Here's my plan (niark niark niark)

You know how much Wednesdays can be hmm busy (as in "exhausting", "threatening", "energy sucking") for us mamas.

It's the Devils' Day,
the day where there's a break from school here in France.

So far, I've been a Wednesdays' slave, and now I say STOP. Enough is enough is enough.

Is enough, huh.

I'm taking back my freedom : I send Loup to his creche another morning, on Wednesdays!

Yeeehaaaaaaaa!

And having a free Wednesday morning to take care of Lola is just great!
I'll have some time for her, some time to work -and paint my nails-, time to take Lola to her dance classes, etc. And no doubt Loup will enjoy his morning (he has no choice anyway! )



(above is the picture of the devils who prefer to remain anonymous. Very wise of them huh)

Paris, Sofia and I

I had forgotten how Paris could be beautiful. When you *live* there, you don't realize anymore, except when you allow yourself to do so.

I could talk about its bakeries (before anything else, of course!), its buildings and so different districts, its bars, pubs, brasseries, and restaurants, its shops, its inhabitants who come from just everywhere. But nothing can beat a walk on a sunny day across Paris. Then you can *feel* the *shhpirit* of it.

Paris is also the city where you just take your car (bloody cars!) and suddenly drive in front of a Sofia Coppola, with her baby in the arms and her man following.

Yeah, Sofia Coppola, la bella vita, chachacha quoi!

Martin agrees with you (cause I can read in your mind huh), and does not see why I got so excited!
I don't know either (lol) but I did get excited. I had my cam in the hands, but it was just too late when I realized it.

Xmas time + rue de la Paix, you can be sure to meet celebs'! Yeehaaaaa!

So what now?

Nothing. It was just like one of these days: "Woww, I LIVE in Paris!!!!"

Girls just want to have fun ?

...and what about boys, do you think?

Let's see with Loup.
He loves trying everything, playing night and day, cooking, cleaning (I train him well you see!), building his own bed (with the help of his papa, huhu), dancing, playing with dolls, making necklaces (he is so good at it!), putting make-up and dressing like a princess.

Yup, Loup definitely just want to have fun!

And isn't it wunnerful to have an older sister when you're a boy?
So fantastic to experience the funniest giiirlz'games!!!

Loup loves it. He has the shape of a mini rugby player, but does not mind wearing his sis' tutu. And I love how serious and "involved" he is at these games too! hehe

Holy Night

I thought I'd never find a minute to put my new painting online.
My day has been busy (and that is far from being the truth)...

Anyway, before starting with the illustration of another book, I really needed to make a break with a painting, based on inspiration and feelings only. It felt good working on it (happy sigh)**~~*^* *



Now just tell me you're as exhausted as I am (or maybe more??!!), That will be a precious support, thank you :)

Chat-bisous

(how can I translate chat-bisous... *playing kiss tag*?)

Anyway, "chat-bisous" is the MAIN game at the moment at school for Lola.



The game's rule (in case you wanna play it where you are) :
When you're the "cat", you run after the mice, and as soon as you catch one, you try to kiss him/her. Then the kissed one becomes the cat.

So Lola explained me that yesterday she was the kissing cat / chat-bisous.
She caught lil Octave and kissed him on the lips.
lil Octave
(thinking)
(mind boiling)

Wasn't he the lil boy who badly vomited (poor boy) when I arrived to take Lola at school?
Wasn't it the name the teacher mentioned, a name she connected to nasty devilish "gastroenteritis"?

Arggg...

I find chat-bisous very funny, except when winter's special *gifts* are involved!

Wednesdays...

ok, in front of me I can count:

60 wood boards of different size
250 screws and wood pieces of different size.
2 over-excited devils

NO indication, no drawing of how to build the kids' bed.



in the mirror: 1 desperate mama

(Bonus track: Beatles' Helllllllp)

edit: there was a drawing! We discovered it this morning, carefully hidden behind a curtain by the youngest of our lil devils!
grmpppph

re-edit: as promised, here's the result :P


(third night Loup sleeps there and it goes pretty well!)

More than a dream, a fantasy !

...2 men sweating in the kitchen!

A memorable moment

and not only because of the delicious meal we got!



...but also because of the people who were there, with who we had real fun, it was a wunnerful Thanksgiving, thank you my dear *cousins* !!!

The very best moment ...

..when you make a cake... is definitely this one:



:P

I know it's not too late! (yeehaaaaa!)

...so, happy Thanksgiving to all my friends over the big pond!
Laurienna, my inspired artist and friend, Ariel my dear *friend*, Michelle my American-Parisian favourite one, Delphine and Fred the expat', Gigolo, Fitz, NG, Shrinkie (who do not read my bloggie -what a mistake! :P-), and all of you, the ones who brought/bring warmth in my life... **~~* *thank you**~~*^* * and happy Thanksgiving!

(I've just found a quote here that I really love)

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.
~W.J. Cameron

Books on the shelves (soon?!)

The three topics for the 3 first Lola 's books have been accepted, validated.

Lola already think she's like a Hollywood star (lol). Of course, she is. :)

I am so happy!
I just hope it's not a dream and that one day I'll hold the books in my hands.

But for now I'm working on the other series. More precisely on the story board of the second book.

And tonight I'm much more motivated by wasting time on Facebook, sooooo... it's like a nature's call, I must answer it! :D

(wooooosh)

Vintage

it's one of the songs I really love. The whole album is as good. A bit old now (cough), but it's always a pleasure to listen to it.

The perfect cocktail ...

...to renovate a house (otherwise, it's a planteur -the perfect cocktail, huh-)

1)blind faith
2)inspiration
3)energy
4)money

Actually, it's the same ol' story, what really matters is money again because without it you can't do any works. Equipment, from the screwdriver to pneumatic drill, etc is really expensive too.

With the hobbit house project, I discovered that a roof could cost 9000 euros, a *modern* electric meter, 600 euros, stairs, 4000 euros or a new window, 700 euros.
I had absolutely no idea about such prices before.

The biggest works have been done (happy relieved sigh)
But now we have still a lot to do (electricity, water, heating, etc) and we've 2000 euros left for the works!

hm (thinking)... I need to learn some magical spells very quickly, huh! :P

A not so lazy November weekend

Haaaa, so kewl to use Picasa and its web albums! Instead of bothering you with too much blablas, you get the photos which will tell everything!

Only one flower left (but zillions of leaves dancing around)

I have no idea how to start my week.
I have a list, HUGE (3 post-its), of things to do, and I don't know what do to first. They are all priorities! heeeeelp!

Just a quickie

That's what we'll do next weekend.
Loup is already there in Bretagne (enjoying a quiet night here! ;-)
We have to go there tomorrow evening to work in the hobbit house on Saturday (yawn). We have a new door and window fixed, there is cement stuff to be done and shutters to be fixed. And we can't do it later.

So we'll run, again. I plan to enjoy at least one planteur cocktail near the fireplace, once the work will be done, naturally (cough cough)

Then wooosh on Sunday we're back.

So much to do in so lil time!
I'd better not think of it and spend some lazy minutes on Facebook... :P
---> on my way!

Not such a bad day ...

It went really fine with the publishing house earlier today.
They really liked my illustrations!

What next then?
2 other books to be finished by the end of February!! yeepeeeeee!

but if it was only that...
You remember the manuscript I wrote and illustrated a few months ago "Lola Tralala" ?
They want it too! ... and want to make a series of it!

3 books are expected before August!

That does not mean I will get hundreds of thousands euros, lol, but that simply means my work, my own creation, made with my lil hands, made with all my heart, with all the energy I give to it night and day, is good enough to maybe get popular.

(dancing around!!!)

It's been a good day, my friends :)

I had to celebrate it spending euros I did not have (how magic is that, huh?!)


(I swear it's not my legs that you can see on top!)

Ouch!

Falling in the stairs with a heavy Loup in the arms is not what I just needed.
I could not stop my fall till the next floor downstairs, can you imagine that?

It would be absobloodilutely hilarious if my bum did not feel like broken in a thousand pieces right now! Grmppph. Loup was a bit shocked but I managed to carry him safely during the fall.

Of course that had to happen just before Lola's dance lesson... grmppphhh

Now the pain is pretty intense, but I can't take care of it, I'm almost out again to take the devils to a birthday. Loving Wednesdays ;-)

On a happier note, Loup will officially attend school on next September. We met the headmistress, etc. We already know each other, since Lola's there. That's kewl.
I hope the beginning will be easier than how it happens at the kindergarten. Loup still cries and screams whenever we take him there. That breaks my heart. (sigh)

Tomorrow I have a rendez-vous with my publishing house. Time to present my work for them. And I worked a lot on the project! Even started to tame the graphic tablet (so so practical for the backgrounds for instance). I hope they will enjoy it as much as I do. Wish me luck!



(now back to another painting ->wooooosh>

What if ...

... suddenly Santa Claus felt like in a *French mood* ???
(eeeeeck!)



huuu, yes, it was high time to start talking about Christmas ;-)

Martin: the bird is NOT a pigeon! It's a turkey, of course it is! pfffff
edit: okok, I added a detail that make the turkey definately not a pigeon! :P

Your kids might not enjoy anything *green* ...

...like avocado, but ... they might get crazy for Blue Lagoon's Fish!
it worked for mines!
(dancing around the vegetable's totem)

As usual, no recipe, Candy la chef has not done any more than what's shown on the pics :P

My crystal ball is a bit too talkative!

I can see, I can see that the end of the year will a copy of the week I've just had. Same characters, same plots, same happy ending (?)

With Loup sick for a week (and really sick: vomiting around, having fever, ect) and with a super-active Lola, I haven't found much time to work.


(but how could I resist such a Lola!)

During the whole week I've started in the evening to finish after midnight when my eyes were just too painful.

I really hope I'll finish tonight to get a relaxing weekend. Spend some time with Martin. We'll see. Energy is almost gone now.
I know now that to make a Herman book (about 24 pages with illustrations + the cover and back cover), I need about 6 weeks... Not an easy job finally! lol

With what I'll earn with that book, I've decided I'll spend it for the kids' bedroom which looks like everything but a kid's bedroom. We've never had the time to make it this way. It's a challenge, because their room is really small and full already with 2 big HUGE and UGLY Ikea wardrobes.


the devils plan to cover them with stickers!
Yeeeehaaaaaa!

Next week will be about the same, full. I have a rendez-vous at school for Loup who will be then registered for next year (already!), I have my rendez-vous on Thursday with the publishing house, a full Wednesday before (with the usual stuff + a birthday at friends for the kids), and on Friday we run to Bretagne again for not even 48 hours to check new stuff with the hobbit house. Yawn

I want my bed
or my Facebook
lol

Oh, having school in mind ...

such a pleasure**~~*^* *

Autumn was there to welcome us

I had forgotten how this season could be enchanting!
Brittany, despite its grey weather, smelt the earth and wood, and was all dressed in yellows and oranges.
(happy sigh)

For the kids of course, it was perfect, they were with their cousins, they could enjoy horse-riding when they wanted, etc.
I was a bit busy with Loup being sick and naturally mama-demanding, but I finished to read the last Harry Potter while purring near the fireplace.

Oh that final book, great, better than expected! I'm just sad it's over now, you know. You know?
When I was there, my sister and my half-brother had just bought their Harry Potter. Can you imagine how much money the book bring if you consider 3 people in the same close family are reading it at the same time? Gawd, that's crazy!

Anyway, we also worked pretty much in the hobbit house and we had a great surprise there (you will see that in the pics).

Now I'm back in Paris with a huge amount of work (I've to give the illustration of the first book next week) and with no time to do it! Argggg! I thought I was good at multitasking but... I should improve a bit! grmppphhhhhh

here are some of the pics from old beautiful Bretagne :)

Autumn holidays in Brittany

Whether you're a born-player, or not ...

... you will certainly enjoy the cul d'chouette as presented below

(sorry you non-Frawnch speaking ones, I doubt I can translate the video ;-)

Kaamelott Saison 1 Episode 70 : Perceval relance de quinze - wideo

Auteur : Alexandre Astier


We've watched again bits of Kaamelott lately, and it is still so good. Laurienna, I'm sure you'd love Kaamelott(if you don't know it yet).
I fear I'll add the new dvds to my letter to ol' Santa! Almost all episodes are cult, and I know only 10% of them!

Just back

... from Brittany :)
I, huh, LOVED it. It was so autumn-ish you know. The feelings, the landscape, the colours, the food, the drinks.

Too bad I'm back with a sick Loup :( 3 days he's been like a zombie, feeling apparently awful (fever,bad cough, running nose, etc).
My poor baby!

Anyway, I'll be back again with pics and details as soon as I get a free minute or two.

In case it's cold where you are, here is a SO MUCH artistic film of the very first fire we made in the hobbit house. The film has absoblooddilutely no interest but this first fire felt wunnnnnerful! (happy sigh)

Light my (first) fire
envoyé par candyfroggie

Bretagne and pumpkin pies

I'm on my way to Bretagne for a week. A welcome break: no more work in the evenings! Yeehaaaaa!
My sister and her big family will be there too, that is kewl We're going to play REAL scrabble (lol) in front of the fireplace while eating marshmallows and sipping rum! It sounds boring? It is not:)

Of course we've already planned our days of work in the hobbit house (sigh), but I mainly hope I'll manage to read the 2 books I've taken with me. If I can read them, then the holidays will be a success! :)

Before I forget, here is Mahie's new list game! Great idea, it's always a pleasure to answer!

"Tell me which is your favorite....

* coffee: first one with milk, then the 6 (no kiding) others just black
* color: red
* snak: chocolate
* car: feet ,horse ,bicycle, anything but cars
* perfume: Amour by Kenzo
* continent: Europe
* manga: Captain Harlock
* joke: one line jokes
* position: lying down on the stomach (allongée, position roupillette, quoi)
* milk: with my first coffee and cereals
* magazine: marie-claire
* island: the Isle of Skye
* shoes: boots in winter, lovely sandals on summer
* cat: purring
* dog: hm, I'm not a doggoil!

Your turn!

Even if I'm a devoted Air-girl ...

...I almost never enjoy watching their videos, they do not correspond at all to what their music inspire me..

I enjoy this one though, I even love a few details there, including the disappearing *go* in the window!

javascript:void(0)

PS: oh but this one is brilliant too, I was less inspired by the sog than the video this time! :P

the lil wolf and the sunnybananas cake

Once upon the time there was a beautiful GREEDY baby.
His name was quite scary, for the little red cap and the 3 lil piggies.

Loup, for it was his name, first drank like a lamb. Milk and milk again.
Quickly he thought meat was MUCH MORE more appropriate,
He got CARNIVOROUS.

Then he grew stronger.

He is now a LOT heavier
He is now a LOT more cuddling (I did not think that was possible!)

A hundred times more adorable
And a zillion times more devilish (Gawd, what will it be in 10 years!)

More SCARY? Yeah, definitely!

... Loup has just turned 2 :)



PS: I hope you appreciate the grande cuisine cake above: "chocolate cake on a trip to Maui"
Well I must confess it's one of the cake Michelle gave us the other day, it was so good I thought "no need to cook one which would be worse"! So I took the rest of it, planted Hawaian beach umbrellas and just brought a touch European decadence with grapes. Ermm, Loup loved it ! hehe

I've just signed all the papers!

(and I'm not even drinking champagne! tsssss!)



...I'm very motivated :)
I have to finish all the illustrations for a first book before the 15th of November. Not easy, but... it's such a great opportunity that I'd work night and day (well I work mostly during the night already, no choice... pfff)

well, it is great. The book should be really good and helpful.
I have a lil thought for Penny Sillan who was convinced that my art at some point would be used to help kids. She was just right **~~**^* *~~^* *

The hobbit house to be shared?

At the end of the week, we leave for Bretagne, for a week.
I haven't mentioned it, but I've got really down with the hobbit house lately.
We spend all our holidays working on it, which means we do not see each other really, one takes care of the kids, the other works.
Then... I do not feel ready to live in a lost hamlet all along the year. Yeah, I'm a fookin Parisian and I love it (which must sound really weird!)

Soooo... we have a house in the countryside (which is absobloodilutely wunnerful, I agree!), we spend all our free time and money on it, to spend, what, 5 weeks of holidays there every year (I mean in the future), huh?
I just can't imagine such a place empty 90% of the time. Not with all the work and efforts we make for it.

Soooo, I thought... why not making of it a holiday accommodation (un gite, quoi! :P)
That would be just perfect!
The house would be much more alive this way, and we could make lil money.

At the beginning I couldn't stand the idea of sharing my "walls", but now, I just love it!
We must think about it seriously! :)

A day at Chez Mickey -with fangs-

It was a full day yesterday. We left home at 8.30am and came back at 10.30pm.
We had a beautiful day, cold but very blue :)

Lola LOVED everything there, she *believed* in everything she saw **~~*^* *
And Eva was a great company for the shrimpette and for the rest of us, motivated and all :)

And I highly recommend anyone to visit it on Halloween time. You expect they celebrate it there, right. But it was much more than that. Disney just make everything perfect you know (when it comes to entertaining), like celebrating halloween as a child can expect it in its deepest dreams!
It was huge, wunnerful! Witches everywhere, Donalds dressed in vampire, pumpkins everywhere, laughing skeletons on roofs, etc etc.

(happy sigh)

I loved it too!

SsssSSShpirit of Halloween

I know we have another week before the witches invite themselves at home, but we already enjoyed THE party of the year.
And I don't say that because my lil family won the costume contest!!! (hehe.. no, but it's true! we did!)
... it was just perfect, great atmosphere for lil ones and much older ones (try to make a party for lil kids and grown-ups at the same time, that's a REAL challenge me thinks!), great costumes (we were invited by a Elvis and a dark Fairy who should have won the contest -thank Gawd, they couldn't participate- :P)

So, as it's not obvious on the pic below, Eva (my niece), Lola and I came as spiders, Martin as a Pssshhhiiit against spiders! I loved the idea and concept! hehe
Now when we had to make the costumes, it was another story. We spent the last week making legs with stockings and cotton, and it was really difficult to make them hold and move too (I know you can't see much on the photo, but for real it was not much better! lol). Martin made his pshhhhit costume himself, and it was brilliant!

I think Martin's costume was absobloodilutely great, ours were more hmm, very home-made! lol ... But the girls looked fantastic, the most adorable spiders!
Well, I guess we won for the concept, which was fun, I reckon!



Thank you again Michelle and Frederic, we had a lot of fun (and we're still enjoying all your cakes! yummm!)

The end of the week kinda starts tomorrow

Oyé Oyé

Loup will leave tomorrow for Bretagne, till Monday!!!

Mixed feelings:

-I already miss him, I hate when Loup is not playing the *glueboy* around me ;-)
-I'm so happy to get 4 days to focus on my work, 4 days without feeling the constant stress a lil devil can provoke... 4 days with Martin only in the bed! Almost holidays!

let's see...

Tomorrow will be wonderfully quiet

Friday will be busy with work, then with a great rugger match to watch

Saturday... while I'll be working, Lola and Martin go to take Eva, my niece, who will spend the weekend with us.
Then we have our Halloween party + a final rugger match to watch (pretty difficult to chose which team I'll support, I think I'll have to chose for the cuttest bums!)

Sunday: Lola, Eva, Martin and I will spend the at Chez Mickey, Halloween to be celebrated there too. No pumpkin overdose you see! :)

If everything goes well (=full batteries in the cam) you will get zillions of pics of all that.

Like mother, like .... devils !

not sure about the title though! lol

Loup and our white sofa have discovered painting not so long ago... a pleasure to see him enjoying it so much! (btw, I let Martin deal with the painting activity, mwahahaha!)



As for the shrimpette, she's already an artist. Here she's painting the little mermaid. Brilliant! You see this charming lil tail? And the painted nails! And the smile, the SMILE! (faint) Just perfect! :-)



(what? I'm a proud mom? grmppph, of course I am :P)

This is you last chance...

...to get a painting at a reasonnable price ;-)

I really didn't want to do it, but I have no other choice than raising the price of my paintings.
2 reasons mainly: 1) the online payment system is expensive (somehow I hadn't realized that), 2) shipping and packing costs are getting more expensive. There is not so much left at the end.

(sigh)

so, after next weekend I'll add a 0 to all the prices
(kidding)
hehe

And the blue winner is ...

...a red cabbage!



wait, there's something wrong here

woooooooooooooosh

back

and the winner is ......

the blue photoshoped cabbage !!!




Hmm, I still wonder how Martin could imagine that a "red cabbage" could actually be blue!

The croissants might be bannished at chez Candles', but ...

...Nutella (aka "nut-nut" for the aficionados) is still most welcome! :P

The Alien effect

I hope I haven't bothered you too much during the rugger cup! I did my best to avoid talking of it here.
It's not over, 2 matches to come, the second one being not that exciting for us... England vs South Africa (cute legs in the second team though :P)

Tonight I watched the Pumas and their emotion at the beginning was really touching. They fought well, but too bad they couldn't make it! :(

Talking of emotions, I LOVE the cup. I wish it was every year! (sigh)

And if you've followed any of it around here, you probably saw that. I love it (except the French national anthem touch, almost spoiling everything!) It gives me the same shivers as when I watch one of the Alien movies! Brrrrrrrr!

I still wait for Ripley to jump out from the screen though..
(Ripley and a gang of impressive creatures, huh! :P)

My spoiled Princess

...has celebrated her birthday with 10 of her lil friends on Saturday!
I feel bad because 1) I did not cook any cake for her, 2) the birthday party was organized somewhere else (way too small here)!

Hmm, I feel we could have keep all the money we tried to save during the last months, but (cough) life's short, and she loved it so much!



All her girlfriends were dressed as princesses (Lola chose a Ariel-who-gonna-get-married-and-crowned-as-queenette-of-the-world *lol*); the boys were much more creative: a cowboy for David, Samsam for Edouard, Zorro for Amaury and a chinese prince for Nolan :)

more pics to come :-)

Help! I'm lost in the big blue!

Voilà, Lola must bring some food at school next week (it's the "week of the taste" in French schools, like every year)
Her teacher has chosen the blue colour as a main theme (not white or brown or green, of course not!)

She can bring whatever she wants, except candies and sodas.
Michelle brings bilberries muffins if I remember, others bring figs, grape, blue cheese, blackberries and... Jeez, all my good ideas have been stolen! And I won't bring sardines! oh nenene!

Last idea I got was mint... but isn't it a bit green? (sigh)

Any idea about blue food?
Blue might be inspiring (for me it's the "twilight blue" that beat all the other kinds of blue) but with food... hell no!


(patchwork of borrowed pictures, thank you, you talented photographers)

Absolutely Scrabulous

Martin is totally addicted to that Scrabulous game!
It's one of the numerous lil games you can find on Facebook (yeahhhh, I know, Facebook AGAIN!**)

I've got an invitation to this game by Benoit yesterday, and I don't know if I must thank him or to curse him! It's just a great lil game! You should join, huhu :P

**but I wouldn't talk of it that much if it was not that good, somewhere in the dark :)

See you next year, doc

Lola, Loup and I got our injection against the flu today. Yeeehaaaaaaaa!
The plan was for me to show the devils that the injection did not hurt, so I asked their doc to do it on me first (which required some kind of *mommy self control* -like "don't faint in front of your kids, etc"-)

It went ok for me,it went awful for Lola who was so so stressed, and it was even worse for the wild Loup who had to be held by 3 people. A real Hercules!

Talking of Hercules, the doc found that Loup was a bit heavy.
heavy
hey what did he mean by that?!
my baby boy... HEAVY! (shrugging)

I answered he was just wonderfully STRONG (which is the case, honest!) :-)
He has a weight of, ok, 15kg700, which is clearly higher than usual at this age. It should not be that terrible since I only have to stop giving Loup his morning croissant and it should be fine... pfffff ... I'll do it, ok, but my baby will be starving, I know it! (and an apple is just not the same :P)

Who keeps me busy nigth and day?

(I wish it was Martin!
pfffffff!)

Just to share what I'm working on at the moment ;-)...



I think you will hear again about the lil boy :)

Watta shitty day !

It started with Loup being a REAL devil while Lola was having her dance courses.
He wanted to join the girls, screamed, then went to empty the lockers (one of the lil girl has lost her trousers... I hope it was not the fault of my devil!)

Then we went back at home. I had lots of work to do you know. So I highly expected the first signs of "mom i'm going to have a 3 hours nap".
It did not happen.
No way I could work!

Then, huho, time to run to the next hospital to make lungs' scan for the shrimpette (to check her last infection was really gone).

A hospital is, for Loup, like Paradise. Long corridors, switches everywhere, smiling nurses (yup!), etc. Paradise.
For me it was like hell. I had to take care of Lola while the lil devil was opening forbidden doors, trying to flip forbidden switches, to scream when silence was required, etc. ETC.

And it was like, 30°C inside!

(faint)

GREAT point: Lola's results were good :)

Then ok, we went to the next park to have "fun".
(yawn)
Finally we came back home, and there I had a message from my ol' friend Phantie. I discovered I had been plagiarized ! Or, more precisely, my "Herman" character had been plagiarized!
I won't show it here, I won't name the one who did it, because she instantly accepted to get rid of the "Herman" illustrations she presented on her site.

But this had been a shock!

I understand even more my monoï sista, Etolane, when she was confronted to plagiarism.

Anyway, this has been some kind of yucckky day.

Except that now I'm here.

sharing all that with ews,

and it feels good.

hugggles

Halloween Romance

If you knew how many troubles I've got with the colored background here. At some point it was all brown and grey! Jeez...
But watercolour is magic, you can work and work it again, and finally the result is really not bad me thinks..


click here

I got inspired here by Mr Bones, just in time to celebrate one of the funniest time of the year :)

Five!

I know a shrimpette who'll have the time of her life today!



Today we celebrate Lola's fifth birthday, and I could tell you how much I remember the first kicks in the belly, the first cries, laughs, words, tears, etc ... how much I find her beautiful and funny, how much I am proud of the sensitive little girl she is now.... words will never express the Happiness our shrimpette brings me everyday.

Because ....

-because I've just learnt that French lil ones won't have to go to school on Saturday morning anymore
-because Martin has a shining boat license in his pocket
-because I'm in a pumpkin mood
-because I have professional plans
-because the Frawnch ruggermen will play an exciting last match tomorrow
-because I also plan to watch England playing, South Africa, Argentina and Scotland
-because it's Friday evening

Because of all that, we thought we had a few things to celebrate with bubbles! :P
Wanna join?

Call me le Chef

You know why I don't enjoy cooking at all? Because I do it way too often, to feed my babes first. And whenever I try to be imaginative with ingredients, you can be sure they won't like it.
(sigh)

I think that partly explains why Martin is much better at it than I am. He does it once a month, for pleasure!
tssss, that's unfair!

But I always focus my efforts on one thingie ... presentation :P
(and don't laugh with the pic below, thank you!)

Whenever I can, I bring some poetry to whatever I cook, even smashed potatoes, carrots and sausages... and the kids loves it!
So ok, it's the most basic kind of food, but have you ever eaten a smashed-potatoes-carroted-and-sausaged-kitty ? No??? (told you!)



So you can call me le Chef, I deserve it! :P

Lola and I, the accomplices (part 1)

Some of you might wonder how one can spend so much time on Facebook, huh!
As far as I am concerned, I reckon I have an accomplice to help me...



The best one! :)

(PS: if you haven't registered yet, I will spare you with my pirate bombs, and if you decide to join, then it will be my round! Rum, old one!

Candy, the Corsair Pirate level 62 ...

(you don't know what it means, but you can still be impressed ;-)

... starts again her illustrator's activities!
Yeeeehaaaaaaa
It went really fine with the publishing house yesterday. We share the same motivations, we got on well and agreed on the way we wanna work together.

I have to prepare a first book for next month (next month! sheeeet!!!), 2 others for February.
I've also presented my new project Lola Tralala n'a pas peur des piqûres ...



... and they might be interested with it!

I'm already working on my painting biz, taking care of the house, the kids, taking them here and there, etc... and I have no idea how I'll manage to find the time to work on all that, but I'm ready to do it. Ol' Candy is not a lazy bum!

Now I wait for the contract to sign it :)

While surfing on the professional wave, I've also just ordered a graphic tablet, and I cross all my bits so I can easily use it (which I doubt)... THIS could change my life to make illustrations (=it would save a lot of time working directly on the screen!)

A girlie topic, sorry guys... talking shoes today!

These boots should be made for walking..



but... the walk would be a bit expensive........ 235 euros!!!


ok, in some other life.

Now let's see, these boots should be made for walking too...



They're not that expensive (69 euros)
... but they're only available in size 40!
Pfffff... my boots are not waterproof anymore, you see, I DESPERATELY need a new pair ... and these one look pretty kewl!

I keep looking for them, and as soon as I find my size... Meoooowwww ... they'll be the mouse, I'll be the cat! :P

Monday, Monday

I don't find it very fair to start the week being THAT exhausted ...
And the weather did not help: warm and wet. Yuck!

Tomorrow morning I have rendez-vous with a publishing house. I bring them my last manuscript, even if we will mainly talk of another series.

I have no doubt it will be positive :)
Great thing for me, the busy mama, is that Loup's kindergarten is at 100 meters from the publishing house! how kewl is that, huh?!

Talking about kewl, Jack reminded me of a few sketches from the Monthy Python the other day.

I thought I would share a laugh here... Not the Ministry of the silly walk (which I LOVE), just another one ...