Two Milestones

I took the plunge.
After weeks of meandering through back roads and venturing through stoplights only to drive around the corner to our subdivision, I decided to drive the standard all the way to church. That sounds more decisive than the reality. Actually, two of my supporters (my husband and a friend who were in the car) made the decision for me while I wavered about whether I should or should not.
Gearshift in hand, I nosed my way out of the neighborhood and turned left through the intersection lights, and we were off! I am happy to say that I made it through red lights and stop signs without the car cutting out. It's the first time I've driven without it happening once. Perhaps the little prayer I said before starting had something to do with it.
With cars all around me I managed to shift up and shift down, stop and start, slow down and accelerate, and - ! Reverse into a parking space!
Mind you, that's how I always park, but I find it much more difficult to do with the standard.
So those were my two milestones today - driving all that way and not cutting out.

Organized Chaos

I think that the truest self-portrait I ever painted was of an octopus trying to do a myriad of things at the same time. This may become especially fitting in the coming school year.

I've recently been accepted to York University's B.Ed program. It's a nine month study schedule, starting at the end of August and continuing until the end of May. It's going to be a crazily hectic year, as I will continue to teach music, write, draw, direct a choir and, of course, take care of our home.

So, in order to try to facilitate next year going as smoothly as possible, this is my 'to be completed' list from now until August.

1. Make and freeze six months worth of food for us and for Keani. I know, I know, it sounds a little crazy, but I can imagine the relief of at least having one thing I don't have to worry about. We have two freezers and a vacuum sealer, so hopefully everything can be jammed in. The hope is to start baking and freezing the cookies next month, with squares, main and side courses, appetizers, quick breads and candy following after.

2. Finish writing and editing two manuscripts - a YA and a middle-grade one. One of these is an assignment, and there are two more related assignments to go, so hopefully all three will be done in the next month and a half or so.

3. Finish writing a second YA manuscript. Have to go back and plot the chapters back out on that one...I somehow got a little lost along the way...

4. Plan, plot and start writing two more middle-grade manuscripts.

5. Plan and start writing a myriad of non-fiction articles.

6. Paint and finish twelve illustrating portfolio pieces. The idea is to get them done so that I can keep sending out art submissions next year without worrying about spending the time actually creating them.

7. Finish a fine art piece. Haven't painted one of those in a long, long time.

8. Sew three more outfits. Got one done before Easter with flowing sleeves and a skirt that ripples. A second skirt is well on its way to being finished. I know I won't have time next year, hence the other three.

9. Finish painting the house - just three more rooms to be done. Again, I know I'll not have the time next year, so better get it done now.

10. Finish Keani's portrait. Well, Icewind has a big one on the wall. Our 'Little Man' needs one too!

Can it be done? We'll see...

One split-second decision can change Everything...

It's hard to describe the feeling of having a near-death experience. This is made worse, I think, if this experience is due to one's own human error.
This evening my husband and I were driving home in separate cars. I was in front, but he was just behind me. In front of me was a vehicle that was driving a little slower than what I liked.
It was dark. In the gloom I could see that the lines on the road turned into dotted 'safe to pass' lines. What I couldn't see in the dark was that the road dipped.
In a split second, I made the decision to pass the car in front. I pulled out and alongside. To my chagrin, the dotted lines soon gave way to a solid one again. To my horror, a car appeared in the other lane.
How long did I have before I would have hit the other car in a head-on collision? One, maybe two seconds. I literally thank God that I was able to get back into the other lane on time. Just in front of the vehicle I'd been trying to pass. Just ahead of the car in the other lane.
My husband, as soon as it was safe, immediately pulled out and passed the other car and pulled back in behind me. I knew he was keeping an eye on me all the way home.
I got into the garage first, but as soon as he backed into the driveway, he got out and, with an indescribable expression on his face, told me that I would never risk my life like that again. I, of course, felt absolutely horrible. Horrible because the shock of what had happened was beginning to really creep into me. Horrible because I had endangered someone else, and horrible because of how frightened I had made my husband.
I am not a reckless person. Risks are one thing I don't like taking. But on this night, because I couldn't see the road properly, one split-second decision could have changed everything.

The Mischief Makers

Amazing how a little guy can make so much more mess and cause so much more trouble than a guy at least ten times his size. I am talking, of course, of our little man Keani and our big boy Icewind. For about two years we endured a couple of chewed walls and dented doorknobs as Icewind grew into adulthood. But for all that, he's been (and is) a remarkably good boy. Although he definitely has the height to do it, only once has he ever reared up to place his paws on the counter and filch a tasty something. And that once was when he was still a pup.

After a brief stint with the ill-fated doorknobs, Icewind gradually stopped chewing anything. You could leave anything on the floor and it would be safe. Paper, slippers - you name it. In fact, Icewind quickly got to the point where he didn't even play with toys much anymore, preferring to lie in the hallway and guard the front door.

Keani, on the other hand, is a little ball of mess and mayhem. You'd think, since he has a much smaller mouth, that he would cause less trouble, but, perhaps due to the fact that he's so close to the floor, he in fact causes much more.
Nothing escapes his attention. If there is dirt, he will find it. If there is a leaf, he will munch on it. (Not to eat, you understand. He tries not to swallow anything, unless it really is food.) Carpets beware! It doesn't take long for Keani to rip it into shreds.

The Smell of Spring

Monday, March 22nd. Today I've finished planting all of my flower seedlings. The cosmos have grown to be about five inches tall. Next week it will be time to start the vegetables. I am still trying to figure out how many of each I want. There was one year that we have forty tomato plants. It was an excellent yield, but it took up too much room. The year after, I decided to stop planting greens like lettuce, swiss chard and spinach in the garden itself. Instead, I sprouted them in long trench containers - the kind you hang off the balcony. I think that's what I'll do from now on.

This will be the first year we plant corn. My husband finally gave in to it, because there's an area beside the asparagus that hasn't been used for anything yet.
The side where the raspberries, grapes, blueberries and red currants are will have to be fitted with a small chain link fence. We put up netting attached to wooden bars that can open and close, but it turns out that Icewind couldn't care less. He just barrels right in and Keani is hot on his heels. So we have to find a fail-safe way to keep them away from the grapes (which apparently is poisonous to some dogs)
In the front, the rose bush is starting to flush green, and tiny reddish-pink buds are beginning to bulge from the branches. The zebrina are defying the last of the snow and poking their heads up.
I love this time of the year.

Winged Glories

So this last weekend I finally indulged my love of chicken wings by making 3 lbs of buffalo wings. Coated in an egg mixture, dipped into a flour mixture, and then deep fried, they came out beautifully golden and crispy. Add some hot sauce and blue cheese dip and Voila!

They were accompanied by a lettuce and avocado salad, a grasshopper pie and a three-layer lemon pie. I don't usually make so many desserts for one 'small' meal, but thank goodness I did this time. I didn't realize that the pistachio pudding mix for the grasshopper pie had bits of pistachios in it. My husband loves nuts. By themselves. Mix them with anything else and he complains that they get stuck in his teeth. Which means that I get the grasshopper pie all to myself. Oh well.

Is that a light?

Driving a standard: lesson six (or seven?)
I haven't driven the Pontiac for two weeks. First it was because we'd just painted part of the house, and by Sunday I was too tired to subject myself to the grueling mental stress of worrying about whether or not I was harming the car. The second week was because our nephews were over, and there was no way I was going to practice driving with three boys yelling in the back, commenting over this or that.
But yesterday, finally, I got back in the driver's seat.
It's a rather odd thing with me, that often if I take a break from something, I jump a level or two when I get back to it. It happened with my pastel portraits, for instance. After not painting pastels for about a year, I went back to it and found that they'd taken on a whole new dimension. Perhaps taking a step back allows me a different perspective. Perhaps I subconsciously continue to work on things.
Whatever the case, on this driving lesson I managed to drive out of the garage, through the streets to our 'practice' area, practice, and then drive back home with the car only cutting once. Mind you, this time I was overly cautious with the clutch and rode it too much...maybe next time I'll manage to let go of it once the car has started moving.

Full House

It's one of those days when you wish that your house had a giant sunroof that could open and close like the ones in cars. Sitting in a rocking-like chair in the bedroom with the laptop on a little table in front of me and the window open, I can hear the happy cries of children as they call out to each other in their play. The sunshine is trickling in and the soft blue skies seem to wink at me. My husband has taken our three young nephews as well as my youngest brother out, and so I have the house to myself. Well, ourselves: Icewind and Keani, I think, are both sad that their rowdy playmates have gone, and relieved to have a couple of hours not getting picked up, tugged, or climbed on (in Icewind's case).
I have to say, it's been a wonderful visit thus far. The room where they stay was just painted and decorated, and now, of course, it looks like an explosion of clothes and toys. Through constant effort, we've managed to contain the 'disaster' to the one area, for the most part. But despite the mess, the fights (they are boys, and brothers, after all), the mysterious lack of 'ears' on the youngest when he is asked (and then told) to do something, the house is just so much fuller - and I mean this in the most wonderful (and not literal) way - when they are here.

What's in a Canvas?

I love painting. I love painting animals and people, flowers and trees. I love painting fantasy scenes, illustrations, or whimsical things like carousel horses. I hate painting walls.
I didn't learn this until about two years ago when we painted part of our house. The house is new, (or at least it was when we moved into it) but the paint the builder used is the kind that comes off onto the rag you're trying to wipe the wall clean with. Not a good thing under any circumstance, but add two dogs into the mix and you have a fairly bad situation.
It was the first time I'd painted walls in my life. Between the meticulous (and extremely boring, I thought) taping of edges and baseboards, plastic dropsheets everywhere and moving everything from the walls, I was already not a big fan before I even put roller to wall. Then there are the gobs of paint everywhere, seemingly no matter how careful we try to be. Spatters on the floor, on faces, arms, legs and feet. But the worse part was the actual painting itself. Hours of doing nothing but sweeping the roller up and down, side to side. And then aching for days afterwards, and having to move everything back.
But, like I said, it can't be helped. The horrible base paint must be covered, and so this last weekend, we rolled up our sleeves to start doing the rest of the house. It was the same scenario, except this time our little Keani kept trying to sneak in to investigate what we were up to, and then crying when we wouldn't let him in.
But I have to admit, when all's said and done, and despite the annoyance of everything...the end result was worth it.

White to Green

March. The Herald of Spring, the End of Winter. At least that's what the month means to me. Don't get me wrong...I love snow. I love driving by pristine stands of trees adorned with their mantels of white and their jewels of ice. I love the look of an unblemished field of snow. I love seeing the tiny shape of a crystalline flake, drifting onto my coat sleeve, or gleaming amongst the brightness of a snowbank.
But by February, I miss the grass and the buds, the butterflies and the birds. And I miss my gardens.
I have two; a flower garden in the front, and a vegetable/ fruit garden in the back. At the end of the growing season, I start collecting my seeds for the following year. By the beginning of March, I am ready. Out come the mini greenhouses. Wonderful things, they move about on wheels and have their own plastic zip-up covers.
Out come the styrofoam cups (why spend oodles of money on pots?)Out comes the fertilizer and the bags of dirt. And, of course, out come the seeds.
I start with the flowers. Vegetables grow more quickly, in my experience, and so I leave those until April.
This year's flower line-up includes the following: dianthus, cosmos, sweet pea (2 kinds), morning glory (four kinds), bachelor button, marigold, cascade petunia, wave petunia, delphinium, white alyssum, lavatera, phlox, bee balm, snapdragon and aster.
I am staggering my plantings this year. The first wave was started on March 1st. Amazingly, by the 3rd, some of the cosmos were already starting to poke their heads out of the soil.

Giant Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My husband is a self-proclaimed "Cookie Monster." Very rarely are we tempted to buy a pack from the store, though. Like everything else, I prefer to make them from scratch; that way I know exactly what's going into them. And I can add a little something extra if I wish: ground flax or whole wheat, for example.

This last weekend I made two batches of chocolate chunk cookies - the large, five-inch kind. Shape them into tubes, wrap them in plastic wrap and stuff them into the freezer in freezer bags, and you can have warm, chocolate-gooey cookies in 18 minutes whenever you want them.

Giant Chocolate Chunk (or chip) Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup melted shortening (or margarine or unsalted butter)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups coarsely chopped dark chocolate bar (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Grease cookie sheets (or use non-stick pans)
In a large bowl, cream together melted shortening, brown sugar and white sugar until very well blended. Add the vanilla, egg and egg yolk, and beat until creamy.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Mix dry ingredients into the batter until blended.
Add chocolate chunks. Stir.
Drop cookie dough onto the sheets (each ball should be approx. ¼ of a cup). Place the balls about 3 ½ ” apart.
Bake for approximately 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden.
Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring.

Growing Pains

About a month and a half ago, we bought a new car. We'd had every intention of getting another automatic, which was the only thing I knew how to drive. But, because of this, that, and the other thing, we ended up walking out of a dealership with a red standard, complete with sunroof.
So began the 'stick' driving lessons.
My husband, who has been very patient and long-suffering throughout this process, is my teacher, and so far, we've had about five or six lessons.
By the second lesson, I was up to gear five, motoring along a lonely stretch of road happily devoid (for the most part) of cars, traffic lights, stop signs and pedestrians.
By last week's lesson, I was pretty happy. The engine had only cut out twice, I was shifting and downshifting with comfortable ease, and I was merrily feeling that driving a standard was much more fun than driving an automatic.
And then we went on today's lesson. Well, first I suggested that I try driving from our house to the road that we use. I felt pretty confident until I was actually in the car, on the driveway. Gone was all the bubblyness from last week. Suddenly I felt like we were back to lesson one. Or two, at the most.
The engine cut going out of the driveway. Then it cut at the first stop sign. Then I accidentally shifted into first instead of third as I was downshifting, which made the engine rev and completely derailed any little confidence I had remaining.
So we decided to go back to my safe little parking lot to try and get it back.
The parking lot was covered in snow. For three consecutive days flakes drifted down from the sky. On Saturday, the flakes congealed on the ground as packing snow. The densest, stickiest, heaviest kind of snow. The perfect snow for snowmen. The worst kind of snow for driving.
But we were fine as I curved and stopped. Started and curved. Until I arced into one part of the lot. "Go forward," my husband urged. Nothing. "Go backward." Nothing. Uh oh.
Yup. On top of everything else, I got us stuck in a parking lot, literally two minutes away from our house. It took at least half an hour of pulling, pushing, shoveling (with a window scraper) and lining the tire tracks with the rubber floor mats to get out of there.
I made sure that my husband drove home, and I'll probably laugh about this later - when I finally feel comfortable with clutches and gears.

Hello

What to write, and what not to write...something I've struggled with for a while before deciding to create this blog. So I figure, why not start with the basics.

My name is Monica C. Webster. I am an author and illustrator. I am also a cook, baker, gardener, seamstress, music teacher and choir director.

In addition to the above, I love to read, go camping, take nature walks, watch movies (only on weekends, though!) and sing. We are also learning how to ballroom dance.

We are grateful to share our home with two wonderful canine boys: our Hungarian Kuvasz 'Icewind Silver Dream,' and Tibetan Spaniel 'Keani Evening Song.'

And so this is what this blog is for: a compilation of all of the above.