No, definitely not.

I’m just writing because I’m in need of a good dollop of fun right now.

It’s been incredibly busy around here - I’ve got deadlines coming out of my ears. I took a look at my schedule and realized I’m going to actually have to complete quite a few deadlines ahead of time if I’m going to stay sane over the next few weeks. I’m very good at procrastination, so this is a totally different direction for me.

The great news is that this year it looks like my “heavy crunch” time when it comes to work is happening in November, and not in December, which means I’ll have lots of time to really get into the holiday season. Christmas is my favorite holiday - I’m one of those smiley uplifted chirpy people who adores Christmas and am all set to plunge into the spirit around mid-November (it would be earlier but like I said, the deadlines are coming fast and heavy over the next two weeks!).

I finished up a couple of deadlines yesterday, and as you can tell, I didn’t procrastinate (no blog posts for two days, see?). But after all that single-minded focus - not to mention one of my projects involved linear algebra, something about which I know absolutely nothing (still), although it did have the effect of numbing my brain somewhat - I am in huge need of other things right now. Fun things. Anything other than work.

I’m promising myself the fun of writing this post before I plunge into the next project.

Reading

Now that I think about it, maybe my focus hasn’t been that single-minded. I did, after all, manage to start and finish The Mysterious Benedict Society yesterday morning.

It was another, much-needed, distraction. After I finished reading, I felt energized and renewed, and actually plunged back into my work easily and almost happily.

Not to mention, it was such a fabulous read. It was the kind of book I would have devoured as a kid (who am I kidding? It’s the kind of book I devour now, too!). Such a wonderfully fantastic adventure, with characters you can fall in love with, a nice strong plot that holds firm to the very end and a victorious resolution that ties up all those loose ends.

I’ve got the sequel on my to-buy list.

Halloween

Halloween has crept up on us. For the longest time, it felt like it was ages away. This morning we realized - hey! it’s Halloween tonight!

Dylan has changed his mind several times about his costume. He was going to be a train engineer (we bought the hat at Aberfoyle Junction)). Then he wanted to be a witch. Followed quickly by: a fairy, a pumpkin, a fire fighter, a fire engine. This morning (yes, we do like to leave things late) he decided, finally, on a witch again.

Luckily, since Hayley has been amassing props for her film-making for years, we already have a witch’s hat (every year we hit the after-Halloween sales to stock up on props, which get wrapped into a nice big prop bundle for Hayley at Christmas). And last year we bought a cape for Dylan (which he didn’t wear, because he ended up being a pumpkin). So we don’t have to go to the costume store and dig through all the left-over stuff!

(I love good news like that.)

Taking Dylan out trick-or-treating will be another much-needed distraction today. I’m looking forward to it very much.

Writing

Despite all the deadlines, I’m still trying to keep one part of my brain focused on writing. It’s pretty easy, actually. Every night before I fall asleep, I come up with a new scene or character for the novel that I’m going to write during NaNoWriMo.

I’m also jotting down all the scenes I plan on writing onto Post-it notes, which I will then be able to re-arrange to my heart’s content. I’ve also been developing a character mindmap form that I’m hoping will hold the most important information at a glance.

I really intend to get this novel written during November, deadlines or no deadlines.

The Big Draw

Dylan and I worked on another drawing together the day before yesterday (another much-needed distraction from work!). This was done, again, in our humungous sketch book (seriously, this book is something like 18 inches by 12 inches, I think), using our new gel pens. We decided to create a birthday party:

Birthday party. Gel pens.

Yesterday, Dylan drew an incredible drawing. He used Ed Emberley’s Make a World Book to jumpstart his imagination, and created an imaginary bedroom in which he gets to share a bunk bed with his big brother Sean (that’s Dylan in the lower bunk). In case you’re wondering, there’s coffee in the hot cup (Sean’s 17 and marked this very important year by becoming a member of the coffee-drinking population of the world), juice (for Dylan) in the other cup, and the plate holds gingerbread cookies.

Bedroom. Crayola markers.

Ed Emberley’s Make a World book is a fantastic drawing book for kids, by the way. When I was little, I used to borrow this book from the library all the time. I remember my delight when I managed to lay my hands on a large piece of poster board - I went wild and truly created a world. Dylan has loads of fun with this book, although it’s actually been a while since he’s used it, since he usually prefers to draw “from my imagination, Mommy”.

Blogging

Traditionally, at this time of the year when I’m at my busiest and going crazy with deadlines, I start seriously blogging. No, really, I do. So lately I’ve been thinking about reviving a spiritual blog I have, and I also decided to start a book review blog, because now that I’ve discovered the power of reading to ignite my urge to write, I intend to keep reading fiction all the time, even when it feels like I don’t have much time. I’ve gotten as far as purchasing a new domain name for it. If I get seriously bogged down in deadlines, I’ll probably have it up and running over the weekend.

(Before I discovered blogging, I would procrastinate by cleaning the house and doing laundry before Ward could get to it. He’d come home, look around, and say, “you’ve got a deadline, don’t you?”. I consider blogging a huge improvement on the whole house-cleaning-urge thing - it’s definitely a much nicer and far more fun procrastination tool.)

I think I proved to myself yesterday that reading what I love to read is beneficial even when I’m bogged down with deadlines. So time (or lack of) is no longer a detriment. If I make reading a priority, my writing will become a priority too. Which has nothing to do with blogging, I know. But everything to do with procrastination. Or rather, distractions.

That’s how my mind works.

Now, back to work. Because I feel refreshed again, after dipping in here. Which is such a wonderful thing.

Tags: Art, children's books, holidays, Life, procrastination, Reading, the big draw

This afternoon Dylan and I took a good look at this gel pen carousel I bought at Costco a few weeks ago:

Gel pens from Costco

And next thing you know, we were working away together on this picture which we’ve decided would be our Big Draw picture for the day. We worked in a humungous sketch book that we like to draw in together. Mommy drew the freight cars and occupants, and the big top tent, and decorated the back engine. Dylan drew the front and back steam engines, decorated the front steam engine and colored all of the freight cars.

Circus train. Gel pens.

Can you tell we had a great time drawing this picture together?

Tags: Art, the big draw

It’s a rainy Saturday morning here, which I rather like - it reminds me of Vancouver, where I grew up. I’m used to misty rainy gray days, where every moment contains a hint of dusk. To me, dusk is such a magical time, when I have a chance to just sit and enjoy it.

Decluttering … or Freeing Up Energy

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon cleaning my office. I work from home, and it was getting seriously painful looking at the stacks and stacks of books, papers and courier packages sitting on every available surface, plus portions of the floor. I somehow found room in my office bookshelves for the latest batches of books that I’ve bought recently. I also created a To Be Read corner, which helped a lot!

I stumbled on five filled notebooks - my Morning Pages from quite a few years back. It’s been a couple of years now since I’ve been doing Morning Pages, but back when I did them, I was very good about not reading them over. These scribblings definitely aren’t meant to be read over! So I had a good time tearing out all the pages, and then shredding them, although only half the pages are shredded - I burnt out the shredder! It’s fine today, and I’ll probably resume my shredding later on today.

So now I’m sitting here, at my clean desk, feeling very uncluttered. It’s remarkable how refreshing decluttering can be.

Immediately after I did my clean-up, I felt rejuvenated, as if I’d freed up some energy that had been trapped (as I’m sure it was). And I was able to write the final update on our Thanksgiving dinner at our food blog (considering our Thanksgiving here in Canada was last weekend, I definitely procrastinated on this one!): Our Bon Appetit 2008 Thanksgiving Dinner.

In addition to freeing up energy, it also felt like I’d freed up time, as well. I was able to start reading Kelly Rae’s Taking Flight, which I’ve had for a couple of weeks now. I’m not destined to really get into this book just yet, though: I put it down somewhere last night just before putting Dylan to bed, and I can’t find it anywhere now!

The rest of the evening was spent watching Die Hard (the first one) with Ward and my son Sean. Sean’s doing his individual study unit on Die Hard for his Film Studies class (all I can say is, I definitely would have enjoyed Film Studies in high school, if it had been offered!). Ward threw together some lovely appetizers for the movie, including a Tilapia Po’Boy that was just amazing, and some seared rare beef slices.

All in all, yesterday was a Very Good Day.

The Big Draw

Looking back on this week, I see that I’m behind on a few things - mainly: blogging here daily, and the Big Draw. Dylan, of course, has been far more diligent than I have been when it comes to drawing daily. He always seems to have his markers out and about, and even with days filled with games, computer time, reading, trains, playing, jumping in the leaves, eating his favorite foods, library time, clay time - he still has time to draw. He truly is an artist.

Car and Driver. Crayola markers.

Valentine Heart for Mommy. Crayola markers.

Boat. Crayola markers.

Mail. Crayola marker.

On Inspiration

I’ve been discovering something about myself (self-discoveries are always so wonderful, and it’s just amazing how there’s always more and more to discover, no matter how old you are).

Inspiration ebbs and flows for me. I recently was talking with some dear friends about this, and bringing a great deal of self-judgment into this discovery. They each nudged me back into alignment, an acceptance of all of who I am. So today, I’m at peace with the ebb and flow of inspiration in my life, and can now truly see that the down time of withdrawal is something as precious as the passionate flow of inspiration on fire.

Which, by the way, is one reason why my blogging here ebbs and flows, too!

Writing

I’ve been in prep mode for NaNoWriMo, which is coming up very soon. Since I signed up, I’ve decided on the idea that I’ll be turning into a novel. This was actually looking like quite a tough decision, as I have several gems on hand, some of which I’ve carried with me and developed for years. But interestingly enough, choosing the idea was easy. I discovered there was one idea I have, for a mainstream mystery, that just kept nagging at me. Basically, it was jumping up and down saying “pick me! pick me!”. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

So this past week, I’ve been playing around with my characters. I’ve created various mindmaps for my major characters, and I’m currently reading James Frey’s How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, which is both funny and has some good tips. I will likely begin writing my character profiles this week, and by November 1 I should be good to go for NaNoWriMo.

Bliss

This coming week, my intention is to live blissfully, in the midst of the seeming chaos of life, family and deadlines.

Tags: Art, inspired, NaNoWriMo, Spirit, the big draw, Thoughts, Writing

I’ve been sitting here thinking about how blessed life can be. Always a wonderful feeling with which to end the day.

Tonight I finally got around to doing something I’ve been procrastinating for a while - and it’s left me wondering, why on earth was I procrastinating?

We buy a lot of cookbooks around here. My husband loves to cook, but while he enjoys reading cookbooks and picking out things to try, he prefers to cook recipes that I’ve chosen - it’s always better to cook something that you know someone wants to eat. So one of my jobs when it comes to the kitchen is sitting down with our latest cookbooks and going through each one, writing down recipe names and page numbers for every dish that catches my fancy.

I do this in a Cambridge steno pad. I use a Zebra pen that glides over the pages. All in all, it’s a very enjoyable experience. Yet it’s something I seem to always put off. And then one day we both notice we’re eating dishes prepared from the same cookbook - because Ward’s cooked so many of the ones I’ve chosen, there’s not much left to select!

Our recipe steno pad

So tonight I went through two of our latest cookbooks, and have a third ready to dive into. It’s been a very enjoyable evening so far.

I also uploaded the second batch of pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend last weekend, taken during our Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s place. I still have a third batch of pictures to upload into a blog post (did I mention I am a procrastinator, and a masterful one at that, too?)

Dylan and Ward have been making gingerbread cookies, too. We recently added a KitchenAid Pro mixer to our arsenal of kitchen gadgets, so gingerbread was one of the first things Ward tested out. We also bought a new cookie cutter - in the shape of a train, of course! Here are two of the cookies, decorated by Dylan for Oma and Happy (Ward’s mom and dad):

Train cookies.

They left with only one, though, since Dylan really really wanted to share one with them

Today’s Big Draw Drawings

Dylan drew a boxcar today - not an unusual choice of subject, but he tried something today that he’s never done before. He drew the boxcar using color only - rather than drawing the shape of the boxcar first and then coloring it in, he approached it like a painter, laying down swathes of color.

Boxcar. Crayola markers.

And me? A shoe! (I love shoes.)

Shoe. Pen.

Tags: Art, cooking, Family, the big draw

Here I go again, cramming everything into one post. I mentioned in my previous post that we went to Aberfoyle Junction on the weekend, and as usual, we took a lot of pictures. Dylan wanted me to post some here, so here they are:

As you can probably see, the detail is simply amazing. I didn’t snap a shot of Toronto’s downtown this time around - that’s one of my favorite scenes. My other favorite scene is the city street scene (it’s the first picture above).

We also took a few movies, including one during the “nighttime”, but luckily for all I haven’t figured out how to upload the .wav file and format it for a blog post. Yet.

The Big Draw

Dylan is still very much on track with the Big Draw, Mommy not so much. I’ve been feeling the need to just stretch out and read, more or less “me” time, in between deadlines and family stuff, so I’ve been honoring that. I’ve managed to polish off a lot of books on my TBR pile, which is nice - but haven’t really been doing much else, including drawing.

Ever since we went to Aberfoyle Junction on Sunday, Dylan’s been drawing lots of trains. Here are his two drawings, one for yesterday and one for today.

Colorful steam engine. Crayola markers.

Colorful freight cars. Crayola markers.

Three Beautiful Things

It’s been a while since I’ve written up Three Beautiful Things for the day, and it feels like the perfect way to end this post tonight.

1. Hayley and Heather working away on their schoolwork, so companionably, such wonderful friends.

2. Memories of the gorgeous focaccia (Rosemary and Sea Salt) that Ward made last night and we finished off tonight - beautifully flavored, wonderfully chewy and soft at the same time.

3. Finishing the day with a glass of wine and a good book.

Tags: 3BT, Aberfoyle Junction, Art, the big draw, trains

We spent the day at Aberfoyle Junction; it’s a model railroad place out in Guelph that’s really amazing. Filling 1500 square feet of space, the layout represents trains and tracks running in Southern Ontario in the 1950s. Every half hour or so, the lights dim and it becomes “night”, and that in itself is such a spectacular show. Ward, Dylan and I have been going every year since Dylan was two. They open to the public for two weeks in May and three weekends in October/November. Dylan absolutely loves Aberfoyle Junction; he has a tendency to mark off time in terms of this train show (as in, “it’s fall. How many more sleeps before Aberfoyle Junction”?)

Of course, with all the running around, we didn’t get much drawing done. But when he came home, Dylan decided to use the Paint program on his computer. He’s been doing a bit of drawing in Paint lately, so we saved today’s for his Big Draw post:

Train. Paint program.

I didn’t draw today, but I’ve got a great substitute! My daughter Hayley finished the video she just made with her friend Heather, and they’ve uploaded it to YouTube. It’s hilarious, especially during the fight scenes. She’s the one with the dark hair. And if you look very carefully, about midway through the video, you’ll see Dylan riding his tricycle on the back deck. He saw them filming outside and had to get out there and be a part of the action

It’s called “The Ultimate Battle for Pepsi”:

It’s great to have creative kids. They’re hardly ever bored!

Tags: Aberfoyle Junction, Art, Family, the big draw, trains, video

I’ve missed a post this October (messed up my Blogtoberfest as well as the Big Draw …). We had my brother-in-law and his wife over for dinner yesterday, so much of the day was spent cleaning up - having people over is always so nice the day after, because the house is usually still clean! We had a great dinner, and the evening ended late - no time for a blog post.

Here are our contributions for the Big Draw today:

Dylan’s Big Draw Drawing

Dylan loves trains, and he likes the tracks almost as much as the trains themselves. This drawing is of a switching track (I think that’s what they’re called).

Train Tracks. Crayola marker.

Belle’s Big Draw Drawing

I’m still working on faces using pen. I’ve been drawing from a book I have that show women from the 20s. Lovely fashion drawings. It would be nice to be adept at drawing the clothes, too! Today’s faces look nothing like the models I was drawing but they certainly have character, don’t they?

Faces. Pen.

Tags: Art, the big draw

Interesting how lately I’ve just been sticking everything into one post! Today was a bit better timewise, although I was at the high school all afternoon for parent-teacher meetings. The place was very busy; the daytime meetings used to be so much better than the nighttime meetings but that’s definitely changed.

It was a nice afternoon despite the short waiting time between teachers. It’s always nice to hear teachers talk about your kids, kind of like getting another perspective and as a parent, it can be very lovely seeing your children through another’s eyes (usually!). Most of the teachers we met with today were genuinely interested in our kids, and there were a few that I certainly would have liked to have had as teachers way back when!

The Big Draw

I’ve been reading your comments to Dylan and he’s quite thrilled with it all, although he’s still not quite certain exactly who you all are He calls everyone “other people’s websites” (Until I got busy with deadlines, I’ve been showing him your blogs and all your lovely artwork.)

Today Dylan chose to post the gas station he drew:

Gas Station. Crayola markers.

And I had some spare time to draw, so attempted a few more faces:

Faces. Pen.

Things are a little less hectic the next few days, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get around to seeing everyone’s blogs and drawings again soon. I’ve really missed that part of my day, reading your thoughts on Google Reader and clicking through to see beautiful artwork.

Tags: Art, Family, the big draw

Mommy was busy working on a couple of deadlines today (it’s when it gets to be “a couple” or “several” that I lose track of the time-space-balance-continuum thing …), but of course, Dylan did his Big Draw drawing. This airplane was done while he and Daddy (lucky Daddy!) went on a picnic today at one of our local parks:

Airplane. Crayola markers.

Mommy plans to be back in form (and relatively free of deadlines) by tomorrow night, but right now, I’m feeling pretty thankful that the little guy is here to carry the drawing load for us!

Dylan also had his clay class today - they got to paint all of the pottery they’ve made so far, and he enjoyed it very much, although he found the colors of the clay “paint” (really just colored slip, I think) to be rather dull.

We’re so glad we decided to try him out in this class. The minimum age is 6 but they let us give him a trial class even though he’s only 5, to see if he had the attention span for an hour and a half long class - and of course he did. He just loves his clay class, and everyone can look forward to photos of his sculptures (maybe in a months’ time, as I’m hoping they’ll apply a clear glaze and do a final firing before his work gets sent home).

Now Mommy and Daddy are thinking maybe they’ll get back into doing the pottery thing …

Tags: Art, pottery, the big draw

Well, we went and voted today - I always get such a big thrill when it comes to voting, that whole exercise of the right to vote in a democracy thing. It looks like the Conservatives are back in power but at least the results indicate it’s still a minority government, although stronger than the last minority government.

Earlier this month Hayley had an assignment in which she researched women’s battle for the right to vote. She’s such a sweetheart - ever since she handed in her project, she’s been using an old-time logo promoting women’s right to the vote as her computer’s desktop background.

Here are Dylan’s Big Draw catchup drawings (not really catch-up for Dylan, more like catch-up for Mommy who managed to get everything scanned tonight). We’re posting three, one for Sunday, Monday and today:

Tree scene (Daddy drew the star). Crayola markers.

Face mask. Crayola markers.

Car (Daddy added the headlight, which Dylan did not like at all!) Crayola markers.

And here’s my entry for today (no catch-up drawings for the two missed days, unfortunately!):

Face. Pen.

Tags: Art, Life, the big draw