When I started this newsletter, I thought I would make weekly comics and I did…for awhile, but lately life has been a little nutso crazy, and I haven’t had much time to draw comics or much of anything unrelated to the book I am currently working on. So it’s mostly been random bits from my journal, and that’s probably going to continue for awhile (forever? hopefully not!)
I like making these newsletters even when I don’t have anything particularly interesting to say, and not sending them weekly will make it much less likely that I will send them at all. So my apologies in advance for the inane bits of who knows what that will probably be coming each week until my bananas crazy life calms down a bit and I have time to play a bit instead of just working and parenting (and if I’m lucky, sleeping.)
So, words aside, here are some images from this week. Which had mostly ups and two not so fun downs.
UP: The azaleas that line my driveway are in full bloom and look like fluffy clouds. This is by far my favorite week of the year.
DOWN: Had to put on my big girl pants and resolve a frustrating situation so that I didn’t have to think about it anymore. In the words of Jessica and Yay! “Sometimes you win, Sometimes you learn.” Still learning hard lessons in my 45th year.
UP: Bought the second new car of my life. Which is basically just a 15 years newer version of my last car, only without the pieces falling off. Cars have really advanced in the last 15 years, who knew?
DOWN: More sickness. I do not wish sicknesses that come with breathing issues on anyone’s kid. It’s so hard to watch our kids be sick but being sick and not being able to breathe is really the worst. Luckily, he is feeling better now. I don’t even want to track down how many times I have drawn variations on this same image this year. Thankfully, as my kid’s doctor said, we are heading out of “sick season” and we have a tentative plan in place for the beginning of next sick season that will hopefully help.
UP: I retired some teeny tiny pencils this week. I have a jar that is slowly filling up with teeny tiny pencils like these. When I posted this picture on instagram, a friend suggested creating some sort of shadowbox that I could hang on the wall and slowly fill up with teeny tiny pencils…so yeah…have to find some time to make that a reality now!
UP: And lastly and bestly, I got to do a school visit through a program organized by the Latinx Kidlit Book Festival and funded through grants which brought me into a Title I school in DC with a large Latinx population to do a visit with the kids and then give them all books to take home (which, of course, is my favorite kind of school visit to do).
I talked about Gato Guapo, which is my absolute favorite book to read aloud and then of course, we drew, because drawing with kids is the best.
They drew some awesome gatos that were muy guapo.
The Latinx Kidlit Book Festival is near and dear to my heart – and not just because they send me fun places! Not only do they uplift Latinx authors and illustrators, which they most definitely do, but they also provide free content and resources for schools and libraries and free school visits (and books!) to kids in underserved communities where that content is most needed.
And they are a non-profit which, as I’m sure you can imagine based on the current political climate, is losing funding partners left and right due to this administration’s demonization of DEI.
So if you have some pennies to throw their way, they will be put to good use.
Anyway, this week was a rollercoaster. I hope next week is more of a slow train just chugging along on a straight path with absolutely no curves or hills or bridges.
See you next week,
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn”. 🥲
I had to put on my big girl pants this week too. I don't like those pants at all, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.