• Apartmentlandia,  giveaway,  my books,  Shop Talk

    Free Rough Draft SAJ Calendar

    SAJ-2023-calendar-1

    Get Your Red Pens Out! Here it is. The FREE pdf rough draft version of my printable calendar. Free for you if you help me catch all my errors. Then I fix my many typos and put the calendar in my shop for a dollar. What a deal!

    FREE ROUGH DRAFT CALENDAR CLICK HERE

    This year I’ve added some new holiday confusion. Actually, I’ve been confused about this every year. My google calendar no longer includes a bunch of holidays I used to always include. So I’ve been googling when is Spring Equinox? and puzzling over whether I should include the first day of Hannukkah and the last, and then if I do that, should I include Ramadan and how long that lasts? Purim? Kwanza? I don’t know anymore! Minor Jewish Holidays, Orthodox Catholic Holidays? What do I include, and what do I not? I don’t know. I want to be as PC as possible, but I just got lazy and included the minimum. If your favorite holiday is not on there (and I’m not talking about National Pizza Day or Puppy day, that’s a whole OTHER calendar), then message me, and I’ll consider putting it on.

    SAJ-2023-calendar-2

    There you go! Long live the old-school paper calendars that can go on the fridge! Do you guys still use these? I actually do. I have so many calendars. I use google calendar on my phone, I have a day planner at my desk, I have a journal and I still forget where to be on what day because I’m a completely distracted creative undiagnosed-but-very-much-like-ADHD sort of person. Paper calendars help! I like the paper version because it’s in my face and obvious on the kitchen refrigerator. I can’t get my milk for my coffee without looking at it.  I can put my big appointments and my shift schedule down for Bug because she’s almost a grown-up now, and we rarely see each other anymore. She has a life outside of her mother’s radius of existence, aka her boyfriend got his driver’s license. We are ships passing in the night these days, so a calendar is helpful! (Just teasing. She’s still around. But you know teenagers can be.)

    Since we’re talking about calendars, should we talk about the other holiday elephant in the room?

    SAJ-custom-holiday-cards

    Holiday cards! I’m not going to send one this year. I know. It’s hard. You know how much I love making my own holiday card. I just don’t know how to tell people with a mass mailing that they aren’t going to get the picturesque family shot of the Ponnays this year. It’s too much to explain, and do people even like those cards? They’re so posed and perfectly lit with the fall glow of sunset and cute outfits etc. Do we even like that?  I mean, I love making them, and if you need a photographer and graphic designer for your holiday card, please hire me! But for me, it’s just not right this year. It’s too soon. Too much tea.

    Bug and I thought up a few parody ideas, but I decided I’d rather save the money for my expensive rent instead. Another reason you should hire me to illustrate your holiday card this year! I can illustrate you in Star Wars costumes, I can illustrate your kids hanging from the chandeliers, and I can illustrate your pets. How hard is it to get a pet portrait for the holidays? Terribly hard! Save yourself the headache and hire me instead. My illustrations also make great gifts. You can get them printed on fancy paper and frame them. I’m up for custom orders! I’ve even dropped my prices. Shhhhh, don’t tell anybody. (I’m faster and better at illustrating than I used to be. One perk of being older.)

    SAJ-books

    Since we’re here in my shop I might as well tell you about my box of books. Not cheap but packed with love. Six books in a cute box that won’t show up weathered by the mail system because I end up putting it in another flat rate box because it’s cheaper. Weird, I know.

    SueBea-holiday-cards

    There are also SueBea cards! I almost have enough SueBea illustrations to create a calendar.  I’m starting a Redbubble shop with Sue Bea products, but I might not have it up in time for Christmas. Does anyone use Redbubble? I’m still clunking around in it and haven’t quite figured it out.

    LittleHoo-holiday-cards

    For now, we have Etsy! Look, Little Hoo Christmas Cards! A set of four.

    Merry-Christmas-Little-Hoo-book-by-BrendaPonnay

    Of course, I can’t talk about the holidays without mentioning my Little Hoo Christmas book. It’s like giving a mouse a cookie…

    I didn’t mean to make this into a Christmas Wish list or to push SAJ products down your throat but it is a good time to do a holiday round-up.

    knock-knock-jingle-jingle

    For the older kids (7-10ish) who like to repeat dumb jokes over and over, you might want to pick up Knock Knock Jingle Jingle.

    I also have a new book out: Goodnight Little Hoo.

    GoodNightLittleHoo

    Inside-Goodnight-LittleHoo

    If you have littles, you can always use another goodnight book. If you have friends and relatives with littles they’ll like it too.

    can-you-tell-which-apt-is-ours

    I’m done selling! So sorry about that. It’s part of keeping afloat in this internet world unfortunately. I’m supposed to promote my work at least once a week, but I hate doing it.

    I’ll leave you with a picture of my apartment complex from the golfcourse. Can you guess which window is mine?

    Go print out your free calendar!

  • my books

    More About Books, Part 2


    I hope you’re not sick of books because I am BACK with more behind-the-scenes tidbits. Gotta get more reviews!  I went through and tallied which books really need reviews and which ones don’t (For some reason Who’s Coming to Dinner, Little Hoo has 122!! Weird.) so I’ll let you know when I get to the ones that REALLY need reviews and are blowing around in the desert with the tumbleweeds. Secret Agent Josephine’s Numbers This one is an oldie but a goodie. I actually still love this book. A lot of my books I hate after a time. Almost all the spyware in this book has stood the test of time except maybe the solar-powered super phone with a 500 gig hard drive!  LOL. Note to self: do not include techno gadgets in books that will last longer than your imagination could foresee into the future. If you have a kid into spy gadgets, this one might be a good one for you!

    Good Night, Kitty Kitty! If you are a cat lover, this is the book for you. You know I am. It’s all about the shenanigans cats play when you are trying to sleep. Knocking things off your dresser, getting the zoomies, meowing for food… If you have a cat you know how it is.


    Snackle the Snake Likes to Snack

    I wrote this one for my friend Bethany, the snake lover. Bethany is one of my very best friends and she looooooves reptiles. She loves all animals but snakes and lizards are her preferred pets because she’s terribly allergic to the furry ones. Because of her, I’ve met many reptiles in my life and I’ve grown fond of them too. This book is about a fictional snake who likes to snack. (As opposed to real snakes who don’t eat things like tortillas or jelly beans…) Bug gave me the idea for the title but she wanted me to write a book about a snake who eats funny-shaped items and then you can see the rectangles and octagons and whatever other shapes showing up in the snake’s body. Instead, I chose to write this book about how a snake who likes to snack all day and then not eat his dinner. Kinda like someone else I know. I may have been a bit peeved at my kids who snacked on chips at 4 pm and then didn’t want broccoli and zucchini in their dinner at six. Now I’m a little more open-minded to kids grazing but that’s beside the point. Anyway, it’s a cute book about snakes. Snakes can be cute! You just have to look at their little snake faces!

    My Good Dog is the first in a series of easy readers by Katrina Streza. I forgot how fun this book is. The dog fishes in the fishtank, eats spaghetti while pulled up to the table and even goes into outer space. Space dog anyone? It’s a very simple read  about crazy things a dog IS NOT doing but I think kids will like it.


    My Cat is Sad is the next book in the Cat and Dog series by Katrina Streza. I think this book should be titled My Cat is Angry but I guess “angry” is not one of the level one reading words. Basically, in this book, the well-intentioned little boy tries to love his cat but pretty much pisses her off by playing too rough and dumping water on her head. Don’t worry, no animals were harmed while making this book.  I think most kids will have common sense to know that cats don’t like being chased under the bed etc…


    My Cat, My Dog You can guess what this ones about. A good cat and a bad dog sometimes getting along and sometimes NOT.

    My Cat is Fat isn’t actually about a fat cat. It’s more of a guessing book. Is my cat a stinky skunk? No! Is my cat a flat fish? No! And so forth… It’s a beginning book for young readers to start learning about adjectives. Fat cat, stinky skunk, pink pig etc..

    My Cat Sits This one kinda cracks me up. Have I mentioned that the thing I like best about writing children’s books is making little jokes and illustrating circumstances literally that couldn’t actually happen in real life. Yes, I enjoy that. This book is about all the places cats like to sit and then what would happen if the little boy sat there. In the sink, in a tree, on a computer. Hilarity ensues. Learning to read as a first grader or kindergardner is hard enough, we might as well get a laugh out of it.

    Cody Eats Oh the Cody books! How I miss my dog, Cody. Yes, I go see him from time to time. Payam and I are broken up but are friends and I’m allowed to visit Cody and Whiskey whenever I want. They miss me terribly. I try to make up for it by bringing them my empty peanut butter containers. So yes, this book is about Cody eating all the things. He eats rocks, soap, flowers… typical Golden Retriever behavior in an easy reader!


    Cody Eats Everything If Cody Eats wasn’t enough for you we have Cody Eats Everything! Because Cody literally does eat everything. Remember that time he ate our house? In this book he eats butter, cat food, people food… yep, that’s Cody!

    And that’s all I have time for today! See you soon with another passel of book tidbits!