Tuesday, May 4, 2010

“Homeschool Buyers Co-op Becomes Home Education Resource for Electives and Homeschooling Curriculum Guides” plus 2 more

“Homeschool Buyers Co-op Becomes Home Education Resource for Electives and Homeschooling Curriculum Guides” plus 2 more

Homeschool Buyers Co-op Becomes Home Education Resource for Electives and Homeschooling Curriculum Guides

Posted: 03 May 2010 07:42 AM PDT

Nevada grad illustratescolorful children’s book

Posted: 04 May 2010 06:16 AM PDT

 You may not be familiar with the name Sami Mac, although you've probably seen her work—she was one of the artists who helped paint the Character mural in downtown Nevada.

 If you don't think the name sounds familiar, that's probably because it's just a moniker that she uses.

 Her real name is Becky McIntosh, and she chose the name Sami to honor her father, who taught her to draw, and the last name Mac to represent the last name McIntosh of her children.

 McIntosh is a graduate of Nevada High School, an artist and graphic designer with more than 20 years under her belt, and daughter of longtime Nevada resident MaryAnn Gardner.

 Recently Sami Mac teamed up with native Iowa author, LaVina Varnony-Barcus, to illustrate Barcus' newest children's book, "Perfect in Mother Nature's Eyes."

"My roommate in college hooked me up with this gal. She's written a couple other things—she's kind of figured out the self-publishing process and wrote this children's book, and my friend got us together so I could do the illustrations for her," McIntosh said.

 Doing artwork is nothing new to McIntosh, who graduated from ISU with a degree in graphic design. After college, she started out working as a graphic designer for about five years. During that time she also started doing freelance work for a T-shirt company, making character maps of cities. "I worked that to where I could do it full time and then take care of my kids at home. So it was all work at home and then I would just take the illustrations in. I worked that for 11 years, and then started homeschooling my kids," she said.

 While homeschooling her children, she slowly started slipping out of the field of graphic design. Since McIntosh graduated from ISU, the graphic design field has seen some very large technical changes. Graphic design elements used to be produced largely by hand, but now the industry has become evermore reliant on computer programs.

 "I kind of got out of the technical aspect of doing graphic design—I didn't know how to use (Adobe) Illustrator or InDesign, so I couldn't just hop back into doing a graphic design job after my kids got older and I was ready to go back to work."

 So, for the time being, she took two part-time jobs at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines, where she lives. But despite not knowing some of the cutting-edge technology, she hasn't left artwork behind. McIntosh has been creating artwork for various purposes.

 She had a hand in creating the character mural, just off of main street, and has donated artwork to the Leukemia Society, to name a few.  "I've been keeping my hand in it, but I've been trying to get back into something that I could do for a living at some point," she said.

 Recently she was given the opportunity to illustrate "Perfect in Mother Nature's Eyes," which she took.

 McIntosh said that doing the 20 water- color illustrations for the book took her about 70 hours of work, but not all of that was spent just on the illustrations. She said that the author wanted to her to include some specific animals and flowers, and McIntosh wasn't familiar with all of them, so she had to spend some time researching what the author wanted and fine-tuning her artwork. After McIntosh finished the artwork it, was all sent to the publisher to be scanned into computers and prepped for printing.

 This project has led to more illustration work for McIntosh as well. "(Varnony-Barcus) is doing another book; it's got the same main character in it—her name is Sadie. In the next one, she is getting a little brother," she said.

 For now though, she is keeping to her jobs at Mercy, and working on keeping up to date in the graphic design field. "I'm just going to keep practicing it at home for now. I think a lot of it is just getting time to work on it. I've got four kids, ages 14-21, so I'm still managing on the home front and just setting aside some time to practice. I think that this has opened up some doors for me."

 McIntosh is hoping to learn a little bit from her kids, to help get her in tune with some of the newest technology in the graphic design field, "I've got one girl in college now and a son that is going to go to Iowa State. They're both in art fields, so I'm going to kind of glean off of what they learn and try to get back into it through that door, too."

 McIntosh has also spent about 50-60 hours working on her own book, "The Cowgirl Ballerina," which she is authoring in addition to illustrating. She said she hopes to get her book published at some time in the future, "I'd like to explore that avenue, too," she said.

 The Nevada Public Library will be holding a book reading Saturday, May 8, at 10 a.m. The book is appropriate for ages 4-8. Copies of the book will be available to purchase.

 The book is also available online at www.createspace.com/3433148.

 


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Most importantjob in the world

Posted: 04 May 2010 05:27 AM PDT

Tracy Dyck (second from right) and her daughters (from left) Laura, Kristin and Stephanie display a variety of candy gift bouquets at Sweets of Eden cafe on First Street on Saturday.

TIM SMITH/BRANDON SUN Enlarge Image

Tracy Dyck (second from right) and her daughters (from left) Laura, Kristin and Stephanie display a variety of candy gift bouquets at Sweets of Eden cafe on First Street on Saturday.

A mother is the bank in which we deposit all our hopes and worries. She is the glue that holds together our day-to-day. And the one who, seeing there are five mouths and four pieces of pie, promptly announces she never did care for pie.

Tracy Dyck, owner of Sweets of Eden cafe, adds extra sugar and spice to the word mom.

After her divorce two years ago, Dyck swapped her stay-at-home mom routine for that of entrepreneur.

With the support of her three daughters, this supermom boldly invested in a family business that would ensure the future of her family.

"After the divorce, my daughters and I were looking for something that we could do together," Dyck said.

"We had been reading the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' book on how to handle your finances and how to grow them, and we decided we were all going to learn. We do all our stuff together."

Dyck and her girls also enrolled in an accounting course to prepare for the economic endeavour.

Stephanie, 20, Laura, 18, and Kristin, 9, eagerly take part in the daily happenings at the cafe, located at 363 First St.

Dyck attributes her family's tight-knit living and working relationships to the time spent homeschooling her girls.

"Because we have developed a strong relationship all along, they sometimes mother me," Dyck said with a laugh.

"They have no problem telling me how they feel because we have open lines of communication. We respect each other. They are equals, as far as I'm concerned. And it's in that way that we can have a working relationship."

Having the girls around to help out with the simple day-to-day -- whether at home or at work -- surpasses even the most elaborate Mother's Day gift, Dyck said.

"It's not the big things that Mom needs; it's the little things," she said.

"We work our butts off. We're 24-7, 365. Every little bit (the kids)do is huge. Even doing the dishes is huge! It really doesn't take that much -- just doing that little bit for mom on a daily basis."

Women have a tendency to put others first, Dyck says, even if that means leaving themselves out of the to-do list.

"I think the most important thing for mothers to learn is how to take care of ourselves," Dyck said.

"Motherhood, in my opinion, is the most important job on Earth because the hand that rocks the cradle truly does rule the world. And if we don't take the time to raise our kids, society falls apart.

"But we are constantly giving to everybody else. I'm still learning how to stop and rest -- to find a balance between the responsibility of taking care of my kids and taking care of me."

Dyck has acquired complementary skills from each of her life triumphs. Her dedication to her children has prepared her for the amount of dedication needed to run a business.

Join Tracy and her daughters at Sweets of Eden -- formerly Teahan's Corner -- this Mother's Day and enjoy delicious food, candy gift bouquets and jewelry to celebrate mom.

» Brandon Sun

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition May 4, 2010 A6

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