trying to cope! Nick came back in and woke me so that I could get out of bed and eat something before driving him to work. I almost asked him to bring the van down at lunchtime instead. For the first time, the dire warnings about not operating heavy equipment or machinery while taking said product made a whole lot of sense!

Luckily, breakfast and a quick dose of caffeine allowed me to safely drive him the 6 km to work and back being VERY careful! I WALKED the kids up to the bus stop in the misty rain (telling them that they needed more exercise... not that Mommy was a bit to drugged out to drive them) and got them safely off to school, then stumbled home and crawled right back into bed to sleep this off.

Another 3 hours disappeared into limbo.

Now I am up and mostly functional, though it still feels like I am swimming through oatmeal. Every now and then we need to check out of the world and give our bodies a chance to rest instead of running at a crazy pace, but I don’t think I ever want to do it in a “minty freshness induced stupor” again. Ever!

Next time, I just honk and snot all over my keyboard and still get some work done!

Coping Strategies For Canadian Parents

Indian summer is over. Yesterday morning’s cold, wet drizzle did not motivate my children to get out of their toasty, warm beds which now have the fuzzy, winter sheets on them. While there may still be a few warm afternoons, during which I can coax them outdoors, I have begun to plan my winter coping strategies. This is in everyone’s best interest, especially since eating my young is not an option like it is for some animals.

Before the snow comes, I will have my lines memorized:

“If you can’t find something to do, you can always tidy out your closet!”

“Back then, there were no Gameboys, DVDs and computers. We read books and used our imagination!”

“I could teach you how to do a load of laundry!”

“I know it’s cold out there, but Mommy used to play outside in -30 degrees when she was little!”

I will, of course, try to set the example to encourage them to enjoy the outdoors all year long... but when I can no longer feel my toes through two pairs of socks and warm, winter boots, I will make the ultimate sacrifice. I will go inside and get the hot chocolate ready!

GIVING THANKS...

It certainly was a weekend of making memories! Saturday morning we got to sleep in a bit because all of the swimming lessons and other morning events that keep us hopping most weekends were canceled. It felt VERY decadent to sleep in until 8:30 am! After that, we headed off for the day’s adventures.



First stop was the Moncton Farmer’s Market. I had a bowl of Cantonese noodle soup, Nick and Erin had oriental food while Mom, John and Bethany had sausages. We picked up some decorative gourds and other wonderful harvest treats before heading on to our next destination... the apple orchard!



The trees were bursting with crunchy apples. We arrived just as one wagon was leaving for the field, so we jumped aboard. Erin snapped this photo of Nick and I on one side of the wagon. It’s kind of nice to have a daughter that can take a decent photo now since I am so seldom in many of the family pictures.



I tend to be the one behind the lens instead of in front of it. John had never been to an orchard to pick apples and the girls were eager to show him all the fun.



Once our bags were bursting at the seams, it was time to catch the wagon back.



Back at the main area, we picked out some wonderful pumpkins to bring home. I snapped a picture of Erin amid some of them. It was really hard to chose which ones we wanted before they “ringed” them to determine the cost by sliding a wooded shape around the widest part of the pumpkin. This is done instead of weighing them. Hmmmm... I wonder if that could work for humans?



After this we headed a bit farther up the coast to show Mom & John Pré-d’en-Haut ( not Pray Don Ho as Nick likes to joke, but it is pronounced similarly) Bethany sat looking out over the Petitcodiac river long enough for me to capture a few shots. She’s not very happy with this year’s school photo, so it won’t hurt to have some backups.



We headed home and parted company for the afternoon so that each family could get stuff done. I tried baking pies for the first time in our convection oven and ended up sending poor Nick out to pick up more canned pumpkin as well as walking one whole questionable pie up to a cooperative neighbour who had volunteered to taste test it. Since it took almost an extra HOUR to cook before solidifying properly, I was a bit worried, especially since I was hosting my Mom & John as well as my mother-in-law and Jerome the next day. I am rather proud of how well I bake and didn’t want anything to go wrong! I’d like to say that I was completely calm about the whole thing, but since Nick was the one who had mixed said pie filling for me, I’m afraid that I was less that sweet about the whole “pie fiasco”.

Sunday morning I was up early because I’d had a rough night getting comfy again. Erin came down to help me stuff the turkey and learn how to make stuffing from scratch. We got everything ready before John and I left for choir practice and Nick tucked the bird into the oven before he and the girls left for church. After church we came home to check on the bird, set the table... and make 2 more pumpkin pies. I just wasn’t going to take any chances! Erin was a great helper and even made the cranberry sauce ALL BY HERSELF!


The little decorative gourds from the market made the perfect centerpieces around some candles...



We added the extra leaf in the table and fetched a few odd chairs to make enough room for everyone...




The turkey turned out perfectly and I was so proud that I snapped a picture of how beautifully it browned. Next time, I will remember to clean off the counter in the background. I’m certainly NOT Martha! LOL!



Even our hamster got his own special feast for the day...



Finally everything was ready. The second batch of pies turned out just fine and were cooling on the counter when I snapped this last shot of the girls waiting to dig in.



Today has been another hard day comfort wise, but I am just trying to cope until the tests in early November. I do plan to try to see my doctor before I go to Toronto to see what might help cope with the discomfort. Physio doesn’t seem to be making any difference and my tummy finds too much aspirin or ibuprofen a bit hard to handle. IF ONLY chocolate were a pain killer! Then again... maybe not!

The most important thing is to be thankful for all the blessing that come into our lives, even the ones that don’t seem like blessings at first. There is always something special to treasure about each day.

I hope that all of you had wonderful things to be thankful for this weekend, even if you aren’t celebrating THANKSGIVING here in Canada!

Being A Parent...

I meant to blog all week. Honest. I really did! Instead I found myself writing in my old-fashioned journal and getting caught up with myself. Tonight, I finally had time and realized one very profound fact....

If I hide in the basement long enough, I won’t eat my children.


Ok... so maybe they wouldn’t really be tasty, even with ketchup, but sometimes it is safer to be the grown up, count to ten and leave the room instead of turning into the growliest mother dragon on the planet!

As any parent knows, some days or nights (weeks, months, years?) are more of a challenge than others. It doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to run full tilt all week, doing physiotherapy, getting kits ready for Toronto etc. In the midst of this, my grumpy season hits a week early. I should have known something was up last night when I was baking cookies for Nick’s staff and suddenly needed to eat two chocolate chip cookies without so much as a pause for air between them.

Tonight, Nick went off with his staff to do a group bonding exercise on the new treetop adventure here in Centennial Park. It is a whole obstacle course of bridges, zip lines and climbing things in a course that takes over two hours to complete. The staff was going off to this adventure and I, being the noble mom and wife (and feeling way to icky to be on a zip line anyway) stayed home with my girls.

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself until a few minutes ago when Nick called to say that he stopped the course early because he’d accidentally ended up UPSIDE DOWN about 35 feet in the air on one of the wires held by his harness and his carabiner! I would have screamed myself unconscious!!!

So maybe hiding in my office and listening to the girls laugh themselves silly over Lego Star Wars as they slash each other with light sabers is not so bad.

Now if I can just find some chocolate and red wine to go with my hot bath later!

Why There Are So Few Dragon Doctors....

I saw the GI specialist yesterday and sure enough, it means more tests. I get to glow in the dark for one and have something shoved up my dragon butt for the other! Lori-Ann’s comment made me think of how risky it would be to try to doctor and angry dragon and out came a doodle!

They’ve told me that both of those tests will be AFTER Toronto in early November, so part of me is very relieved that nothing is going to interfere with the fun of CSNF... but part of me is also not looking forward to being uncomfortable for that much longer!

I went for my first round of physio, prescribed by my doctor in case the pain is being caused by something deep and muscular. While it felt reasonably good at the time, all I can say now is OUCH! Nick insists that I will feel WAY better 24 hours after the little zappy electro-shocky treatment I had today, so I plan to hold him to that!

The fun today was going over the book dummy for Owen and the Dinosaur with the local author. Since few people are probably aware of the process of illustrating a children’s book and watching it grow, I may slap a few pages on the scanner or take some photos to share on this blog for posts next week.

The book dummy is actually one of the most creatively challenging parts of matching the pictures to the text because you are planning out what will go where, how the illustrations will compliment the story rather than distract from it and all fit into a set number of pages. Sometimes it can be a creative high to get things to work within set parameters. Somehow that is less intimidating that just staring at a blank page and having no limits whatsoever.

It poured rain all day today and I must say that the dragon was rather SMUG! I kept looking out at my dry backyard, the dry window well into my office and thinking “Yes, all the digging was WORTH IT!”

Waiting...

I finally pulled all my tomatoes off a few nights ago because we were getting frost every night and yesterday the temperature soared to over 27 degrees (around 80) which is almost unheard of this time of year! Still, they are ripening rather nicely on my window sill along with my little “Computer Mouse” carving that needed one ear mended with a bit of glue. That got me thinking about how we sometimes find it hard to wait until things are ready.

I had a great time launching Santa’s Dragon on Tuesday. Because You Count (our LNS) was packed and I got great hugs from SuperBeth and her husband, Doug, from Lori-Ann who is starting to share her own unique vision and designs with the world, from some of my favourite Retreat friends and of course from the whole caravan of stitchers who were on Sue Hillis’s fabulous stitching cruise! It was a fun day, but I totally forgot to bring my camera! Bad Dragon! Most people seemed to really like the design, so I hope it was worth the wait. It feels awesome to have the design out at last, even if I did have to correct a Dragon Oooops on the first batch of chart packs. I’d copied the back page from another pattern to get the layout right and the only thing that didn’t get replaced correctly on the back was the STITCH COUNT! Yikes!! Luckily, I’d written a blurb underneath about how stitchers needed an 18 x 24 inch piece, so Wanda from BYC came over to ask me why I was giving them so much extra fabric. She’s calculated things from the stitch count and caught the mistake. I hand corrected all the ones that had been purchased and put a “Dragon Oops!” beside them, so maybe that will make them collector’s items? LOL!

Yesterday was another rough day in terms of pain, so I tried to just do my work in fits and starts and wait for things to calm down a bit. Then I got a phone call from the specialist my doctor had referred me to and I am going for a first consultation today! Hurrah! I’d been warned that the wait could be weeks!! I really don’t care how much they have to poke and prod, I’d just like to get this figured out!

For now, I’ll just head upstairs and put the finishing touches on the rough book dummy for Owen and the Dinosaur because I meet with the author tomorrow morning. We should know by then whether or not the book will be 20 inside pages or 24.

Hmmmm... Two of those tomatoes finally look ripe enough to add to my salad at lunch! Yumm!

Leaving Your Mark...

We found this inukshuk on the beach a few weekends ago, made by someone else who’s been out to enjoy the wonderful scenery. As I searched for a photo to go with this blog entry, an image about marking one’s passage seemed appropriate.

Even the mention of the word cancer is enough to send most of us into a tailspin. Having many of the symptoms of ovarian cancer while my family doctor was away on vacation with no one to cover for her made the last 5 weeks a haze of fear and doubts. It was sleepless nights with enough internal pain to be uncomfortable, but never bad enough to justify the long waits in the Emergency department at the hospital. Not knowing what was causing the pain and other symptoms meant wondering if something was getting worse while they ran tests or left other things until my own doctor got back. I finally found out late Friday that my ovaries look fine. Now it’s on to more tests, some physio and slowly ruling out other things until they find out what is causing all this discomfort. Some of the stuff is so unrelated that I think my doctor is tired of trying to find a correlation. Perhaps it is actually several things going on at once...

Nick still insists that my warranty is running out... but so far, I haven’t smothered him with a pillow.

I read about Dani being so honest and sharing her own fears earlier this year through her blog. I know now what kind of relief you feel when something that scary is ruled out. I have other brave friends out there in cyberspace, at Retreat and in our congregation who had to face the much harsher news that they did indeed have Cancer. They have fought such brave battles that I am in awe. This past month especially has made me wonder if I would cope with as much grace, humour and courage as they have.

I have wandered in that greyness of uncertainty. I have struggled with computer codes and wondered if there would be a point to revamping the site at all if the news was bad. I have hugged my daughters more and prayed that I would have more time with them even as our whole city mourned the loss of four 16 year olds in a horrible car crash. I have drawn, journaled, stitched, prayed, wept, wondered, hidden and finally emerged on the other side of this experience with the certainty that it is NOT about how many days we are each given, but how we live each one to the fullest. It is about how and what type of mark we leave on the world around us and in the hearts of those we love.

It is still frustrating in this day and age not to be able to walk up to a computer screen, let it scan me and have it tell me EXACTLY what is wrong. Picture a Hal type computer voice...

“Eat some dark, leafy greens today, Jen!”

“Time to stay away from the cookie with your tea, Jen.”

“That walk you did is toning your legs rather nicely, Jen.”

“You should put ice on that bruise, Jen.”

“Your iron’s a little low, Jen. Time to go out for some liver.”

“I think you need a hot bath and some chocolate, Jen.”

“You’re thinking too much again, Jen. Go get some sleep!”

If I keep telling myself to just put one foot in front of the other each and every morning, and never go on a chocolate-free diet, I should be fine.

Ask Me If I Missed Them...

I meant to post this on Wednesday morning as soon as I skipped home from the bus stop. Tuesdays, I work outside the house, so Wednesday was really the first day of freedom to work in an empty house.

I’ve got 85% of the web site ready in iWeb to transfer over to Adobe GoLive next week and it is looking SO much better than the stuff I could design in the other programs! Unfortunately, I’ve also had some tests scheduled this week that took me away from the computer. After fasting overnight, I got down to the blood lab this morning for another round of bloodwork and the room was packed! I was there for over 2 hours and pretty faint by the time I left since my 8 hour fast was more like 12! I headed right for somewhere to get breakfast. Beware of Hungry Dragons!

Now our family is off to a wonderful overnight retreat on the coast. My kids can’t wait to roast marshmallows over the campfire tonight and hunt on the beach for beach glass tomorrow, especially with the weatherman calling for weather in the 28-32 degree range (84-88 degrees F) This may be one of the last nice summer weekends. I actually had to cover my tomatoes a few nights ago when we had a frost warming!

As much as I love my family, I much prefer an empty, quiet house in which to create... and skip about madly when no one is looking!

SO Close......

Happy Labour Day everyone!!

After months of wanting to just beat my head against the computer screen, I am filled with hope again! I have spent the better part of the weekend rebuilding my website for the 4th time this summer and patching it between two programs... doing the layout in iWeb which is more visual drag and drop (but limited in terms of customizing code since I don't have the newest version on my system) then reworking the files in Adobe GoLive which is MUCH more complicated than I first expected it to be but will have all the rollover features for mousing that I need the portfolios and new needlework sections to have.

I am still feeling slightly cross-eyed from more hours on the computer than my hands are comfy with... but it LOOKS so good. I just hope the code works as I start adding all the hyper links in GoLive so that I can get this up and running as soon as possible for all you patient Dragon Dreams fans.

Here’s a quick peek at the little dragon that will grace the stitching part of the site. Start thinking of a nickname for her... him... it... that’s one of the first contests once everything is up live. Don’t post them in the comments though or someone may steal your great idea!

Now, I need to dial my Canadian Idol votes in...

Wii Madness!!!

Ok.... so last week the Nintendo Wii was on sale at 3 major retailers here in Moncton last week and they were all having price wars with each other. We turned in all of our Zellers Club Z points and got $80.00 off the best price in town... so I talked the family into getting a Wii for my birthday next week.

Since we’re also going to be away next weekend at a church event, I talked them into letting me open my present a week or so early!

What a riot!! The girls and I spent the whole afternoon building our Miis and trying out the sporting games that came with the system. Then, when my Mom and John came for supper tonight, we made grandparent Miis for them.

We spent a whole hour playing Brain Academy as a family and my daughters ROCK!! I’m still the highest score in the family (the Dragon says ever so smugly!) but now after a bit of bowling and tennis with Nick, my hands hurt again.

I am typing this carefully in the basement while the upper floor shakes with Nick doing his boxing levels.

This is going to be GOOD CARDIO!!!

It Was Worth It...

I wish those who shared patterns illegally could understand just how much work goes into a design. It is over a year later than when I first hoped to release Santa’s Dragon and has been the most complicated design that I have ever created, as well as the largest.

Sore hands, late nights, fabric changes, braid colour changes etc. were all worth it when I walked into my LNS yesterday with the framed model and watched a bunch of stitchers gasp in delight.

Here for all you blog readers to see is the first peek at DD-98 Santa’s Dragon which will officially be released on September 25th when Sue Hillis and her cruise of stitchers jaunt into Moncton for the day while their boat is docked in Saint John. The bait of a wonderful cross stitch shop just an hour and a half away was enough for them to make the road trip. I can’t wait to meet some of them at Because You Count between 11:30 and 1:30!

Knowing that there were some people ready to steal this design as soon as it came out really made it hard to continue at some points when my hands and spirit were weary. Then I read a quote that spoke right to my very soul.

“Once you accept an artistic assignment from the great Creator, it’s yours. Nobody can take it away from you, unless, of course, you relinquish it. Nobody can duplicate your work because there’s no one in the world like you. They can imitate, but they can’t duplicate. Your work is born of your sensibilities, temperament, experience, emotion, passion, perseverance, attention to detail, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. When you are authentic, so is your art.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

Pattern sharers may steal this design, but that is a risk that I have to be willing to take, even though what they are doing is WRONG. This design is one that I have wrestled with more than any other and one that comes from deep within. It is time to let it be seen by the world and hopefully be enjoyed by those who stitch it. I know it was worth it...

Now I just have to finish checking over the chart to make sure it matches the finished model. That’s one of perks and frustrations of being a designer that makes boo-boos as she stitches. If it still looks good in the model, I can just change the chart!