7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #734: Featuring Elizabeth Haidle
March 14th, 2021 by jules
I’m taking a break from picture-book spreads today (though I’ll be back very soon with some) to share this sun from illustrator Elizabeth Haidle. It’s in honor of spring coming and the first buttercup I saw in our yard this week. It’s in honor of hopes that we’ll all get the vaccine sooner than we expected, thanks to Biden’s efforts and the news he shared this week. And it’s posted as we note the one-year mark of first coming to terms with the pandemic and heading inside to socially isolate. Whew. It’s been a long year, but the sun is coming out. Soon, we may even be able to hug a friend again.
You may remember Elizabeth from this 2019 post. As you can see from this Instagram post where I first saw the sun, Elizabeth will soon see (April 20) the publication of Tarot for All Ages. You can read more about it here. She says that the image pictured above is The Sun Major Arcana card.
Beautiful.
Image reproduced by permission of Elizabeth Haidle.
Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.
1) Bird songs by the rose bush in front of our house — and being able to hear it while working, because it’s warm enough to open the windows.
2) New music from St. Vincent.
3) This song (to which I can relate — can’t we all during a pandemic?) by Elizabeth and the Catapult:
4) Walks with friends.
5) Chocolate cake. (See kick #7.)
6) Enjoyed my chat this week with author Jessica Young and illustrator Rafael López. Rafael once gave his permission for me to get a tattoo of this sun he drew (I have a thing for sun imagery if you can’t already tell from this post), and I just gotta figure out where on me to get it one day:
7) The kickiest kick of all (saving the best for last) is that my oldest daughter turned 17 this week.
What are YOUR kicks this week?
What a fabulous sun! A perfect image this week as we pass the one year mark of the pandemic and there’s hope on the horizon.
Jules, give chocolate cake anything. Give me walks and birdsongs as well. 17 YO in the house, woohoo!
My kicks:
1. Sitting on the deck in sunshine and share and reading. I was able to do so two days this week.
2. A drive with Chuck and a friend to wine country.
3. Tree blossoms.
4. Finished Picoult’s THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS.
5. Read STARFISH by Lisa Fipps, a debut author.
6. Planning for National Poetry Month.
7. Tonight a surprise birthday party on ZOOM for my brother. His birthday is actually tomorrow and he is not eligible for Medicare.
Have a great week.
OOPS, my brother IS eligible for Medicare, 65 and feeling alive. (Silly autocorrect)
Jone, happy birthday to your brother! Hope he is successfully surprised. This time last year, we threw a surprise b’day party (16th) for my daughter, and it was the last time I hung out with friends indoors.
You sound like you had a lovely, relaxing week. Hope this week is the same.
Love the cheerful bright suns today! Perfect for this weekend.
Jules – happy happy birthday to your 17 year old! Hope there was lots and lots of chocolate cake enjoyed by all! So glad the chat with Jessica Young and illustrator Rafael López went well! The song Together, Alone is perfect.
Jone – yay for sitting on the deck in the sunshine! Yesterday was so perfect for that. Driving to wine country is on my list of things to do soon – hope there was no traffic and perfect winding, hilly roads full of gorgeous scenery. Have fun at the zoom birthday party and happy birthday to your brother!
My kicks this week:
1) Going through old photos and finding a bunch from one of my favorite jobs ever, when I helped teach circus skills and mask making at a summer camp in New Orleans. Nice to pull up such great memories.
2) Deep cleaned the home office. Still have to hang a few more photos, but it looks and feels so much better.
3) Spring cleaning. Packing up more clothes to donate.
4) A long phone call from an old friend. I know everyone is doing zoom, but I really love the phone call catchups I’ve been having lately. This was a friend from high school, and in some ways it was a throwback to those long ago teenage phone calls full of everything.
5) Daisy on her treadmill at rehab. I have to wait in the car but staff sends me photos and videos and its so cool to see her doing so well and to hear how much they love her in their voices as they cheer her on.
6) Sunshine yesterday and time in the backyard with Daisy.
7) This is a slightly weird kick, but I am grateful for technology helping to expose biased individuals in positions of power. The most recent example happened here in the PNW where a judge was caught on a livestream making racist comments. Hopefully he’ll be forced to resign and that’s a very good thing.
7.5) Strange milestone of 1 year of the pandemic and I am grateful for all the places I have been able to have connection with others – friends and family, of course, and then penpalooza has been great fun, and 7Imps is always an uplifting place to land and check in with all of you on Sundays. Defintely hopeful and looking forward to when I can see friends in person and actually hug them again!
Have a great week everyone! Happy spring!
Rachel, that’s a lot of cleaning, but yes, it can feel so good afterwards.
I hear you on the 7th kick. There was also that basketball game where someone was caught making a racial slur (I was reading about it last night) — and that man later blamed it on his diabetes? Come on. Anyway. Yes to technology. Makes me think of how Will Smith said (and I paraphrase): Racism isn’t getting worse. It’s getting filmed.
Go, Daisy!
Enjoy the sunshine!
Hello Imps, hello Elizabeth, and hello spring!
Jules: I hope she had a wonderful birthday! Yay for the first buttercup. That video is both timely and well-done.
Jone: I hope he enjoys the surprise!
Rachel: Cool! If I may ask, what types of circus skills did you teach? You needn’t share if you don’t care to. I’m just curious! I have friends who did various types of circus training, and one of them loves loves loves aerial work, which I’ve yet to attempt! Aww, good job, Daisy dog!
My kicks from the past week:
1) Sleep (I had multiple nights this week where I didn’t get enough sleep – even less than I normally get – and so I made sure to catch up on sleep this weekend!)
2) Accomplishments
3) Finishing tasks
4) Giving myself a break
5) Also literally taking breaks
6) Good collaborations
7) Sleep (I’m saying it again in hopes that I’ll sleep tonight!)
Little Willow – I was teaching juggling, unicycle, and tightwire. My friend who was lead teacher taught tightrope, a more slack line type of tightrope walking. Sadly I’ve let all of those skills lapse except for juggling. I’d definitely love to get back into tightwire and unicycle again, and try aerial work at some point.
Juggling is easiest to keep decent at, so I always have a set of juggling balls around, used to keep them in my office when I was a public defender because they are a great way to destress and brainstorm about a case. Juggling is also a great way to keep your peripheral vision sharp – jugglers are generally better drivers because they have excellent peripheral vision.
Little Willow, I hope you had a good night of sleep and that your sleep gets back on track this week. Sounds like you had a good week of Getting Stuff Done.
Rachel: WHUT. How cool!