Mindowaskin Park, 8am Last week I posted a question: now that I am not commuting, what will I do with this free time? (I had many great responses, thanks!) So here's what I started... So the first morning - Tuesday - I took a walk in the park and did all the things I can’t do when I have the kids with me – sitting down on a bench, going down paths that DON’T lead to the playground. It was like a mini-vacation all in 30 minutes, I swear! I started out walking fast with my hands jammed in my pockets and ended up just strolling along and touching everything – the moss on the trees, the stones embedded in the bridge over the stream, the funny fluffy flowers that look like something out of Dr. Seuss. My favorite thing I saw was a mama bunny and her baby – I could have held the baby in my hands and his teeny little ears together were no bigger than my thumb. I breathed differently, I walked differently. There was a voice inside my head telling me, "Go ahead. Sit there. Touch that. Now go walk there - slowly - and look around." So I did. And I felt like someone whose glasses were smudged and had gotten so used to not seeing properly, getting those glasses wiped crystal clear and being told, look, look. My heart was so joyful! Since then, I took a brand-new sketchbook and watercolors on my morning jaunts and did some sketches like I did in Italy - although these have a 20-30 minute time limit to them! I will be posting them online as I get them scanned in. (Not bad for 30 minutes, eh?) category | Art

Illustration Friday: Sport We are huge Harry Potter fans at my house. (I know I'm not alone; if I'm the only one who chose to illustrate Quidditch this week, I'll be shocked.) I also found out online there's a movement starting to play Quidditch on bicycles and even one version on unicycles. I'm in! My little town is sponsoring a town-wide Harry Potter Scavenger Hunt, which I've just picked up the forms for today. Stores downtown that are participating have full-colored banners from Hogwarts in their windows, and the aptly named Town Book Store has come up with appropriate questions for each, such as.... "Harry's glasses always seem to break. How many extra pairs does he keep at B. Kubrick Opticians, 100 Central Avenue?" How fun is that?! I have a feeling I will be a common sight downtown, pushing that enormous stroller around the sidewalk and trying to get in all the 27 stores to find out each of the clues. I always did love figuring things out! I could care less about winning anything (although one of the prizes is burgundy and gold yarn and knitting needles from our knitting store, I guess to make a scarf); it's the participation that'll be fun. Hopefully on July 16th I'll be turning in my forms at the book store and picking up our copy of "The Half-Blood Prince." Oh, and house rules: Mama reads the fastest, therefore I get it first. ;) category | Illustration Friday

Seeking creative ideas about time. So tomorrow I start my first day of non-commuting. We've decided that the time I would spend driving to work (about 30 min.) is now my free time to spend any way I please. So the question is: what the heck am I going to do with myself every morning? I need to do something that's away from the kids and is nurturing in some respect. The point is not to spend that half-hour still feeding the kids or folding laundry. Ideas thus far: - yoga - walk in the park (perhaps a chalk in the park!) - walk downtown for coffee/tea and back - ??? And what about those Technorati tags? Does anyone know why in the name of all that's holy the #^%*@&^%$!! tags won't work on my blog? I've scoured Technorati's Help and FAQs and written them three times, and have heard diddley. Very frustrating as I have countless i-Fri entries just begging to all gather in one place and have a party. If you figure it out and I can get them to work, I'll send you a print of your choice! Any takers?

The End of an Era. The palatial yet not overly ostentatious offices of PRI are moving about 1.5 hours away as of today, and I will not be moving with them. After 11 years of working in the same town, I'll now be working from home, with the occasional jaunt southward to the new offices. I didn't cry (much). I'll now be working from the branch office known as The Purple Room (sort of a Pantone 2716 C, to be specific.) You can see pics of the family visit a couple of weeks ago to the office in beautiful downtown Metuchen here.

Illustration Friday: Hero Jim Henson has long been one of my personal heroes. I used to have a framed picture of him (with Kermit!) hanging on my wall to inspire me. Rather than gush about how creative, talented, and what a visionary he was, I'll include more of his words which ring so true for me:

I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best. I know I drive some people crazy with what seems to be ridiculous optimism, but it has always worked out for me. I believe in taking a positive attitude toward the world, toward people, and toward my work. I think I'm here for a purpose. I think it's likely that we all are, but I'm only sure about myself. I try to tune myself in to whatever it is that I'm supposed to be, and I try to think of myself as a part of all of us - all mankind and all life... At some point in my life I decided, rightly or wrongly, that there are many situations in this life that I can't do much about - acts of terrorism, feelings of nationalistic prjudice, cold war, etc. So what I should do is concentrate on the situations that my energy can affect. I believe we can ... be an influence for good; that we can help to shape the thoughts of children and aduts in a positive way.

A page from my sketchbook: coffee, pencil, and coloured pencil category | Inspiration, Illustration Friday

So true. "I learned, again and again, the lesson of creativity: the painting I make today, the drawing I do today, the poem I do today, is meant to save my life today." ~ Judy Collins, Singing Lessons, a book I totally and whole-heartedly recommend category | Inspiration

Petey needs surgery. Peter and Angela just went to the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. Peter has had fluid in his ears for the past 6 months and it messed up his hearing test from November, so we were advised to get it looked at again by both our pediatrician and the follow-up group. So.... Peter still has fluid in his ears and the doctors think it's affecting his speech because he can't hear properly. So we've decided to go ahead and have the tubes put in his ears. It's a fairly common procedure and you can read all about it here - with pictures! (Note, this article is also about ear infections. Peter's never had an ear infection, but the procedure is the same.) Our date is set for first thing in the morning on July 14th. Surprisingly, I am not nearly as freaked out about this as I was for Sophie. Maybe because we've been through this before and the follow-up will be SO much easier than it was with her. Say a prayer for us - we really hope that this will greatly help Peter's hearing. Then he can get to writing that sonata - Mozart wrote his first at age 3, so we'd better get cracking! ;) category | Family

Illustration Friday: Black and White This is one of the illustrations I did for Spirits Unwrapped, a book of short stories about mummies. This scene is from "The Tenth Hat" - I believe this is the sixth hat, which gives the wearer the power of speech with birds. Yes, all the kinds of birds were named, and yes, I researched them all. (If you're going to do something, you may as well do it right, right?) ps: Trying out something new I saw at Braidwood's site - I've been wanting to tag my posts forever, but didn't think Blogger could handle them, so here goes... category | Illustration Friday

Who's on the Artist's Way mailing list? I'm planning to send out an email tomorrow, and so far I have one email request and a few comments that you're starting TAW - if you want to get a weekly email from me can you let me know for sure? I don't want to spam anyone. And please know that I'd love to hear how you're doing with your journey as well! UPDATE: For some odd reason, the comments form is taking your email but not making it visible. Please re-comment with it in the body, or send me an email. I totally apologize. If I missed anyone this week, I'll send it again next week too. Anyone who's hurting for inspiration, make sure you check out Andrea's super-fantastic idea - I just wrote my letter this afternoon and will be posting it tomorrow.

Illustration Friday: Summer This summer is amazingly super-special to me. In order to understand why, check out the illustration I did of me and the kids in the park, one year ago: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Me: pushing the stroller. Acting like everything's cool, when I'm PPD'ed out the wazoo. Angela in the back, Peter sleeping in the middle, monitors attached with wires to their middles and in the pouch under the stroller (not only did we have to get a stroller for three babies, we had to find one that could hold the monitors). Sophie in the front, non-stop stream of chatter and song. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back to this summer: Me: really happy, pushing 75 pounds of baby, getting a workout with my pedometer, taking the kids to the playground where we'll play on the swings and run around like crazy and look for the family of baby ducks. Peter in the back, twisted around while still keeping his seatbelt on, popping up and hiding behind the shade and cracking himself up into convulsions of giggles. Angela with her dark curls, looking around at simply everything and hanging out the side like a dog in a car (note the little toes hanging down). Sophie with her sneakers on because she's going to climb all over that playground, seed pods in hand that I don't know what they're called but we call them "itchy balls" because they're prickly, and Sophie must have one for each hand on every walk. Still non-stop stream of chatter and song, only now the twins join in. No monitors. No medicine. 50 pounds more of healthy babies that I am more than happy to push around the park or anywhere else. Babies aside, I feel like this is the first time in THREE WHOLE YEARS that I am finally back to normal. Back in my own skin and able to do the things I long for - and incredibly blessed with healthy, healthy kids.

New: an illustration in art + decor magazine in an article on blogging. You can see the original nice and big here.

#23 on the Big 33 List Finally, finally, finally started up The Artist's Way again. This time, I WILL finish it. I think the morning pages are going to be just the thing to help me focus my creativity, which is all over the place. The one thing I do know is that I want to work more and more away from the computer with less chances to Ctrl+Z. Anyone else want to journey with me?

Illustration Friday: Digital

New painting. Tell me what you think it means and then I'll post later what I think it means.

Click here for image: ENVY I've moved the image off the main page because as it was a personal sketchbook image from earlier days, it was making me uncomfortable to look at it every time I came to the site. You can still look at it, but I don't need to right now. Illustration Friday: Envy I work out a lot of anger and frustration in my sketchbooks (you who think I'm mild-mannered knew it had to go somewhere!) A few years ago, I did a number of paintings about not being able to get pregnant and how jealous I was to see expectant mothers everywhere I went. You know about synchronicity - when the universe sends you messages - I felt like all I saw were babies and happy families and big bellies. And all I felt was hollow inside. Well, a couple of years and three babies later (three babies in two years - not a recommended for the faint of heart), I'm realizing that any kind of jealousy can eat you away inside, and leave a hole that needs filling. In my case, love, my faith, and lots of art filled me up. The babies didn't fill the hole. But they helped. ;) ps ~ I totally dig my brother's illo this week.

Illustration Friday: Aquatic A present for my husband, who loves dolphins and whales and all sorts of finny things. We love the song as well. I need to look at this and remind myself to relax... frantic is not the word to describe my life right now. It's uber-frantic. Frenetic, possibly. We have three nights left of piano recitals to go, and I'm taking the kids to my parents' every afternoon and evening, so the house is appropriately quiet. I have a huge project at work that coincidentally, must happen NOW and requires me to be suitably creative and talented. Ah, that would require sleep! It's times like this that I'm grateful for the loving people around me, both at work and home, that make stuff possible instead of making more stress. The love helps, lots. And it also helps to know that in a week, this will all be over and we will be living the life of a normal family where nobody has to work until 10 every night. Summer, here we come! Woo hoo!

Painting and stuff. This is what I've been up to lately... painting like crazy because (a) it's totally fun and challenging to live without the holy "undo" I've gotten so attached to, and (b) because we're about to enter into a week of piano recitals that will keep me far away from my beloved brushes. There will be a painting explosion when I get back. :) The bottom left and middle were done Sunday night, the top left was done Monday, the big one on the right was started Tuesday and finished Wednesday. Starting another one tonight to finish before recitals. All were painted with coffee and acrylics.

Illustration Friday: Nourishment I get nourished by a number of different things, only one of them being food. I get sustenance from so many things - I could have done about 15 paintings (and who knows, maybe I will!) on friendship, family, music, my faith, and my life-saving painting habit. Feeding on words - stories, really - keeps me going and keeps my imagination and creativity alive. It inspires me to share more and more of myself and my own journey, and lets me know that it's perfectly okay to slip into a dream-world for a visit from time to time. I read on average about 10 books a week. Some I love, some I'm rereading, some are boring but I give them a try anyhow. On my nighttable right now are The Gospel According to Paul (dry going) and The Snarkout Boys and The Avacado of Death (what do you think?) I consider my library card to be my passport and a ticket to uncharted and exciting lands. Ingredients for this illustration: coffee (background wash), acrylic paint, pen, computer printout (of my Adventures In Chalking - yet another nourishing habit.)

Sometimes, when your day sucks, all you can do is put on your glitteriest pair of shoes and hope for the best.

Illustration Friday: Mischief My kids haven't figured out how to pool their resources just yet, but as soon as they do.... watch out, world! . . . . . Tomorrow the twins have their one-year visit at the therapists (they would have been one yesterday!) Please say a little prayer - I'm scared that they'll find there's a developmental problem. Stupid worries, I know, but I can't help it.