The Dawn of a New Age (by sarah)

The Dawn of a New Age marked by Solstice Light - the Singularity is coming.

On this the darkest day of the year - sunlight is streaming in through the windows and through my garden crystals as seen above. I am steaming forward with my projects whilst welding rods are baked in the oven instead of Christmas Cake but then I have made chocolate christmas trees and finished the most complicated out line sketch of Percival's Christmas Wish. Life is odd but good and with the production of the DOOMSDAY COLLECTION it led me to think that yes this is a dawn of an age one in which I hope our species comes into it's own and stops killing and hurting one and other.

Technology and a greater understanding of the world and universe we live in, more minds coming on line via cheap tech who can interact and learn, and talk and solve problems. Give a person a loaf and you feed them for a day, give them farming tools and they feed themselves until the next drought, give them a cheap knock off i-pad and watch them find their own solutions.

It is already happening, even when the tech is in different languages and given to kids who can't read, within weeks they are making their own improvements to the tech. With such tools they can find the info they need to drag themselves and those around them out of poverty.

I am... Hopeful.

DoomsDay 21/12/12 (by sarah)

Here is my DoomsDay Collection - an e-book (downloadable PDF) of stories and poems about worlds ending, changing and beginning. The collection does handle some dark topics and so is only for grown ups!

It is free at the moment especially for the Mayan prediction of a change of the ages 🙂 Just click the title below. It is dedicated to friends that left this world too soon.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Homeless Babies (by sarah)

Today I am doing the front cover of Percival's Christmas Wish as part of my Draw-a-thon to raise money for Shelter. I have only been sponsored £10 so far but that is half a family who wont end up homeless in the first place! So it is all good though making it a whole family by the end of today would be brilliant 🙂

In total I need to draw 14-16 pictures before Christmas Eve! I am currently on number three which is the hardest of the pictures as it is the one for the cover as well. So far all pictures are only sketches and some of that quiet rough but I am going out later to pick up some new colouring pencils as mine were damaged in the move.

I would like to just emphasis that there are over 75, 000 homeless children this christmas the likes of which has not been seen since the 60's! I know it seems like a sea of faceless people but it's not - those people are people like you and me, things can change so quickly where finances are concerned.

Also last week a baby bunny was dumped outside a pet shop near us in a cardboard box, which we said we would take if it was adopted by yesterday - it hadn't been adopted so we now have a new addition to the Snell-Pym zoo - Fluffy Obsidian!

Guess which part of the name was mine and which bit was Jean's? :/

She reckons that rock names are too hard in that they are not fluffy and they are hard to say! She gave Alaric the option of Hedgwig or Fluffy for the rabbit and he opted for Fluffy as a bunny isn't an owl and though it is also not a three headed dog it's genetics would be closer to that than a bird.

If we could adopt the homeless kids we would but they don't need adopting - they need to be with their families and taking them away would be taking us straight back to the horrors of Victoriana, therefore we help the whole family. I am really hoping that someone will donate another £10 so that we have helped one whole family instead of just half.

Here is a donate button.

And thankyou so much for the donation/sponsor that I have already received 🙂 The money goes directly to Shelter so they can start doing stuff straight away 🙂

Nursery Cuteness :) (by sarah)

Mary's nursery sent her home with a toy puppy and a book to write up the adventures!

I of course had great fun with this 🙂 I have put a version of the story up on the Wiggly Pet blog - there are lots of cute pictures of Mary though I wish we'd had slightly longer/remembered to take him with us at the weekend! Then I could have done multiple stories 🙂

Because We Have Our Home (by sarah)

This time last year we were not sure if would get this house, we were not really blogging about any of the trials and tribulations of it as we didn't want to get our hopes up. Alaric and the baby were both quiet sick and I was still on crutches and even Jean was not 100% with a repeating stomach bug. But we got through all of that and we got our shiny new home 🙂

With more than a little help from our friends. And feeling secure within this lovely house I finally felt able to write a story about our time after the 2007 floods. Again a time we would have really struggled with if it were not for family and friends!

So when I found out that over 75, 000 children will be without a home this year I thought, I am luckier than them and I should do something to help give them what our friends and family helped us get... A Home. Alaric agreed but we are not flush with money so how? And then a thought.

My mother asked me why didn't I draw the pictures and make the story into a little book for Christmas presents like I did last year with The Little Book of Festive Poetry. My initial reaction was 'There's not time!' and then I thought but I could do it as a mad sponsored thing and raise money for Shelter. So that is indeed what I am doing!

So here is the page where you can sponsor me. The money goes straight to Shelter. You are sponsoring a Draw-a-thon, the idea being that Christmas Eve I will release a free e-book for you all to enjoy 🙂 It will be an illustrated version of Percival's Christmas Wish and it is not going to be a five minute job so I am going to need lots of encouragement!

I have set the target as £100 as that will help five families not to end up homeless in the first place. More money = more people helped. If the target is reached I will be adding in the audio version of Percival's Christmas Wish as a free download for the 12 Day's of Christmas!

Families need homes

I'm not sure if you can understand what it is like to being staying on friends sofas and things unless it has happened to you - no it is not sleeping rough but it is unsettling and exhausting. Especially with little ones. And not everyone has friends and family they can get help from. We are lucky others are not. Please donate/sponsor me.