August has been quite the month.It was my intention of blogging a new post every few days, and I was doing pretty well for a while. But we all know that life has a way of derailing even the best intentioned plans. I guess some of you who were coming by thought to yourselves, "Now, why don't she write?" I'll tell you.

First off, picture book art creation is a very labor intensive activity. Most talented artists I know make it look easy, but, trust me, it's as easy as pushing a 2 ton boulder up Mt. Everest. Often times, I spend hours staring at a blank piece of paper while my characters yammer on in my head telling me what they want to do and where they think they should be and how they should look when doing it. Before I put the first pencil line to paper, I have to have a really clear vision of what the page will look like when done. Then I have to take that vision and make my hands cooperate in getting it all down on the paper the way I see it in my head. Along the way, some of what I see in my head changes to make for better flow and visual interest. Sometimes, what I end up with on the page is what I first saw in my head, but not often. My preliminary sketches can take hours to get to the point where I am satisfied with them. I get super focused and suffer from a type of tunnel vision where all I can think about is the next page of the book. It's a kind of madness.

I am in the throws of creative madness currently, and August arrives with a bang.

I was approved for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) training (Voices for Children) which started on August 5th at the court house in St. Louis. My husband had taken some time off from work and was also headed into ST. Louis for his Kokondo classes. So I offered to drive him to his class, go to mine and return to pick him up when it was over. I dropped him off without any trouble, but got lost trying to get back to the highway. No biggy. I am good at being lost, I just drive until I come to a place where I know where I am and self correct from there. It all worked out, I got to the first training session with 10 minutes to spare. I met one of my class mates at the security check in and she made the comment that she hoped there wouldn't be any homework. From her lips to Loki's ears. We each received a 6" thick binder full of information. The facilitator told us there would also be handouts at every session. There are 8 other women in the class, by the facilitator's account, a large class. We then learned how very complicated our role as the child advocate really is. Yikes. I was wondering what I had gotten myself into! We were assigned the first two sections in our manual to read by Thursday's session.

After the session I drove back to my husband's karate class to pick him up. There was a spectacular light show in the sky most of the way, and then the sky opened up just as I arrived at the church where the classes are held. He finished up the session and we headed home, commenting on the bright flashes of lightening that lit up the sky the whole trip.

When we got home it was close to 10 pm. The phone in the living room seemed to need a charge. We got ready for bed and called it a day.

The next morning I came into the studio to boot up my computer and get to work only to discover that there was no electricity in the room. My husband opened the basement door and discovered there was no electricity there either. He grabbed a flashlight and went to the breaker box and flipped the switches back on. I booted up my computer and tried to check my email. No luck. The machine just wouldn't stay connected to the internet. So I called AT&T and was told they had a service outage in ST Louis and Manchester and that it would be fixed by about noon. I pull out my CASA manual and read the first section. I work on Rabbit's Song. I wait patiently for noon to roll around. We eat lunch and both head into the studio to check email.

I boot up my computer and get online long enough to see that I have email, but not long enough to do anything about it. My husband discovers that he can't boot up his computer at all. :( I walk into the other room to grab the phone and discover that it is still not charged. I check the other phone for a dial tone. It's working fine. The computer guru is called and he says he'll show up at 9 am on Thursday morning. My husband heads out for an appointment and I work some more on Rabbit's Song. Then I head out to pick up a new phone to replace the one in the living room. I also pick up a few last minute items for a trip I have scheduled for Friday. My flight leaves at 6:15 am, so I pack as much as I can except for a few last minutes things. Then I try and get online again. Still no joy. I get back on the phone with AT&T (by now it's after 5 pm) and spend the next hour or so crawling around under desks plugging and unplugging cords and rebooting and resetting the internet system according to the tech guy's instructions. To say the least, by the end of the hour I am less then amused and somewhat grumpy. He decides he can't help me fix whatever the deal is and bumps it up to the real techs. They will call me within the next 4 hours. Grumble. It's close to 7 by the time I get off the phone with him. I pick up my CASA book and dive into Section 2. An hour later AT&T calls and tells me that yes, there is a problem (aduh!) but it's not with their external lines, it has to be somewhere in my lines. Would I prefer a morning or afternoon service call. I chose morning since I have to be in St. Louis in the afternoon for the CASA training and I have yet to perfect the art of being in two places at the same time. Morning it is. Any time between 8 and noon. Gotta love these 4 hour windows. I hang up and continue to read Section 2 until I fall asleep.

I'm up bright and early the next morning, my husband heads off to work and wait for the repair men to make their appearances. I read more of Section 2 while I wait. At 9 on the dot, the computer guru shows up, fiddles around with the PC and makes his pronouncement. He talks briefly on the phone with my husband and packs up the sick computer and leaves shortly after 9:30. Still no AT&T guy. I work some more on Rabbit's Song. Around 10:30 the AT&T guy makes his appearance. He crawls around on the floor under desks for a while, plugging and unplugging and comes to the conclusion that the router for the DSL is skrootched. He has a replacement in his van. I read more of Section 2 while he installs it and yeah! I have internet again. He leaves, I have lunch and try and finish Section 2. And catch up on the email of two days. Luckily nothing had blown up in internet land, so after shooting off a few emails about the upcoming trip, I am all set. I head up to St. Louis to my training class. I never did get to finish section 2.

After class, I head home and do a final email check and pack the last minute items. I debate whether to stay up or get a couple hours of sleep before I have to rise to catch my flight. I opt for sleep and ask my husband to set the alarm for 2:30. It never went off, but lucky for me, I am a light sleeper so I was up and out of bed at the appointed time anyway. I get to the airport and make my flight without incident. The trip was for my Initiation into Cronehood, which I will blog about another time. I returned home on Monday around 10:30 pm.

When I get home, I find out that the school has called and the kid needs to sign up for classes before 2 on Tuesday. She starts high school next week. I am confused since we already have her class schedule on the fridge. While this wouldn't be a big deal if she were home, she's not. She's been staying in St. Louis with her sister and working with a family friend earning some money. Since hubby has to be in the office, I have to be the one to go and get her and bring her home.

I decide I'll call the school instead. And no,she doesn't have to sign up for classes, only come in and get her locker assignment. I ask if I can do it for her since she's not home. Yes. (Joy! I don't have to drive back and forth to St. Louis to get her.) I also find out that the school has been holding her last report card because there was a 45¢ balance on her lunch account. I drive to both schools and deal with the paperwork. The I go home and eat lunch and finally pick up my CASA manual and read Section 3 which is due for the evening's class. This time I do finish the reading assignment.

After class I head to pick up my daughter at her sister's home. The we drive home. It's 11 pm by the time we get there, so we all just go to bed.

Wednesday arrives beautiful and sunny. I dive into Rabbit's Song again and actually make some progress. About mid afternoon, the computer guru calls to ask if he can drop off my husband's new computer. I tell him to come on over. As he is finishing up re-networking all the computers to the printer my husband arrives home from work. We are in business again. Yeah!

Since it's been so crazy, there is nothing for dinner in the house, so we head out to eat as a family. On the way my husband comments that his check battery light is lit on his dash board and he'll have to get that checked. We have nice dinner. We come back home and I read Section 4 for class on Thursday.

Thursday started out normal enough. Husband left for work as usual and I got the kid up to head into St. Louis for her orthodontist appointment. We had plans to go to her back as well. I was in the shower when she told me to call Daddy on his cell phone.

His car had died and he needed me to come save him at the car dealership. So I rush over there, pick him up, run back home and eat breakfast, grab the kid, head to the bank and then we drive up to my husband's office. I drop him off and take the kid to her appointment afterwards I deliver her back to her sister's house. The I head home. It's noon by the time I get back home. I have some lunch and try to focus on Rabbit's Song. But my head is spinning so much, I don't accomplish much of anything. At 3 I leave the house, go to the post office, head to my bank and drive to my husband's office, pick him up and take him to the church for his Kokondo classes and head to the court house for my CASA classes. I got lost again. Only this time I show up late. :( Oh well. Life happens, right? After class, I drive back to the church to pick him up and I get lost. Grumble.

Ac we are heading home he goes down the list of what his car needed to have done. $$$ Wah! It's nearly 12 by the time we get in so we just head off to bed.

On Friday, he took my car to the office. In the evening we went to the dealership and picked up his car.

It's been a very expensive month and it's only half over.

Hi everybody. I know I've been scarce around here. I have a good reason, though!

I'm working on the art for my 4th picture book! The publisher has placed it on the web site for pre-orders. Check it out!

Rabbit's Song by SJ Tucker & Trudy Herring


Magical Child Books - Rabbit's Song

I am super excited! Well...back to the drafting table.

July is half way through. Time just seems to go faster and faster as I get older. To the left is a portion of the newest installment for the free coloring pages at Magical Child News. This month features the letter J and the Goddess is Jerah, a Semetic Goddess. Sign up for the yahoo group mailing list to download this and previous free coloring pages.

I joined a new blog group this week called Watercolor Wednesdays. The members have to be watercolor artists doing children's book illustration. Every Wednesday we receive a prompt for a new painting. This week's prompt is "this little piggy." We are to let our imaginations run wild, and mine is working over time. So much so I haven't been able to decide what to do yet.

Work on Rabbit's Song is moving along smoothly. The rough layout for the cover has received approval and I am busy finalizing all the changes and tiny details. The publisher will be making the book available for pre-order as soon as the cover receives final approval. The authors and I will all be appearing together in Tennessee for a pre-release party. All the books pre-ordered before the mid October event will be signed by all three of us. I am very excited about this.

I've decided that watching the scale inch up over the summer has got to end. I got my bike out of the basement and dusted off the cobwebs yesterday morning. I rode out to the post office and back in the morning. It actually felt kind of good to be doing something just for me. In fact it felt so good that I decided to ride the bike down to A Visual Impact in the afternoon to get my hair cut. (Check out the logo -- I designed it for them.) I arrived at the shop without incident, got my hair cut and started on my way home. I took the main drag home (fewer hills) instead of taking the side streets I traveled on my way downtown. That was a mistake. Not only was the traffic heavier, the folks in the cars seemed to think they needed to honk their horns at me as they drove past. The side of the rode is not in good repair, so it was tough going. I gritted my teeth and struggled on until I cam to the rail road tracks. The tracks cut across the road at an angle. I was attempting to pedal my sorry self across them and avoid the worst of the potholes and road debris when a car swooshed by rather closely with horn blaring. It startled me and I took my eyes off the road momentarily to see the car rush past only to have the front tire of the bike catch in the track and get stuck. Needless to say, I kept going and my bike didn't. OW! I now have a nice pair of matching road rash on my right knee and left leg. :( I wear leather biking gloves, so my hands are undamaged. A good thing because I used them to stop my face from landing in the gravel by the side of the road.

Suffice it to say, I won't be traveling that section of road again!

@#$$#%$%@#@#CATS!!!! I am ready to banish mine from the house forever!

One is howling like a banshee every time I am out of site. And I can't yell at her or call her to me or anything because she's an elderly 15 years old and now totally deaf. I doubt she can hear herself. Oh and she has taken to yacking in the corners. Not nice to find with your bare feet. Trust me on this one. Bleh.

The other one, the 4 year old get the stupidest cat alive award today.

I have been slowly renovating the house. It's taking forever because the house is so small I can only work at a tiny section at a time by pushing the furniture from one side of the room to the other. The Rabbit's room was on the plan for the day to finish putting the trim around the bottom of the walls. I was measuring and cutting, and she was painting. We were moving onto the third wall when the phone rang. I had to take the call, and the Rabbit being 14 finished painting the piece of trim she was working on and went off to do something else. I don't know what.

I'm on the phone and I notice the cat is limping. I call Rabbit in to check him out. Seem she had some paint on his paw. I instructed the kid to take him into the bathroom and wash his paw off. I continued my phone call and wandered down into the basement to repaint the trim I assumed he had manage to step on. There was green paint EVERYWHERE. The #@%^$%#$%# cat hadn't stepped on a piece of freshly painted trim, he had reached into the paint can with his bloomin' paw!!!!!! And decided he didn't like it. He'd raced around the basement with his paint soaked paw trying to get it off. Then not succeeding in making enough of a mess there ran up into the living room to smear green paint all over the tan rug. Which is Where I saw him limping.

To make a long story short, I ended up scrubbing green paint off of much of the basement floor and the tan rug. And not measuring, cutting and installing the trim into the Rabbit's room. By the time I had tracked down all the green paw prints and splatter marks from foot shakes, I had worn myself out. The floor is now tinged green in the basement. The cat is damp with spots of green and the tan rug has a green cast to it in places.

Now the older cat is howling again and I can't hear myself think.

Used cats - very cheap - will entertain best offer.

It's been a full week and I've finally been able to fully unpack. I won't be leaving town again until August. I'll fly off to Tucson then to have my Crone Initiation.

Most of the week was spent catching up on paperwork, updating web sites and doing research for the new book. Tuesday, I drove into the city for my face to face interview with the woman from Voices for Children. It went well and I was able to surprise her with my answer to one of the questions. She asked me what I expected to gain from the experience. I told her what I might gain had never even crossed my mind. It hadn't. I suppose some folks do have ulterior motives for volunteering, but I just want to help.

Thursday, I had to roust the teenager out of bed before noon so we could head into the city to have her braces removed. I strongly recommended she sit down and actually eat something. While we were sitting at the dining room table eating our cereal, the younger cat came into the room. Now you have to understand, this is one really vocal cat. He has been dubbed musical by a friend. He is frequently so talkative that it becomes quite annoying. We often tell him to shut up. He walked up to me and stated MEOWWWWOW! I looked at him and said - Shut up! He looked right back at me and asked Moi? It was quite funny. The Rabbit giggled through the rest of breakfast.

After she had her braces removed we killed time at the mall and did some girl shopping. Had a bite to eat and got her retainer. So the braces are gone. She has now slimmed down even further and a size zero is too large. I have no clue how I am going to cloth her come school. I guess I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

This evening, the entire family was home. My hubby decided we needed to take advantage of the situation and do something all together. We went to the movies. We saw Wanted. I must be turning into a real fluff bunny, I found the gratuitous violence and constant use of the "f" word a bit much for me. It must be all the time I spend focused on picture books. In any case, it was a very well done movie, and if you aren't opposed to lots of splattering blood, I suggest you go see it. Don't take the little kids though. It was nice to spend time with the hubby and the kid without having to rush off somewhere or do something other than enjoy ourselves.