To do list

Its been a hectic busy 3 weeks since my last post. I"ve had jobs stack up on one another and a child get sick. When you are a working mom, particularly one who works for herself, thats just a recipe for disaster... or at the very least stress and frustration. While driving to his mommies day out last week, the Small Fry got sick all over the back of the car. In a matter of about 25 seconds my whole day changed - Jim Dear was out of town so I couldn't even count on getting to catch up as soon as he got home from work. I called the doctor, called clients to explain what was happening, and reordered the whole day in my mind while cleaning up poor Small Fry, pulled over in a church parking lot in 19 degree weather (not to any other expectant mom reading this: keep a stash of bath towels in your car, very handy).

Fortunately today is a holiday and Jim Dear is back in town and off work so he is playing with Small fry while I catch up. Last night I came out to the studio and made my to-do list for this week. Its 3 weeks til the SCBWI conference and I REALLY want to finish my Red Riding Hood piece. I've got about 10 things on the to-do list so far and the week just started... but i'm working on Red before I do anything else....

A new year's resolution

Happy new year! I should have posted this yesterday but what can I say... I was busy, uh, relaxing. Actually thats not entirely true, I DID work in the morning but after that i was busy playing with the Small Fry and spending some gift cards at Barnes and Noble. Truly taxing stuff that just kept me from the blog. At any rate I LOVE new years. It's my favorite holiday. I love all the glitz and glamour of New year's eve parties. I love the song Auld Lang Syne. I especially love the idea of a brand new year; of old, tired events being relegated to a past calendar and a fresh year with endless possibilities spreading out before you. I feel so sorry for people who see a new year as another reminder that they haven't gotten where they want in life instead of a perfect opportunity to start going in that direction. Thats another thing I love about this holiday: part of the tradition is to make a promise to yourself to take action of some sort. Its not simply a "wallow in gratuitous self pleasure" holiday, it taps on the door and reminds you that there may be unfinished business in your life so let's get on with finishing it. I've always made resolutions - some of them have been very grandiose and almost impossible to squeeze into a resolution (more on that in a minute). This year my resolutions involve more mundane things like remembering to take the recyclable shopping bags with me into Kroger every time I go shopping (seriously, parking the cart full of groceries by the frozen goods and running back out to the car with a 2 year old in my arms is getting pretty old). But a long time ago I made the resolution to work for myself as a children's illustrator. That is a truly tall order to put into a resolution as it pretty much can't be accomplished in one year. In fact its not really something you ever finish doing, its a lifetime of work. I bring this up as the point of my post because I made that resolution 10 years ago. This year, 2008, marks the 10th year of taking the plunge to follow my dreams into what was then a murky and unsure future. Happily I am writing this as a fairly established (though still seeking) artist who can pay all her bills. I will write the story of the event that got me to take that plunge later. For now I will just close with the moral of the story: make and follow your own resolution, better things really can happen. Happy 2008.