The past year has been dominated by home buying and selling. Dave, Nikki and I have been officially moved in for over two weeks now, in a 1929 Spanish-style home in Westwood.

You can sign up for a poster a day, beginning October 5, to see what top graphic designers think are good reasons to vote for Obama. Several designers at Thinkso Creative LLC came up with this idea. The designers asked the prestigious Milton Glaser and 29 others to create the posters. Go to 30reasons.org to sign up via email.

Thinkso Creative LLC thought up some clever bingo cards to help you slog through the vice-presidential debate. Bravo, Lizzee & company!

I’m calling this illuminated miniature “Lady of Light,” but she’s adapted from a Bedford Hours miniature published in Janet Backhouse,The Bedford Hours (The British Library, 1990). The original is described as “a marginal roundel from the calendar: Februa, mother of Mars, who gives her name to February (f.2 detail).”

I’m printing LoL as my “season’s greetings” card. It’s hard to make time for card-sending in the busy month of December, whereas in January I’m eager to catch up with old friends. Winters in Boulder are lovely; we love our blanket of snow and the brilliant sun that inevitably follows. But it’s nice to see the days start to lengthen again.

This site reviews book designs, and I decided to post my comment to it:

http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/2007/09/well-behaved-women-seldom-make-history.html

Here’s what I wrote:

I was honored to have my Christine de Pizan at Her Computer included as an illustration in this book, and Dr. Ulrich also suggested that I propose a cover illustration to the publisher. I didn’t pursue the project at the time, which I’m sure was a professional mistake, but instead followed another topical “thread” of my choosing. Anyway, my first reaction to the cover was disappointment, mainly because the image lacks complexity. I had envisioned a “rich historical pastiche” of some kind, like the type of images I create that mix illuminated miniature painting with contemporary narrative. My opinion of the cover has changed now, because of what I view as important about the book.

Well-behaved would be too much a re-telling of already well-known feminist history, if it weren’t for the beautiful interlacement of stories and connections leaping backwards and forwards through time. The cover strengthens the thesis of the book and reminds us W-b is more than anecdotes about strong women; it’s a look at how history can be recounted, recorded and reconstructed, thanks to more creative, diverse and inclusive accounts by historians. Particularly female historians. It’s a celebration of how history can be told, as well as a telling of it.

I created a cover illustration for the September issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry. The title is Bipolar Depression and Family Support. This is of course in conjunction with Dave’s featured article and research findings, “Intensive Psychosocial Intervention Enhances Functioning in Patients With Bipolar Depression: Results From a 9-Month Randomized Controlled Trial.”

fox, originally uploaded by miklows.

It looks like our neighborhood fox is behind barbed wire, but that’s because I took the photos looking into the off limits area of a water storage facility. It’s near our home in Wonderland Hill.

Some people might accuse me of spending too much time blogging, but I find that there are a very small number of blogs that I like well enough to read often. I find David Byrne’s web site journal to be insightful, funny and well-written. Here is a post from his 20 May post is about a trip to London.

I like his observations about that curious English blend of “country cottage folk” with sophistication and class-consciousness.

He also has a lot of amusing comments on the London art and museum scene.

Maninas is a great foodie blog. I’ve always wanted to try cooking Croatian dishes, like green bean and egg salad.

I’m also inspired by the great photos, and have always wanted to try stitching up a few desserts and beading a few pizzas. Although I do like to actually cook occasionally as well.

View from Soult, originally uploaded by miklows.

This was the view from Soult, a village near Mt. Ventoux.