mercury rising

biggest heat wave in 100 years they say... 42C (107F) today.... more tomorrow... my poor cat is a puddle of fur....

So instead, I'll just pretend that I'm in Spain. Which is not hard at the moment thanks to a birthday present from my husband - pots a la Andalucia, and a herb garden like you wouldn't believe (the entire garden bed is about twice this). Full points to those who can name all the herbs pictured!

and full points to anyone who has some extra ice cream they can lend me?

chirp, chirp

the crickets are chirping because there hasn't been much happening on this blog lately. sorry about that, but let me assure you, there has been a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity!

I've painted my hallway (but still want to do a mural), have illustrated 1.5 out of 4 books, witnessed history (go Obama!), had a birthday, got some good books (see below) and have been watching the tennis as much as possible (in person last night, but in breaks from painting today)

So no illustrations to show you at the moment, but here are some books I would like to share. I finally got around to getting some of my buddies' books, and they are all so amazing in different ways:

firstly the fabulously illustrated and beautifully produced Haunted Ghoul Bus by Jannie Ho aka chickengirl. So much humour, so much colour, so much WORK! Way to go Jannie!

then, the incredibly soft and beautiful I Love You All Year Round, the debut book from Alicia Padron - and a pop-up book no less! So sweet and heartwarming, in words and pictures. Gorgeous, Alicia :)

and then a novel called Couch from an old (okay, not that old) college friend Benjamin Parzybok. It's sort of a modern day Lord of the Rings type quest where 3 guys deliver a magical couch back to ... somewhere, I haven't gotten that far yet, but I think I will soon as I am devouring it. Well done Ben!

Then for my birthday I got this book which is next on my list to devour: Noa Noa - The Tahiti journal of Paul Gauguin. it is filled with actual excerpts of his journal with sketches and original penned diary entries in French. i know I'm going to love it!

and i must apologize to anyone who has left a comment or sent an email recently who i haven't responded to. i've been working hard on my books but will get back into blogosphere soon ... Hope you are all well and happily busy out there in bloggy land!

Good news to start the year

Well the exciting news is that Karen, the author of my latest illustration venture Surprise! has been signed to a literary agent in the big Big Apple, who is trying to find a publisher for the book in the US/Canada. You can see Karen's post about it here - fingers crossed for us please!

Also, the book got a nice one-liner review in Australian Bookseller and Publisher - I think that is my first ever review ... cool! :-)

Let's party like it's 2009

Okay, only a decade late, but 2009 is shaping up to be a good one. Here is how the end of 2008 and the start of the new year have looked for me so far:

apple cinnamon cookie bake-a-thon

Christmas picnic under the gum trees

then it was on to the real work:

planting our front garden beds with lovely plants and flowers

and painting our hallway (all the patchyness are imperfections/cracks that I dug out, plastered, and sanded to a lovely smooth painting surface, ha.)

phew! Definitely a working holiday, but a happy one. And I'm excited for 2009.

One of the big things I'm hoping to do (besides continuing to paint our entire house) is to have a bit more time to work on my own children's book ideas. Because I have some. And the process can take years, so I at least want to start.

I'm a bit hesitant to actually put it in writing, but oh well, here we go... This Year, I want to make time to create a dummy of a book idea. There, I said it. No pressure or anything. But I always reckon starting is the hardest part, except for finishing of course.

So all the best to you for 2009 - I hope it's a fantastic one!