Today is the day

A week from today I am back at work full time and so this week it's time to buckle down, narrow the lists and accomplish whichever projects are the most important to me.  Yesterday, for example, I took the girls' photograph for the Christmas cards.  Tomorrow I hope to finish off the first of Maria's pink, knit, cabled leg warmers.  Today was the day for the book, the only day.  If it's a present for Maria I can't work on it when she's around on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Wednesday I will be running around to appointments and that leaves Thursday which I'm holding in reserve for trouble shooting.  I woke up this morning knowing what I wanted all the shots to look like so creative process did not get in the way.  However it's cloudy today and without the sun shining in the windows I would need to use a flash on all of the pictures.  I hate the look of flash photography so I moved all the pictures outside.  I hauled out the contents of Maria's closet, art supplies, stacks of books, stuffed animals, blankets and the fitted sheet from our bed which did a nice job doubling as the wall color of Maria's bedroom.  The sun did peek out around noon time long enough for me to get a couple of indoor shots that I needed since the cat, the living room chair and Estella's bed are not going outdoors.

As I started to upload the pictures onto the website I ran into one more snafu, the pictures are importing in the wrong direction, they need to be turned 90 degrees to the right no matter the original orientation of the picture.  I queried their customer service and hopefully they get back to me soon because time is running out to assure holiday delivery.

Meet my muse

Are we really about to turn the calendar again? My deadline of Christmas looms in the not so distant future alone with the start of a new month. Because of the time consuming nature of my current (now previous) book project I am scrapping it and starting over. Tomorrow I am going to take all the pictures for my new book idea. I just finished the rough draft, it took an hour and a chai latte. Meet Rowena, my muse (name subject to change).

Turning the calendar

It's amazing how flipping the page of a calendar can motivate you.  It's already November, time is a ticking and I haven't been making much forward progress.  Now comes the point in the project where the newness has worn off, the likelihood of achieving the goal seems slim, a bad cold derails you and other things take precedence.  However, flipping the calendar a couple days ago and a project Maria initiated renewed my drive.  A few days ago Maria asked if we could make a book.  She wanted to staple the pages together and then give it to her friend Hayden for her birthday (in July).  Maria loves to draw and do art projects and a lot of times when she says "Let's draw!", we're at a loss for inspiration.  Paul started to draw pictures with her that tell a story to keep the activity going.  "Here's Mama outside in the yard.  What is she doing?"  "Mowing the lawn."  Soon the water color includes the lawn mower, compost pile, long and short grass and me carrying cut grass to the compost.

So we started our story in a similar way.  We marked off some white paper to have space for words and for pictures and the story of the fairies began.

Creating a story with her made me think maybe I should make the book of that story.  But this project is partly for me too so I'm sticking to the plan.  We can always do it again.
For the scene of the squirrels near a stream I used one photo that I took awhile back in Pawtuckaway and added three squirrels, much simpler than the first illustration I was trying to piece together to create.  These squirrel photos are not mine however if when my film is developed mine look good I might swap them out.  In the meantime this website has provided me with great photos.  National Geographic Squirrel Pictures