We moved to our new residence exactly one week ago. Our Internet has not been hooked up yet, so I am writing this post from my phone.
It feels like I have been unpacking for years, but it’s only been a couple of days. My kids didn’t seem to notice the change in residence, but I sure have! I love our new place, and I hope that I can soon finish with all the unpacking and get settled in.
Filed under Family
The moving has begun. Blah!
I will be happy in about a week when we are all unpacked in our new place.
I must apologize for being so exceptionally lame and not posting anything for the past couple of weeks. Truth be told, I will be moving in about a week and things are crazy around here.
It will probably be a little longer before I have anything substantial to post, but I just wanted to wish all my fellow Canadians a Happy Canada Day, and all my fellow Americans a Happy Independence Day! I hope that everyone’s weekends were splendid. I spent mine with my husband and kids sitting by the pool. Lots of sunscreen, friends, and good food. How did you spend your holiday weekend?
I attend a writing group with some fellow bloggers/aspiring authors about once a month. I got home late from our last monthly meeting the other night. When I asked my husband how his evening was, he gave me a sarcastic little laugh and said, “Aaah, children!”
He related to me what happened: Almost immediately after I left the house to leave for my writing group, our recently bathed and put in bed oldest daughter (3) came out of her bedroom holding an empty A+D tube. For those of you who don’t know what A+D is, it’s a diaper rash ointment that is extremely greasy. Obviously, my poor husband went rushing into the girl’s bedroom to find, much to his dismay, that our children had indeed made a mess.
What a mess it was! Both of our kids were covered head to toe in diaper rash ointment, huge globs of it lounging in their hair. My baby’s crib had been thoroughly smeared up and down every single post with ointment. The carpet housed large blobs of the goo and the closet door mirrors were slimed as high and low as a three year old can reach. Grease covered the toys, the clothes, and the books that happened to be available for smearing.
My sweet husband bathed both girls again, washing their hair twice and cleaning up the mess as best he could. The next morning, both girls smelled horribly of diaper rash ointment and their hair was still as greasy as could be. I had quite a time cleaning up the ointment that had been wiped on everything. In fact, I am still discovering areas of grease on the crib and certain toys that I missed on my first go around. All I could do was laugh about the incident, and thankfully, so could my husband. Children definitely make life more interesting.
Filed under Family
During one of my frequent chats with my mom, she told me an interesting story about my brother and a track and field event at school.
My youngest brother is 15 years old and has always been fairly athletic. Recently, he participated in a triathlon. I believe that every kid at school was required to participate, and my brother was designated the swimmer (he swims like a fish). He swam his leg of the race and then the cyclist took over. By the time the race had wound down to the runners, my brother noticed that one of the runners was leisurely strolling down the race track. It was an overweight boy that was usually the brunt of adolescent name-calling and general bullying. He had tried to run as far as he could, but was exhausted and had taken to walking down the track.
My brother, bless his heart, took off running down to the track, a group of his friends close at his heels. They didn’t know what he was doing, but they followed anyway. He walked alongside the “runner” and talked with him, telling him that he was doing great, and when they got to a certain point on the track they were going to run and finish the race together.
As he was talking, more and more kids began to gather around the young man running the race. When they reached the designated spot on the track, they started running. By the time they crossed the finish line, the entire class was running down the track with the boy, cheering him on. The teachers all had tears in their eyes as everybody congratulated the runner and cheered for him.
People need leaders. They need someone to take charge and lead the way. Some people are natural leaders, like my brother. I feel humbled when I think of his sportsmanship and team building personality. As someone who is naturally gifted at leading others, he could have chosen to make the situation horrible and humiliating for his teammate. Instead he chose to create an experience that the people in his little town will remember for a long time to come.
Filed under Family
I might as well admit my one major guilty pleasure: I love to read. I could honestly sit and read for 20 hours out of the day and be perfectly content.
Due to my love of reading, my wonderful husband bought me a Kindle for Mother’s Day. I was so surprised and thrilled! Instantly, I began downloading all my favorites: Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and A Girl of the Limberlost, to name a few. Currently, I am reading Life of Pi. I started just this afternoon and am loving what I’m reading so far. It sounds VERY interesting. I may be slightly biased, however. The author mentions Canada several times and says how much he loves it.
My mom gave me a book about a month ago called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It’s a mouthful right? At first I was a little skeptical, thinking that it was probably a book that was published in the 70s and not really my taste. In spite of my skepticism, I began reading (it was published in 2008) and was completely and pleasantly delighted in the story. It is a historical fiction novel about a woman that lives in London. It takes place just after the second World War has ended. She starts up a friendship with a group of people on the island of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands between England and France). The story made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me think. Books like this don’t come along every day, or even every year. It was a fantastic read, and I am so glad that I beat down my inner pessimist and took a chance on a book (and an island) that I knew absolutely nothing about. What a treat.
Filed under Entertainment
I have recently become a regular contributor for Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, a fantastic business blog for entrepreneurs. My first contribution was a tip on how to get your creative juices flowing. There are 20 tips in all (mine is #20). Have a look HERE.
You might want to browse the rest of their blog as well. They have some really useful information available.
Filed under Business and Technology
For a royalty free copy of this file (eps, jpg), please CLICK HERE to visit my iStockphoto page.
My newborn baby footprints just reached 400 downloads on iStockphoto.com! I can’t believe how far these little footprints have come. I didn’t think that they had a chance of being accepted when I uploaded them to the site because iStock usually only accepts more complicated vector illustrations. The minute that these were live on the site, they started selling. They haven’t stopped since.
Filed under Family, Uncategorized
My thoughts on the American Idol Finale last night? W.O.W.!!!! Beyoncé was absolutely stunning! I have to wonder how long it took her to perfect her power strut. I have to say that I tried strutting around like that today, and it is much harder than it looks. Beside the fact that I wasn’t wearing high heels attached to my gorgeous legs (I didn’t have a sparkly silver dress either), I couldn’t do the walk justice.
When she came down those steps, my jaw just dropped. I thought, “Wow, she is gorgeous. Now THAT is a performer!” I really don’t know what else to say. She was incredible.
Who won anyway? Never mind, I don’t care.
Filed under Uncategorized
Yet another custom illustration for Cisco. They wanted an arrow flow chart that would depict one of their processes. I used both the bold numbers and the gradation from green to yellow to compliment the idea of a process. Obviously, the arrows also helped in that regard.
I have really enjoyed working on these many projects for Cisco. There is always something new and interesting to work on. No two projects have been the same, or even similar for that matter.
I am hoping to get some more stock illustrations done soon. I have several ideas for work-at-home illustrations as well as some city life concepts.
Filed under Business and Technology, Custom Illustrations
