I will be one of the Silly Friends singing backup for Marc this weekend at the Hoboken Art and Music Festival. If you're in the area, bring the kids and come boogie down!

There's a story that goes like this: a man's house was so full of people that he had no room to move or do anything. So he went to a wisewoman, who told him, "Take all your goats, and bring them into the house." He went back to her a few days later and she told him, "Take all your chickens, and bring them into the house." He eventually is told to bring ALL his farm animals into the house, so he does.

Now he not only has crying babies and demanding relatives, but also dogs and pigs and ducks underfoot. The noise is horrible, the smell is worse. He can't understand why the advice isn't helping. So he goes back to the wise woman. She tells him, "Now take all your chickens, and bring them OUT of the house." He does. Eventually, all the animals are out of the house, and he's left with his relatives. They're noisy, he has no privacy and no room, but at least his house isn't full of animals. He realizes that what he had to begin with wasn't so bad after all. Because it could always be worse.

Things are kind of crazy right now at my house. Make that insane. So my mantra is: It could be worse. I'm not going to go into my list, because it's whiny and kind of morbid to write out what could be worse, but let's just say, I'm trying hard to be thankful for the blessings that I have.

I was going to ask people to write their "Could be worse" list, but instead, could you leave me a note about something you personally feel blessed about? It would help. ♥

When I go on my morning walks, sometimes some bit of nature calls out to me - a handful of acorns, a smooth rock for my pocket, or the blank canvas of a piece of bark.

When you think about a problem over and over in your mind, that's called worry. When you think about God's Word over and over in your mind, that's called meditation. If you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate! You just need to switch your attention from problems to Bible verses. The more you meditate on God's Word, the less you have to worry about.

~ The Purpose Driven Life

For a girl who spends large quantities of time worrying (and mostly about things I have no control over), it's reassuring to know that I am already almost a pro at meditating once I do a little switch. Whether Bible verses work for me or not I still have to see.

I was searching online the other day because I wanted to try to find in the Bible where it mentions anything about God, creativity, and loving those who use their talents. That's another post now, because I found this instead: "Why God Loves Little Boys."

Okay, it's innocuous enough, God loves little boys for their eagerness, pride, wit, and "into their hands he has placed the future of all living things." The illustration shows them fishing, boating, trying to catch something in a net. Fine. But check out the companion piece: "Why God Loves Little Girls." And seriously, I start to get very, very angry.

Because apparently, God wants little girls to sit around and pick flowers all day, and "to dance and sing and giggle and wink." Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! I wish I was making this up. I was expecting maybe something about little girls being mothers and teachers of the future generations, about growing to be strong women. What I wanted to find was basically the same wording as the boys' one, but with "girls" in there. Didn't God also give girls eagerness, pride, wit, strong bodies to move and play and work with? Apparently not.

I know this is an older print, but it's only from the 80's! I pray that nobody hangs this in their kid's room, and teaches them that God expects nothing from them but to look pretty and dainty. I have nothing against "rainbows and dimples and bees", but for God's sake, give a girl some credit. Maybe I need to make my own poster about what I pray God really feels about Little Girls....

I did this illustration for our own wedding invitation; I'm all mushy-romantic like that. :) It's framed on our dresser with this cutout from a newspaper that my best friend Kirsten gave us... I think the rest of the headline read "with soccer" and it was from the high school sports section of her local paper. Works for me!

And because I can't leave well enough alone, here's another one: I did this illustration for my sister-in-law's wedding invitation...



My friends Jon and Liz wanted an invitation that showed what a long journey it had been. This was what I painted for the outside:


And here was the inside:



(I love weddings!)

A body in motion stays in motion. In this house, you don't stop, ever. And you keep lots of lists.

It's been a really long time since I've done this, but I have my tiara on and my wand out. I'm granting wishes! Leave me a wish in the comments and I'll write back.

♥ Thanks to all who made wishes... wish time is done for now. REALLY.

The summer before my last semester of college, I had homework for my portfolio class: to create 100 sketches for proposed logos for my personal identity package. I remember being nervous that I had only done 97, but I honestly couldn't think of anything else. (Of course, once I got to class, I found that many others in the class had done about 5 ... I have always been a geek par excellence!) Anyway, once we got to the class, we all had to pin up our sketches and logos and have the rest of the class critique them. I had all these great logos, things I thought were totally sophisticated and designy looking, and instead of the cool ones, the whole class pointed to the one of this little girl with braids, riding exuberantly on an E. "That's the one," said the teacher. No, no, I protested, and tried to point to something more mysterious. "Nope." said another classmate. "The E one, that's you." I think I tried again to sway the class and was resoundingly outvoted! I'd known everyone in class for 4 years and the teacher as well, so I grudgingly figured they just might know what they were talking about. :)

I wound up winning an award for my logo package, had my resumes passed around ("We can't use you for the job, but your stuff was so great we gave it to the design company downstairs") and charmed my current employer with it - I think he may still have it on his bulletin board, after 13 years of me working there!

I made a conscious decision not to draw like that anymore, and it was really, truly, okay to say goodbye to it. I realized I didn't enjoy drawing things that were cartoonish and wanted more emotion and expression. But I still love this girl, and I love the stickers and cards I had printed back in the day - I still use them when I can (after cutting off the address, phone number, and my name, which have all changed after 14 years...)