Farewell 2011

2011 favorites:

 Things that made my heart glow.

(Read)

Long Life, Mary Oliver

The Fir Tree, Hans Christian Anderson

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

(Be Read to)

The Secret Garden, by Francis Hodgsen Burnett, read by Helena Bonham Carter

 The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo, read by Juliet Stevenson
At Blackwater Pond, by & read by Mary Oliver

(Listen)

Soundtrack, Miss Potter, Nigel Westlake 

Soundtrack, Finding Neverland, Jan Kaczmarek

Soundtrack, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Danny Elfman

(Watch)
Tangled 

Jane Eyre

The Invention of Hugo Cabaret

Remember the elephant drawing?

Hello December!

I have this newfound appreciation of each month because we are only here for one year. November was particularly different than back home- mostly because there is no Thanksgiving. This means they are setting up for December all month long. On the Champ Elysees there is a beautiful holiday festival. Around a hundred vendors have set up in matching sheds selling spiced wine and sausages, and gifts like handmade music boxes and russian tea dolls. Being Paris of course there's also a twinkle light display in most of the trees. On the bigger streets they even put a showering of little thumbnail-sized glass mirrors dangling from the branches to catch the twinkle lights and sparkle in even more directions. It's magic.

Here's a new illustration. The Musee d'Orsay is closeby where we live so right when we got here we got year-memberships (for only 13 Euros). Sometimes we just go for lunch. Whenever I go I see something new, and not just the paintings, but the way people are relating to them. One morning I saw 3 separate groups of french school children staring in awe at the artwork and listening to every word their teacher had to say about the marvels of a particular painting. Meanwhile some of the older people were whizzing by paintings, or worse- on cell phones. Of course not all the adults, but you'd be surprised by how many, especially in a museum. One day I saw a family with a young girl just after ballet class, and this is what came of that.

Musee d'Orsay

Here is this years holiday card that I did for LitWorld. I love that penguin reading his orange book.

Holiday Festival on the Champ Elysees