I've Been Lost But Now I'm Found

Last time I wrote my blog was April 26th, oh my! To catch you up to date with my perils and joyous times, I will briefly describe what's been happening.


When last we left off I was heading to Albuquerque, NM for the Western Federation of Watercolor show. The show was great, and it was an honor to be in it. Santa Fe was awesome with all the galleries!

While I was there, I worried about my youngest daughter who was due to have a baby girl the night of the watercolor show reception, Friday, May 6th. She couldn't have that little jellybean while I was gone! However, I was able to stay until Sunday and there was still no sign of  baby Lily Rain. Whew!

That following week, labor began and we knew Lily was close to making her appearance. On Friday the 13th of May, Miss Lily Rain Hostetter was born shortly before midnight! She weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz like her mama did when she was born. Celebration!

The week after that I had to prepare for a show called Art in the Afternoon at the Cottonwood Country Club which was held on Sunday, May 22nd. Busy week! It was a fun show to do.

My rollercoaster in May took on the scary turn when the following week I found myself in the hospital. I was there for four days and then it took a couple of weeks to recover. I am missing a gall bladder. I wonder what they did with it? Seriously!
The next week my daughter went back to work, and I now take care of Miss Lily Rain five days a week. Tending a new baby really cuts into the painting time, but it is oh so worth it! I also tend my cute handicapped grandson Anthony in the afternoons.

It has taken me about a month to get my act together (well, not totally) and keep all the balls in the air. That's why I am posting a painting that is called Juggling Life, I painted it a few years ago and often use is as my avatar because it seems I am always juggling things. I have finally figured out how to tend kids and still paint sometime during the day. I had forgotten how much time it takes to care for a baby that eats every two hours. It certainly been a long time since I had an itty bitty kidlet around. But what a joy!

I will be posting on my blog again, painting and taking care of sweet Lily and Anthony. Sorry about so much personal stuff. More fresh art coming soon!

I'm Moving!

I am moving.... I have outgrown my little studio, a bedroom in my house that is 10 ft. x 12 ft.

I am so packed in that I can't seem to hardly function anymore. So I am moving downstairs to the basement, mostly unfinished except for one bedroom and a bathroom.

But it will be big! Around 20 ft x 20 ft. I will have everything in one area, my painting area which also will have my computer and printers near by, my sewing area, my mat cutting area, my shipping area and my photo taking area. There is a utility sink and my ironing board is setup all the time! Now maybe that doesn't sound too exciting to you, but I am so excited I could spit! (Well, not really ~ spit that is). And did I mention storage and bookshelves and places to put all my stuff? The only setback is that there are only two windows and they are quite small, so not a lot of natural light. I will string a bunch of lights up though, cause I really hate painting in poor light.

It's going to take a lot of work to get everything moved and organized, but once done, I think I will be in heaven.

I even plotted out the layout. The picture above is showing only part of the area but it is the main working area. What is showing is about 12 - 15 ft wide (at the widest part) and 20 ft long. I took some graph paper and measured the basement and then drew in the lines for the room. Then I took another piece of graph paper and drew all the furniture proportionally and colored and labeled all the pieces of furniture. Then I scanned both graph sheets in to my computer. Next I cropped each piece of furniture individually and saved it in it's own file. What worked out really well was that I could layer them on the scanned graph sheet of the room and could move each piece of furniture around til I found an arrangement I liked. Beats moving the real furniture all around!

Now I wish I could just wiggle my nose and it was all done.