Funny How things work out

 This is my latest piece of art. I find it odd that once in awhile when I'm finished with a piece I discover that I've painted something from my past. I don't intend to when I start the piece but it ends up that way. Does this happen to any of you?

My theory is this. Part of being an artist is expression of your inner self. Some artists work thru grief or anger by painting. I try to express joy, but sometimes I do love to do pieces that I would call moody. My goal is however, to express something that when someone looks at it they can imagine themselves in the art and it gives them a sense of calm or joy. 

When I started out on this piece I wanted to express the love between a girl and her horse. I think what happened is, I ended up painting the feeling of  when I was young and could escape away on my horse into a world where there was no distress. By the time I finished it I looked at the horse and realized I had painted one of my horses I had when I was a kid. His name was Nazan. He was an arabian and was the half brother to my precious Missy. (He didn't have a blue mane tho! That's just my love of making horses different colors!)  

Back when I began painting again I avoided painting horses specifically. I think because art has a strong affect on you when you're working on it, that I avoided horses for the reason of when I had to give them up it was a very painful thing to do. I didn't like to be reminded of that pain. When I had horses they were the only thing that I drew. However, I sadly made the mistake of getting rid of those drawings years ago because I didn't want to be reminded of that loss.

Slowly, I began to have the urge to paint horses here and there and over time I've begun to tap into the joy of that time I had with my horses instead of focusing on the pain of loss. It's been an interesting healing process that I'm very grateful for.

At the moment, I have my etsy shop on vacation mode. My kiddo has quite a few medical tests he needs to get thru and we need to concentrate on helping him work thru those. When I reopen my shop I will put this painting up in it. I haven't named it yet. Perhaps some of you would have a suggestion?  

 

   

     

The Great Adventures of Molly

I'd like for you to meet Molly. This is when we brought her home several months ago. After we lost Foxy to cancer, our home was quiet and lonely so after some time passed we decided it would be a good idea to find another happy person to add back into our lives. Molly turned out to be that perfect person. 

She has had many adventures while growing up. This summer has been packed full of them!

Snickers loves her and we find her very entertaining. This pic is from her first vacation road trip to Ruidoso New Mexico. She thought it was fabulous but doesn't really approve of this thing called traveling in a car.

Molly just being cute 

Molly likes living at our house and loves us very much but this summer some things started going wrong and while she still loves us very much she's discovered some problems with this particular castle. She finds guarding it is an extensive job and great dangers lie about everywhere. She is never sure where or when attackers may come from next; you see everything was going fine until these marauders who claimed to be roofers appeared and just brazenly attacked the roof. They tore at the shingles and launched them off the roof. They were trying to gain entrance thru the roof! This cannot be tolerated. No marauders on her watch! It took all day of frenzied barking to get them to leave. After a few weeks of keeping a wary eye on the roof and just when she thought she had the perimeter secured, suddenly new marauders who claimed to be stucco repairmen appeared. They began tearing the outside walls off! This is just unbelievably bold! She had to run from one room to another for they were actually circling the house. More frenzied barking and she chased them off after a full day of this. She thought, that had done it, but no! They returned a week later to "supposedly' paint the stucco but they once again circled the house for a full day. She was exhausted by the end of the day but she did it! Once again she had chased off the enemy.

More time passed and she grew bigger. Then this area rug came into the house and it took some major convincing before she would believe that it was not in fact a monster cat creature coming to eat her!

Things remained calm for a time but then last night the kiddo was working late in his office which is across the hall from our room. When he left to go to his room she was full asleep and awoke thinking there was an intruder, she charged at the door barking and....slammed right into it head first! Ooof, she said, paused and commenced barking until we could prove to her it was only the kiddo in the house. She was restless the rest of the night and sure enough she was right, there were more attackers on the way in the form of fire breathing dragons who appeared early this morning.  

She tried chasing them off.... but they just kept coming...

(I have to apologize for the last bit of the video below, my camera was still on while I was trying to get Molly to calm her down and I cannot for the life of me edit it! Th balloon did not actually fall over! )

You can hear the big woosh noise the balloons make when they are firing the gas up to lift the balloon higher. Which is why Molly feels these just must be fire breathing dragons!

Molly considers this castle too difficult to guard and finds that she cannot rest for even a moment......

That's my Molly and how we adore her! Our family is complete once again.

    

  

Saying goodbye to the Tardis

Well it's time to say goodbye. As many of you know for a year and a half we lived in a camper we lovingly referred to "The Tardis" An inside joke because on the Dr. Who show the Tardis is much bigger on the inside! I will not lie, living in a camper was not super easy. There were many challenging things about it but it also was an amazing experience. One that we had planned on continuing once we arrived in the southwest where the kiddo could breathe better.

the kiddo snickers and foxy in the tardis

We were thrilled to find that day by day his breathing issues have improved. We have removed every chemical that we can from our everyday lives and brought him to where mold doesn't grow and there is less pollution in the air.

Now that we know this is most likely the safest place for the kiddo to live we have decided our roaming days are over. It is a good thing to find a safe place. However, we discovered that living in a camper here is too expensive for us. The cost of monthly living is much, much higher here. We weren't able to find land to purchase in the area we needed to be in to park the tardis so we are headed down a different path for a solution that hopefully will work out.

Which means we no longer need the tardis and truck to pull it with, so we have decided to downsize and send the tardis on to a new adventure with a new family. 

 Below is a video of what the tardis looks like now after working on it again to get it ready to move on.

Goodbye sweet Tardis and thankyou

   

A Special Day

Yesterday, on August the 8th of 2015 underneath the intense blue skies of New Mexico in a courtyard surrounded by gorgeous adobe walls strung with twinkling lights, standing next to impressive cottonwood trees, two dear friends said "I Do"

 

It was a strange sensation, for I've known them since they were very little. In fact the truly beautiful bride went to the same school as my boyo since they were in kindergarten. The mother of the groom is one of my dearest friends. I remember when her youngest who is my boyo's age would walk over from their house to ours and play games with him when he was so sick from chemo. I have always cherished her for doing that. She and her sister were beautiful bridesmaids. How time does fly! It was a perfect day, filled with so many friends who have watched them grow up into amazing people and have enjoyed seeing their love blossom and grow. 

It was for this day I painted this painting.

I haven't shared this finished piece because I wanted to keep the final part a secret. The bride and groom have a love for both winter sports and the top of our Sandia Mountains. I hope that this painting will be appropriate for them to commemorate such a special day.

There were many of us mom's with teary eyes as we watched these wonderful young people start out a new life together, there were funny dances, which of course included the chicken dance! There were tender dances, like the first dance for the new couple. The father of the bride dance was so very touching and then....the mother of the groom  with her grown up son dance....well.... we couldn't help but shed a few tears over that! There was amazing New Mexican food. An incredibly beautiful cake, there was even a baby grand piano that my kiddo was able to play for a few hours. The sounds of  wind playing with the cottonwood trees in the courtyard, the laughter of family and friends, the sound of piano music combined with the smell of New Mexican food and coffee brewing wafted in the air. It truly was an incredible day.

Finally, these precious people who've chosen to spend their lives together were sent off in style with a few fireworks! However, more importantly they were sent off  with love and well wishes from all their loved ones. May you always have love and joy in your lives dear Marc and Korinna!

Love Stacy and Avery      

I'm still here!

yep, it's true I have dropped the ball so to speak. I haven't written my blog in far too long. Life can get complicated. There are days I wish I was back on this incredibly breathtaking beach. Living in the desert is a bit difficult for me personally.

However, my sweet boyo is doing much better with the dry air of the desert. While he still cannot tolerate any kind of synthetic chemical, it isn't as severe as it was when we lived in the humid south. The air is cleaner and his breathing issues are much better as long as we keep out of the way of synthetic chemicals. He hasn't had bronchitis in two years now! When we lived in the south he had bronchitis almost every month so that is a real relief.

We've had some fun being back out it the west. We've traveled up to Colorado to play in the snow. Yes! That is my little snickers dog in my backpack! We were snowshoeing and the snow was too hard for the little guy to navigate, so he got a ride!

This year, has had many challenges as well. The kiddo's beloved dog Foxy got cancer. We gave her the best last year of her life we could but when we lost her it was a terrible blow to the kiddo. He has also faced more difficult health problems that have arisen from the treatment he received for the Leukemia when he was little. Which means we have seen the Dr.s far more than we would like. He is undergoing many medical tests and is in some pain. Just like his health problems with synthetic chemicals I am sure we will find a way for him to cope and manage these new problems.  

If you've followed my blogs in the past then you know that the kiddo is my greatest love and I will do whatever he needs(even if he has gone and grown up on me)! 

I realize that a  blog that  has reliably regularity is preferred but for now I will just write when I can and try to catch everyone up on some of my projects!

I started this painting this week and it right away began to argue with me! Have you had paintings such as this? It happens to me when I'm trying to do something a little different and am working at getting exactly what I have in my head on canvas. I almost gave up but soldiered on as they say...  

I think that it's beginning to come around now

We will just have to see how it ends up. I'm coming up to what I always feel is the scary part of the painting! I'll let you know how it goes. I hope all are well and wish you a very happy, healthy day!

     

 

Slot Canyon Hike

I'm not writing about painting today. I just wanted to share some of the beautiful sights we got to see this last weekend. I took the above picture from the top of a mesa over these rocks. They are called the "Tent Rocks" They're found near Lake Cochiti New Mexico. It's quite a bit off the beaten path but quite a sight!

First you hike about .5 miles to the beginning of this trail..........

Then the fun begins.....

The rocks have been formed by wind and water but mostly wind. 

The wind can be such an amazing sculptor.

Look! A tree growing sideways out of rock!

That is so cool.

You can get so close to the rock.

beautiful....

That is the trail...

Climbing the trail.

Yep the trail gets exciting..

And the top!

It was a blast to see and climb, I hope you enjoyed the pics!

The month of September Report and Tally (Month 12!)

Fall has made a sudden appearance in our part of the world!

It's funny how it will sneak up on you, yet fall is my favorite time of the year. I'm always relieved when the high heat of the year lessens. We look forward to raspberry picking and Honeycrisp Apples. I always mean to take a drive north into Colorado to see the amazing colors. Last year we were able to do that and this year we missed it, since there is already snow going on up there! Woops!

Next year I'm definitely planning a nice leisurely trip thru the leaves!


With all the season changes going on I have been motivated to paint fall! I tend to really be influenced by what I see around me. I'm not a logical painter at all! I paint what moves me and the different seasons have a large affect on that!

This piece is something that I do often but it's never the exact painting twice. Since it's a painting that I do in a similar way I number it on the back but it's still original and I love being able to paint the initials of whoever purchases this piece into the heart on the tree.

"Love Among the Trees" 11x14
www.stacysartstudio.etsy.com

Also this time of year we see many hot air balloons here in the southwest. I love the sound of them. There is a festival in Albuquerque, we love going to the night time event called the balloon glow. The balloons stay on the ground but are fired up and it creates a beautiful sight! I'm looking forward to going this year, I will share pictures with you when we go. Seeing the balloons every morning this time of year motivated me to add balloons to this painting.

"Balloons in the Mist" 11x14
www.stacysartstuido.etsy.com

So..My year long record keeping experiment has come to a close! I'm so excited to see how I did!

This is the final month of my report and tally.......ta da!

                                                 For the month of September (Month 12!)

                            Time spent making natural products...................................21 minutes

                            Time on researching..........................................................10 minutes

                            Time on projects...............................................................0

                            Total time spent for the month of September......................21 minutes

                           Money spent on natural cleaning products...........................$0.00

                           Money spent on projects....................................................$0.00

                           Money spent on natural hair products.................................$23.98

                           Money spent on natural soap.............................................$18.98

                           Total money spent for the month of September...................$42.96 

Which leaves me with a  savings of $219.04, I get all excited when I figure that up!!

So now the big results! How did the year work out?

I decided to average all the costs and savings so let's see what happened...............................

Drum roll please!!!!

I'm curious and excited!!!!

Here goes!

I spent a total of $671.26  on natural cleaning supplies, natural hair and body products or supplies for making them which averaged out to be around $56.00 per month.

I spent an average of 1.16 hours per month on making all of the products I make for us.

I saved a total of $2464.86! Which averaged to be about $205.00 per month!

Over this year I learned how to make more products for ourselves so I feel that next year I will spend even less than last year.  For anyone who says it takes too much time I think I proved that it hardly takes any time at all! When you look at spending about 1.16 hours a month on it. Living as chemical free as I possibly could wasn't expensive at all. In fact it saved us lots of money. I think that we are misled into believing that we have to buy all of these products when you can make most of them yourself and sadly when purchasing natural products they always cost more. My personal feeling after doing this for a year is that I would prefer to buy from small home businesses than large companies that are selling something they call natural.  I have had a lot of fun finding great businesses on etsy and have loved learning to make most things for myself.

Most of all I feel that I've found a good process for caring for our home and selves in the most chemical free way that I can and have improved especially my kiddo's health but us old folks health as well.    I hope you've enjoyed my year of record. Thanks for taking this journey with us!!