A twist in the tale

Berry brought me a book to read to her before bed.

"It's about bugs," she said. It was actually "My First Book About God" – but it had a tiny bug on the flower being held by the girl on the front cover.

So I read.

"...and God gave us the sun and the flowers and the rivers and the sea..."

"And – candy!" she exclaimed.

"Oh! Really!"

"Yep. [pause] They got good lollipops."

"Who has?"

"The Baby Jesus. All kinds of lollipops and fruits in a bowl."

She made careful little sprinkling motions with her fingers.

I hope the Baby Jesus knows how lucky he is.

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Squeezy

Such a squished-in little building,
right in the heart of Sydney.
Built in 1886.
Any smaller and I would've smuggled it home in my suitcase.

Nights are not for sleeping

Hello! I got two hours of sleep last night! I am not exaggerating! I am going to drink six cups of coffee today and cry a little bit! I will probably also snap at my children and then cry about that too!

I've been having not-so-quiet midnight (and 2am, and 3am, and 4am) battles with little Man-show to eliminate the last vestiges of his waking-in-the-night-to-eat habit, and it is seriously, seriously taking a toll. On me, not him.

More later, when the world stops tilting...

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Breakthrough

I've just had a breakthrough on a new design, so excuse me while I jump up and down a bit.

I have a series of letterpress art prints planned for Sweet Olive Press, but they're still in the design phase and a couple of weeks ago I ran into a creative hurdle on how to handle part of the artwork, and I couldn't seem to get past it. I went on designing other things and printing other work, but this block hovered, nagging, at the back of my mind all the time. I didn't even want to look at the half-made art, for fear of feeling mocked by the impossible-ness of it all.

Tonight I opened the files with a sense of duty and dread, and after about half an hour of fiddling around despondently – eureka!!! Problem solved, on with the show!

You know, I just had to share.

Advantage receiver

Over the past month Berry has taken up tennis, giving Nathan the first outlet for his coaching urges since waaaay-back-when he worked at Fair Oaks in Dallas. She has quite a fierce forehand, and is extremely proud of her "tie shoes".

She has also learned to do somersaults, or flips, as she calls them. She doesn't do them while playing tennis, but maybe one day....

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WHOA.

Almost overnight, he's turned into a little boy.

He's busy all the time. He's into everything. He specialises in emptying drawers, throwing toys and shoes into bathtubs, obsessing over things with wheels, and climbing into baskets of laundry to stir the clothes with kitchen utensils. Don't ask, I don't know. But it seems to be very important work.

He's running everywhere – arms tucked behind him for more aerodynamic performance, and head tilted forward so his feet have something to catch up to. He comes a cropper sometimes (you should see the grazed lump on his forehead from yesterday) but on the whole he just careens crazily from potential disaster to potential disaster, saying "whoa!" at every near miss. An average minute is "whoa ... whoa ... WHOA ... whoa, whoa ... whoa."

He climbs everything – getting up on top of (unstable) boxes, the coffee table, the TiVo, Berry's toy shopping trolley, and once – heart-stoppingly – he clambered up the stairs, after the safety gate popped back open after being closed too hard. When I heard the music of his Imaginarium activity block floating down from upstairs, my heart froze. That's never happened again.

Most times, he helpfully scolds "ahh-ahh!" as he climbs on to a forbidden chair or overturned Tonka truck – just in case I fail to notice independently that he's doing something naughty.

I never dreamed that they would be so completely different – that she would be so careful and orderly and particular, and that he would be so bent on destruction-though-investigation, and so skilled at giving his mother mini-heart-attacks. Chalk and cheese, sure – but he adores his sister and she adores him back.

Yeah... I really need to keep my camera on a sports setting or something...

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Green thumbs and pink bugs

While I was putting Kickboy down for his nap yesterday, I heard a story on NPR about Guerrilla Gardeners.

It reminded me (1) that guerrilla gardening is a great idea – especially for neglected public lots – and something I would might do if I didn't have a knack for killing every plant I touch; and (2) that the first time I'd ever heard of it was in Sydney, where I got this on-the-fly shot of one of their installations through the window of Jodie's car.

Crooked picture, really cool work.

Room envy

How come someone else owns my ideal kitchen? Hmmmmm. If I knew where it was, I'd move in.

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Birthday boy

I've been so scattered that I even forgot to mention Kickbaby turned one year old in May. (Of course I'm an excellent mother.)

We went to Florida for the weekend and he ate, with gusto and determination, at least 10 percent of Pensacola's beach sand.

This, then, seemed like the most appropriate birthday cake I could make...

Happy late-posted birthday, Kickbaby. And because he's not really a baby anymore, I am (also belatedly) going to have to re-name him – just for blog purposes! I'll let you know...

Letterpress Business Cards

Running out of business cards is actually kind of great! It gives me a chance to revisit the look of my Sweet Olive Press card and – in this case – redesign it altogether.

I started printing these using a blind impression for the flower pattern, but I quickly switched to printing the pattern with transparent white for an "almost blind" impression. The pattern just looked better and more uniform with a little ink on the press.


The text is printed in a hand-mixed dark charcoal ink that jumps right off the card without being too harsh (black would've been a little much, really).

The press is in fine form and all ready to start printing the many (many!) custom projects and new stationery designs I've got lined up for the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more pictures as we keep rolling!