Lunch with Errol

Yay! Errol and I finally had a chance to get together and chat about our creative project collabs. Between both of our schedules, it's been a challenge trying to find time to meet.

Errol and I have SO much in common that it was inevitable our paths would cross eventually. We both live in Toronto. We both love our iPads. We both are writers and fans of NaNoWriMo. We're both board gamers. We're both songwriters and musicians. We both have twisted senses of humor. We both adore our spouses (Errol's daughters are creative, too! Check out this VERY cute video). We both always have a ton of creative projects going on at any time. Plus we have the Asian thing going, of course.

What I love most about Errol: his enthusiasm about his creative interests and his positive life outlook.

You can find out more about Errol in his blog.

Beckett's Custom-Made Jack O' Lanterns Now For Sale

My multi-talented friend Beckett has added items to her Etsy shop, including her famous custom-made Jack O' Lanterns. From her Etsy page:

You pick the design you like, I carve it for you and send it out to you! These little artificial pumpkins are carved with my own drawings designed especially to show off the light from inside the pumpkin. They are about 6 inches in diameter, a compact little pumpkin shape with lots of carved detail.

These artificial pumpkins are made of dense molded styrofoam and are carefully carved with a removable lid so that you can place a light inside. No flames please, as these can be flammable! I'm including a small battery powered artificial candle light source for your convenience; simply unpack it all, turn on the lamp and place it inside the pumpkin, and enjoy the flickering light in your new Jack-O-Lantern.

These pumpkins are pretty sturdy and I have several of these that I carved many years ago now and they're still in great shape. They get used every autumn season and have become favorites at our house and around our neighborhood around Halloween time.

Designing and carving these pumpkins is quite time consuming and each pumpkin will be quite unique. These designs will never be mass produced! Each carving, even of the same design, is different and each pumpkin has its own personality.

Go ahead and treat your family or yourself to a little Jack-O-Lantern light that will last you for many years and may become a treasured part of your own holiday traditions!

Please tell me which design you prefer, and allow me about 2 weeks to carve your own custom Jack-O-Lantern to keep forever!

Price is $45, which is a deal considering you'll be able to use your cool Jack-O-Lantern every Halloween AND you'll be paying for a collector's work of art created by a pro illustrator like Beckett. You can find more info out at:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/55865455/custom-jack-o-lantern

Joy and Gratitude

Photo by A.T.I write and draw for a living. Every so often I'll stop and think about this and wonder when I'm going to wake up.

And then I fall in love with Jeff all over again, remembering how he convinced me to quit my programmer/analyst job at a bank many years ago so I could pursue my dream.

I am so very, very lucky.

I've been featured in the Padgadget site!

I continue to LOVE my iPad. No one loves their iPad as much as I love my iPad. I've been purposely restraining my iPad ravings in Blatherings because I figure not all of you want to hear them. If you DO, then you should follow my iPadGirl Twitter feed and my iPadGirl blog.

But I had to post here about being featured in Padgadget, one of my favourite iPad sites. You can read the article here:

PadGadget Creative Corner: iPad Artist Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Alien Jellyfish Song by Chris Conway

I'm trying out Ping, the new Apple iTunes social nework, and got carried away following people's links and looking for songs I liked...and stumbled across an online recording of one of my favourite songs: The Alien Jellyfish Song, by my friend Chris Conway.

It's a fun, sf-geeky song that my music group covers in concert sometimes, and you can hear/download a recording here:

The Alien Jellyfish Song by Chris Conway

That's me on flute, and Allison and Jodi on backup vocals.

Chris lives in the UK, so he sent the track over to us to add our musical bits. I still remember what a challenge it was in the recording studio for me -- when we perform this with Chris or on our own, I tend to move around a lot when I play flute on this song (yes, the sound engineers hate me).

And this is SUCH a fun song to play along with. :-)