I have the best neighbours

Happy birthday to my friends Beckett and Lissa today!

No one can complain about winter in Toronto being too warm this year. :-) Looking at the snow-covered garden reminds me of when Jeff and I were househunting a couple of years ago. We fell in love with this house right away but the garden was buried under snow at the time, so we only had a slightly blurry photo of what it would look like. That first spring was like Christmas day over and over again as the snow gradually melted away and we got to see what else came with the house.



It's been nearly two years since we got possession of the house. I still think of it as a new house sometimes, mainly because we still haven't finished unpacking. :-D I remember the first day we officially had the house...Jeff and I arrived that morning to find an alarming scene: yellow construction tape all around the house, and an Order To Comply sign up on our front door!

Click for larger image:


As we read the sign, we gradually clued into the fact that this was a practical joke by our friend Walter (who is an engineer, as some of you know by now). Hmmm. This combined with the GAfilk conspiracy fuels the fire that is a Need To Get Back At Walter somehow. Probably not at FKO, because he'll be expecting it. It may be hours, days, years...I want my dear friend to be looking over his shoulder, wondering if I'm there. You wait, Walter. I'm coming for you when you LEAST EXPECT IT.

(bwa ha ha!)

Ahem.

Back to the house...

Both Jeff and I fall in love with the house and the neighbourhood more and more as time goes on. We have the GREATEST neighbours; Jeff and I were talking about this last night, in fact, how lucky we are. I've heard so many Neighbour From Hell stories from other people. Now we're worried about what happens when anyone moves away...what happens if we get a Bad Neighbour?!? Then again, I'm sure our neighbours went through the same worries when Jeff and I moved in, especially with all the kids (13 of them!) in our circle.

Anyway, we've decided that no one's allowed to move away. Ever.

:-)



So I'm in a dilemma about the Harry Potter book. Should I pre-order and hope it arrives on time, or stand in line on launch night? I had a bad experience pre-ordering a Harry Potter before, though I did end up getting it for free because of the "on time" guarantee. This time I've noticed that they're not making a guarantee.

The advantage of pre-ordering is that it's cheaper and comes to my door. The advantage of standing in line is because it'll be fun to be waiting with other avid Harry Potter fans and be able to rush home and read it right away if I want to. Which I won't, of course...being a morning person, I'll just crash as soon as I get home.

Links O' The Day

I'm a Southpark character!: My friend Reid turned some of his friends and family into Southpark characters. My favourites are Jeff (I couldn't stop giggling because it's SO Jeff) and my friend Andy (this is soooo Andy!). And Reid looks uncannily like himself.

Jedi Squirrels from Miss Snark.





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Valentine's Day

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated; click the above image for a bigger version. Accompanying column topic: "Useful software for writers: survey results (part 1)"

My children's book illustrator/writer sister Ruth gave several workshops at Allison's school yesterday; do check out Allison's report on the event. I have yet to see Ruth do a workshop myself, so I'm jealous!

So today is Valentine's Day. According to this somewhat disorganized Wikipedia entry, the day was named after two men, both Christian martyrs named Valentine. According to that entry, there's been a recent trend to also refer to Feb. 14th as Singles Awareness Day. Check out the somewhat scary picture on that last page ("Couples Go Die!").

Today's XKCD Valentine's comic SO summarizes my feelings on Valentine's Day this year.





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Writer's valentine

Recent updates to Inkygirl: Daily Diversions For Writers include the above cartoon, writing cartoons from the archives, multi-tasking, posts about an anagram generator, authors and negative reviews, and freelance writing rates.

Much writing to do, hence less Blathering.

But do keep an eye on Allison's blog, where she'll be posting a report about my sister's children's author/illustrator workshops at her school!

Recent reads:

	The Invention Of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is part graphic novel, part novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The illustrations are wonderful and not only enhance the story but are an essential part of it. I loved the characters, the mystery that revealed itself a bit at a time, and the satisfying conclusion. I also hadn't realized that some of the story elements were based on fact, like the automatons.
	The Last Apprentice: Curse of the Bane by Joseph Delaney. I enjoyed the first book in the series so much that I decided to splurge and buy the second in hardcover. A deliciously creepy and engrossing tale. I especially enjoyed developing relationships between some of the characters in this book.
	Girl In A Cage by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. I'm a longtime Jane Yolen fan and was not disappointed. The premise made me nervous: the main character spends pretty much the entire book locked up in a cage...how interesting was THAT going to be?!? Yet with use of flashbacks interspersed with the cage scenes, the story moves along at a good pace. A GREAT main character. I also enjoyed reading the authors' note at the end which clarified which bits of the story were based on historical facts (main character is Marjorie Bruce, the young daughter of Robert the Bruce) and which were made up.

Links O' The Day

Thanks to Rob Wynne for sending me a link to this squirrel-focused Get Fuzzy strip!

A Woman from the inside out: mesmerizing movie of someone drawing a female figure.

Indexed by Jessica Hagy. A GREAT idea for a blog! :-) Thanks to Beckett for the link. Here's a short film inspired by the blog.

Don't ask me to draw a horse

I've always sucked at drawing animals except for cats. Cats are the exception because so many people I know have had them throughout my life. Because of this, I've started to force myself to use more animals in my cartoons.

I'm gradually working my way up to drawing horses...I really REALLY suck at drawing horses. If you don't believe me, look at this stealth photo that my friend Walter took while I was trying to draw a photo of Jeff playing polo (on a horse) in the Kathleen Sloan cookbook. My horses look like dogs, and I can't draw dogs very well, either.

For some reason, I seem to have missed the period in my childhood where girls become obsessed with horses, including drawing horses. Then again, I also missed the part of girl school where they teach you about fashion and wearing make-up and enjoying clothes/shoes shopping.




Hope you're all having a good weekend, everyone! I am...I spent most of yesterday writing. :-)



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Illustration Friday: Crash

I created the illustration above for this week's Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Crash." Click on the above image to leave a comment in Flickr. I've added it to my Little Nightmares set.



Thanks to Drawn! and Comixpedia / The Webcomics List for mentioning Will Write For Chocolate. I'm a bit overwhelmed (and tickled, of course) by all the publicity that my comic strip's been getting lately.



Writing's going well. I plan do a bunch more this weekend.

Links O' The Day

Things to do at home when you are bored: Some guy uses materials at home to dress up like animals. Some of these are creepily good. Like the squirrel!

Best Worst First Sentence Contest (For Kids): Deadline: June 1st, 2007. Organized by children's book author Lee Wardlaw Jaffurs for young people.

A2 Papercut: AMAAAAAAAZING things done with a piece of paper and an exacto knife.



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