ONE MORE DAY TO ENTER THE DRAWING....

Thank you all so much for coming by yesterday to meet Kim and her new book. Mommy decided to have one more day for you to enter for the door prize if you post a comment. We are just so tired because we have been gone all day and I am sleeping under the kitchen sink and will not come out to help cut all the name apart and put them in the basket. We will draw the winner and announce on Tuesday. Kim told me her internet connection is unsteady with all the snow right now. I will telephone her with the winning name.

Good Luck!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is Malai...a cat who came to save Kim from breast cancer.

For 20 years mommy has been looking in and out of Kim's wonderful windows. Her style is all that we wish we could surround ourselves with each day. We dream of stepping into her paintings and sitting at a sidewalk cafe sipping coffee...or walking down to the seashore. We spend many winter evenings inside her cozy parlor paintings, weaving, spinning or doing needlework always with a kitty close by. Kim's work is reminiscent of our childhood daydreams. Spending the summer at our grandmothers house, helping her in the garden, cooking a nice meal in a cozy kitchen. No nostalgic nuance is overlooked.
Hello all!
I am so excited to share my new book with you Cottage Cats, My Companions on the Path to Joy! As many of you know, about two years ago now, I went a little round with breast cancer. I am fine now, in fact, I was fine then. It was an incredible experience. It was just the little divine push that I needed to get my life in order, the strong wind that cleared away the clouds that I was letting obscure the light of my inner joy. And then my good fortune continued when my publisher offered me the opportunity to talk about how my cats were so instrumental in my inspiration towards joy and in maintaining that joy through observing all their wonderful "cat-ish" ways. Not only would I write, but I could match my little inspirations with all my favorite cottage cat paintings.
As you will read in the introductory pages, my amazing little cat Malai helped me find the lump, then she was the most comforting affectionate, available (unlike most cats we all know that do everything on their time) cat I have ever known. I want you to meet her here as she really ended up getting only a little mention in the book. Here she is on one of her favorite perches, my work chair. She's got her ball and is ready to play baseball. She had the most uncanny ability to bat my pitches right back to me, or play soccer, a real team player, always passing the ball, and she would fetch too! She never shunned me when we returned from my long medical journeys, rather, when I'd call "Where's my kitty?," she would always run to me immediately, ready to be scooped up and cuddled! A fine welcome home, one that you will see fancifully painted (with just a few extra cats!) in the first pages of the book.
It seems as though Malai came specifically to share just that pivotal year with me. She had newly adopted us at the shelter, and when all my discoveries, doubts, decisions, and cures were handled, she simply wandered away and we never saw her again... I hope that she is with someone else now, helping them through their own challenging time.
Of course, I now have two other little lovely companions, home from the same shelter, my saucy Jeerie and mischievous Ooty. You'll hear about them in the book too. Maybe I will show them here next!
So, I do hope that you will like my book. Both the art and the writings- a challenge for me to be sure!
If it speaks to you in some way, please do ask your local book store to carry it! It would be wonderful if it were a success. Then my publisher will be happy and ask for another!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mommy and I have brewed up some wonderful Lady Grey tea to serve to our special guest and all of you as a thank you for coming by today. I think this is the most special CAT ART SUNDAY we have ever had here at the cozy cottage...

Pick yourself a tea cup and lets get to know Kim better...She has graciously agreed that we should have a door prize of a purrrsonalized 'Cottage Cats' book, so please leave a comment and I will draw the winner on Monday. When you are done visiting with Kim here, go to her webpage and see all the beautiful things she has to offer. Her calendars, books, planners and postcards that she will sign for you, but hurry because she is going on vacation soon.

A little bit about our guest: Kim Jacobs began her illustration journey fascinated by early children’s book and fairy tale illustrators such as Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, and Howard Pyle, and the beautiful watercolors of Swedish artist Carl Larsson. Training herself as a painter, Kim gained insight into color and composition from the Dutch masters of her ancestral home, and practiced by drawing figures from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.
While still in college, Kim began her professional career with her illustration of numerous stories for early childhood education. Initially working towards fulfilling a childhood dream of illustrating fairy and folk tales, the opportunity arose to begin illustrating for greeting cards in 1982 and after great success and expansion into a wide range of other products, she began the pieces for her first Cobblestone Way calendar for the year 1990. A eighteen-year tradition was born which has consumed most of her illustration energies.
From the very beginning, each month’s painting, as well as all of Kim’s illustrations, were founded in Kim’s love of creation and her fascination with worlds in transformation- from soil to garden, infant to adult, blank paper to colorful composition. She has drawn inspiration from many diverse sources such as art, literature, dreams, fantasies and from her own extensive travels, blending all together to portray unique places that exist nowhere and anywhere. Kim grew up in the wonderful world of coastal California, and there she met her soul mate Bob. Together they began a journey in search of their shared dream of a country homestead. But no matter where Kim has found herself from the beautiful mid-coast of California, to a wild river valley in Oregon and finally to the far coast of Maine where they have settled on 131 acres of fields and forest, in a home powered by the sun, her paintings have continued to reflect her surroundings as well as the detailed worlds of her imagination.