Happy Advent! The first week began yesterday, with the lighting of the first candle, which stands for hope. Lord knows everyone can use more of that.

I love, love, love my Thursday afternoons at children's choir rehearsal. 

Angela and Peter. ♥

19th Annual Mom's Retreat. It was just as awesome as you think it was.

I made the theme poster as usual. I was feeling pretty colorful that day! If anyone wants me to post a tutorial, just let me know and I'll post it.

Sorry, September, I seem to have completely missed you on here!

I mentioned in passing a while back that I had a milestone birthday this August. But instead of throwing a big party, I decided that I wanted to learn something new. And that's where the guitar comes in.

I have always - always - loved the guitar. For me, it carries some great memories: being in the folk group at church in high school, madrigal group in college, and oh yeah, there are these guys who have been known to inspire me.

Luckily for me, we had an extra guitar at my house, along with loads of music books, not to mention someone who already teaches music living here. He got me all set up with brand new strings, tuned everything up, made me a copy of a chord chart, and let me have at it. It took a long time to start building up calluses, and there was a time where I thought I would never be able to hold down a B minor chord.

I've been practicing every day for 15 to 30 minutes, sometimes with the kids, sometimes longer if I can do it after they go to bed. It's become a real family thing - the kids sing with me sometimes, and about once a week I go to Paul and demand to know something in particular. Last week I made him write down strumming patterns for me, and taught them to the kids so that they could chant them to me while I played. He gave me an "A" for my progress and I got a sticker for my hard work. ;)

I would apologize for the lack of artwork lately on the site, except that I have been coming to the dawning realization that art is art. When I transpose a song into a key that's in my range/abilities, I'm being creative. When I sit down at the piano to work out an alternate arrangement, that's art too. And when I figure out chords by ear and I have no idea what they're really called in real life but they sound right, that's creativity.

And now, a word from Sophie. She wrote this after church one day, after she had received Communion and I asked her to really think and mediate on what it meant to her. That kid just blows me away.

Sophia makes her First Communion on Sunday*, and I am possibly more excited than she is! It's a huge and very significant step in her life. As Paul and I are her CCD teachers, we're thrilled to see how these girls have grown in faith over the past few years. Since we just had their last class of the year, I had to make some presents. :)

This is what I made for each girl. I printed each one out, backed it with 2 larger colors of paper (in Sophie's case, white, and then light blue), and framed it. The crowning touch was the addition of a 3D glittering white and silver flower scrapbook sticker to match the white and silver butterflies each girl decorated her Communion scrapbook cover with. (We also printed out a version of each that went inside the scrapbook as well.)

While I would love to claim that I am a super-genius in dreaming this up, I'm really reworking a picture my mom gave each of us when we were kids. We each had our name and its meaning, done in calligraphy, and a Bible verse underneath it that went with it. That hung over my bed probably until I went to college and it made a great impression on me. My name means "a shining light" and my verse was "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16) I was happy to pass that along to Nora in our class, whose name means the same thing!

We had 10 in our class, but here are a few others to share. I loved doing this project, and will be giving our other friends making their Communion this month their names as well.

*Hello! Where did the time go?

Labyrinth in New Harmony by chrisjuno

I went again on the amazing Mother's Retreat this past weekend (with my amazing Mother!) At the retreat center they had a prayer labyrinth! I've wanted to walk a labyrinth for ages!

The story of the prayer or mediation labyrinth is said to have its roots in the faithful who couldn't make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so they would walk the path of the labyrinth in a prayerful state - some say on their knees - and follow its ways.

I was fortunate enough to have lovely weather, and the whole area to myself. I picked up a small stone from outside the labyrinth, and began to follow the path. As I slowly wound my way in, I began to pray for my family, friends, and even people who I was upset with. When I finally got to the center flower, I stood quietly for a while, just enjoying the peace and the lovely view.

Then I left my stone in the center of the flower, and made my way back, this time thanking God for blessing me with all the people I had prayed for on the way in, and letting the others go who I needed to forgive. I could have spent hours out there. But I believe I left my cares back in the center flower with my small piece of quartz.

I'm planning another trip back - this time with my family - when the weather gets warmer. I'm interested to hear from others who have ever walked a labyrinth. What was your experience?

Fun things to make around the house for your Thanksgiving celebrations:

Give Thanks Banner

This was actually my kids' idea! They wanted to make a banner that said "Give Thanks", and other than a tiny bit of help from me, this was all their work. Each letter is one half of an 8.5" x 11" piece of copy paper, and they're decorated with all the other bits of copy paper. :) It's hard to tell from this pic, but the hole puncher played an important part in our decorating - all those polka dots are from cleaning out the 3-hole punch! I stapled each letter to the long piece of yarn, and added an extra thread to anchor the G so that the bottom didn't curl over.

Thanksgiving Tree

This was an idea I'd seen online and adapted for my CCD classes. I drew leaves (four to a sheet of paper) and copied them on various autumnal colors of paper. Each child got a leaf and wrote his or her name and what they were thankful for. Then I hole-punched each leaf near where the stem would be, and tied it to branches from our yard. I took all the extra copies and gave 2 sheets of different colors to each child to bring home so that their families could make their own Thanksgiving Tree on Thursday. I absolutely love how this came out!

I'm keeping this short and sweet today, as it's (yay!) Halloween, and I'm hoping to get some homemade costume goodness up for tomorrow.

I found this site this summer, and it soon became my go-to site for peaceful and hopeful reading before I went to bed. It's called Gives Me Hope, and it's packed with short stories of courage, bravery, and inspiration. The first few nights I started reading it, I couldn't stop and went all the way to the first post to start from the beginning. I didn't want to miss any. I still go to it a few times a week to help get perspective and to say a few prayers.

Something else I've begun doing in the past month or so: when I wake up in the morning, I read Bible verses for the day from my Bible app and choose a certain one that seems to really stick with me to be my verse for the day. Then I go on Facebook, read the live feed, and pray a blessing for each friend who's posted recently. I mention this because with my absolutely nutty schedule, this way of centering my morning and dedicating my day works for me right now, and if you're ultra-busy, that might work for you too. I also try to catch Paul by the coffeepot in the morning to say a quick prayer before the kids wake up, that we will be a blessing in someone's lives that day.

So here's wishing you some blessings and hope, whenever your day may start.

(I'm posting an older entry from 2005 today - it still really speaks to me. Maybe it's something you need to hear today as well.)

Crocus-Minded
by Jo Sorley

It takes courage to be crocus-minded.

God, I’d rather wait until June,
Like wise roses,
When the hazards of winter are safely behind,
and I’m expected,
and everything’s ready for roses.

But crocuses?
Highly irregular.


Knifing through hard-frozen ground and snow,
and sticking their necks out,
because they believe in spring
and have something personal and emphatic to say about it.

God, I am by nature rose-minded.
Even when I have studied the situation here
and know there are wrongs that need righting,
affirmations that need stating,
and know also that my speaking out may offend...
for it rocks the boat...
Well, I’d rather wait until June.
Maybe later things will work themselves out,
and we won’t have to make an issue of it.

God, forgive,
Wrongs don’t work themselves out.
Injustices and inequities and hurts don’t just dissolve.
Somebody has to stick her neck out,
Somebody who cares enough to think through and work through hard ground,
because she believes and has something personal and emphatic to say about it.

Me God?

Crocus-minded?

Could it be that there are things that need to be said, and you want me to say them?
I pray for courage.

The kiddos with this year's poster for the Mother's Retreat.

This year, for the first time in a long while, I'm not going to the Mother's Retreat. It's just honestly way too much for me this year, I would wind up spending the entire thing crying or over-anxious and I wouldn't enjoy a minute of it. There was no way I was going to skip doing the poster though, I've done it each year for the retreat even before I had kids of my own! I'll do my praying here at home... and if you are reading this, won't you please send a good thought for the moms on this retreat this weekend and the other special mothers in your own life?

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ dwelling in them.
Fast from emphasis on differences; feast on the unity of life.
Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of life.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.
Fast from worry; feast on divine order.
Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives; feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility; feast on non-resistance.
Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragement; feast on hope.
Fast from facts that depress; feast on verities that uplift.
Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.
~ William Arthur Ward
from a card my mom faxes to me every Ash Wednesday

I haven't had much of a chance to write about the group I've been singing with for almost a year now. Yes, I hear you say - what? You've been in a group for a year and never thought to mention it? That's just how my life's been going lately. Not too many chances to write about lots of things, even if they are important.

Music's always played a very important part of my life. For a while, I was out of circulation (ahem - three kids in two years), and then was invited to come to sing harmony at whatever Mass I could make it to. And I did - with one baby on my hip and two hanging onto my pants legs - and then that sometimes got to be too much, too.

This past year, a friend of mine started up a small group at her house, of women from our church who were all (a) good singers/musicians (b) learned music quickly (c) happened to be moms with young kids, and as such (d) couldn't make any of the regular rehearsals for choir practices. There are five of us, with kids ranging from 18 months to preteen. Over the past year, we've gotten to be great friends and have gone from tentative arrangements from the hymnal to serious "wish list" music. One of the moms calls our weekly rehearsals "music therapy" and she's so right - it's such an amazing thing to sing again with fast learners who are always on pitch and up for a challenge! I've established my position as "the one who likes to sing the strange parts nobody else wants." :)

And that's why I'm so excited as we are approaching Lent again, to start lining up music we love. Godspell songs. This song from my folk group days - and it hasn't properly felt like Easter without it. And we've just started this one, which is so incredibly exciting to me because we can actually do it justice:



Here's hoping that if you are in a place of being on hold in your art right now - especially if it's because of family obligations - that grace is coming your way and you will be able to get back to it soon.

2009 has been a very frustrating year, and very sad in parts too. I'm actually pretty happy to see it go.

Someone commented recently that everything seems to go right for me and we live in some wonderful fantasy world, and I said, "Oh, no! We're very real, I promise." But it's true that I tend not to post when we are either so busy I can't sit down, or things are especially crazy, or I really don't want to document what's going on because this isn't private and my family may not appreciate it. For instance, for about two months straight a certain small member of my family was throwing massive tantrums on a regular basis that included kicking, hitting, and biting, mostly all directed at me. They lasted for HOURS sometimes, and left me a sobbing mess on the floor when they were over. (Do you all really want to hear about that kind of thing?) I was living through it and didn't feel the need to rehash it here. I try to keep this site as real, and as inspiring, and whine-free as possible. So some days (and weeks) I choose not to post.

In any case, the end of the year always brings introspection: the need for a plan, a resolution, a change for the coming year, renewal. Well, not much is going to change in my life right now just because it's the new year :) - I still have a family that needs me very intensely right now and a lot of people who depend on me. I was getting incredibly frustrated at plans falling through, by feeling like nobody in the world could care less about my artwork, about failing to get big jobs/noticed/book deal, not that I actually tried to do any of that, never mind the fact that I would be stretched so thin that I wouldn't be able to do my best work anyway... And on a snowy morning last week when I had a quiet hour to myself, I realized what needed to change: my attitude. I prayed, and I cried, and I prayed some more, and the words came directly into my mind:

BLOOM WHERE YOU'RE PLANTED

So right now, this is not the time for me to illustrate a book. Or to have a licensing deal. Or get an agent. And that's okay. It's time to step back, and breathe, and maybe even enjoy my life instead of fighting every step of the way and being frustrated and upset at coming up short. Because really, I have so very much.

I have a wonderful husband I love with all my heart.
I have amazing children that I would like even if they weren't mine. :)
I have an extended family that is so supportive and loving.
I have a day job making art, with people that are like family to me.
I have a house to live in, food to eat, warm clothes to wear.
We are healthy.


I'll still paint, make prints, do crafts, but I'm going to stop beating myself up for not doing or being MORE right this second. I know my day, my book, my artwork - is going to come.

And I can wait for the promise of that.

Yesterday, while the weather outside was frightful, I finished up my ornaments for my CCD class (which of course, got snowed out! But of course, if I hadn't made them, we would have gotten 2 inches). The Nativity ornaments were for my class of Kindergartners and the Angels are for Paul's class of 1st grade girls.



I was inspired for the Nativity ornaments by a craft my twins had made in Mrs. Messina's class last year. They were so simple and so lovely, and I felt like they really captured the essence of what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. The kids painted everything themselves, which made it so much sweeter. These both would be fun to do with kids, letting them personalize and get as creative as they want.

You could paint these any way you like, and if I had more time I would have gotten way more detailed with them (arms on the angels, a star at the top of the "barn", maybe some glitter.... though I did add glitter to baby Jesus. He deserves some glitter!



How to make Nativity ornaments:

Use the hacksaw to trim the legs of Mary and Joseph to height. You can see in the picture at the top that Mary's are cut almost all the way, and Joseph's are slightly longer. You don't want to make them too long or you won't be able to make the top of the triangle close. Baby Jesus is made from cutting one of Mary's discarded pieces of wood in half. Use the sandpaper to smooth all rough edges. Paint all pieces as desired.



When dry, hot glue a bundle of spanish moss to the center of the large popsicle stick, and then add more hot glue and Baby Jesus. Glue Mary and Joseph to either side, making sure first that the other popsicle sticks will be able to meet at the top to make a triangle. Glue both sides of the other sticks to form the triangle, holding them until they set. Turn the triangle upside down to glue the top together. Tie a loop with your twine or ribbon, and personalize. You're done!

How to make Angel ornaments:

Paint a face and hair on your doll pin. When dry, get out your gold paint and paint on a halo and a band around the neck.



For the wings: cut both ends off a large popsicle stick on an angle, so that they form a heart when placed on top of each other. Paint both sides gold. (I also think these would look lovely painted a deep red, or in rainbow colors, or sprayed silver, or... you know. Have fun with it!)

Cut your doily into quarters, and then cut a semi-circle shape out of the top of the pie shape. Put hot glue all around the neck of the doll pin, and place the center of the doily piece in the front under the face. Press and glue all around (doily will overlap in back).

To glue on wings: lay wings on table. Add glue. Press twine/ribbon loop to hang ornament, and then quickly press back of angel on top. Hold until it sets, then let dry flat until it cools.

Merry Christmas!

To print out and share. And for before the meal, how awesome is this mix from NPR: Songs for Stuffing? Please pass me some of that Frim Fram Sauce....

Want to send some art? Now's your chance to have gorgeous cards to send out for the holidays and original artwork to keep for yourself, so you get to be both naughty and nice.

Choose 5 card sets and get an 8" x 10" print FREE!
Whether you're looking for something deep and thought-provoking, or artwork to just plain make you laugh, this special's for you! These two paintings are the ones I've gotten the most mail about: the thoughtful girl with a tree and two birds; and the one we like to just call "Fishies." Choose any combination of 5 card sets to send out and pick a print for yourself! Each print measures 8" x 10" and is printed on glossy stock with quality inks. Just let me know which print you want in the field marked "Additional Information."

All cards are professionally printed on glossy stock in full, luscious color. And each card shows one of my original watercolor and colored pencil paintings. Or if you just can't decide which to choose, there's an assorted multi-pack so you can have a little of everything.

Go see the cards and check out those prints right here at the French Toast Girl Shop.

Have I said that life is full? It's overflowing.

This past week, for example, has included painting, balancing a sick child with a much-anticipated vacation (verrryyy carefully), much crocheting, a sad goodbye of a friend and a funeral celebration of a life well lived; museums, dinosaurs, stars, coupon-clipping, and repeated playings of "Ode to Joy" on the piano by a 6 year old. Heck, I didn't even have three seconds to post about how I got to do work for Google, for Pete's sake!

And now, here it is, August, and Sophie's surgery is very early tomorrow morning. Many of you will be reading this sipping your coffee while she's coming out of it. I ask all of you, whenever you may happen to read this, to send a kind thought and prayer our way.

My Mom made us a prayer shawl and gave it to us tonight. (Such love! I am in awe of it.) We wrapped Sophie in it and all stood around her, touching her and praying again for her healing. I'll spread it across our laps as Paul and I wait for her to come out of surgery. And I'll wrap it again around Sophie and her beloved Lambie when she wakes up and sees the faces of those who love her best close by her. Wrapped in love, a prayer for our family in every stitch and loop of the thread. Big blessings, indeed.

UPDATE: The Sophster came through with flying colors! We're home and Sophie did very well in surgery according to the doctor. I asked how the eyelid/muscle looked and the doctor said it was even better than last time, and that it should work well for Soph "for years and years and years to come." Last time she thought Sophie would need another operation in 2-3 years, so this is good news indeed.

Anesthesia and pain-wise, Sophie is still very uncomfortable and sensitive and trying to sleep as much as possible while still maintaining a death grip on our hands. Here's hoping tomorrow brings some relief.

Please keep those prayers coming!