TV Turn off week

My family has successfully navigated tv turn off week! The great thing about it was that the kids didn't even seem to miss it. They never asked to turn it on at all. The bad thing about it was that we came back from sunny Florida to rainy cold Maine and we were stuck inside. In the late afternoons, we attended programs put on by the Curtis Memorial Library. (Our fabulous library.) We went to kids yoga, and to a family game night. On Friday evening, the school had a May day contra dance that was lots of fun. I must say that life without the tv felt like a lot more work for me. I use it as a chance to make a quiet phone call, write on the blog, or make dinner. I'd like the kids to be more self-motivated when I need these short rest times during the day. I suppose that will happen when they are a little older.

On another note. My wonderful husband made me a light box so I can easily trace my sketches onto final paper. Yea! I had been working with the tracing paper and final paper taped to the window of my studio to use the sunlight. Now I can work in the evenings too when children are sleeping.

I was able to complete an illustration using photoshop and submit it to the SCBWI illustration contest that happens every six weeks or so. I definetly see errors now, but for me it is more an issue of just taking the step to enter the contest. A few years ago I would have fretted over it until the deadline past and then complained that I didn't have enough time. (A lot of the time I don't have goes into the tv.) I think that is progress.

I hope I can take the lessons from tv turn off week( a lot can get done if you walk away from the tv) and vacation (relax, don't yell) and be more productive. I am itching to settle on a new postcard design and send out another round of promotion to art directors. Speaking of art directors... that's another post.

Last night in Florida

The sun melts silently into the sea on our last night of vacation. it leaves behind pink ribbons of clouds and golden shafts of light that cut the sky into day blue and violet night.

We had a wonderful vacation in Bonita Springs, Florida jthis year. The kids are old enough to enjoy the beach, and pool without Mom perched like a vulture watching woon to be carion. No, instead, I made myself relax and discovered that the lifeguards were there. We played "aminal golf", mini-golf with lifesize fiberglass safari animals, about four times during the week. The kids loved it and my older son is getting to be an expert putter. Generally, the kids played well together and it was only at the end of the trip that they started to suffer from too much vacation.

We also got to visit with family. It is great to reconnect. My sister-in-law has recently returned from a few years in Naples, Italy and prepared us a wonderful three course Itlaian meal. She has a large, loving cat named Ivan who is like a cat/dog. He'll perch on his back waiting to be scratched on his belly and behind his legs.

And me-- sun, sand, family. I sketched a lot on the beach and got a lot of illustration ideas. Edited all of my novel, Family Recipe. Yea! Now I have to rewrite it. I can feel it coming along. I'd love to start shopping the novel around so I can focus on the new one. I am setting a goal for August with that novel.

Now back to the studio.

Great Uncle Gilbert came to me in a dream last night. He was alive but well over 100. Grizzled with eyebrows that resembled gray long-haired caterpillars. But his smile was as kind as ever. I loved seeing him again and wanted to hold on to his playfulness. I wish I could have known my relatives as the adult I am now. To play scrabble with them (now that I know more words), hear their stories with adult ears and appreciate their experiences. He always reminds me of Gilbert in the Anne of Green Gables stories, intelligent, handsome, playful and loving.

Got a great rejection yesterday for my DC for Me poetry picture book. "Evocative poetry with a nice flow," the editor said, but she is leaving that publishing house and has to pass on the project. Geez, that's about the closest I've gotten. Maybe the tide will turn soon.

I had a great photoshop last night where we did scanning stuff. I've learned that the images on my website are scanned way to big for you all to appreciate them in a timely manner. I guess with my new cable connection I've forgotten others. I apologize and will try to remedy the situation ASAP. Which may not be right away....

We are headed to Florida next week. That sounds amazing right now because as I type, the SNOW is falling fast on the few daffodils and crocuses that have ventured to shout,"Spring!"
Yes, snow. ARGH! That's okay. It is fitting for me because six years ago I brought my new baby home from the hospital in a spring snow just like this one.

Has spring sprung?

This will probably be a short post because kids are getting wacky. I've promised to get the bikes from the bike repair place and take them to the walking path here in Brunswick. We have this fabulous river walk that is wide and paved and great for riding, walking, skating or whatever wonderful outdoor activity you might prefer. The Androscoggin is a tidal river that goes out to Merry Meeting Bay. People fish, and boat on the river in the summer but not now. Spring has sprung and that means the river is up, up, up. Two days of hard driving rain has melted many feet of snow and rivers all over the area and they are threatening to spill over their banks. The water is tremendous to watch. It is roiling and brown and fast. It is pounding over the power dam and bullying the bridges.

I have been creating a few illustrations which I will share here and on my portfolio when I am done with the painting process. I also created a new Pond Life t-shirt design which you can see at the shop section of my website. It is created in honor of Cort new baby to my friend Heather. I am also meeting with local shop owners to try and sell my kids wear in the real world.

If I had written yesterday, I probably would have gone on about my rejection from Putnam for my Pre-school Jumble picture book. I probably would have said that they missed out on a great book, or that I really thought I had found the right publisher after the editor spoke at the New York SCBWI conference. But I'm writing today. So I won't say those things. Instead I will say, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I'm going biking with my kiddos.

More later.