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'If you want to eliminate hunger, everybody has to be involved." Bono.
I'm very excited to announce that I have a new book coming out. Monster House Publishing is launching What's in Alanna's Secret Sauce? on August 27, 2024. Alanna has grown a vegetable garden with her Nan and plans to make sauce from her harvest to enjoy for herself. As the sauce cooks on the stove, its aroma fills the air and wafts out the window attracting strangers. Much to the chagrin of Alanna, her Nan invites the strangers back for dinner. Alanna fears that there will not be enough to feed everybody, especially her. How do Alanna and her Nan manage to feed everybody with their sauce? What is the special ingredient? Venus Angelica's brilliant illustrations bring Alanna to life. I will have much more news in the coming weeks. Pre-orders of What's in Alanna's Secret Sauce? will be available soon.
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Guilty pleasures: something, such as a movie, television program, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.
Oxford dictionary. In this time of collective chaos, and uncertainty, we feel our lives are out of our control. And if a pandemic wasn't enough, as a project manager of the most orchestrated event of the year, you feel the sole responsibility for pulling off Christmas and for Making Magic happen. Even if we no longer have children in our homes, it's a hard reign to relinquish. We all need an escape to lightness and the familiar such as movies, music, white bread or twinkly lights that evoke happiness, contentment, comfort and nostalgia. They are, in fact, our guilty pleasures. We need them now more than ever. I never thought that in my lifetime I would be……
It would be logical, understanding and valid if many of you finished this sentence with: ”living though a pandemic”. Indeed, we are all actually living and breathing wearily through it. If we were able for a fleeting moment to put the medical, social, psychological and financial crises aside, we could unmask to see little glimmers of positives and consolations. Perhaps NIKE was not targeting the endorphin seeking professional athletes when they advertised their line of gym attire with the slogan, Just Do It, but instead an audience of exercising procrastinators. In university, my husband would spend hours hanging around the library guarded by his volumes of text books under the guise of the pursuit of academia. Yeah…right! I knew back then he was the ultimate procrastinator in essay writing. There is nothing quite as daunting as a waiting pair of sneakers, white page, or in the artists’ world, a blank canvas. Why do I procrastinate; is it a fear of failure? Or fear of success? Or both? If the painting is an epic failure, I’ve lost confidence. If the painting is ‘successful’, then my expectations for a follow up painting increase.
Do you believe in love at first sight? Your eyes lock. You see and feel something like never before. You bring it home only to discover to your great disappointment that it doesn’t match your couch. A bad break up ensues.
Great Expectations: How to manage the inevitable deviation from a plan
As poet Robert Burns accurately and eloquently said: Well laid out plans of mice and men often go awry. T’is the season to K.I.S.S.
So you’re planning a festive gathering. You’ve selected nine recipes… and that’s just for the appetizers. You’ve hauled up five boxes of holiday decorations… and that’s just for the dining room. You’ve pinned three signature cocktails… and that’s just the Bailys based bevvies. You’re accommodating three guests with food sensitivities, two ‘gluten freers’, and one vegan. As they say in Newfoundland…’Yer up to yer arse in rattlesnakes! 'Have you been seeing 11:11? You’re not alone.
According to Numerologist.com, "this year more than ever before, countless people all over the planet have reported seeing the 11/11 code repeatedly appear in their daily lives”. Are there times when you would like to be beamed up to a faraway galaxy? We are in the age where we are bombarded with the sensory assault of our devices, and are involuntarily connected to the turbulence of our world. Our hurried lives are filled with busyness, and every minute is accounted for. By the end of each day we are emotionally and physically exhausted. Time and space are at a premium and a rare luxury. Whether it is alone time with your thoughts or a quiet place for your senses to rest in a painting, we seek out places to breathe. We welcome these ‘spaces’, physical and emotional, and are comforted and calmed as with a good cup of tea.  It's Labour Day Weekend. Happy New Year!
Many people ring in the new year on January 1, while some people consider their birthdays as the start of a new beginning. For me, the new year arrives in September. |
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