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Just as I finished painting the Petting Zoo Watercolor (previous blog entry) I found out that I had my first art sale on my Etsy Art Store! I’m so excited, I feel like I’m floating on air!
This is a watercolor painting that I just created this morning with my fantastic new Windsor & Newton watercolor set. I was so excited when I saw the watercolor travel kit on sale for $20, down from the original $85, and have been anticipating my morning off to be able to put them to use.
This painting is of Isabela and Diego at the Victoria Petting Zoo in Beacon Hill Park that we visited last week. They had a great time brushing the goats. Diego’s favorite part was throwing the sawdust on to the goat, to then be able to brush it off!
This is my first time experimenting with cartoon type characters and underlying ink drawings, with watercolor on top. I’m really happy with the result. When I showed it to Juliet this afternoon, she said, “It looks like your acrylic style of painting, only in watercolor.” And I think it is. I had a lot of fun painting this one too.
Generosity and learning to share all things that we all want our children to learn. Most of the time it seems like we (as in I) really focus on being generous with peers or siblings.
Today, however, I witnessed an incredible moment in teaching generosity. We were leaving London Drugs and my sister, Juliet, had left just a little earlier with her one and half year old son, Olee, and my (almost) four year old daughter, Isabela. As I came out of the store, I saw that they had bent down and opened up Juliet’s bag. Juliet handed an apple and a banana to Isabela and motioned to her to give it to a poor, homeless man sitting outside of the store. Isabela put it in his basket and he gave the sweetess smile of thanks. As we were walking to our car, I turned and saw him smiling and peeling the banana.
What really made this small act of generosity significant to me is that over the last month I’ve been reading stories of Abdu’l-Baha every morning to the kids. And so many of the stories are about how he was so generous and loving with the poor. Poverty was such an abstract concept for her to grasp.
She kept saying, “Why don’t they just go to the bank and get money out.”
And I would say, “Well, they don’t have any money there.”
And she kept say, “No. They just need to use their bank card.”
So today Isabela had a real life experience with poverty and showing generosity to those in need. Thank you, Juliet.
I’ve been working at setting up my art store online at www.erikahastings.etsy.com. It’s such an exciting process to finally have a great format to sell my paintings, prints and cards. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and finally got an inspiring push from a great artist and friend, Charity who has hers there too.
I thought I’d take some time to talk about the stories behind the different paintings that I’ve made here. I’ll start with this one…
This painting is called, “Sleeping in the Garden.” It is an acrylic painting that I made as a gift for my mother. I was inspired by a dream that my father had, where my mother was out in my garden, muddy and rolling in flowers and leaves. In this painting I added my daughter, then one and a half years old, who is affectionately embraced by her grandma as they take a nap in the garden.
My mother has single-handedly transformed our backyard garden during her vacations here. It is a place where her creativity and passion really shine. So when I decided to do this painting, I took photos of all of the flowers and plants in our garden and compiled them to create a secretive, very lush garden. I took seperate photos of my mother and my daughter and sketched them on. Then I started with an outline of the painting and filled it in with various colors. I choose the colors as I go and each part of the painting has 5-10 layers on it. To see a more detailed view of this painting or to buy a print or card, visit my new art store! Free shipping worldwide! www.erikahastings.etsy.com.
I’ve known for quite some time that the final part of my candida healing is to include more regular exercise into my life. But with two small children and several years of sleepless nights, it’s taken me quite some time to work up the courage to finally commit to the exercise.
I had my first work out with our personal trainer, Shane Heins, at Gym Jane, and it was so fantastic. Stretching, kettlebells and a short jog. I already can see the healing end results from this wonderfully simple and slow beginning.
Despite the title, you might be wondering what’s in them? And they probably taste horrible! But the true test is if both kids and adults will eat (and enjoy) them, and following the recipe, I have photos of a group full of kids and adults devouring them to prove it. So yes, it is possible to make delicious treats when you have allergies or a restricted diet!
This recipe comes from The Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger under the “Yellow Cake” recipe. I will list what the actual recipe is for those that can eat the other ingredients and but beside it how I changed it.
Cupcake recipe (or regular cake)
3 eggs (or 4.5 tsp egg replacer mixed with 6 TB water)
1 1/2 cups sugar (or 1 1/2 tsp stevia)
2 sticks of butter (or the equivalent of oil or margerine)
3 cups of rice flour
2 tsp baking powder (or 1/2 tsp baking soda mixed with 1 tsp lemon juice)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1 1/4 cups rice milk mixed with 1 1/2 TB lemon juice)
Bake at 350 degrees. 10-12 minutes for cupcakes or 25 – 35 minutes for cake.
Since we were bringing them as a treat for Isabela’s music class graduation party, we put colored sprinkles on them them make it a little extra special.
And here are some pictures of the kids enjoying their cupcakes….
And here they all are with their graduation present from Amy.
And with the parents and the next generation of kids.
Having gone to this music class every week for almost two years, it became a real parenting support group for us and we got to watch as several of us became pregnant and had second children. I’m going to miss getting together with these amazing mothers and helping each other solve our life problems, share new ideas and inspire each other to try new things.
For the last month and a half we’ve had a wonderful house full of family visiting. We made a big meal and cleaning plan and I only had to cook once or twice a week. Plus when I was cooking, other family members were watching the kids.
So these last two days have been a huge readjustment for me having to do everything on my own. I feel like I can’t even remember how I did it before. How did I do the multiple multi-tasking in motherhood everyday, all day long? Cooking, cleaning, keeping the kids from killing each other. Too much. I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I love the idea of community gardens – renting out a small plot of land for a very small fee and allowing those who don’t have a yard to grow vegetables and flowers.
This weekend when we went to visit my grandparent-in-laws, we spent some time with them at their community garden in Duncan and it was so obvious what a wonderful community support network it creates for the people there. Everyone knew each other, shared the crops from their garden, were happy to see each other and proud of the things that they grew. They also had a large plot that where vegetables were grown and then donated to a women’s shelter. It was really wonderful.
Joyce, Isa and Diego in the Duncan Community Garden (Joyce and Bill’s plot).
Bill watering the garden.
Isa picks some beans.
Diego and I. Having a restful moment.
The quality of the light shining through these flowers really caught my eye. The colors were so bold against the clear blue sky.
