Back To The Drawing Board

     I make a lot of paper dolls. I always have, starting when my oldest was still a toddler. It a good way to pass the time, get a little drawing practice in, and get her creative juices flowing. Well, I have done a number of them lately, mostly ancient Egyptian-themed or medieval or 18th century French. They don't have multiple outfits or anything. They are just dolls made out of paper that my girls color and then play with, sleep with, take them outside, and pretty much keep until they rip or wear out. Yesterday I had drawn the ballerina from "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" of Fantasia 2000 fame. Today my daughters asked me to make them a paper doll of "the Goddess of Spring." So I turned on the Silly Symphonies, played the cartoon of the same title and...found out that this was NOT what they were talking about. They were talking about the sprite (she has no name) from the "Firebird Suite" segment of Fantasia 2000. This was a tough one. She has no real

     Somebody fell asleep in the car on the way to dance class and only woke up long enough to tell me she wanted to sit facing forward on my lap. Since I had an hour to kill with a sleeping person on my lap in the waiting room, I decided to draw what I saw around me. Good practice, you know?      I drew the kids' table in the center of the room that is covered with brown paper. The kids are allowed to draw all over the brown paper and so it's pretty well decorated. Then I started drawing in the background because I was still waiting on my oldest daughter to finish dancing. I wish I hadn't, since it seems a little off, but oh well. After all, I was working with my notebook slightly away from my body and around my daughter's.

I have received multiple requests over the last 6 months or so for my guacamole recipe. I decided to just put it up here for those of you who haven't yet had the chance to revel in its glory. It's so good that even if you don't like guacamole, or don't like avocados, you will like this. Keep in mind this isn't an exact science - I never measure and so I'm just guessing on the amounts. Everything should be done to your personal taste. I've also included substitutions so that even without a ton of fresh ingredients (minus the avocados, of course) you can still make a delicious batch. For the purposes of this recipe, I'm going to assume you want a modest, but still plentiful,  batch so the amounts work best with about 3 avocados. YOU WILL NEED: Avocado Lemon juice (or lime) from 1/2 lemon Fresh garlic, 2 cloves Minced onion (fresh or jarred),  3 green onions, 1 shallot,  or 2 leeks...you get the idea, about 1 TBSP of the bottled kind in the sp