Making Time, Making Cookies

/ still a dreamer

It’s President’s Day, a national holiday. It snowed just a bit this morning, and it’s amazingly quiet. So quiet, in fact, that if I weren’t at the computer, I’d think the power had gone out. So I made my trip to the vet this morning, and am now ready to begin work, but first, a small post.

I photographed the cookies I made yesterday for two reasons .. one, I do love to bake, and two, I love to take photographs. But more important, is that I made the time to bake them for myself. My schedule seems always packed, and more often than not, if I bake, it’s for someone else, an event, etc. But I’ve started on a new path. It’s not actually about making cookies for myself, but for making the time for what I want to do and figuring out what I don’t need to spend time on at this moment, and making the change.

This is all in the interest of moving forward with my writing and illustrating children’s books. We all have issues in our lives, and we all have things we need to change. Right now, I am taking a really hard look at, well … my life, and how I go about it. I am happy with my work, and grateful that I am engaged daily in creative work, but children’s books take additional time .. where will I find it? I won’t. I have to make it. And this means dealing with many more issues in my own life, my own heart, and how badly I want to reach my dream.

So after I made the cookies, I worked on a manuscript, then a storyboard, back to the manuscript and back to the storyboard. This is who I am, and who I have to make time for. The cookies are just a bonus.

Winter Sunset

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

“Your eyes register only a limited degree of the creative vibration that makes up everything in creation … Those persons who have perceptive eyes enjoy beauty everywhere.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

 

(Thanks to my friend, Pat, for sharing this lovely quote.)

Textures of Snow and A Question

/ still a dreamer

If you’re anywhere in the mid-Atlantic region you’ve been getting hit with snow. Here in New Jersey we got hit with a 1-2 punch yesterday and again last night. Thankfully, I shoveled after the first round because now there’s another 12″ or so in most places, and maybe 3′ out there where the plow went through. I decide to do a first pass at 8 a.m. to make an access lane from my side porch to the street and also clear off the back/side porch and wherever Little Fee, the feral I feed, might be coming from.

BUT … before I did … I had to take some photos of the unmarred beauty of the snow. And the question? Whatever happened to the teenage boys that used to come around on snow days looking to make some money shoveling some of us out? Yeah, yeah, I know … they’re home texting and playing on the internet. Kinda sad, as I guess it’s a time gone by.

That’s it – I’m hearing my shovel call …

So This is Lemony Snicket! (The Miserable Mill)

/ still a dreamer

I may be the last person on the planet to have finally read one of the Lemony Snicket series. I may also be one of the only to not be totally enamored by the one I read, as well. Another selection at the wonderful annual library sale, it was an opportunity to increase my familiarity with what kids are/have been reading nowadays.

I must say, as I read The Miserable Mill, the 4th in the Lemony Snicket series, I wondered what would be the attraction for children in a continuing series of misfortunate events happening to the Baudelaire orphans. It just seemed like an awful lot of doom and gloom … not that I am one to revel in endless parades of flowers and fairies … but I was curious as to the attraction of the never-ending succession of misfortunes that befell the three main characters – Klaus, Violet and Sunny.

It kept my attention enough that I wanted to see how it all came out for the orphans, and it did manage to become rather silly and enjoyable towards the end, but what is the appeal of knowing that the children’s lives continue to get worse with each chapter? It was quite dour and gloomy. What I did certainly enjoy was Sunny, the baby’s, bursts of nonsensical words and phrases, which were always interpreted by the author afterwards. That was funny.

Are the other books in the series this gloomy? Perhaps I’d try another, but probably it won’t be tops on my list just yet.