From my book SUMO COLORS - I was thinking of my parents when painting Mt. Fuji, which is in the Shizuoka prefecture where they live A while ago I had mentioned that if all goes well, I will be traveling to Japan this summer. Unfortunately, all has not gone well and the trip won’t be happening. The reasons are innumerable, and I won’t bore you with the details. I’m disappointed, but we’re tentatively looking into going during winter break. Has anyone traveled to Japan during the holiday season? …
life
New Creativebug Classes + Get two months free!
Hello, hello! January has been a full month. I'm working on my next book and a scad of other exciting projects, I've been dealing with health issues (luckily I'm getting better), and I'm reorganizing/streamlining so many areas of my life. I lift the curtain and share the details of these types of things with my lovely Patreon group, and I like to mention bits and bobs here on the old blog too. The online world has much to say about how this is around the time that New Year's resolutions …
Life Goals: 13,000 Books
Hello, hello, my friends! How are you? I'm doing well. I have a birthday coming up soon, so I've been reflecting on life more than usual. I've been thinking a lot about what inspires me. One recent and great inspiration is the author Alan Bradley and about a month ago I finished reading his Flavia de Luce series. I read all 10 books over several weeks, one right after another, transported to the 1950s and soaking in the mysteries. Flavia, a brilliant 11-year-old amateur scientist and sleuth, …
Coffee date + The gifts of a decade
Hello. How are you? I really want to know. As I sat down to type this month's blog post, I wasn't sure if I had anything of interest to offer up. Not that I do normally, but I've rarely let that stop me from prattling about. This morning I was thinking about how I started this blog 10 years ago, and for the last decade it's been a rather one-sided conversation, hasn't it? I wish that we could have a chat. Let's imagine that we're meeting up at one of my favorite coffee shops and we've settled in …
Quieting
I've become very good at ratcheting down the pace. I was using my phone to record a video a couple of weeks ago and when I played the video back, I discovered that I had accidentally hit the "Slo-Mo" button while filming. My life feels like it's in perpetual slo-mo these days. I call it "quieting." It's kind of nice. I've even been tiptoeing into the ultimate quieting activity: knitting. When I was a striving bundle of youth, I constantly sought out excitement and novelty. World travel! New …