New art, PRINT GIVEAWAY, ranch stories, & a SALE! (Newsletter)

THE ART:

My sweet friend Mary turned 69 this week! She's back in Colorado so I couldn't celebrate her birthday with her in person darn it. I sent her some prizes and thought you'd like to see—I thought they were so cute! They are digital art that I painted in Procreate on my iPad and then I put them on shirts for her to wear to agility with her Border Collie Finn!

For her 60th birthday I painted this portrait of her girlie Skye, it's still one of my favorites! I rarely do colored pencil anymore because it takes so long with all of the layers (most portraits have 30 layers!) but I just love the look of them so much!


This portrait of my son when he was 15 months old is also colored pencil. I took the photo when we were out hiking in Boulder, Colorado and knew I wanted to paint it. So many things I love about it, but probably my favorite are the shadows on his nose that were cast by his super long, curly eyelashes...be still my heart!

It seems that in photography the goal is often to get no shadows. If you put the person into north light, you get that nice diffuse light on them. It's pretty. But the thing that makes my heart go pitter pat is shadows! I guess I'm just weird ;-)

THE RANCH:

Oh dear, it’s here…POLLEN SEASON has started! Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh! No! It’s only February! How can this be? In Colorado, spring doesn’t really get going until mid April give or take. And sure, who doesn’t want spring to start right now but you guys—the south in the spring…beautiful—but the pollen literally coats everything in thick yellow. It's making me sneezy thinking about it! I will just focus on the bulbs that are are popping up their greens and the trees and bushes that will start flowering soon—and of course BABY GOATS!

Baking week! My Aunt Katy and I have a monthly baking day and it was this Wednesday. With travel to Pittsburgh, ManChild being sick, and me being quarantined because of that, I hadn’t seen my family in ages, so Mom and Dad came too and we made homemade gluten free lemon bars and had lunch!

These lemon bars you guys...OMG! The best I've ever tasted, even back when I wasn't gluten free! Here is the recipe. I made an addition and some notes:
1. We added the zest of one lemon to the filling.
2. The crust took longer for us to cook (like 10 minutes past), don't know why. It didn't get "golden brown" all over, just the edges, but we could smell it cooking and it didn't feel raw anymore when we tapped it. If this happens to you, don't worry about it, it's going to cook more anyway once the filling is added.
3. The almond flour I found at Whole Foods was "superfine," worked great.

While we were waiting for the lemon bars to cool, Mom, Katy and I took our new toy out for a spin around the farm. Mom has never seen the boundaries of our property (stupid cancer) so we wandered all around showing her all the things! (left to right, Katy, Mom, me)

Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to our new toy:
Meet “Mule-etta!” 

Whaaaat?

LOL when we lived in CO we had a Kawasaki Mule, a tiny farm truck that helped us haul hay, horse blankets, and million other things around the farm. We just called it “the mule.” This little machine is actually a Cushman golfcart (a groundskeeper’s cart) and it's electric! If you know Brad and his obsessive love for his Tesla, you can imagine how excited he is over his new toy. But we’ve been saying, “mule” for so long now it keeps coming out. But it’s so tiny and cute so…Mule-etta it is!

A paddle boat came with our property. I always assumed it didn't work. I was proven wrong when my neighbor asked if her tree guys could borrow it (she had a tree fall into her pond.) These two grown men in tree gear and orange hard hats, tipped it over, hopped in and paddled over. Paddle boats don't move quickly no matter how fast you paddle. These two guys looked like cartoon characters, paddling like mad but just slowly cruising across the pond lol.

THE BLOG:

The artist and the engineer:

Brad and I are designing a pole barn in our back pasture. We've been talking about it since we moved here but now we are in the serious stage. We're talking to our neighbors, have chosen someone to build it, and are drawing it out.

This past weekend we walked out to the pasture and put down flags and garden hoses to mark it all out and that's when it all quietly went to hell lol. We are so alike in so many ways but every so often we do something that reminds us of our differences. We were having an FFT, otherwise known as an Effing First Time. Once I realized...(read the rest of the story here!)

Communication:

As I was talking about communication in yesterday's post I started thinking about our first experiences in a tandem whitewater canoe. Brad and I met whitewater kayaking—I took him down his first river with my parents who were also kayakers. It didn't take long before he was off and running with other, much better paddlers. If you know Brad, you know he doesn't struggle overly much with fear! He quickly overtook me and my skill level and went barreling down every scary river in the southeast (this was when we lived in NC before.)

For our first wedding anniversary, we bought a tandem whitewater canoe aka "the divorce boat." Like literally that's what paddlers called it! We thought our relationship was so good...(read the rest of the story here!)

THE GIVEAWAY:

The winner of last week's giveaway of the Windy Piglet print is Kristen Casey! Kristen, keep an eye on your email for further info!

See all of the prints of my original watercolors here!

Next week's print giveaway will be this 8x10 of Lovey, the baby Nubian goat. I only have Nigerian Dwarf goats, but if I ever had another breed...I mean look at those ears...happy sigh :-) This might be a good one to give to someone who loves Easter!

THE DEAL:

And finally, as a thank you, I'm offering 50% off phone coaching, this week, February 14th—19th! Shoot me an email to set up your hour session! (That's just $50!) YAY!

Thank you for reading :-) My blog is reader-supported—that's you my awesome friends! The best way to support my work is to: Call for some Zoom coaching (feeling anxious, stuck, or out of sorts?), or if you're local (Triangle area of NC) Equine Gestalt Coaching or NeurOptimal Neurofeedback.  Commission a painting of your pet or to bring your logo idea to life, buy a tshirt or a print with my artwork. Remember to forward this email to a friend and Subscribe to my YouTube channel!

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