Paul has gotten into a state of extreme organization and is focusing on my studio. Usually, I'm the only one in there, but soon Sophie will probably be joining me for Sesame Street and art projects, and it would be reassuring to know that there's NO way she can get to the exacto knives, paint, and various other non-edible art supplies.... also that when she goes looking for a piece of paper to color on, she doesn't use the back of one of mama's paintings. So we're looking into cabinet doors with locks, and lots of shelving. In any case, I've been going through old artwork (more on that later) and was reminded of a painting I did in college. I was royally sick for my first painting class and made up the assignment really fast the night before it was due. I had to paint a 14" x 14" self-portrait using acrylics. I don't recall what it looked like, except that I was heavily into maroon and green at the time so I used a lot of those. When I brought it in, the teacher was really interested in it. She shook her head and said that I knew things... that I might not even need this class and that I might know more about painting than she did! I didn't see what she saw in it; all I could see was that it had colors I liked in it and I painted it when I was really tired. I showed it to Snowflake and she didn't get it either. I'm dying to find this painting and see if I really did "know" anything back when I was 18! Lately I have been watercolouring late at night when I really should be going to bed. I'm not sure if they're any good... I feel like I'm trying to tell myself something, but I don't know what it is.

Countdown to toastiness I am almost, almost finished with the site redesign. I am so exhausted, but so elated at how it's all coming together. Right now, the beta testers are having their way with it. With luck and Sophie willing, it will go live this weekend. I promise, it's juicy.

Singalong with Sophie This weekend, Sophie turned 5 months old, which is almost impossible to believe for me. I would look at the clock periodically and tell her, "And this is when you kicked Mama really hard and her water broke..." She's such a little blessing and each day she's even neater to know. This weekend, Sophie was serenaded! Her Uncle Marc played the guitar and sang, and Mama sang, and so did her Nana and Daddy and Aunt Carole. We sang "Flowers are Red" (one of Mama's favorite songs) and "Me and Sophie Down By The Schoolyard" and "Werewolves of London" (Sophie shrieked along) and "Imagine" and a bunch of other songs too. Sophie squealed with delight and stood on my lap and bounced up and down. Just 5 months old, and already she's the dancing queen.

Do you believe in miracles? Well, the two months of Sophie's eye-patching are almost up... and we don't think it worked at all. So here's where you come in: My mom sent me this prayer. You pray it for three days. She prayed it for my little niece to come home from the hospital - she had been in nearly a month - and on the third day, the doctors released her. Coincidence? I don't think so! So I'm asking anyone who's interested to pray for Sophie. Pray this prayer, or pray any way you want. Pray that her vision is healed, that the doctors are making the right decisions, that the patch works fine and she doesn't have to have surgery. And if she does, that we'll all be able to deal with it and that she will be able to see everything just fine. Miracles can definitely happen. Thank you, and know that I will be praying for your intentions too. We see the doctor next week.

Sophie rolled over! Woo hoo! Finally, finally, finally, Sophie rolled over. She did it in stages, but I still think it counts! Phew... I was really starting to worry about that. Along with rolling over, Sophie is getting much better at spending time on her stomach and lifts her head quite nicely, she's eating oatmeal and likes it when you make airplane noises, and everything - and I do mean EVERYTHING - makes her giggle. We started a food journal for her and she'll probably be ready for her first jar of baby food sometime next week. (Look out squash, here comes Sophie!) Now I can stop worrying about that and start worrying about this instead. And in other baby news... please pray hard. Sophie's little cousin Amanda isn't having such an easy time of it. She was born on June 19th and is STILL not home from the hospital yet! Please, if you're reading this, say a little prayer for my baby niece and her family... she needs to be home. My little nephew Joey said he needed to go see her in the hospital because she misses him. I'm sure she does. I had a dream last night that Sophie and Amanda were meeting each other for the first time, and it wasn't in a hospital! For some reason, Amanda was sleeping in a bag full of blankets, and Elvis was there, and a bunch of Japanese tourists.... I don't know why all that weird stuff was going on, but I'm going to concentrate hard on the Sophie-and-Amanda-meeting-at-last part of it.

Superman and Green Lantern ain't got nothing on me. Friday night, Snowflake and Lucky took me to see Donovan for an early birthday present. I was having second and third and fourth thoughts about leaving Sophie for that long - Paul had taken her to visit her Nana that day and I didn't see her until about 6pm, and was leaving for the concert at about 6:30 - but Paul, Mom, and Snowflake got my butt out the door and I'm so glad they did. The concert was just Donovan and his guitar, "Kelly". He sang the songs you'd expect him to, he sang really obscure songs, he had huge singalongs, he told wonderful stories in that wonderful Scottish accent, he sang a verse of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" that George Harrison had written that never got recorded because Jimmy Page's guitar solo was so long, he invited about half the group up on stage with him to dance to "Season of the Witch." You could tell he was having the loveliest, funnest time up there and it just spread throughout the room. Snowflake had also gotten me a CD in the hopes it would get signed, but nobody knew if/when there would be a signing opportunity that night, so we took a walk on the boardwalk under the glorious full moon. We didn't get to hear "I Love My Shirt," but we did dance our butts off to "First There is a Mountain." I wore teeny braids in my hair with purple flowers woven into them and my favorite fairy shirt; I felt like I was appropriately attired for an evening of peace, love, and great music. Humpworthy award Apparently, I'm now humpworthy... not sure what exactly this means, but I think it's good.

Dreaming of unicorns. I had a dream this morning that I was looking through a pile of my old sketchbooks, looking for stuff to scan for my new site feature (see below), when I came across a sketchbook from high school. In real life I always had a sketchbook with me at all times, but the one I opened in my dream existed only in my dreamworld. I opened it up to find page after page of unicorns. Brown, white, dappled, grey; they capered across the pages and out of the borders of the pictures. I had written an entire story to go with these pictures; some of them were two-page spreads with vivid green grass and scratchy black borders. I thumbed through them, fascinated that I could have done all this and forgotten all about it. But as I woke up, the pages faded from sight.... I tried, intensely, to get back into that dream and read more of my book. Later that morning, I remembered the Serendipity books.... did anyone else read these? I loved the illustrations. And that led me to find this book, which I think I need to get. I think there's a unicorn book (or five) inside me just waiting to be written and illustrated and set free.