Can you believe it? Two months worth of daily drawings! Yay yay yay! This may be the end of the streak. I may be taking a blogging drawing break for a week. Maybe I’ll do reruns, my favorite past illustrations for a week. I haven’t decided yet.

Oh and the bread pudding recipe has been added to my last post.

The other day I made some bread pudding. Alan doesn’t like bread pudding but Isabelle does. I mean she REALLY likes it. Maybe that’s why she prefers to have it fed to her, instead of doing it herself. That way she doesn’t lose a single bit.

Update- I combined two recipes (one from Cook’s Illustrated and one from Cook’s Country) to make these individual bread puddings. I’m not exactly sure what I did but here’s what I think it was:

Individual Bread Pudding for four

Ingredients
Bread Pudding:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing ramekins
2 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4-5 slices of firm white bread, cut into 1 1/2 inch squares (5 cups)
OPTIONAL, 4 tablespoons chopped bittersweet chocolate

Cinnamon Sugar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directons
1. Butter 4 ovensafe ramekins.

2. Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl. Add the milk, heavy cream, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. Whisk together and transfer to a large measuring cup for easy pouring.

3. Set aside 1 cup of bread. Fill each ramekin with remaining bread squares (if you want a hidden surprise you can add 1 tablespoon of bittersweet chocolate after the first layer of bread slices). Pour custard over bread. Let sit for 20 minutes while you heat the oven to 325 degrees with the rack in the middle position.

4. Put remaining 1 cup of bread in each ramekin pushing down to partially submerge. Brush the exposed bread with melted butter then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. The puddings should be set but still a little bit wobbly. Let cool and then scarf it down.

Isabelle quite adores Maggie. Have I ever mentioned that? She used to adore George and I’m sure she still likes him but she’s over the moon about Maggie. She always asks for her, “Meg-gie! Meg-gie!!”. Then she’ll sit there watching and repeats what they’re saying. I can’t blame her. Maggie is adorable and I do love the ferocious beast with his big red removable spots.

So I thought I’d make her a Maggie doll. I didn’t want it to look just like Maggie, I just wanted her coloring. The doll was quick to make. I used some flesh colored cotton fabric I had laying around and some wool felt for her hair. I haven’t decided if that’s the way I want to go or instead use yarn for the hair so I didn’t sew it down. Clothes are trickier for me to sew so I tested with muslin and this is what I came up with.

It doesn’t look like Maggie at all! But actually, I quite like it the way it is, faceless and everything.

Well Isabelle took a look at her and didn’t say Maggie but she did deem her worthy to dance with.

I’ll just need to sew down her hair and give her a yellow top and a blue skirt and some shoes and socks and see if she’s Maggie enough for Isabelle. If not…back to the drawing board and something more Maggie looking.

Can you tell I haven’t been on top of my drawing lately? I know I’ve mentioned it repeatedly on how I start late in the evening. I hate that because then I’m rushed and I’m not really happy with the result. But I keep on plugging away. It’s almost been two months and I don’t want to break my drawing streak with the excuse that it’s too late in the evening.

But of course then that’s how you get quick one pane scribbles like this that don’t really make sense.

I was trying to show Isabelle making a mess and getting flour everywhere while “helping” me bake cookies. Ok it was a total cop out last minute drawing.

Pictures work so much better here.

She really did get the flour everywhere. But she had so much fun. She didn’t want to stop even when the cookies were done. So I had to gave her a little bowl of flour to mix some more.

I do love making cookies with Isabelle.

And the best part? When we’re done playing we actually have cookies to eat!

I almost didn’t draw today. I was too distracted taking pictures of Isabelle with spaghetti on her nose. And her face. And all over her hands.

And busy making her a doll.

But draw I did. I rushed this out. I think I’ll experiment with my drawings when I have more time and not at 11:30pm at night.

I am working on a dolly for Isabelle. Not like she needs another dolly. Not like I don’t have a list a mile long of other things I want to do (like a Ms. Alligator for poor lonely Mr. Alligator). When suddenly I was in the mood to draw, draw something different. Try something new.

So I started drawing this. I think I need to experiment some more. It’s weird and bony.

Then I looked up at the time to see it’s almost midnight. So my original idea for my daily comic went poof. I don’t have time to even scribble it out before my “deadline”.

It’s a wonder I can get anything done with the way I hop from one thing to another.

Thank you to those of you who emailed me. It makes me realize how lucky I am that people I don’t even know will send me caring thoughts and hugs. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I’m all better. After a whole day of being angry, writing it down helped the most. I think just a little bit after posting and some playing with Isabelle, I was back to normal. Then today Alan took the day off and we went to dinner where Isabelle was adorable. See her cheesy little smile? I don’t know where she learned to do that for the camera. I never ask her to smile or say cheese. She’s started doing this all by herself.

And during dinner she was waving “hi”, playing peek a boo, and giggling at everyone.

Oh and striking poses for the camera. Again where did she learn that from, my silly girl?

And we brought home some yummy chocolate cake, which is right now as I’m typing this, smeared on Isabelle’s chin. I would take a picture but Alan just wiped it up. So yes…thank you everyone. I’m feeling better. Who can stay mad for long with so much love around?