Edit As You Go

     I started off the year with so many ideas, so many goals for my baking and creative arts journey. I had big visions of monthly projects, of learning new skills, and preparing myself for my next steps as a writer and maybe illustrator. The idea was for me to make cookie art as tributes to my favorite books and take a trip down memory lane as I reviewed books from my childhood as well and then created cookie artwork to honor those books. I outlined ideas for each month.

    I stared off great with my own book, Green Goo, as I so love the new illustrations that Trey Chavez created for me as they gave new life to my story book when it was finally made available in print.

    Then I moved onto a book I checked out almost weekly while I was in kindergarten, The Snowy Day. Ezra Jack Keats work in collage seemed to be perfect for cookie art. I was enchanted by his book and pleased with my cookie collage.

    From there, it was The Color Kittens, another favorite from my preschool days. The book is written by Margaret Wise Brown-maybe best known for Goodnight, Moon. The illustrations are by a husband and wife team, Alice and Martin Provensen. They illustrated dozens of books together, and The Color Kittens is lush and dreamy. I was fortunate to see The Little Golden Book museum display when it stopped off in Muskegon , Michigan. I saw original illustrations from this book, a dream come true.

    My next set of cookie art for April was Walt Disney's Grandpa Bunny, since it was near Easter. I remember the illustrations in this book were so beautiful, they dazzled four year old me. The shadows on the snow, the fall leaves, and the vibrant sunset illustrations were all so lovely they made me feel all soft inside, with that nervous night before the first day of school feeling, so pretty you could almost cry.

    The next book I wanted to use for my project was The Shy Little Kitten. This Little Golden book was first published in 1946, the year my mom was born, and was a favorite of hers. Since May has Mother's Day, that seemed a fitting honor. The author is Cathleen Schurr, my own mother is Kathleen, and the illustrator is Gustaf Tenggren.

    I knew all along that June, with Father's Day in it, was going to be The Bunny Book, as it was one of the books my dad always read to me, and I have loved it so. This one is illustrated by Richard Scarry, story by Patsy Scarry. It is a sweet little story where a family of bunnies tries to figure out what their baby bunny will grow up to be. Spoiler alert, he wants to be a daddy bunny. Such an appropriate book for June and to honor my dad.

    I wasn't able to follow the timeline I wanted for these projects. I wasn't able to go as in depth with learning new decorating skills as I hoped to do. I still learned new techniques, and improved on my skill, had some fun, and got to eat cookies-all big wins. Life happened, so I had to keep editing my time lines, changing my plans, and sometimes doing only one cookie per book project instead of whole sets.

    It was hard to admit I needed to make changes, either due to time constrictions, schedule changes, stressful life events for family members, or just plain fatigue. It felt like defeat at first. Then I worked on not just editing my actions and projects, but also editing my reactions to needing to make these changes, and accepting the new way the projects looked, and finding pleasure in the new outcomes, in what I have been able to complete so far.

    I also meant to write in depth about each project, and exactly what the books, stories, and pictures meant to me as a child, and now as an adult. For now, these abbreviated writings will have to do. Is it what I planned? Nope. It is more than I thought I would be able to do, and the journey has still brought me satisfaction and happiness. 

Permission to Thrive

     What do you need to give yourself permission to do in order to thrive? What changes do you need to make so that you can feel affirmed and capable and move ahead?

    This sweet hibiscus had a few blooms when I brought it home from the store, then nothing for weeks and weeks and weeks. Finally, I said to myself and her, that it was okay with me if she never bloomed again. Her leaves were a lovely shade of green and that in itself was enough beauty. 

    This allowed me to enjoy her as she is and to focus on her care right where she is at. I kept watering her and used the plant food I bought. 

    And then one day, when she was able, she bloomed. She has the biggest blossoms I have ever seen on one of my hibiscus plants. Ever. Once I gave her permission to just be, it freed both her and me.

    Then I realized, I need to give that same grace to myself. I need to accept that it is okay to change as I go, that some goals need to be altered, as life and circumstances are so changeable. Changing your plan or changing your mind does not mean you have failed. It means you realize you need to make changes in order to continue to learn and grow, to truly thrive.

Cookie Fan Art Project 2023, #1

     New Year's Resolutions are not for me. They just seem like another way to fail. It's not that I don't believe in trying to do your best for in setting goals, I do. It just has never worked out for me to set yearly goals. I get overwhelmed or I start off well, and if I make one mistake or drift a bit, I abandon ship.     

    In 2021 I created a baking project for myself at the beginning of the year, the goal being to try at least 12 new to me recipes. It was a great success. I learned a lot, tried new processes and explored new flavors, and had fun sharing my results with friends and family.

    I ended 2022 creating a cookie project based on a Poem from a favorite childhood book of mine-that had cemented my love of cookies and reading, way back when I was about 3 or 4. I had so much fun with that project, that it became the foundation of my 2023 project.

    This year I am going to do a monthly (or maybe more-just depends) cookie fan art project from favorite books of mine. I will include reasons why I love the art in a particular book, techniques I used to create the cookies, book reviews, and baking tips.

    My first cookie project of the year is-Green Goo-with illustrations by Trey Chavez. We were partnered when my story was part of a contest. My book earned a digital publishing contract, in part, due to Trey's AMAZING illustrations. When we initially worked on the project together, I didn't really have any special instructions for Trey, just for him to read the story and do his thing. I never mentioned in the story that I pictured the main character as a redhead, and yet, that was what Trey came up with on his own. It was interesting to see my storyboard scratching's compared to what Trey created. I am always and forever thankful for Trey's work.

    When my story's rights reverted back to me and I had the chance to produce a printed copy of my book, I was so glad Trey was able to partner with my on this as well. It is the most current illustrations that I based my cookie fan art on for this project.

    In this project it was my first time trying to sculpt a cookie a bit more, layering the dough and carving it and baking it in layers. This was also my first time trying to create a comic book effect by outlining characters and objects with black edible ink.

    My pro-tip baking advice-I ALWAYS use salted butter-because on almost every baking show I have watched, the most common thing that contestants get dinged for is not enough salt, seasoning, or flavor.

My rough sketch on the left, Trey's AMAZING work on the right.

The cookies in comparison to the OUTSTANDING illustrations.

 

Tripping Down Memory Lane, Part 2

     Years ago, I took my dad on a little adventure just before Father's Day. It was part of my gift to him that year. We drove up to Croton Dam area near Newaygo and we explored the property that his grandparents and later his parents owned.

    It was a fun trip, as he was never one to shy away from nosing about. No one was at the remodeled cottage, so we walked right up to the windows and peered inside. We walked all around the property. He told me stories about why there was a chunk still missing out of the concrete steps leading up to the back door. It was him, in 1951. His older brother had built a car from scraps and let me 12 year old dad drive it-and he crashed while backing up to the house. He never got to drive it again,

    We walked across the street and looked at the lake where his grandpa, and then his dad and uncle, would put their boat in the water for fishing, the Kildaire, which was supposedly named for the area the Kelly family came from in Ireland.

    As is often the case in this life, you discover how small the world really is through sharing stories. It turns out, all those years ago, my dad knew my Aunt Sandy, my mom's brother Jim's wife, way back when they were children. Sandy's family would come rent a cottage near the dam and she said, years alter, that she remembered my dad's family--and their difficulties in getting their boat across the street and into the lake.

    Back in August, as the two year anniversary for my dad's last illness was on my mind, I started to feel pity for myself. I was feeling nostalgic and wanting to take my own trip down memory lane. But where could I go? We moved around a lot when I was a child. What was my touchstone? And who would want to go with me? Being the oldest sibling, and so much older than my younger siblings, we don't always share the same set of memories, so what I might care about, they might not even have been around for yet.

    I finally settled on touring around Grandville, MI. This was where my mom and her siblings were raised. We often went to my grandma's when we were children. I was in Grandville schools for part of my childhood-when we lived in both Walker and Wyoming. When we lived in the upper peninsula I came down and stayed with my grandparents for several weeks during the summers. As an adult I stayed with my grandma often, after my grandpa died, to help her with chores and take her to church. I even lived with her for several years, before it became necessary for her to go into assisted living.

    Once I had that settled, I deiced to go for my little trip down memory lane after I was done donating platelets since I go to the donation center in Grandville every few months to make those donations.

    The first place I headed was Grandville's small downtown area. When I was in kindergarten through about second grade, my parents tried their hands at owning a business, a bookstore they called The Book Nook. I know which two store fronts might have been it, but I am not quite sure. My mom created a special children's section in the store-that she called Pooh's Corner. Another local bookshop later used that name when they decided to open book stores that were for children only. I was so pleased when the classic older car drove by in the last of this set of four pictures, as we had a gold car similar to that when I was around 6 or 7.

    

    The next place I headed to was Wedgewood Park, a park that was right by my grandma's house-we could walk there from her house. In the winter they would flood the football field and you could ice skate there. When I was in 6th grade-I went to the elementary school that was opposite the park, Central elementary. At recess, I would go by the fence by the tennis courts-and that was right by my grandma's backyard, and she would hand me chocolate chip cookies through the chain link fence.

    Wedgewood Park has a special children's playground that is dedicated to the memory of a friend of mine, a little boy named Bobby. He died in an accident just weeks before we were supposed to start kindergarten. When I was looking at his memorial at the park and brushed away some debris that was on it, a butterfly floated by.

        

    Then I went to look at the war memorials and the garden's dedicated to the Rosie the Riveters. I also walked past the softball field. I sued to go there at night to watch ball games when I stayed with my grandparents during the summer. You could hear the games from their house, the crack of the aluminum bats, the cheers. It was so much fun to walk over and watch and grandma always gave me to change to buy snacks-such as Big League Chewing gum, or popcorn, or a candy bar.

    I walked along Buck Creek. We used to look for crayfish and walk along the banks, climbing on the bigger rocks.

    I ended my little journey by walking over to Central Elementary. The playground has changed a bit. The tennis court is now for horseshoes. It isn't the same basketball hoop, but it is where I made my first basket. Grandma used to walk me over there to play and I had two small rubber basketballs, an orange one and a green one. When I was about 5 I finally made my first basket.

    

    

Three Minute Resurrection

     Almost at the two-year mark for when my dad suddenly became seriously ill. I’m not sure what I expected at this point. I suppose I hoped to be less surprised, less shocked, and less disappointed by the turn of events, and then by how everything unraveled in such a devastating fashion.

    As I see memories come up in my feed, from just over two years ago, just before the bottom dropped out of everything, I am so grateful that I had no idea what was coming. I am slowly sorting it out and beginning to accept that nothing could have changed the outcome. Maybe it could have been slowed, or prolonged, but the outcome would have ended the same. This is progress. I still don’t always believe these truths, though. Someday I hope to embrace this completely.

    There are still plenty of days where I hope for a shift of time and space. Some days I still secretly hope that the outcomes I wanted will suddenly transpire. That has always been one of my main coping mechanisms, spending a good portion of my days residing in fantasy-land.

    Happily, my dad has one cousin that is still alive. She is named after their grandfather the same as my dad. She recently turned 89. I was messaging her and her husband, sending birthday greetings and wishes to her. I asked her if she would write down memories from her childhood, whether just her own or ones that involved my dad as well.

    She answered me right away, telling the story of when their own grandmother had died. She was fourteen, my dad’s brother was ten, and my dad was seven at the time. As was the tradition at that time, the wake and the funeral took place in their grandparents’ house. The three children were tasked with walking to the front, where their grandmother’s body was in her open casket, and they had a corsage that they were to put on her, the oldest cousin, Wilma, being the one to pin it on their grandmother’s lapel.

    As the three children solemnly walked to the front, my dad, the sweet seven year old, leaned over and whispered to his older cousin to be sure to be careful and not stick grandma with the pin.

    This made me laugh out loud. My dad always had that sweet nature, not wanting anyone to be hurt. It also reminded me of my own struggles at age seven in trying to understand what death meant, what it meant to be dead. I had a little friend that died in an accident when I was five, and at age seven I still would wake up in the night and call for my mother, asking questions about why my friend died, and what it really means to be dead.

    In  hearing this new to me story, for a few brief minutes my dad was alive again.