Storybook Art

There is an art project that I'd been wanting to do for a really long time. I got the idea from something I saw on Pinterest - someone had painted a picture on the page of a book. I loved the idea of combining text and illustration, and immediately came up with a project I wanted to try - taking a page of text from three of my favourite children's stories, and painting a picture on them of what the text was describing. I wanted to do it as something to put up in Steven's room. At that time we were still living in the townhouse, so Steven didn't even have a room yet, and anyways I was busy and couldn't find the time. So the project waited.

But this week I was finally able to find time for my storybook art project!

Probably the trickiest part was deciding how to get the text of the book excerpts I wanted to use. Of course, there was no way I was going to tear a page out of a book! Especially a book I enjoy. Perhaps the only exception would be if a copy of the book was absolutely falling apart and was about to be thrown out, but I didn't really want to take forever trying to find such copies of the specific books I wanted. I considered photocopying the pages, but it's hard to get a good quality photocopy of a page from a book. In the end I typed out the text from the pages I wanted, which actually worked quite well, because I could format them the way I wanted them.

The texts I chose were the beginning of The Hobbit, the lamppost passage from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the end of the epilogue from one of the Redwall books, Marlfox.

I used a mixture of glue and water to attach my "book pages" to three canvases. There ended up being some wrinkles in the paper, but I thought it still looked ok. For my illustrations I used acrylic paint, but I watered it down so that you would still be able to read the text behind it.

The finished artwork hanging in Steven's room! I am so pleased with how it turned out!

If you were to make storybook art, which stories would you choose?

Bedtime Battles: Update 2

It's funny how life conspires to mess up your routines.

We were doing so well with Steven's bedtime routine. Occasionally there would still be a bad night, but for the most part he would only get up once or twice after we put him to bed, and sometimes he wouldn't get up at all. But then... well I'm not exactly sure what happened. It was a lot of little things, really. Steven got a cold, so he was feeling pretty miserable and was having a hard time sleeping, and we moved him into a big bed and wanted to make sure he was settling ok, and one thing led to another until one day we suddenly realized that we were cuddling him to sleep every night! So we had to start our routine all over again. Hopefully it won't be as hard this time. There were a few rough nights, but tonight he only came out once! We shall see.

Apple Pie Burritos

When I was considering what to write about last Thursday, I decided to try out this recipe I found a while ago. By the time I finished making it (and eating it) I ran out of time to write about it! But here it is now, and I definitely recommend it.

Our old house had an apple tree that produced so much last summer. I made lots of things with the apples, including some pies for the freezer. When there were still more apples to deal with I decided to freeze some bags of apple pie filling. They have been useful for making a lot more things than just pies!

I heated a bag of apple pie filling in a pot and let it simmer until the apples were cooked. The apples were already mixed with some sugar, cinnamon, and corn starch. I added a bit more corn starch so it would get nice and thick.

Some filling went in each tortilla and I rolled then up like a burrito. I used large tortillas because that's what I had, but I think it would be even better with little tortillas. One pie's worth of filling was enough for 6 large tortillas.

I heated some oil and fried them on each side until they were golden brown.

While they were still warm I rolled then in cinnamon sugar and they were ready to eat!

They were really good eaten warm and the leftovers were eaten cold for breakfast the next morning!

Mommy Moments: Uh Oh

That moment when you hear your toddler in another room saying:

"Stevie make a mess. Oh my. Stevie making a mess."

And you really don't want to go in there.

What the News Misses

Have you ever thought about how the news is kind of depressing?

I have. In fact I generally try to avoid the news for just that reason. I have enough challenges in my life without being given a dozen more reasons to feel anxious and depressed. But as much as I wish I could stick my head in the sand and ignore it all, the news keeps showing up anyways - in my Facebook feed, in the newspaper headlines, in conversions with friends.

Politics comes up a lot, especially with all of the happenings south of the boarder (and some of our own stuff too). I don't have a problem with politics per se, but it seems like it's just become a subject for everyone to get worked up about without actually contributing any practical involvement or solutions.

There has been a lot of death too. I don't know how many beloved celebrities died last year, but I know there were quite a few. I'm pretty clueless about celebrities in general (unless they're connected to Lord of the Rings or some other subject I particularly enjoy), but their deaths were all over the news and impacted many people. Just a couple of weeks ago I was saddened to hear that Stuart McLean passed away. We used to listen to the Vinyl Cafe in the car on the way to soccer every week. His stories were a piece of my childhood.

Since then I have been thinking a lot about how "the news" is so depressing. And it's not just large-scale news either. Even the local paper is full of shootings, unexpected deaths, the drug crisis, and other problems. Sometimes I feel like I should try to stay informed on what is going on in the world, but after just a few minutes I start feeling so gross. No wonder I try to avoid the news.

I've often wondered - where are the good things? There is more happening in the world than just disease, disaster, and death. Where is the hope?

But I do partly understand. Those things make for a good story. They are "big deals", things that affect lots of people, and I suppose they are important to know about. But the good things in life are often quieter and unassuming. The volunteer worker who makes a difference in people's lives. The neighbour who mows your lawn. Going out for coffee with a friend. Not exactly headline material. And that's okay. But the problem is that the bad stuff can overwhelm the good stuff.

We can only hold so much in our heads, so we tend to just think about what comes to mind the easiest. Because the bad stuff is so "loud", because it fills the headlines, because it's emotionally charged, that is what we remember. Everything that is wrong about the world blocks out everything that is right about the world.

And even more significantly, the news misses out the most important thing of all. It misses that God is with us. He is with us in this messy, broken, falling apart world. He is here, bringing hope, comfort, restoration, and a peace that passes understanding. But somehow we always forget. Perhaps that's because, while God can and sometimes does work in wonders, more often he works in the small, simple things, the things that are easy to miss if you're not watching for him.

And so we feel discouraged, we feel afraid, we want to give up hope, because the world just seems so dark and broken. But God is with us! The hard stuff is still hard, the sad stuff is still sad, but the good stuff is still good! When the news threatens to drag us down, let's remember the things that the news misses, and be a people of hope.

Garden 2017: Planning

As spring approaches, I've been continuing to get ready for my garden. On nice days I've spent time outside, weeding and transplanting. Steven is generally outside with me too, so while I have gotten some work done, it is liberally interspersed with trading garden tools (he always wants whichever one I happen to be using), trying to teach him that you don't throw dirt, and inspecting all the creepy crawlies that we find. My personal favourite is when we find a ladybug and Steven holds it on his finger. He becomes so still and gentle.

I have been doing a lot of planning, trying to decide what I want to plant this year. I've never had this much garden space just for myself to use before, but I still want to try to make the best use of the space that I can! I'll mostly be growing traditional vegetable garden plants, but I will be trying out some new (to me) things too.

I have also started some seeds inside this year, including basil, tomatoes, cucumber, and one of the new things I am trying - goji berries!

I discovered that our new house is within walking distance of a nursery, which is fun. I walked over with the kids yesterday and we enjoyed looking around the store, watching their fish and turtle ponds, and visiting with their store cats! I think we will be going back again soon.