Once Upon a Time...Dragons Flew

 Independent Bookstore Day was held Saturday, April 27th. I was just a little bit sad because I did not think I would be able to get to any of the nearby bookstores. I was going to be working in the morning, and in the afternoon, I was going to be doing ceramics with Melinda the rest of the day. We had big plans, so many things to make.

As it turns out, Melinda and I decided to start our Ceramics day with a bit of shopping. We went to a furniture store, a thrift store and of course a bookstore.  I was very excited that I would be able to be in a bookstore on Bookstore Day.  I know it seems silly, but to me it wasn't. We walked all around looking at and picking up many books.  I knew that I was also going to buy a book.  I do not need another book.  I have many books that I have yet to read. I have many books on many shelves in my house. Just ask my friends and family.  We just moved and many of the boxes were filled with books!

After walking around the entire store, I picked out the book I wanted. I have never heard of this author. I knew nothing of this book. The title, the cover, and the reviews on the back were enough to draw me in. Then I read the first two lines of the synopsis. This would be my book.  So we head over to the counter.

Now I was not only here to buy a book. I planned on talking to them about our Reading Challenge. I planned on asking them if they would be interested in bringing books to our coffee shop for an adult book fair. I explained all of these things to her. She was happy and very excited and interested in what we were doing in our coffee shop. Then she asked me maybe the best question I have ever been asked.

"Why do you care so much about books?"

Wow, good question. I quickly gave her my unprepared answer. And then I added more to it. And then my mind kept coming up with more reasons, more ways to answer that question. And now, here we are 3 days later and I am writing about it.

Why do you care so much about books?

The short answer..

Books are magical. They are places we can go to learn. They are places we can go to see things we could never see ourselves. They are places to play. They are places to figure out who we are. They are places to understand our world. They help us to understand others. They teach us empathy. They give us hope.  They are our history. They are our past. They are who we come from.. They are our future. They are the places we, or our children or grandchildren, might go and explore. They are happy thoughts, wishes and dreams.

I do not remember when I first started to care so much about books. I was too young to remember this time in my life. But I have been told this story many times. As a toddler, I would sit and wait for my Daddy to come home from work with a pile of books for him to read to me. This is not because my Mom did not read to me. I am sure she spent much of our day reading books to me. But when my Dad come home, he would read to me. I have been told that many of my favorites I had memorized every word. I would not let them skip a page or shorten the story. Those words were important to me even before I could read them to myself.

My parents read to me. I saw them reading on their own. We always had books in our house. After I started school, I loved getting books from the library, or better yet getting books from the book order at school. Those were mine to treasure forever.

Why do you care so much about books?

As a child. I started to make up my own stories. I later wrote them down, or carefully typed them out. I created my own worlds with my friends. I wove my own tales. The words had to spill from my mind onto the page. I created stories with my children and then my students. 

My book shelves are full.  I have 1,000's if books. But yet more books find their way into my hands and life. The words are home in my library. My home is a library. The words play and dance and sing. 

Books are my happy thoughts.

Books are my wishes.

Books are my dreams.

Books, Books, and more Books

 My friends and I are trying to find so many fun ways to share our love of reading and words with all of the people we come in contact with.  I am so happy that I have friends that love to read as much as I do. We have been planning and preparing for this new year.  We want to as a community (anyone, anywhere, can be a part of our community) read 2,025 books in 2025.  All we need is at least 169 people to read 1 book a month for the year. You can read a paper book, a book on your phone or kindle, you can even listen to an audio book.  They all count!

We do many book related activities at the coffee shop as it is.  We love our book clubs! We have fun doing book themed tea parties.  All of our 2nd Saturday Flights are going to be book themed. But this is just the beginning of this new year.  2025 is all about books.  We will have a way to submit what you have read online. You can come into the coffee shop and tell me or one of the baristas what you have read.  You can write a review of the books you read. We will have drawings for special prizes throughout the year. We have designed a special bookmark that we will share with you. And maybe somewhere along the way you might hear about a great book (or 10 books) you want to read.

Check it out at http://tlcaurora.org/food/espressions/ and click on "Worldwide Reading Challenge" to join us on our 2025 Book adventure!

This is part of my personal book fun this year. I found a picture of a bookworm that a few people had crocheted. Each of the rings on the worm are a different book. Each color represents a different genre of book. I am excited to see just how much my bookworm will grow this year.

Dragon Light at MoonRise Gallery

 


Last Saturday, June 1st, Melinda and I took a journey to Elkhorn, NE. We needed to bring our artwork to the MoonRise Gallery. We each had one piece that will be on display through the end of July. I am still not sure about this new title of artist. This is not something I had ever called myself before. But as of Thursday, June 6th I have a painting hanging on the wall of a gallery. At the opening reception I was given a name tag claiming that I was an artist. My artist bio was hanging on the wall and in the books that were placed around the room.

When Melinda and I took our art piece to the gallery, we made it a small adventure. This I am sure is not a surprise to anyone who knows us. We stopped in a few small towns between our home and Elkhorn. We found a couple of bookstores and tiny fun shops and spent the day exploring. We came home with some Eric Carle socks, a couple of books, and fun memories.

All four of us took time off of work and went up to the MoonRise gallery for the opening. There were so many people there. It was very interesting. We talked to several different artists. We shared our art with them. I even learned that one of them is also looking at publishing children's stories.  They did short video interviews with all of the artists. These will be posted sometime soon. It was interesting that there were two sets of mother / daughters and one father / daughter artists who had their art hanging in the gallery. Melinda's piece and my piece were hanging on the wall next to each other. I am super happy that Melinda and I were able to be in a gallery together.

Melinda's is the sun, moon, and stars. She made it so that the moon can turn around to be the sun, and the stars can be hidden up behind the clouds during the day. The stick that everything is hanging from is from our maple trees in our back yard. This year she had been working on lots of memories with her ceramics.

My painting is called Dragon Light. It is a watercolor painting. I was playing with just using black/grey in a couple of paintings I did this one and another painting of just the moon. I of course love dragons and have been working on my dragon novel series. I have also been working on a few monochrome paintings using coffee as my paint. It was fun to paint with coffee in my coffee shop.

We didn't just want to end our adventure there, we had decided that we were going to stay in Omaha and go to the zoo the next day. So towards the end of the night we headed off to find our hotel and watch a little HGTV. (our favorite thing to watch when we are at a hotel)

The next morning we headed over to the zoo to spend time with all of the animals. It was a pretty great adventure.

I think today, or maybe tomorrow, I should get out my paints and do a little more painting. It is time to try a few new things. 

Northern Lights and Wishes

 So last night, or was it this morning, about 1:00 am, we got into the car and started to head out of town and away from the lights. We stopped on the gravel road a mile north of town. Got out of the car and looked up into the sky. We of course were met with a sight we had never seen before, the Northern Lights.

We continued to take pictures and enjoy the view for a little while. Then we got back into the car (to go back for my better camera) and found a different gravel road to park on. We got out of the car and looked to the sky once more. The colorful wavering lights were an awesome thing to see.

We took a few more pictures and just enjoyed the night. As I was looking up at the sky, I even got to see a shooting star. It made me so happy to see a shooting star speed across the colored sky. I clapped my hands. Of course, this made Melinda and I very happy, as it reminded us of the characters on Animal Crossing and how they clap when they see a shooting star.

It was  fun to see just how many people were posting their own pictures of the beautiful sky. All day long I was happy to see a new picture that someone had posted.

Then, this afternoon we went to Savannah's graduation. This by itself would have been just a happy time to spend with family. But another amazing thing happened. I was sitting there just inside the building eating with my kids and my brother. The wind happened to blow a single dandelion puff seed onto my napkin.

I quickly took hold of this 'wish' and showed it to Melinda. When we got home, Melinda found a little jar to put my dandelion seed into.

On the drive to Palmer we had been joking that now we needed to go out to the beach to pick up my star fragment in the morning. (This is what happens in Animal Crossing. The morning after the characters see a shooting star they find a star fragment on the beach.) 

So

 I had seen a shooting star. 

I had caught a dandelion seed.

Maybe my wish / dream was going to be coming true.  

I think tonight we are going to go out again to see if we can see the lights one more time. We have been considering going to the lake just a few miles away.  That way we might be able to find that Animal Crossing star fragment on the beach!!

What?

 Melinda has been working hard on her art this year. She has been getting into galleries. She has been dreaming, learning, and creating. Then, I started dreaming, learning, and creating. I painted. One of the galleries was looking for moon related works. Melinda decided that it would be really cool if all of us, submitted something to this gallery. She had this idea that it would be a lot of fun if any number of us had pieces in the gallery. So she tried to get as many people to do something, anything for this gallery. It was going to be an adventure!

I was brave. I am a baby artist. Most of the things I have been painting have something to do with the moon. I am not sure why. It was not a plan. I just painted what I was imagining. I ended up with five paintings, three of them were watercolor and the other two were pointillism. There was no reason I couldn't submit a couple of them. It actually didn't feel like I had to be as brave as I was the first or even tenth time I submitted a story. I just did it. I just did it, because what could it hurt and Melinda wanted me to.

Well, yesterday afternoon, I was wasting time on the computer as all of us tend to do. I decided to check my email. I wasn't really expecting anything. I just did it. That is when I saw a message from the gallery. They want one of my paintings for the show!? Melinda and I will both be showing art in this gallery.

Over the course of this last year, I have been working on both my short stories and my novel. I have been playing with my picture book ideas. I have written a song, both words and music. I have been doing pottery with Melinda. I have been painting, and now I will have one of my pieces in a gallery this summer.

WOW!

Picture book illustrator?

 Brave!

I took the watercolor class. I was a little nervous. I was just a tad scared. I have never taken an art class. I play with art, sometimes. I had a lot of fun. I painted a picture. I don't think it was horrible.

Brave!

After work, I decided to paint another picture. I liked it. I painted a second picture. I liked that one too. I am a baby artist. But I am having fun. I need to practice and learn a lot more so that I can work on my Merlin pictures for my books.

Picture book author?

 Brave!

So much of what I write here is about being brave. I am not sure I should even use this as a title for a post. But here I am again, being brave. I signed up to take a class at CCC in Grand Island. It is a picture book writing workshop. I have been thinking a lot about the books I was writing with my students. I would like to believe that they could one day be picture books that others could be reading. If this is something I would like to do, I should probably do something about it.

Brave!

Yes, here I go. I was a little worried and nervous about going to the class. I did not know what to expect. I came away from it with lots of information. I had questions that were answered. I spent time with other writer people. This might actually be one of the most important parts of doing something like this. It is easier to be brave when you have other people who are being brave with you.

Brave!

What I decided, is that I do really want to work at my picture books. The Merlin ones. I love that I am writing 'sort of' about my cat, Merlin, but not really. I am writing 'sort of' about Merlin and my love of Arthurian stories. I love that I have put the books together with my students. I have several that I haven't even finished. Just ask any of my kids, it takes me a very long time to finish all of the pictures for my stories.

Brave! 

After the writing class, I signed up for a watercolor class at my coffee shop. I think I want to actually do the pictures for my book. I want it to be completely mine. So that means I need to work at getting the pictures the way I want. I need to do something I have never done. I have never taken an art class. That will be in a couple of weeks.