Because I know how much y'all care I will update you on my spectacularly exciting life. My entries might be a bit fewer and farther between. I am a busy, busy bee as of late. The deadline for the first of 6 installments from one of my contracts is June 25. Work - which has been crazy because my boss is in China for a few weeks - is packed with scheduling, meetings, projects that are all due NOW. NOW people! Not later, NOW my clients keep making it clear. On that note, how come when you come to me with a RUSH, RUSH! HURRY! job and it HAS got to be mailed out NOW and I get you the job in one day, why do you then make me wait for three days on any kind of approval? Thanks for the rant, moving on.

So big project moving forward. Working every night until late to get it done. Loving it, but um, tired, maybe? But when your dream comes knocking at your door the appropriate response is not, "Um, now? Yeah... now's not such a good time, maybe after a nap, come back in just a few?" So I work. Then Monday and Tuesday I needed to get everything to my agent. "My agent" Ok, allow me some self indulgence here. My LITERARY agent. Like that? Sounds nice, doesn't it? She wants to rep my books (Plural! "Please send me everything you have ready to be seen, PRONTO!") Woot! So yes, a tad excited about that. There is some big ol' publishing conference next weekend she is going to and wanted to make sure she had all my stuff. So I sent everything digitally and everything by mail. And next week I am sure she will call and say that Penguin Publishing wants a 3 book series and will give me a $100,000 advance. What? Dream BIG I say! Crazy is as crazy does.

So I would love, love, LOVE to be sharing the illustrations I am finishing every night, SO cute - but I can't. Gotta wait. Michaels and Hobby Lobby are looking at them in the beginning of July to see if they want to carry them. I know!!!! So now you see why sleep is a luxury at this point and I am glad to ignore it for now.

And just to let you all know, I share this all to hopefully not sound full of myself, or like I am bragging. The point of writing this blog for so many years now has been to document my career. I want to share my ups, my downs, my frustrations and my elations. I have learned so much in the past five years trying to get to where I am today. And it has been an amazing trip one that I could not have planned in a million years. And having an agent and projects where I actually am getting paid to draw dogs is just, well, still hard to believe. And if sharing my journey helps even one other person realize that they should not give up their dreams, that with hard work and not giving up, you can have what you are striving for, then that makes all the years of writing this blog worth it.

The Soph turns 10 today. TEN. T-E-N. Lord when did that happen? I know, I know, such a cliche. But for reals, where does the time go? Just yesterday Sophie was running around the apartment roaring like a tiger. She was almost three years old and I was washing the dishes. "Mama!! I'm a tiger! Roar....Roar....ROARRRRRRR!!!!!!!" She screamed. "Yes, Sophie, you are a scary tiger!" I said kind of absentmindedly while I continued washing and not turning around. "MAMA!!!! I'M.....A.....TIGER!!!!!!! ROARRRRRRR!!!!!" She screamed insistently. Obviously I was supposed to turn around. So I turned around to look at the very scary tiger. And my jaw just hung open. There before me was a naked toddler except for a diaper. And she had drawn red tiger stripes over EVERY inch of her body, from her face to between her toes. In red SHARPI. "Well, Sophie I said, you are going to be a tiger for a couple of weeks!!" And she giggled and ran out of the room.

Not too much has changed about The Soph. She does her own thing, she is her own person. She dresses how she wants and I DARE you to make her go put on another shirt that 'matches." If she wants to wear it, so be it. On Saturday we had a slumber party for her birthday and that morning we ran around getting her decorations, balloons and cake. At the party store she found these ridiculous glasses and hat that she HAD to have. She didn't take them off until after her party started. In every store she got stared at and looked at and giggled WITH. She knew she was making people look at her and she LOVED it. She smiled back at them and just walked on by. "Mama, people keep smiling at me. I like that." she kept saying. "I guess I make people happy." She takes pride in not getting embarrassed. I was told at least three times that morning how great my daughter's 'style' was. I have to agree. Whole-heartedly.

She is my bubble of chaotic sunshine that lights up a room and brings a frenzy of energy where ever she goes. She walk around with my heart every day. Sophie is who I want to be when I grow up. She lives in the moment, she tries new things for the experience. If she is good at them is of absolutely no importance. She has been on the basketball team, the swim team, the chess team, in school plays, the science olympiad, and every single talent show the school has ever had. And Sophie IS good at these things, but she does not care if she wins or not. She loves the DOING. She loves the exhilaration of being watched, of facing a fear of just TRYING. Sure, she likes it when she wins, but if she doesn't she just moves on, maybe hugging her friend that did win.

That is just the Soph. Things roll off her back. She is passionate and fiery. She knows what she wants and will fight to get it. She has so many loves in her life at any given moment, and in those moments she gives every single one of her passions 1000%. Lately at night she sits next to me in front of the tv, me drawing in my sketchbook, her drawing in hers. She is drawing hieroglyphics she saw in her Egyptology book, or she is drawing dresses for fashion designs she thinks up in her head, or she is copying illustrations from the latest children's book I have just bought. She loves to create anything and everything. She is forever creating something to go to sell at school and she comes home with orders for book covers or cards or whatever - it seems that whatever Sophie makes, she can sell. To boys and girls. That child sold an embellished book cover with SATIN trim to a boy in her class. Yeah, she can sell an eskimo some snow.

Sophie is not scared of what people think about her. I think that is what I am most in awe of. It took me over thirty years to figure out that my life is the only one I get and that life is way too short to constantly worry about what the world thinks of me. Sophie seems to have figured that out from birth. "Look, I'm gonna try this new thing, and I have never done it before, and I may fall on my butt and look stupid. But then I will laugh WITH you. And it will be ok."

That is the Soph. She is my love. Good God, I adore this child. Every day I hope I become more like her. A roaring red striped tiger, not scared of taking on the world.

A sample of Sophie's unique style....She wore this to school yesterday.





This was her birthday party outfit. Did you think I was kidding?





I love my girl!





And pretty, pretty Soph, just hanging out.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!