It's September FIRST!

Today I've been in a reflective mood. It's September 1st. A hallmark of sorts. Something like New Year's Day.  It's a whole new beginning. A line in the sand. Before and after. Summer is over. It's September after all. School in earnest. I've spent the summer immersed in 'learning' about blogging. My efforts are showing progress. My stats indicate that I have doubled my previous readers-per-day. Plus there are exciting spikes in readership from referrals: very cool.

I am inspired to finish some silly little bits so that I can start fresh in this new season. With brand new readers I feel like I need to start at the beginning. With some introductions. My name is Debbie Clement. I grew up in a different era. We didn't have a DVD player in our family car. We didn't have a CD player -- we didn't even have a radio! So we sang. We told stories. We played ABC games using road signs and license plates. I've been a big fan of the license plate ever since and read them regularly. I'm Debbie Clement + I like MUSIC!!!

I write happy little fluffs that I call 'ditties' and then go about recording these little ideas of mine to share with children the world over. Then I go about singing my variations on EIEIO, sometimes as many as 29 times in a day (or so it would seem.) I get to visit in schools -- both 'pre' and 'elementary' sharing my scrappy-happy little zippy-bits with children young and younger!! I get to be a rock-star in school gymnasiums and library meeting rooms!!! Whooohooo it is indeed FUN2BME!!!

My degree is in Art + education and for the last several years I've been working at translating my songs into the traditional picture book format. I've gotten three picture books thru the publishing process! Yeah, Art degree!!! Yeah, liberal arts degree!! Yeah loving art! XOX ART!!Yeah getting to be an author and an illustrator!!! Yeah learning new things!!!! Yeah getting to present my ideas and projects at conferences across the country!! YeahYeahYeahYeah!!

I've been making the illustrations for my books from quilts I design and sew from fabric. How cool to add license plates to my collection that illuminate my life's details, interests and passions. That's QUILT DC (which could be Door County for some, or in my case Debbie Clement!) My first picture book is really:

I am grateful for so many things!!! I'm learning about HTML on the slowest learning curve possible! Can you believe it? Long time blog readers should be so proud of me for figuring out how to insert my paragraphs between my images -- this is a new aspect for me and as you can see I'm making progress. There is absolutely not one morsel about technology that comes intuitively to me. Absolutely nothing...... but if you know nothing else about me: I am persistent! This old dog is learning new tricks. Hurrah!! Isn't that WDRFULL?

This was the year that I got to go to EUROPE to work with the children of our troops stationed abroad!! We visited four of our Army bases in Italy & Germany!!! I got to see a morsel of Germany & present in classrooms & auditoriums there. I got to spend some amazing time in Italy!! I got to share my newest picture book, "Red, White and Blue" in both Germany & Italy! I got to work with teachers and families in both countries! We got to spend a weekend in VENICE, ITALY!!! I got to present my songs and ideas in Reggio Emilia to the Italian children.  And just last month I was awarded a national INDIE Award of Excellence for this project!! WE R BLSD!!!!!

By the numbers. We've been married 17 years. Between us we have 4 children and 7 grand-children. I really am GRAM IAM!! Our newest bundle of joy arrived to Planet eARTh just yesterday!!!!!! What a surprise to see it's a member for the pink team -- as they already had 3 boys under their roof in Colorado. Number 7 weighing in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces. Pretty sweet symmetry that one. That brings our wonder-peep total to 5 boys and 2 girls "All Together Now" [LOL: that's the title of one of my ditties, a favorite for many.] 

This is what it looks like when you mix all of these bits and pieces together: 

In this new blog-hopping fun, getting to know others I had a quick little FB message yesterday. In our quick 'cyber-conversation'  I mentioned something about my recovery process from Breast Cancer. She had no idea. I thought that was really great. I'm glad that this label SRVIVOR doesn't define me, but its just one tidbit in the over-all collage, but it is indeed one componant of the over-all collage. 

License plate collage: check. Painted vest: next up!! 

It's September first. What's on your to-do list? What projects are hovering in your unfinished box? What labels define you? What tidbits reflect you? Do you have hurdles that lie ahead? How do you get those murky could-do ideas get accomplished? What motivates you?? Probably the biggest joy of all in my blogging progress, is that more & more people are leaving comments here in the little comment box. How totally amazing is that? I LUV hearing from you!!! Please feel most welcome to drop me a line & tell me the license plate that would summarize your story.