I think I am allllllllmost done. The real painting sitting in front of me is 20 times more luscious than the scan. :)

I wasn't 100% certain what color to make the bird - I always thought it would be yellow, but I needed to test other colors first. So I just did a quick and dirty color test, on the computer, like this.... yup, yellow it is!

Interestingly enough, the subject of this painting is doing her best to foil every chance I get to actually work on it. (sigh)

More progress on the Angela painting. I am having so much fun with this one! Not done with the hair yet, I actually want to take more detail out and make it more blotches of color.

in other news... please vote if you feel so moved! ♥

Starting a new painting, of Angela this time. Guess who she inherited that gorgeous cloud of hair from?

The fairies have been busy!

As reported yesterday, we left a dandelion chain out for the fairies yesterday. I didn't disappoint! I took a small sheet of paper with flowers pressed into it, folded it in quarters, and wrote a thank you note from the fairies to leave on the rock. Weighted down with a rock, the note sat there while I gathered pale pink and deep magenta azalea branches to put in a jam jar on our dining room table.

I walked Sophie home from school and suggested we go check the rock before we went inside. She was thrilled, and it was really sweet to see, she read it over and over and showed it to Peter and Angela when they woke up from their naps. We tucked the note under a beautiful statue of a sleeping fairy Snowflake gave to us.

I am looking forward to see what other gifts the fairies will leave for the kids in the back yard this summer....

Painted in my backyard, with kids playing around me and helping Paul plant. Each year I think the tulips are even more gorgeous than the year before. Can that be?

I made a dandelion necklace that none of the kids would wear, so we placed the circlet on a rock deep in our backyard for the fairies to have. We'll check tomorrow and see if they liked it and took it to keep. Even if a large fairy (wink, wink) needs to get up early to see that it's gone when they go look for it!

I think I might be done. (A little more detail in the chair, but that's it.) Painting while West Side Story is on in the background keeps your brush moving... while I hate the story, the music is so fantastic I have to watch it every time. Plus, hello, Rita Moreno! She rocks!

A detail:

More progress on Sophie and birdie! In the real painting, the shirt's not quite so Magenta-with-a-capital-M. Just a lovely pink.

♥ I'm going to be a guest blogger for the next two weeks at the design college Sessions.edu... and I'm writing all-new articles. The first one appeared today, and I'm working on one that's about working on your own web gallery to showcase your work. Enjoy!

Sometimes, after a long day, and when the only time you get to paint is after you have put the kids to bed (and put them to bed again, and again, and again), it is very, very, hard to paint.

You do it anyway.

The start of a painting of Sophie and a little bird. I took a ton of photos this weekend to work from, I am just itching to get at them all!

Today we all took a break to go to the townwide Balloon Parade - all the preschools in town get together for a picnic and music at our park, and then each school gave out balloons and they all paraded around the perimeter. It was quite colorful, Sophie got to walk with her friend from class, and if Angela and Peter could have refrained from screaming and bludgeoning each other over the head with their ballooons, it could have been quite idyllic.

Started on location under my favorite tree in our park this morning. Finished up during a all-out painting session with the kiddos this afternoon. ♥

Check out what other people are creating today on the Every Day In May flickr group. There's even a site feed!

site note: comments are now being moderated. No need to post twice. :)

This afternoon, I was listening to one of my favorite all-time albums, A Gift From A Flower To A Garden (For The Little Ones). It has a definite renaissance-y feel, and whenever I put it on, I swear my blood pressure goes down. It always reminds me of being in college, when my friend Amanda and I would get up at the crack of dawn to go out and sit at the lake and freeze with our watercolors and cranberry-walnut muffins, being painterly. So this evening I took a break from working and dug out my box portfolio from back in the day, when I had done a calendar based on the songs of this album. This piece is (gulp!) 13 years old, and what amazes me is that I could slide this right into my portfolio today. Apparently I had a definite style even then.

The song this illustrates is called "Epistle to Derroll". It's a Carroll-esque song about a man who is searching for his friend, a banjo-player with a tattoo on his hand. He calls all the starfish out of the sea to ask them if they've seen him anywhere. My favorite line says, "Come ye starry starfish/ I know your ways are caped/ Maybe it's because you're/ astrologically shaped."

Three things you may not have known about:

1. You can subscribe to my site feed and get updated whenever I post something new to my blog, just by clicking here:

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2. Want to be notified of all the latest updates to the site or be in the know about upcoming projects and artwork for sale? (Oh yes, there will be much more of that, very soon!) You can sign up for email notices here.

3. This is the mating ritual on the planet Koozebane. :)

Last year, I got this crazy idea that I would paint every day in May. And post the paintings here on my blog. And invite others to do the same. ♥

Here's how it works:
Commit to create something every day in the month of May. (Note: last year I did over 31 paintings. I felt really rushed. So this year, I will spend more than one day on a painting if I want to. You can do the same, or do 31 separate paintings, or take 31 photos, make collages, or write a page of your novel every day.)

They can be tiny.

They can be crap. :)

They can be about anything you want.

At the end of the month, a month that has a solid week of recitals and hours of driving time and packing up the kids to bring to my parents so the house can be perfectly quiet, I will have done 31 days of paintings. I may hate them all! I may have one I love, or I may think all of them are my best work yet. But I do know that I function better painting than when I'm NOT painting. And hopefully after all those paintings I will learn something new.

So...who wants to join me?

. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graphics to link back and use for your own "Every Day" journey:


Feel free to join the Flickr group here: Every Day In May. Go! Share your stuff!

Edgar Allan Poe/lar Bear.

We take Earth Day seriously around our house. Here are some things we do to try to save energy and help the earth:

Skip the drying cycle in the dishwasher and let the dishes air-dry

Use cloth bags at the supermarket. I love these. People stop me all the time and ask where I got them, to the point where the cashier wanted me to go show them to the manager at our ShopRite and tell them to stock them!

Plant something green: Paul planted 12 arbor vitae in our yard Sunday.

Go organic when you can. Read here for list of food that has the highest level of pesticides, so you can make your choices. We always go for organic milk as well, because our kids drink so much of it.

No pullups or disposable diapers. So far, two out of three kiddos are staying dry at night. So far, we haven't gone back to diapers yet! Keep your fingers crossed.

Turn off the lights. I turn off everything, whenever we leave the room. It's a good habit to get into.

Give back. We'll be helping do a park clean-up this weekend. Paul bring his students to help. I'll be leading the little kids to do some chalking.

Teach your children well. Our kids are learning to respect the earth, share their resources, and learn more about the world around them.

What's your favorite earth-friendly tip?

This is a painting in progress comissioned by wonderful long-time reader David. If you like unicorns too, check out the gallery and click on the first square under "stories." I love stories of all sorts (especially classics!), and I'm itching to start painting this one!

NOTE: I thought this was quite obvious, but I guess it's not! This scene is from Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, in the chapter called "The Lion and the Unicorn." It's in the public domain, so you can read the whole chapter (and actually, the whole book if you like) here.

A few days ago I posted my sketchbook page full of faces - going through a magazine and drawing face after face after face. They're finally painted! While this was a good exercise, it's brought up something that frustrates me every time: I draw. I love the drawing. I paint. I lose all those delicate outlines and scratchings that the pencil gives me under the watercolor. Foo.

So for my next sketchbook practice page, I'm going to draw more faces, then go over the outlines with an ink wash. Not just the rapidograph pen - I don't want a harsh strong line, but rather a variable line. So I think I might get brown ink instead of black, thin it out a little, do all my detail work with a brush and pen, and then do the watercolor. I think that will give me the results I've been looking for. (The little girl's face here is my favorite from last night's page.)

ps ~ I am the 1000th Blog of Note! What an honor! If you are brand new to the site, welcome!

I ripped this out of an old O Magazine last week and have stuck it up above my desk as a reminder to not beat myself up (or those around me). I am currently neck-deep in work, permanently stuck in Week 11 (out of 12) in Walking in This World, and we've moved into the last phase of toilet-training: NO DIAPERS AT NIGHT.

Does that strike terror into your heart? It did mine. And while I was hoping that the kids would catch on quickly to the "ooh, waking up in a puddle of pee is not fun", and they have, what they have not caught onto is the ability to do something about it; ie, wake up, get out of bed, and pee in the toilet. It's been 2 weeks now and they sort of get it and sort of don't. We may have to face the fact that at least the twins are just not physically ready to be dry all night. In which case we will go back to (gulp) pullups, and we will do a LOT less laundry. And Mama and Daddy can get much much much more sleep than we are now. And we'll all try again after recitals are over in June.

I only have 43 fantastic ideas for new paintings featuring my favorite color, and the title of my theme song. But I'm swamped with work... so I offer up an old fave in hopes that I'll be able to do this theme later on and post it.

I set myself a challenge one night to fill up my page with faces from the O magazine next to me. The first ones I did looked forced and had way too much detail. I've been studying up on one of my favorite illustrators of all time, Trina Schart Hyman (go look her up at the library, you will fall in love too) and noticed that though her pictures are detailed, she does much of it with color and not with lines (at least not in her faces). I finished the page and went back and reworked the heads I didn't like and simplified the heck out of them. Next step: watercolour!

My favorite album of all time: Rubber Soul. I prefer the American version, which some critics (and I!) think is superior to the British release.

FEEDBACK TIME: While this was incredibly fun to paint, it's hard to get four people to look like they're supposed to, especially when the album photo is distorted. So: I invite you to tell me something in particular I could fix on any particular Beatle. And you also have to tell me one thing you like about the painting or that I did right. Or just tell me how much you like the Beatles.

Coffee and pencil. Can you spy the singing bird?

Part two of the "Exorcise a creative demon" exercise (ha! how often do you get to use those two words together in a sentence?) is to make a creatitivty totem. Because of the deep connection I feel with this painting of mine, I thought about how I could interpret this into something 3d that could sit on my desk or drafting table, and not be so fragile it would fall over.

I thought, a doll! I need to sew! But then I realized I wanted it small enough to sit in the palm of my hand, so I stopped mid-iron (I didn't want her to have wrinkles!), unplugged the iron, and ransacked the house for any kind of modelling material. You would think with 3 preschoolers I would have lots of stuff, but all I could find was brightly colored Play-Doh and I wanted white. All I could find was the world's tiniest can of white. I was so frustrated! So I sketched out what I wanted to make, and waited, rather impatiently.

Finally the weekend came, and even though there wasn't really any time for me to go to the art store, I threw dinner in the oven, gave Paul instructions on what to do with it, and ran (with his blessing). I can't really explain this whole thing except to say that there was another force guiding me and urging me to create. As long as I listened to it, things were good. When I denied it, I got cranky. Very cranky.

I grabbed 10 lbs of clay at the art store and ran home just as dinner was cooling on the stove top. We ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and I escaped upstairs to my studio to GET TO IT. I am by no means a sculptor, so I decided ahead of time to forgive myself and all my mistakes, and just go for it. I spread out all my newspapers and supplies, and opened the box to see that I had not, as I thought, bought 10 pounds of white clay, but instead, bought 10 pounds of brown clay. I took a deep breath, decided that for whatever reason, I was supposed to have brown instead of white, and dug in. Wrapping it back up and returning it to the store was not an option.

I let go of any preconceived notion about what this was supposed to look like, and just started. I thought, dryad. Nurturer. Mother. My figure initially was too girly and I added more and more curves so that she was more fertile and weighted. I made the bird separately, originally so that I could paint the figure better. But now I think that the bird won't always sit there. I want to fill that lap with flowers, shiny rocks, acorns... whatever I find on my walks that speaks to me for the day. When I finally stood up and looked at her, I realized I had created a fertility goddess.





I'm quite pleased with her, but she's not done yet; I plan to paint her vine-y hair green and brown and those tiny leaves bright green; her legs and lap dark brown and black, and paint tree branches growing up her front and winding around her arms.



Or maybe I'll just live a spell with her as she is, naturally. It really doesn't matter because I simply can't mess this up. This is all about the act of creating. As long as I'm creating, and honoring my creative spirit, there are no mistakes.

So my demon is that I constantly compare my work to other people's -- if I'm not in the perfect frame of mind, I see how everyone else's art is so perfect, well-known, ground-breaking, acknowledged... and I can't create anything, it just freezes me up instead of inspiring me and lighting a creative fire under me. I sit and watch bad TV and eat potato chips instead of painting up a storm.

So.... what I did was take a stock photo promo that had come in the mail with lots of other people's work on it. I cut a monster's shape out of it, with horns, big claws, a pointy tail. (My kids, by the way, were fascinated and wanted ones for themselves.)



Then I painted green over him (for envy, natch), and splashed some red paint in the general vicinity of where its heart would be. And a little coffee.

I wrote all over the back of it with my feelings of jealousy and inandequacy, hole punched him a few times in the heart (take that!) and then burned him and watched him writhing on the fire. HA! We made a little ceremony out of it.

Not only was it fun to create this little demon, it was quite fun destroying it. I could have buried it in the snow, ripped it to shreds, spit on it, run over it with the car... my only complaint about the fire was that it burned rather quickly, for all that effort!

But isn't what this is about? I put in all this effort into whining and feeling inadequate, when I really had the power to banish all of that in an instant.

(Tomorrow.... the Creativity Totem makes an appearance.)

I haven't been blogging at all about "Walking in This World", mainly because I've been too darn busy doing the tasks and keeping up with the others in our group online to get to post much. We are just starting Week 10, which astounds me, because it means I'm in the homestretch! And what an amazing journey it's been!

Anyway, this task is too good not to share, and I invite anyone at home to try this and share your story here. I'll be sharing in parts, as soon as I can get my images off the digital camera and loaded here. I suggest you do both parts of this task.

1. Exorcise a creative demon: Reflect on a creative injury and make a creativity monster embodying all the nasty elements of your tormentor. Then destroy it! MUAH-HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!

2. Create a creativity totem: Make a being that embodies all the spiritual forces you would like to muster to your support. And then give it the honor it deserves.

I will be sharing mine here in the next few days. Can't wait to hear what others have come up with!

One week ago (it's been birthday party central around here!) it was Peter and Angela's birthday -- they turned the big THREE. THREE! How the heck can they be three already?!

Maybe part of my astonishment is due to the fact that there are large sections of their early childhood that I cannot remember anything about. I have huge blank sections of memory, I'm guessing from a combination of my post-partum depression and sheer exhaustion. (Go check the archives if you want to read the adventures of a family with preemie twins born 10 weeks early, with a one-year-old at home. I don't!) Luckily, nowadays things are much happier and slightly less exhausting, so I will share a few favorite snippets:

Peter LOVES Schoolhouse Rock. He insists that in Science Rock they are singing about a "Kermit" of electricity and even after we explained that it's a current, he will sing it extra-loud when we get to that part, and then give a belly-laugh that sounds like it's coming from an old man. He has thankfully switched from "No can!" as his catch-phrase to "I think not!" We also will hear, "Angewa! Yeave me ayone!" at all hours of the day or night. But if she's not around, he asks and asks until she comes into the room.

Angela can't leave him - or anyone else - alone. Anything Petey does, it must be good, and she wants to be doing it too. When the lights are off and it's bedtime, we hear her leading the singing over the baby monitor -- "Never Smile at a Crocodile" and selections from "Big Big World." She recently got glasses and we didn't think it was possible for one little girl to get more glamorous, but she totally is (and she knows it, too.) Angela's latest thing is to say "I love you!" to everyone around the table, in the car, wherever we are, and today, she added "I love myself!" I ran over and hugged her and said, "YES, Angela. Don't ever forget that." Life lessons, from a three-year-old.

So here's to my muffins, my big surprise, my daily dose of hugs. I love you more every day, and I pray you stay just as sweet as ever... and please God, keep taking naps, and just get up yourself when you need to pee at night and let Mama sleep, okay?

Hey, you've got to hide your love away.
Coffee, pencil, watercolour.

We drew a lot, watched this (above - a perennial Michelangelo's birthday fave), and as soon as the kids go to bed, I'm doing a new painting, with a coffee wash for the background.

So.... what did you do today?

March 6th is Michelangelo's birthday! To celebrate the birthday of one of the world's most inspiring artists, I invite you to participate in this project.



What you do:
1. Do something creative this Tuesday, March 6th. It can be something you love to do, something you've forgotten how to do, something you've never done and always secretly wanted to try. Here's your excuse! Some ideas are:
- paint/draw/collage
- sculpt (like the master)
- write a poem, a short story
- take a photo
- visit a museum or art gallery
- sew
- cook something exciting you've never made before
- see an art film, foreign film, or movie about an artist

2. Come back here and share your experience!
Post a link to your creation, write about your trip or creative process - share your creative story with others. How creative can we get? (There will be a special post Tuesday for you to post to.)

3. Link back with the above graphic if you've written about it on your site.

4. Have fun, for goodness' sake! This is not about being perfect or creating the best piece of art. It's about embracing your creative side in whatever form it happens to take.



I'll be back to share my experience on Tuesday... can't wait to hear your stories!

My illustration on an article about prenatal yoga in the latest Kiwi Magazine.

This is way more serene than the yoga I do now, which I call "Combat Yoga" - where each of my children fight over how many of them can fit underneath me in any given pose. Sophie's favorite trick is to do the Downward Dog pose directly under me while I do it, and then Angela rushes and slides in on her tummy under Sophie (unless Peter beats her to it). No matter how precarious the pose or how many times I tell them that if I fall on them, I will squash them, they consider it a personal challenge to be as close to me as humanly possible. And don't even get me started on the fights they have over the bricks.

I was incredibly honored to be nominated for Best Designed Weblog in the Bloggies this year. When I went to look at all the nominees (for everything, actually), I noticed that there seemed to be a definite division. There were sites that were incredibly crafted, coded out the wazoo, devoted to design with every last pixel of their being. Sites that had perfect CSS; sites that discuss web design on a regular basis.

And then there's mine.

My code is far from perfect. I talk about art, but not about design (web, graphic, or otherwise, although I am an Art Director at my day job and have to talk about it all day). I talk a lot about being a mom and the struggles to meld art and family without going insane.

Oh, and did I mention that mine looks nothing like the other entries?

I've noticed since the noms came out blogs which mention all the other nominees but me, as if I'm in some different group that doesn't belong there, darling. Not one of us. And then there's people who voted for me BECAUSE it looks completely unlike the others. There are people that think that anyone else who has watercolor on the top of their site is ripping me off (ha!) and those who say, "well, it's arty, but... "

So what do you think? Is there a line between what's arty, and what's design? Do you have to have amazing code to have good design? Who did you vote for? (It's okay if it wasn't me!) Be honest. (If I wasn't in it, I would have voted for Subtraction. Hands down. Have been a fan for a while.)

Sophie is four years old today.

When Sophie was two, she taught herself to read.

When Sophie was three, she started writing.

I can't wait to see what this year will bring. I love her more every day. Especially when she draws me stuff like this:

I just finished the most amazing book: Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes. I highly recommend this for any mom or teacher (and isn't that what all moms are anyway?) Plain and simple, the authors break down how girls today are targeted by marketers every step of the way, through what they see on TV to what the covers of board games have on them (by the way, not ONE had a girl winning the game.)

In our house, we don't watch commercials, even the ones on PBS. :) Although some of my sitters have been aghast to hear that my kids don't watch Disney films, the only thing my kids have seen is Mary Poppins. (No offense to you if you like them, I think 4 is far too young to pretend your prince needs to rescue you. Not to mention every "princess" in the movies has no mother, who has been conveniently killed off because she interferes with the plot. But I digress.) And while I thought that I was being a little overprotective, after reading this book, I'm glad we've taken that approach.

The book points out how "Girl Power" has been taken over by marketers to mean that you have the power to make yourself attractive to the opposite sex. Or that you can buy things. Your choices are pink, sparkly pink, and purple (don't believe me, go read the chapter excerpt on Amazon and see the research these women did.) Your choice is to be either one of the guys, or to try to get one. Seems cut and dried, but once you start looking, you see examples of this everywhere.

Luckily, the authors also point out ways to have good discussions with your kids, as early as preschool, and to let them be aware of what's around them. They never say "don't be a cheerleader, play the flute, like ballet, be girly", but they do point out that girls have a billion other options (play soccer, play the drums, take up kickboxing, and you can still be girly). They help you show your girls that marketers are trying to manipulate them, and that they are smarter than that. I've taken it a little further and make sure we mention everything in front of Petey too; this way he grows up understanding that girls (especially his sisters) are more than just pretty faces.

One of the things we do is just comment on things. Like the kids play dress up, and Angela yells, "I'm a fireman!" So I tell her, "Well, you're a fire fighter, because both men and women are brave and put out fires, right?" Or we watch Curious George, and I say, "Wow, isn't that great that Professor Wiseman is such a smart woman! Do you think she's a good scientist? Do only men get to be scientists?" And we talk about it.

Do you see this in your own kids? What do you tell them? Do you think this is a bunch of hooey and I should just put in The Little Mermaid DVD already and shut up?

Some more great reading:
The Paper Bag Princess: We're loving this book. What makes a princess a princess? For certain, it's not her clothes.

What's Wrong With Cinderella? A must-read for every mom. Because as the author tells her daughter, "It's just, honey, Cinderella doesn't really do anything."

Commercial-Free Childhood: Great site that shows how many strange places marketers are trying to get your kids' attention and build brand loyalty at a very young age.

We take the same pic every year. See the kids grow up:

(2005)

(2006)

The following is from a note I wrote to my Walking In This World group, which has a few mamas in it who are trying to make more time for their art in a schedule that's already jam-packed. I figured I would share what we do in the hopes that it helps someone out. Feel free to add your own advice in the comments. :)

..................

LOTS OF UNSOLICITED ADVICE TO FOLLOW - FEEL FREE TO PICK/CHOOSE/IGNORE ;)

Have you considered hiring a sitter for Sunday afternoons? We have sitters (High school girls) come in for 2 hours every night just to help me feed the kids and get them off to bed, b/c my husband teaches music classes every night until 10ish.(I can do it by myself, but it's difficult with the three under 4 and trying to be supermom has gotten me sick many times from exhaustion.)

Anyway, so my kids are familiar with the girls (not to mention Grandma!), so sometimes we have one of them come on a weekend afternoon for a few hours to play with the kiddos while we get our own work done without them around. I have painted, written letters, and just napped while they've come over. And then I'm refreshed when it's time to make dinner and see everyone again. Or sometimes, we just order a pizza so I don't have to cook. Or we have pancakes for dinner. :) We pay $8 an hour for the girls to be there for 3 small kids, and we're right there in the house in case they need us for any reason. This seems to work out well for everyone.

I also think that you need to make sure that your husband understands how important your art, and time to yourself, is. You can ALWAYS say, "His work is important!" but so are you. My husband was incredibly supportive while I was doing The Artist's Way (still is), but I still have to point out to him that we almost always get a sitter so he can work, not the other way around. :)

Not sure if financially this is possible, but since you are working, you might want to look into hiring cleaning help. I know this sounds extreme - it did to me when my husband suggested it, I thought, good lord! I can clean my own house! We don't have funds for that! But we wound up spending at least one day every weekend doing nothing but cleaning the house. And that just sucked. (Keep in mind also that my husband's studio is part of the house, and we have 75 people coming and going and using our bathroom each week. :) So we have a super-nice lady come every other week to clean the house and it is SO WORTH IT TO ME to not have to spend all my time scrubbing the stove top or cleaning the toilets and whatnot. Anyway, you might want to look into it - figure what your time is worth, what your sanity is worth, and see if this could possibly be an option for you.

Regarding bedtimes - this is the thing that saves me - we are incredibly regimented with our bedtime procedure. I have had other moms tell me, "My guys will never do that." Ours do becuase we MAKE them do it. And don't take no for an answer. I am so fiercely protective of my evening time (for my sanity) that bedtimes are strictly enforced. :) They also know the routine so well that I don't dare skip a step or do it out of order, or they call me on it.

My three all go to bed by 7:30, 8 at the very latest. By 6:30, I mention that we all need to start cleaning up. They all have to help put away their toys themselves, because I can't possibly do it all myself (the sitter helps too, but we mainly want the kids to do it themselves.) Then they have to try the potty, and everyone gets into diapers/pullups and into their PJs. Everyone should be dressed and everything put away by 7ish. Then they each get to choose a picture book and we all snuggle on the couch and we read to them, or what happens when a sitter is there is that she reads and I run upstairs and make sure everything's ready - make the bed that Peter's flung blankets all around the room, or fill their humidifiers, etc. Weekend nights when Daddy is there we get the laptop and watch 1/2 hour of something - the Muppet Show, vintage Sesame Street clips from YouTube, Classical Baby, Schoolhouse Rock.

By the time the books are read, we all go upstairs. They know they all have to walk up - not get carried - or they go straight to bed. We brush teeth, go into Peter and Angela's room and say (or sing) our prayers, and then do our "thank you God"s where they tell us things they're happy about, and we ask God to watch over our family members/friends who are sick. Everyone smooches each other, it's 7:30 and time for the sitter to go home. The twins hop in bed with threats from me of what will happen if they get out, :) and I close the door.

Sophie tries a last pee, then she hops in bed and tells me Three Nice Things about her day, which is kind of a gratitude list. We read one more story - very very short, like a poem or something, switch off her flashlight, smooch, and she's done. If she's not sleepy, she reads in bed - she has a flashlight that's easy for her to turn on and off. By then, it's 7:40. They mostly stay down for the evening, and I have until 10:30 when Paul is finished to do my own work. They also know that after they go to bed, Mama is painting. And they're interested in that too, especially if they know that they get to see it the next day.

Anyway, don't beat yourself up, and don't give up either - you're doing great things for yourself just by trying to work through the book and by trying to learn more about yourself and your art.

Hang in there!

love, Elena

Mama said there'd be days like this...

from my Every Day In May extravaganza. I swore last year in June I would never do it again, but now I'm thinking that I'd really like to. So mark your calendars if you want to participate, come May...

Faithful readers of this blog know what a hero and inspiration Jim Henson continues to be to me (I lobbied unsuccessfully for each of my kids to have "Henson" as a middle name. Hmpf.) Anyway, I want to share some marvelous wild Henson geniusness I've come across recently:

Jim Henson video collection at the University of Maryland . I am especially excited about watching the "Experimental Films", some of which I have read about many times but never thought I'd get to actually see.

The Cube. Henson's wild film about a man trapped in a cube that others can enter and leave, but he has to figure out how to get out himself. Thanks to my super-wonderful brother, I now have my own copy of this. You can actually download it, it's in the public domain now. Or just watch it. (About an hour long.)

Timepiece. The Oscar-nominated short. Watch Jim Henson paint an elephant lavender, among other things. (About 9 minutes.)

Wilkins Coffee commercials. We've said "A house just isn't a home without Wilkins Coffee!" since we were in high school. Here's why.

Outtakes from Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Not for the kiddies, but really, really funny. Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz are joking in the longest clip.

Everyone's birthday's coming up very soon - Sophie at the end of the month (4) and Petey and Angela at the very beginning of March (3). I asked them if they would like me to make them special rag dolls they could dress up and play with, and they got quite excited. Especially when I told them I'd make each doll look like one of them!

So - here's the big question to those of you out there who make toys on a regular basis - what kinds of materials do you recommend? Did you ever make a doll you could throw in the washer? Do you know of any good (free would be lovely) patterns that are not too complicated?




Petey, Sophie, and Angela have colored about 50 photocopies of those dolls now....