Art in Motion: How the Stars came into the Sky

Some months ago I decided that it was time yet again to pad the children's illustrating portfolio. With this in mind, I began to hunt for a legend to bring to life. I came across an allegedly Chinese tale about how the stars ended up in the sky. In a nutshell, the story told of how some children were playing in a field when they noticed pieces of the sky falling. They picked up all the pieces that they could, but some fell in the river and were washed away. Alarmed, the children brought the bits of sky that they had collected to the wise-woman of the village and sorrowfully told her how the rest had been lost. But she told them not to worry. That night, the wise-woman sewed the pieces of the sky back together, and filled the gaps with something that glimmered. When the sky was flung back into the air, the parts that had been filled in could still be seen, glittering and sparkling high above.
This is the first part of the story. The piece was first drawn by hand, scanned into the computer and painted with digital oil.

HOW THE STARS CAME INTO THE SKY

The initial sketch (done in four parts and put together.)

The Blitz: Part 3

Actually, to be accurate this post should be called 'The Blitz: Part 2.5, 2.75 and 3,' but since that title really doesn't look good or sound good, I stuck with the 'Part 3' thing.
Since the last 'Blitz' chronicle both the squares and the cakes segments have been completed. Delectable scents kept wafting from the oven, but my husband and I have been very good with exercising our willpower - neither of us snuck so much as a single cookie from the trays or a single square from the pans.

After baking a double batch of regular brownies, mint squares, nanaimo bars, mint brownies and caramel marshmallow brownies, I went on to bake a few pans of snack cakes.
This weekend I figuratively rolled up my sleeves, squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. After purchasing 36 bananas and 6 large containers of strawberries (among other ingredients, of course), it was time to start on the quick breads.My goal: 30 loaves of bread.
Armed with five recipes (actually six, I printed out one too many recipes, dithered about whether I was going to make an extra 6 loaves, and then decided...nah.) I made the 30 loaves over the weekend - six of each type of bread.
I think my husband is starting to worry a little. "Honey," he said, after stacking the banana bread, strawberry bread, strawberry banana bread and pumpkin bread, "there's no more room in the freezer!" We haven't even put the chocolate banana bread in, yet. Thank goodness we have two freezers. Ah well, it's a good time to go in and get rid of old freezer junk.

Actually I don't think we have much of that. Hmmm. Well, somehow, it'll all fit in.

A decadent chocolate birthday cake was also created this weekend. It's my dad's birthday on Thursday, and we celebrated it on Monday.

The day is filled with the noise of loud machines as workers brick our neighbor's driveway (at least, I think that's what they're doing.) Icewind, of course, being the House, Property and Family Guardian has taken it upon himself to make sure that they behave themselves. This is him keeping an eye on things.

The Keani-Man

'Ding!'
I felt pretty smug when I found a counter-top bell at Staples and brought it home. The idea was to put it on the floor and teach Keani (and Icewind, too, I was hoping at the time) to ring it when he wanted to go outside. That way, I would hear it no matter where I was in the house, and we could perhaps save the screen door from being shredded into tatters.

With great enthusiasm, I gathered puppy, treats and bell and put them beside each other. Cue fanfare. I was confident of the outcome, and I wasn't disappointed. Keani only took about twenty minutes to figure out that all he had to do to win a treat was to step directly on the little thing that was sticking out of the middle of the silver dome. Ah ha! I thought. Mission accomplished! Now to make the association between the bell and the door.

Yeah, that didn't happen. It's my fault, I know. For some reason, after successfully teaching him how to ring the bell in the first place, I stopped caring about whether he rang it to go outside or not. But this was after he would ring it and, upon me opening the door, sit there and stare at me with earnest expectant eyes, not moving until I offered something tasty to him.  And I, weak and melty canine mom that I am, gave in.

But I did put my foot down when it came to him asking to be let back in from being outside, and then sitting on the outside step, dithering about whether he really wanted to come in or not. Now he knows that if he asks for the door to open, he has until the count of five to move his little paws inside, otherwise the door closes. Of course, he also knows that he can ask about six seconds later, and the door will open again, but he doesn't usually take advantage of that fact.

Seems like both Icewind and Keani can now count up to five. Not bad, eh?

Birthdays are so Passé...or Maybe Not.

I'm not sure when my birthdays ceased to be Something to be celebrated with great pomp and circumstance.
No, wait, that's not entirely true. I can make a vague estimate. It was probably somewhere around my eighteenth year, when I realized I was heading into my twenties and that, instead of being an exciting landmark (children are usually very proud when they announce all of how old they are), it was just a day to add yet another number to my age. 
Various thoughts rolled around in my head as I wandered through the day Before the 'big' day. One of them was: What's the difference between today, the day Before, and tomorrow, the day Of? Or, for that matter, the following day, the day After. Time has a funny way of presenting itself. It's not like I went suddenly from one number to the next in two days. No, much as I might wish to cling to the 'younger' age, the 'older' one has in fact been inching up, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. It shouldn't catch me by surprise.

I used to celebrate my birthdays (or, rather, they used to be celebrated for me) with big parties, colorful balloons and mounds of presents. Ironically, as the years go by, I find that we (my brothers and I) make a bigger deal  about my parents' birthdays than our own. It's a strange turn of the tables.
It's not that I don't like my 'special' day being acknowledged. I very much love and appreciate the kind wishes and the thoughts - but more for themselves than for what they commemorate, perhaps.
My birthday almost slipped by uncelebrated by me personally, this year. Despite the 'family' dinner, I still managed to half forget about it. It was a near miss, but a little  cake and a dinner at The Keg with my Beloved makes me realize that perhaps birthdays are not completely passé for me, after all.