New Years Day + 3

     So, ideally I would have posted at least a paragraph on the first day of 2013, a year which used to sound positively futuristic.  Suddenly it's all speculative nonfiction, 365 chapters. 362 now.  What did I do w/ the first three installments?  Worked on a painting/colored pencil drawing in the style of my illustrations for Our Colonial Year.  Rather quiltish, doncha know.

One of my favorite books ever.

          But in this case, the art is for a Laura Ingalls Wilder calendar, for 2014.   What on earth will we have experienced by then, for crying out loud?  

       • And I've been writing the scene in which the dead body is discovered, in an adult novel I've been thinking about, more or less (more less than more).  More about this later. 

      • Been sending out postcards, doing my best to alert art directors and editors to 1. the fact that I at last have an online portfolio.   And 2. that it sure would be fun to illustrate a book for somebody. 

       • Been watching reruns of reruns of seasons 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey and so cannot wait for Sunday night. So want John Bates to be freed from the slammer.

       • Making resolutions? Nope.

       •  Shipping some things a few bless-ed customers purchased from my new SHOP on Etsy!

       • Been procrastinating? Yup. Or else I'd have written something here three days ago. 

17 December

So, m'dears, we've come through a painful and sorrowful weekend from which I escaped into a Downton Abbey marathon on PBS. That and drawing, painting a piece for my proposed Laura Ingalls Wilder calendar, for 2014, should our world be around that long.  For now, I invite you to check out my monthly post on a splendid group blog, I.N.K. This link, Interesting Nonfiction for Kids  will take you to www.inkthinktank.com, which grew out of the blog, where you will find such remarkable authors as Jim Murphy, Vicki Cobb, and Deborah Heiligman.

John Greenleaf Whittier, whose bow tie is wonderful

As for today's birthday dudes & dudettes, I'll just note the English chemist, Humphry Davy, b. 17 Dec. 1778, and Victorian poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, b. this day in 1807. Considering recent happenings, here's an apt quote of his: 
    "For all sad words of tongue and pen,
     The saddest are these, 'It might have been.'