It’s been a hard couple of weeks. My beloved muse Mr. Darcy has lymphoma. I’ve been working a bit on the prints but mostly doing vet visits and taking extra care of him. I think we’ve figured out a treatment that should give him another year or two, which (since he’s a big dog and 10 years old) is all I had realistically hoped to get with him anyway. It’s not nearly as hard on dogs as on people, and if he can stay happy and feeling good, I’d love the extra time. We’ve had to figure out different hip medicine for his arthritis, and that’s been hard too. But he looked frisky and much like himself last night, so I think we’re on the right path. I’ve been picking up lots of heart shaped stones as I walk that feel like talismans somehow. I know it’s magical thinking, but I still find myself holding them as I walk. So this page is a pretty good encapsulation of my last couple of weeks.

In other news, I’ve been thinking about the forest ABC book again after taking a break when I got here. It’s good work I can do downstairs with Mr. Darcy, and I wrote out an author’s page yesterday. Now I’ll have to erase the pencil work, scan it, and clean it up nicely. I still need a title page, but otherwise it’s going to be cleaning up and adjusting scans and putting the images on exactly the right size page with a small extra margin for the gutter. It’s getting close.