playing during the pause

using a friend's tip for freezing blueberries for cherries: freeze them flat first and then put them in a jar--that way they won't freeze in big clumps!

So, I am in the rare pause in my work--the calm before the storm--where I've sent in my sketches/rough drafts and am waiting for publisher feedback before I can continue. This is usually an optimum time to start something new or research a new idea (or clean the house) but instead I'm spending my days pitting and freezing cherries (for Christmastime cherry pies!) and making zucchini bread. I'm not sure where all this Little-House-On-The-Prairie homemaking urges are coming from but I'm enjoying it:

To the point where this has really piqued my interest:

Gee, I wonder why the Sasquatch keeps asking if I've heard from the publisher yet...

revision

So, I have a lot of work to do. I have "Dumpling Days" to revise, a new picturebook to sketch...sounds like the perfect time to clean the studio, don't you think? Strange how squalor doesn't bother me until I have a deadline for something else...procrastination techniques at its best!

I have to admit one of the things that inspired this cleaning frenzy was seeing posts on where other fellow author and illustrators work. Check out Jenny B Harris's and Liz Dubois's studios. Finish it off with where Laura Resau works, and I have some serious workplace envy!

My studio, which used to look like this has had to change since the arrival of my Sasquatch. Making my mess of a studio into more of an oasis has been a work in process. But at least now it is a clean one!

Because after a good 24 hours of organizing, decluttering, dusting and vacuuming, the studio looks like this:

You can see the floors! You can see the tables!

It does still look a little cluttered though:

(but you should have seen it before)

My favorite studio revision is that I now have a little reading corner:

with our wedding cranes hanging overhead:

One of which is watching over my Newbery award!

So my clean studio will probably last...a week? maybe two? I guess it depends on how much more work I have to procrastinate do.

ten pipe dreams

Alvina's post What I'd like to try/learn reminded me of the lists we made a while ago. On it we put done all the things we wished to accomplish--selfishness and hubris completely encouraged. I know they are pipe dreams, but dreaming is half the fun. Here are ten of them:

1. Be able to do a handstand effortlessly, with abs of steel.

2. Have at least one of my books become a classic, beloved by generations and never go out of print.

3. Be an illustrator for a Children's Book Week Poster

4. Be an author/illustrator of a Little Golden Book (like Dan Yaccarino's Mother Goose)

5. Decorate a cake (or cupcakes) at a professional level (I want to learn how to pipe frosting flowers!)

6. Be honored at an awards ceremony where I get to get wear a fancy Academy Awards-type dress (like this).

7. Have a nice big studio with skylights (or something like this).

8. Stand on the Great Wall of China and pat the heads of the lions on the Marco Polo Bridge.

9. Have one of the characters of my book made into a statue placed in a public space/park (like the Make Way for Ducklings statue or the Alice in Wonderland Statue)

10. Own a successful children's bookstore/bakery/gallery.

Hmm, looking over my list I'm starting to feel pangs of guilt over my narcissism. I want world peace and an end to global warming too! Though, truthfully, I would trade everything on this list for Robert to be healthy and for us to have a real chance to live the life we've always dreamed.