Have you ever lost a shoe for 5 whole years?! Well, that’s been how long it has been since Martha Julia Adele has been looking for hers! (actually it has been 6 years since she tripped and fell and started searching in The Hillock for her shoe!”
I took a really long sabbatical from working on her story to help find her shoe! I COULD chalk it off to letting distractions like Six Wonderful Grandchildren being added to our lives! or all the other writing and creating I’ve been doing without posting. Thank goodness Martha Julia Agnes Adele is a timeless soul whose foot doesn’t outgrow the shoe she is seeking!
If you’ve forgotten the plot of this story and want to follow it, I invite you to go to my categories list and click on Martha Julia Agnes Adele and start reading it ‘backwards? or should I say forwards? from my first posting to the present…pgs 1-17. Don’t worry, Martha Julia Agnes Adele….I’m back on the journey with you at The Hillock, and WE WILL FIND YOUR SHOE!
Martha Julia Agnes Adele
Your adventure’s on hold, so sit for a spell.
This writer’s hands got busy and full.
With Life’s awesome moments of push and pull.
My focus has become quite kaleidoscopic….
It’s been very hard to stick to one topic.
With grandchildren nearby, it’s been time for playing
And …tweaking the studio where ‘Grandmom’s staying.’
Diapers for young and diapers for old…
Clothes to wash and clothes to fold.
Stuff to organize and people, too.
Suddenly there seems SO much to do!
I’m keeping a lookout for my ‘writer’s pen…’
Somewhere underneath this life that I tend.
The brushes and colors that give you your life
Are somewhere hidden ‘neath each joy and strife!
Martha Julia Agnes Adele… Please wait my return as you sit for a spell. I’ll meet you someday & we’ll find your shoe! Right now I have this LIFE to do!
The unknowns and losses you’re pondering there Are no different at all from the ones in my hair!
As I unravel these moments beyond all belief,
I know it’s the stuff of a writer’s relief.
For under it all we are learning to trust When the time is just right, we’ll see through this dust.
The words will come clear, the brushes will show…
That the shoe that you lost is what’s helping you grow!
All that we need is what’s before us today
To guide us and glide us towards our path on our way.
Meanwhile …practice tying your other shoe! And I’ll practice the things that I need to do! Love, Mossy Me!
I’m eager to keep going with Martha’s adventure, even though my health is holding back the intensity of my work for a few more days. So for now, I’ll post pages with photos of the actual places at The Hillock, and I’ll need to paint them later. I’ll miss not having the characters in the scene, but they’ll make it there eventually!
As I prepare to paint the next page of Martha Julia Agnes Adele, I need to revisit The Castle of the Heart, Char the dragon, and the diamond trail. Here’s a photo of the trail left by a real slug (the one that kissed the fairy!) one day down at the Hillock. I need to work on how I want to paint it. Yesterday’s painting didn’t do the diamond trail justice.
Found a 6 hour window of time when my pain lightened enough for me to finish one page! Now it’s coming back! Hmmm…juggling pain, naps, exercise of some sort, and painting is the challenge these days! Grateful, though to have something I love to do, even when I don’t feel well! Great to use new pens and a few new colors! Martha, we’ll help you find your shoe yet!
This particular page took a lot of text editing and reworking. I’m working on being a better gauge at how much space to leave with calm background so that the text will show up. This page worked except that I haven’t quite got the sizing right to match my paintings to a horizontal page. Hence, some of Marth had to be ‘cropped’ out of the picture. I’m also including a few photos of the real Artist’s House down at The Hillock. I added the bottle tree. Makes me think of my friend Deter who’s spirit is in this book and in my heart. She had a beautiful bottle tree in her yard.
I’m grateful to all my friends on Facebook that helped me think through whether to change the name of the Chocolate Mushroom Cafe. I feel better about the new name! Thanks!
I’m struggling with the text for the next page of my Martha Julia Agnes Adele Adventure. I refer to The Chocolate Mushroom Cafe, and I’m wondering if I should worry about if this could be encouraging children to nibble on mushrooms they find in the woods. I bring up this concern after having parented a precious and adventurous 2 year old who had a tendency to put woodsy mushrooms in her mouth. Often we would end up in the E.R. to ‘decide if she was exposed to some dangerous one!’
Here it is:
“Oh, what a grand Adventure Day!”
“We’re near the Chocolate Mushroom Cafe!”
“Step right up by this giant stone shoe!”
“You’ll especially love their acorn stew!”
Slab reaches behind him and pulls out a map.
From a hidden pocket in his shoulder strap.
“Let’s sit at this table and make our plan…”
“While we eat our stew and custard flan.”
And here is background information:
Slab and Martha… are about to discover that they are very near the Chocolate Mushroom Cafe. This is another actual place at The Hillock that is adjacent to the Queen’s Stove, that they stumbled upon on the last page. The Chocolate Mushroom Cafe is a flat top of one of the high mounds at The Hillock, underneath the Maple Tree that has The Market at its roots on its other side. There is a large, shoe-shaped rock, about size 6, that leads to a pebblestone trail to stone steps that go up to the flat top of the mound. On the mound are a few ‘stone tables’ where customers can enjoy acorn stew, custard flan, and more than likely chocolate mushroom dishes. There is a tiny flower pot on each table, one holding meadow flowers, and one holding green moss. It got its name from some dark brown mushrooms growing on a log by the old stone shoe.
Painting for this page is in process. Here’s the Chocolate Mushroom Cafe in its early winter stages:
