How to use this Page

I have no idea why I am getting such a kick out of this?  This is my website.  This little square with the black lines is me!  Ha ha!!  If you want to see the image you might have to click on it.

You can now join the "Champ's Story: Dogs Get Cancer Too!" fan page on Facebook.  Just click HERE, and the click the "Like" button at the top of the fan page.  Post your stories about the book, photos of your child reading the book, your own stories about how cancer has touched the life of you, your child or a pet.  I hope you enjoy this new way to interact with the publisher, author Sherry North, illustrator (me), and other fans of the book.

This is my best selling print ever!  Now you can buy a variety of items featuring my original Halloween art design at my Etsy shop online.

In the springtime, little black ant leaves the colony in search for food.

Black ants are gathering nectar from the aphids in the rose garden.

Ant communication!

Flying ants leaving the nest in search of mates.



"Little Black Ant on Park Street" is FINALLY here! Here is what is available now...check Amazon.com: The paperback is a LARGE paperback (11.5" x 8.5") .
Also available in micro hardcover (5 7/8" x 4 3/4"), with or without a plush toy. Not sure when the collector's edition hardcover will be released. Also check Borders and B&N.

If you haven't taken a look at my website in a while, check it out. I am always changing it and adding fun new art stuff!

To say that I've been obsessed would be a gross understatement.

I've pushed aside sleep, exercise, folding laundry (I really cried over that one) and reading (!!) because of my enthusiasm. And for what, you ask?

A website. My website.

Back in the days when the internet was young, websites were simple and images took forever to download, I taught myself HTML. I have a background in graphic design and learning this new technology was fun for me.

But simple HTML was soon crowded out by CSS, XHTML, Flash, and other bells and whistles that made my head spin. I backed away and left web design to others more technologically inclined than me.

Last week after we got home from Yosemite, I decided that I wanted to create a web site for myself, complete with sample chapters and a bio *shudder*. I knew what I wanted the site to do. I just had to figure out the code to make it work that way.

And with the exception of a few ticks which I am NOT going to point out, I did. I think.

Have a look and tell me what YOU think. Is it too much? Not enough? Easy to navigate or confusing? Boring? Ugly? Well done?

Tell me! Because I want to get it right...whatever that means...

www.sherriepetersen.com

I got cybersquatted.

And it made me cranky. Very, very, very cranky - but it all worked out in the end. Phew!

So here's what happened. I finally decided to get working on my website that is actually listed on the jacket flap of my book but doesn't exist yet. Oops.

To be fair to myself, this was a crazy busy year, the kind where I didn't have time to do frivolous things like: going to the bathroom (at least not until I was doing the pee dance), sleeping, grocery shopping, cooking meals for my family, shaving my legs, doing laundry, buying new underwear which I desperately needed since I wasn't doing laundry, posting on my blog, learning how to create a website, etc.

But anyway, I went to bluehost.com to buy my domain name and have them host my site, carolbaickermckee.com, which my lawyer husband had assured me could not be used by anyone else as my name is utterly unique, thanks to some Ellis Island goofy spelling plus the magic of marital hyphenation. (I think there are only about 30 people in the entire world with "Baicker" in their name, all related to us, and I'm certain there are only 5 Baicker-McKees and they all live in my house.) And it's against the law to buy someone else's name that you have no legitimate connection to. But someone had already bought my name anyhow! And put up a horrible website that was all links to commercial websites, including from the homepage some porn-ish sights about cheating wives and Russian girls.

I about had a heart attack. Then I called my husband and told him he was in BIG trouble. (Not that I have much leverage as an Angry Woman anymore, not since I gave up stuff like grocery shopping, shaving my legs, and washing the family's underwear. What could I threaten to do? Lose the number of our favorite take out pizza place? Convince Kmart to stop selling him new Fruit of the Looms?)

So then I didn't know what to do! But now I've figured it out, and I'll tell you, in case it happens to you. First, go to a whois site, like betterwhois.com and it will tell you who has registered your domain name and who owns the website. And then use the contact info to visit the owners' websites, in my case a giant buy-lots-of-domain-sites company. And then write them a fierce letter telling them they are violating Section 43(d) of the Lanham Act (read about it here), and that you'd like them to immediately shut down the website and un-register the domain name. Next, get your husband to take out all the inflammatory language so that the email is merely firm but polite. Then wait a few hours for an email that says, "Don't know what you're talking about. We don't own that domain name." And then check and discover your name is now magically available and the horrid website has disappeared and no one has to sue anyone! And your husband isn't it deep doo-doo anymore! Finally, quick, quick, quick, register the name, get someone to host it, and start working away on your site (more on the adventures of that soon).

In more fun news, I'm working on content for my website, including a printable Mimi paperdoll. This is because I have always loved paperdolls. My plan is to have one page to print on cardstock that will have Mimi, Bunny and Frank dolls, as well as other things that work well on stiffer paper, like a yogurt cup that Frank can be inserted into after assembly, a book cover or two, a bowl of cereal with a separate teeny tiny spoon and a banana, complete with smidge, maybe a twinkle star night light, some forks - stuff like that. And then another page that can be printed on regular paper (or maybe a lightweight photo paper - that might be nice) with outfits for Mimi and Bunny (and maybe a collar and leash for Frank?), and interior pages that can be assembled with the book covers on the previous page to make little miniature books, which I also love. Any other great ideas/requests for cool features?

Off to my tree house to work on revisions to my parenting book!

©Kathleen Rietz
If you haven't checked out my website lately, DO! I update at least weekly, and I feel as though it is finally really coming together and representing who I am as an artist. I have weeded out a lot of artwork that, while very nice, does not represent my current goals. I would really like your feedback, of course. Don't be shy... Read the rest of this post

I hate cancer.

I don't mean that in a general way, I mean that specifically, personally, directly. I hate cancer.

You can have your War on Terror, War on Drugs, even the War on Poverty. You can have your Cold War, Good War, War to End All Wars.

You can have them all; I want a War on Cancer.

Just a few days ago the newspapers across the country were full of the 6th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We collectively mourned again. Oprah had a special on the children who lost parents that day, there were ceremonies and speeches and much talk of fallen heroes and great sacrifice. And I understand that - I get it because I know what it is like to lose a parent too soon; to mourn a parent who died in great pain and great suffering simply because an enemy came out of nowhere and decided to kill him.

Cancer murdered my father; I'm still waiting for the country to take notice.

The numbers, when you know them, are staggering. First, consider that 2,819 people died due to the September 11th attacks; 3,776 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq War; 440 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan (where we are still fighting a war too). Now wrap your head around the fact that in the United States alone, 1,500 people die from cancer a day.

1,500 dead Americans every fucking day. And there's no War on Cancer; there's just the disease and the people it hunts and kills and the ones who have to watch it happen.

The ones who get to witness someone they love suffer until the bitter damn end.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Some will have colon cancer, like my father. And just like him, many of them will never know how or why they got the disease. Some will have thyroid cancer like my husband did eight years ago. And just like him, they will never know why they got it either. And some will have melanoma like I did when I was 27 years old. And they will curse all those wonderful days at the beach when they were 5 and 7 and 11; when they were teenagers and thought they would live forever. They will curse waves and surfboards and bikinis. And they will find themselves years later, like I did last month, with their scars on their chest and their stomach, lying in the doctor's office listening yet again to their dermatologist say he is concerned, say that he wants to keep an eye on something that doesn't quite look right. And they will tell him to cut it out, cut it out now, cut it out even though the insurance company won't cover unless it really is for sure cancer. They will insist he cut them open now. And he will, because he knows they can't stand to wait. They will get it cut out and wait for the phone call to tell them if they got this one on time or if cancer has decided to come and have a party in their body yet again.

Because it can do that you know; it can come back whenever it wants and all the diets and herbs and fitness routines in the world won't stop it. Nothing will. The radiation didn't save my father and the chemotherapy didn't save my father and the praying each and every day all of his life didn't save him. Because cancer is a bigger badass then all the medical science in the world. It's bigger than our smartest scientists. It even beats God.

Do you understand that? If it wants to, cancer will win and if you win - if you survive - then you're just lucky, that's all. You're just one of the lucky ones. Like me.

But I don't feel lucky; and I never have.

Today, Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, is announcing a massive effort by the lit blogosphere that will highlight the illustrators involved in the cancer fund raiser, Robert's Snowflakes. I hope that all of you will check out her very detailed message about this project, which involves a series of auctions of original artwork starting in November to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Bloggers will be interviewing the illustrators involved and posting about their artwork starting next month and hopefully we will generate more interest in the auction and thus raise more money for the fight. And then, maybe even in my lifetime, we will kill cancer.

I really hope I'm alive to see that happen because I want it to die; I want it to die in the worst possible way.

[And if you're wondering - for me the cancer is not back; I'm still clean.]