Online Women's Circle is coming!

Happy Saturday friends!

I want to start off with some exciting news! I will be starting an online Women's Circle beginning Monday, January 5th, from 7:30-9:00pm EST (time zone converter here.) The format will be a little different than my in-person groups since no one wants to be on Zoom for 3 hours on a Monday night 😱. I will have a private spot (maybe on a social but more likely on my Kajabi website) where we can do a weekly check-in. I'll give a prompt a few days before  we meet and the group can check-in through writing, an audio, or a video. It can be short or it can be a novella, your choice :-)

In my in-person women's circles, the check-in is where we learn about each other, our stories, the things that make us cry, the things that make us laugh. This is where our compassion and empathy as women shines through. I don't want to lose that just because it's an online group! 

The art portion of the group is where we are on Zoom learning and playing together. I say playing and mean it! I'll show you how step-by-step and it will be a little stretch because it's new but it will be fun, I promise! This photo was from my Wednesday night circle, see those happy smiles? We were playing with watercolor and learning the shapes of butterfly bush flowers. This past week we practiced on printer paper because it's completely low stress, no fear about ruining your spendy watercolor paper! Next week, we will actually paint this on a 5x7 sheet of watercolor paper!

Once we were done, we made notes on that same piece of paper about what we liked and what we didn't, so we'd remember for the next week. 

The art table is the time where we can talk about what's going on in our lives and get to know each other better. I feel like it's going to be a stretch for me to try this new format but I'm also really excited about it—I hope you guys are too and will sign up to join my first roll out! 

The first session will be just 4 weeks long and will meet January 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th, and the cost for those 4 weeks is $140. You can see payment info and policies here. The online circle will require you to actually be there, I will not be recording any of these sessions because I want us to be in the moment and to feel safe.

After the first session in January, the online women's circle will follow my in-person schedule, 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off. So the next one will begin February 16th, same place, same time. From that point on, the total cost will be $210 for the 6 weeks. 

I will be offering two live freebie "playdates" via Zoom in November and December so you can experience my teaching style and personality. 

Those playdates are:

Monday, November 17th, 7:30-9:00pm EST

Monday, December 1st, 7:30-9:00pm EST

If you'd like to be a part of this new vision, reply to this email and let me know which you'd like to sign up for or send me a text with what you're interested in. Looking forward to playing with you!

Please forward this to your friends so they can join too!

ODDS AND ENDS FROM AROUND THE RANCH:

The donkeys are at it again, they love to play and the fall weather is making them frisky!

Jaffee's teeth 😂

Brad caught some deer out of his window one morning:

Tori has decided that she'd rather be IN the hay trailer with me:

Now that it's officially cooler, Brad and I were walking the property and talking about the saplings that need to be cut down. I found so many interesting bits as we were walking:

Can you find the tiny snail on this mushroom?

A little throwback to our Colorado ranch. This was a sunrise picture taken from our front door. When the sun comes up, it lights up the mountains in the distance:

Onya and Ike, a couple of my Border Collies back in the day. They had found a golf ball on our walk and wanted me to throw it:

Fall is mushroom season on the farm, I love to see all the interesting things popping up:

It was great to start with my new Tuesday Women's Circle this week and to catch up with my Wednesday circle too. This is where we play with art. I'm just thrilled with the way the chairs turned out!:

Brad's older son Josh and his wife Jamie celebrated their 2nd anniversary this week. They got married on our farm:

I took a recipe I found online and modified it to create a lighter feeling, non-cream version of alfredo, it was amazing, and will be going in the rotation:

Get your noodles boiling, I used Jovial gluten free spaghetti noodles. They only come in a 12 oz box and we only had a snack sized leftover darn it!

Prep:

Grate a LOT (like 4 handfuls) of parm or pecorino romano, something hard and salty

Chop about a cup of rotisserie chicken 

Chop about a cup of basil

Quarter about a cup of little tomatoes

Mince an entire head of garlic (seriously!)

Cover bottom of pan in olive oil

Add garlic and 1/2 t of crushed red pepper

Saute until golden brown and turn flame off, let cool for a few minutes so the oil doesn't splatter when you put the other ingredients in.

Add cooked noodles, chopped basil, quartered tomatoes, and chicken and turn the heat back on, stir

Add 2 scoops of pasta water, stir

Add 3.5 handfuls of the cheese, stir

Add one or two more scoops of pasta water, so it's saucy enough for you

Add pepper but NO SALT because the cheese is super salty already.

Serve with a sprinkling of cheese

Done!

OMG! So good and so easy!

The other night, I had turned all the lights off and gone to brush my teeth. All my stuff is in my office bathroom. When I was done I was headed up to my bedroom and had to walk through the dark living room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something and looked over to see Lucy with her stuffed pig in her mouth, standing as still as a statue looking at me:

Sadly she had dropped the pig before I could get the pic lol, but what was she thinking just standing there with it in her mouth? The next morning I found that pink pig on the couch so I guess she wanted to curl up with it, she is a funny dog!

Speaking of dogs, let's all have a little giggle—my brother's dog was just spayed and he found that she didn't mind wearing a little shirt (he calls it her onesie!) the kind that keeps her from chewing on her stitches. Well, since she didn't mind that, he figured he'd buy her this too:

Apparently she didn't find it nearly as amusing as we did! 😂

THE MEMES:

This little screenshot of this dog after the owner took it off the leash just cracks me up so much, I may have to paint it! And this is why Lucy can't be loose, "See ya!"

And then at 10pm an announcement came on TV that said, "It's 10pm. Do you know where your children are?"

Brad and I laugh and laugh about that but it's a horrified laugh, I mean, wow. 😂😱

Greensboro, NC Police Dept have some funny people running their socials:

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This is an AI-free newsletter! While I love to use AI to help me figure out a piece of software I don't understand, my intention is to use it to help me with the drudgery, never with writing, art, creation. All em dashes are intentional and mine, I was using them way before ChatGPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye :-)

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The Mother Ranch on YouTube.

The Mother Ranch art on Substack.

Thank you for reading :-)

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