Ok, ready for new news? Ready for art news? ready for fun stories? Me too!! And as soon as i get my NEW WEBSITE and NEW BLOG finished up I will have lots of fun eye candy and treats for you!!! And a way for you to buy my books right from me!! Woohoo!!!

In the mean time, summer is AWESOME, I am totally ENGAGED, planning a small, fun BEACH WEDDING, loving that my kids are NOT LEAVING this summer, and hating TEN hour work days but LOVING Fridays off!!!

Exciting new changes across the board in my art, my family, my home, EVERYTHING. Can't wait to share it all!!!

The story to come. But it is romantic and amazing and perfect. At the end of a perfect evening I had to finish an illustration because there is an editor in NYC that is very eager to see a book dummy of mine. And tomorrow I need to overnight it. And so Best FIANCE Ever (don't you just LOVE that??!) went to bed without me and I stayed up to finish painting. And I just finished. And I love it. And life could truly not be more perfect. Because I have found a man that not only lets me be me, but loves me for it. And so he understood I needed to stay up late and work. Because he is amazing like that. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I will make it up to him. :D

Meanwhile here is me and the ring that has an amazing story behind it. And if I had more than four hours sleep in the past two days, I would TOTALLY tell you right now. But now? The bed is calling my name. And I want to go lay down next to the man I know I will lay down next to each night for the rest of my life.

Life is so good.


Before he took me out to ask me to be his wife. (LOVE that!!!!)




The ring!!!




detail! (the story behind the ring is good! tune in soon for more!!)

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

First full day of vacation. Whole family here. Ran at sunrise along the ocean. Jumping waves wirh The Soph and BBE. Life is good.



Sent from my iphone.

And yes, I cried. Too much for one Mama for one week I tell ya!!!




Next? A week at the beach. FINALLY!!! Pics to come!!

(I tried to post this from my phone earlier since I was in an all day meeting, but it didn't work. So here goes again.)

Dear Sophie.

Eleven years ago today, at 2:26 pm you entered this world. You were blue. Completely like a smurf. The cord had been wrapped around your neck and yeah, you were totally blue. And I wasn't scared until the dude that delivered you, who was um, maybe TWELVE? Completely FREAKED out too. See, you were born in a teaching hospital and therefore they let Doogie Houser deliver you. Luckily the chief of staff was there to calm down the child that delivered you, then calmed down the mama that was all, "Dude!! My daughter is a lovely shade of blueberry, but um, MAKE HER PINK!!" And so they did. And you were fine.

Since your blue birth you have gone on to be the most amazing, stubborn, creative, willful, passionate child ever. You are exactly the child my mother wished me to have. Something about payback she says. You are a child that knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. You will work harder than anyone else when you want something. But if you don't want it, you don't - and that is that. You don't care what others think of you. This quality, is one I hope and pray you have FOREVER. Oh how I wish I had learned this so much earlier in life. Don't get me wrong, you are not in any way a selfish child, you just know what YOU want and could give a rat's butt if someone else doesn't get it. You do. And that's all that matters. I simply ADORE this quality in you. This alone will make your life so much easier and happier than you will realize.

Since you were born you have been my 'chaotic bubble of sunshine' and you still are. You light up a room and light up my heart when you walk in. I adore you more than you will ever know. I learn from you every day. I work hard every day at my art to make sure I can prove to you that passion and hard work ARE enough. Luck helps, but perseverance matters so much MORE. You get excited at all my achievements both large and small. You will probably never know how much that means to me and how the delight in your voice at my latest news makes me float on air. You make me fly, Sophie girl, so very, very high.

Happy Birthday baby girl. You are becoming an amazing young woman, and I truly don't know how I got so lucky to be your mother.

love,
Mama

Getting ready to sell the coloring books on my site. Needed new business cards so designed these. What do you think?





The mailing labels will be so cute you'll HAFTA order the books to make sure it makes it's way into your mailbox!!

The alternate title to this entry was, "Just in case I was feeling TOO good about myself, I went and tried on bathing suits."

The beach trip: 6 days away! Bathing suit bought. Running for the past 6 months made the experience of shopping for it slightly less than horrific. SLIGHTLY. But when will they make those fluorescent lights illegal? Srsly. They are just mean. And maybe make me cry. Am I REALLY that lumpy? Really?? Sigh...

Where do I start this feel good, pat on the back, confidence building mission, you ask? Target of course! Because um, is there anywhere else to shop? I forget. I just always go there. It is like a bullseye beacon luring me there.

So there I am, pondering the color choices this year, turquoise is big, the styles they will give us - boy there are a lot of string bikinis. Do the buyers hate us that much? Have they not SEEN the average Target shopper? And while I have been working out? Um, I could not wear a string bikini when I was 19, much less now. Just not the string bikini havin' body ya know? I like to work out, I like to look decent, but that food thing, that drinking thing and lack of personal trainer and a contract with Jenny Craig keeps getting in my way of oh, I don't know, having Valerie Bertinelli's new body. Just sayin'.

So, moving on. I am looking and a guy walks up to me and another woman pondering what we are willing to be seen in public wearing, and asks, "Ladies, what is a halter top?" She begins to explain, I scan the tops and grab one, "This is a halter top."

He replies, "That's what I thought! Thanks! My girlfriend said to buy her a halter top bikini." And he walks away all triumphant and proud of himself.

I look at the woman. She looks at me.

I say, "Well, there is NO WAY IN HELL I am sending my boyfriend to pick out a bathing suit for me!"

She says, "I guess she has a great body."

To which I reply, "We hate her, right?" she smiles, "Oh yeah!" And we part ways, but we had a moment. Oh yes we did.

I did go on to find a not awful suit despite how much the buyers and designers for Target obviously hate their shoppers.

I intend on all the margaritas at the beach to help me forget about the being seen in public part. heh.

And then I went and bought some tan in a can for my pasty white body. Don't want to BLIND anyone with the glare of my legs. Cause, I am considerate like that.

So you see the amazing ocean view I have at my cube???? Well, in 8 short days? I will BE THERE! Yup week long beach vacation with the whole family with a big ol' house smack dab right in front of the ocean! Shrimp, margaritas, lazy trashy novel reading, nights of board games with the kids, ocean swimming, sunrise runs along the shore...lordee I cannot wait!!!

no computers, no annual reports, no magazines, no posters, no ads, no can you please email this, can you please resize that. NOTHING. HEAVEN.

The only thing I do plan on doing is some much needed sketching and possibly working on a book idea my agent wants me to work on. Because art and the beach is not work, it is again, heaven. I will be posting pics and any fun sketches.

Also, I am much more lively these days on Facebook, so if you want to friend me, just look up Michelle Abeyta or Michelle Nelson and I will totally friend you! Cause I am cool like that. And you are cool like that.

I totally need to redo this website soon too - on a rambling, unrelated note. The coloring books are almost here!!!! I will have them for sale on this here website so check back soon!!!

So, the coloring books are almost finished, about to be shipped off to Hobby Lobby (insert GIANT squeal here!!!) and just got an email that prototypes from China for my DREAM product that I concepted YEARS ago are being made right now!!!! HAPPY FRIDAY INDEED!!!!

I will write about art SOON I promise, but he just bought me an iphone for Mother's Day. Um, how can I possibly justify deserving such an awesome man that treats ME so good? So the gushing of how in love I am must still go on!



He took this of me after he took me out to dinner too! Even without the phone or the dinner, I couldn't love him more. (um also, how crazy long and skinny are my thumbs?!?!)

Just saying. He is awesome. He puts up with all my crazy. And dude, I gots me lots and lots of crazy. How he always just manages to stay calm and smile and tell me it will all be ok even when I am being all emotional is beyond me.

He lets me, be ME. I don't have to pretend, I don't have to act a certain way, I just get to have fun and play and be however I want. And he loves me exactly how I am. And I love him exactly how he is. And that is the most awesome thing I have ever experienced in a relationship. And don't even get me started on the... heh! This is a kid friendly blog! Shame on you for thinking I would go there!! But seriously, WOW.

I can not be luckier.

Just got overwhelmed with my emotions and had to share. As you were....

Ok, these are just the prototypes they used for the sales calls. Currently at the printer and should ship to Hobby Lobby in about 2 weeks. Woohoo!!! I will have them for sale on my site here as well. They come with 8 trading/fact cards and I am SO EXCITED!!!! While I did all the work for these last year, including all the reference research, the fact research about each breed, the history of the breed, plus the actual painting of all these, etc - (SO MUCH WORK) I have never seen these put together until just this weekend, so you are seeing it just about as soon as I did! (You can click to see them all bigger)

Oh yes I did. Yeah, well, no one will be laughing when I have awesome tomatoes all season long!!


And also, because she is so super awesome and I adore her style, here is my daughter's outfit she picked out the other day. (I can't show her face because I NEVER, EVER comb her hair and therefore she looks like a hobo child. - heh - That is a private joke that only a few people will get. But I had to do it because it makes me laugh. hee.)




And I have some awesome, great news about my coloring books coming SOON!!!

So for the past few years that BBE and I have been dating he has had a house. An awesome house I admit. But we loved where we lived and it was close to the kids' dad (half a mile actually.). But times? Times they are hard. And paying for TWO houses is um, not the happiest thing. The house has been on the market and no one is biting. I mean, when you can get a brand spanking new house for the same price, who would buy a 20 year old house? And the more we worked on the house, the more it grew on us. The more we went out to the house to weed and make it nice the more we thought, "Ya know, this is a pretty great house." So then BBE said, "Ya know, if we move into that house, with the money we save we can get a hot tub, new bedroom sets for us and the kids, save even more money for college and their first cars..." I interrupted all this logic with, "Honey, you had me at hot tub." Check out our new digs. And before anyone worries that we are messing up things for the kids I have promised them that they can attend the same school and will drive them in every day. (This house is 15 miles from where we currently live.) Have I mentioned it is AWESOME? And yeah, you are ALL invited over for the house warming party once we get the hot tub installed.***



love this house...







Where the hot tub will go.





Me taking pictures at the house. This mirror makes you look skinnier than you are. Which is why I have to post this picture. And who should not live in a house with magic mirrors?!?! HA!

***If the house sells in the next few months, we might not move.

Soooo. I have trained for a half marathon. And ran it. I got horribly sick. And I got better. I got bleaching chemicals in my eyeball. And fully recovered. (but still thinking about sportin' the rockin' eyepatch. I really think I could pull it off. hee.) Work is great. My boss is back. My workload is back to manageable without working nights and weekends. Things with the boyfriend are fantabulous. Kids are most awesome. Life is grand indeed.

Except. Um, this IS an art blog. a blog about my ART CAREER. And um, what the hell happened to it? Well folks, it didn't go the way of the dodo. Even tho it feels like it. I am working on a commission right now. The only one. But I am not advertising. I have not updated my website in AGES. Well, what happened? Well, I burned myself out a bit I suppose on the coloring books. Then things with the coloring books, while all still moving forward, have stalled to the pace of a snail. A very old decrepit, cane-using snail. Hobby Lobby is still interested, rest assured, no orders cancelled, just have to clear some shelf space they say. I got another encouraging email that some other folks representing some very large stores with many, many chains loved my work and are very interested too. My agent wrote to say an editor at a very well known publishing company loved my book. All good. All moving sloooow. So you get your hopes up, then you wait. YOu get excited, you celebrate. Then you wait. And somewhere in there you feel like that damn little boy cried wolf so many times that you just finally tied him up, put tape over his mouth and stuck him in the damn closet. And so in order to deal with all the waiting I have just been concentrating on the bill paying kind of work and not the dreaming kind of work.

And ya know what happened? I am kinda sad. I don't feel like me. I have not doodled or sketched or dreamed up ideas or thought of things to sell on etsy in FOREVER. And I am trying to get it back, but I seemed to have shut that closet door really tight. Maybe padlocked it even. I MISS checking email each day looking for that one from a new painting client, or my agent, or someone who just bought a painting of mine of etsy. I miss the POSSIBILITY in my life. Of being SO SURE I will not work in a cube one day, but just not being sure when is all. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I truly do. My coworkers make me laugh and I make them laugh and I get paid for work I believe in. But I don't remember the last time I couldn't wait to get home, get the kids settled and after dinner get to my ART. And ideas. My dreams, my loves. My silly doodles that make me smile.

I am trying to be patient with myself. To go at least unlock the closet door and let that annoying little kid out. Cause I know one day when he comes screaming to tell me, while it won't be a wolf, it will be an opportunity and I don't want to miss it. And if I keep getting scared of the waiting and the disappointment that it is not happening in MY time frame I will miss it because I won't be looking for it or open to it or able to hear it at all.

And I know this sounds like I am depressed. I am NOT. In the LEAST. I am just sad that I have come to a place where I have lost my passion for my art and my dreams a bit. And I want it back. I guess missing it is a pretty good sign though. :)