It's about 2am and I just finished up some work to show to someone 'important' in a b'ig city'. I needed some sample illustrations and I wanted some that were new and fresh. I will be emailing off my samples in the morning and am crossing all fingers and toes. I can't say any details right now, but I am excited just to have someone that is willing to look. It's a big deal. So I am nervous too, but it is time to be putting more and more of my art out there. The production of my other book is finished and we proposed more to the publisher. And I need to finish some samples for another idea we had. The review committee meets in a few weeks and we want them to have lots of choices. Again crossing all fingers and toes.

Hopefully I will be reporting more and more exciting news here. As some of my regular readers know, currently I am at a part time design job at a local college here. It is no secret to my coworkers that I have other things in the works and that I will have to leave at some point. I have no idea if it will be in a month, or in six months, or a year, but it will happen. It is hard to have to go backwards sometimes for your dreams. It can be frustrating and make you feel at times that 'it' is never going to happen. I was joking with a friend of mine who is an artist as well and while great things are happening for her, it is funny how you can be struggling at the same time. I often joke that I wouldn't wish being an artist on my worst enemy and wish I had been born with a passion for accounting. Often an artist will ask themselves, "WHY do I do this?? It is SO hard!!" But the plain and simple truth is that we simply cannot. We can't not paint, we can't not write, we can't not create what is in our heads. Otherwise I imagine our heads would just pop off from the pressure.

Almost every night I go to bed and ideas for paintings and children's books pop into my head. I finally gave up and have been getting up when I have to to write these gems down. I never quite remember the exact phrases in the morning if I don't. Cause every morning I have these crazy dreams that I remember. They are crazy. And I wish there was something I could do with them, but if I made them public I might get locked up. They can be really looney tunes. The point is my brain never shuts off. It never takes a break. It is always thinking of something to make or create or an idea to do something. So I am constantly filled with the urge and need to create. I wonder why God was not a bit more useful with me and gave me a few extra urges that involved cleaning a house, doing some laundry, loading the dishwasher. Sadly, I just don't have lots of time for all that. I tell my boyfriend, I would be a better housekeeper, but put simply, it is God's fault. He made me this way. It seems when he was making me he had plenty of Martha types already and he needed a scatter-brained, forgetful woman who never closes cabinet doors, never fully screws lids on all the way resulting in frequent disasters and has an obsession with dogs and art...and dogs IN art. Not quite sure what he was thinking when he created me, but I am quite certain I provide hours of amusement for him. I certainly like my life, and am not complaining, don't get me wrong. I find it perfectly acceptable to paint for 12 hours a day, forgetting if I ate lunch or not and only realizing when my boyfriend walks in the door from work that I forgot to put the sheets in the dryer that he put in the wash before he left for work. Oops. "But, hey honey! Look at this painting of Rufus skiing down a hill that I just finished! Doesn't it just make you smile?"