2023 Blog Posts

As I was organising photos this week, I came across this one that brought back lovely memories of a wonderful afternoon in Daylesford, Victoria, Australia. 2023 started out the way I like....with good friends and new friends and my amazing husband! 

It seems appropriate that I update my personal blog before the end of the year. Haha!! I've tried to keep my body busy and my mind positive (and both healthy) all year. My heart is always full of love and appreciation for the people in my life and the daily blessings I enjoy.

I'll be posting more about 2023, as soon as I can....but I'll just say now that I'm so glad that after that great start, there were more beautiful moments throughout the year.

Thank God for friends & family!!

Our Big Art Project - Puff the Magic Wagon!

I mentioned in an earlier post that magpies would be featured in a bigger art project. This is it! Puff the Magic Wagon! Hopefully, Adrian and I will be spending a bit of time on the road with Puff the Magic Wagon in 2023. 

During 2021-2022 Adrian and I worked together on our biggest art project to date. We purchased a gypsy wagon built by Bowtop Wagons. Since we were purchasing our beautiful gypsy wagon during lock downs in Victoria, Adrian and I used a photo of another gypsy wagon, an iPad, and an art program to design the layout for the art on the wagon. Karlie Brewer did an excellent job applying her painting skills and presenting the artwork just as we supplied her via email. 

Puff the Magic Wagon
2022

I'll be posting more about Puff, as we get out and see where she takes us.

Alan Brewer did an amazing job building this beautiful wagon.

Adrian Kosky did an excellent job with his first towing experience,
getting Puff the Magic Wagon safely home from Canungra, Queensland,  to Tasma House and Gardens in Daylesford, Victoria, Australia.

Locked Down in Daylesford....Again

Just when Adrian and I were browsing through United Airlines' flight schedules back to the U.S.A. and discussing our hope for international travel plans......Victoria, Australia, goes into another lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been another outbreak of coronavirus in Melbourne, so the state is on lockdown with only five reasons to leave our homes. Planning for international travel seems to be a fantasy, but I'll continue to hope and pray that it becomes a reality in the near future.

Being resigned to all that,  I am counting blessings that include the beauty of my backyard.....especially the birds that visit every day. 

My special visitor, Limpy, was away for a few months, but I am glad to see her return for winter. Hopefully, she'll be here throughout the cold months and while Adrian and I are sticking around staying at home. I've got plenty of time and a new bag of bird seed to kick off the stay-at-home restrictions that started at 11:59 p.m. yesterday.

I've been enjoying these bird-legged models for a few art projects. Notice the magpies in the background behind Limpy: they will be featured in a rather big art project that Adrian and I are currently working on.

It doesn't seem to matter how I'm feeling, when Limpy visits, I feel lighter and happier than before the visit. She helps me forget frustrations for a few minutes as I focus on feeding her.

The ducks that come and go are also beautiful distractions that help me momentarily forget about lockdowns and lack of international travel possibilities. Thank God for these creatures!

And these cockatoos! They really are beautiful distractions.

2021 Mountain Dulcimer Retreat at Tasma House Daylesford

Adrian Kosky and I will be hosting a 2 night/3 day mountain dulcimer retreat in Daylesford, Victoria, Australia, at our guest house: Tasma House Daylesford. To purchase a ticket, visit: www.dulcimer.eventbrite.com.au 

We can’t wait to have our place filled with dulcimer friends!

America Just Got a Little Bit Sweeter!

Congratulations to my daughter and her husband on the birth of their beautiful baby boy! America just got a little bit sweeter, but it seems to be a lot farther away. I'm so anxious to get back to Tennessee!

Regularly traveling back and forth between Australia and the U.S.A., since purchasing the old masonic temple building - now known as The Holy Moly - in Clarksdale, Mississippi, was a privilege that I did not take for granted. Being safe from the real risk of getting COVID-19 (yet "stuck in Australia," since March 2020) has been a blessing I have appreciated. I'm still appreciative of the safety measures taken by governments on both sides of the world, but I have hope to return to America soon....hoping that "soon" means within the next six months! 

Yay for tourism finally opening up between Australia and New Zealand. That is a great first step toward the return of international travel. I hope this renewed privilege of tourism is safe for both countries and continues! 

Here are a couple of pictures of the beautiful new babe....my first American grandchild....and his beautiful parents!

My heart is full of hope and thanks.

I'm Learning to Use an Apple Pencil!

A few months ago I started using an Apple Pencil with an iPad and a little app called Procreate. I've been applying my learning, by way of creating little Table Hill posters for Instagram and Facebook. Youtube videos by Lisa Bardot have been very helpful. 

My knowledge of digital art is very basic, but I'm happy to keep learning and applying skills! I'm thankful to have Table Hill music and the Radio Springs Hotel gigs as a purpose for my art fun. Here are a few posters I've created with the Apple Pencil on an iPad with Procreate.

Blog post update: 31 May 2021, I'm still enjoying my Apple Pencil, iPad, and Procreate app! Here are a few more posters I've made for Table Hill music:

Looking for Inspiration

It seems to be hard to find something blog worthy, lately. I don't have any trouble counting my blessings and appreciating them....I'm just having trouble finding something to write about that might be of interest to others. It seems like I've written it all before....I live here, I live there, I take pictures of birds and play music....and I like to share all that. 

So what's new? Well, today is my anniversary! That's the best thing to report at the moment. Adrian and I had fun going out to breakfast in Daylesford this morning. (And we didn't even have to wear masks!) Isn't that a simple pleasure that we should not take for granted! 

So I'm happy to have that to say! Happy St. Patrick's Day AND happy anniversary to us.

I'd like to thank the cockatoo that landed in front of me while I was looking for something to blog about, not to mention the ducks that are my daily companions outside my studio, as they gave me the nudge that I needed to get to writing. 

It has been over a year since I've been able to travel to the U.S.A., and I don't know when I'll be able to return to my American home. Thankfully, my Australian home is a beautiful one and my hubby is stuck here with me! I don't know how many thousands of pictures I have taken in the past year while we have been "stuck here," but it's time to sort through them and share some of the lovely moments we have had during this 7th year of marriage.

My Beautiful Australian Family

COVID-19 pandemic lockdown time has given me extra months in Australia. With intermittent visitation clearances by the Australian Government, I've been able to have a few precious moments with my Australian family. I'm so thankful for that! 

I'm sharing a few Australian-family snapshots that show why I'm thankful for the privilege of living in two countries....even during a pandemic.

That's little Philip with his parents, Jake (my step-son) & Nicole (beautiful daughter-in-law), in the photo above. It has been a blessing to get to see even a bit of Philip's first year, as I have been "stuck in Daylesford," due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its partner, social distancing/isolation. The few moments I've had with my step-children and this beautiful little guy have been so special....priceless! 

Even before his first birthday, Philip not only started to walk but he ran and kicked a ball before he was a year old! Look at him go!

There are so many beautiful moments to be thankful for in life! Whether I'm here in Australia or in America......Life is precious and events that make us joyful should be remembered and focused on.....especially during a pandemic!

I hope I will never forget watching Nicole and Jake teaching Philip about his birthday party process....making a beautiful piñata filled with lollies, preparing food for the whole family to enjoy at a picnic in the public park, dressing up for his special occasion, seeing people he loves and trusts, eating the delicious food, laughing and sharing, and creating memories to cherish! You know, regular family stuff! It's beautiful. I hope you see that in my photos.

During this time of social distancing, Adrian and I have enjoyed sharing time in our own garden with our family and a few dear friends. Although we were forced by the pandemic to change how we gathered (normally around a dinner table in our small cottage), we still wanted to continue enjoying time together in good health. The answer to the social dilemma, spending time with family and friends outside, has been a joy. 

I am so thankful for time spent with Adrian and my two step-sons, Jake and Lee, and with my lovely daughters-in-law, Nicole and Mel, and of course, with our littlest (biggest!) blessing, Philip!

I Have an Art Studio!

In these past few months of lockdown (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), I've been thankful for my new art studio. It's now a part of my heart and everyday life: a place of my own; where I can make art, or acquire skills to hone, or sit and stare, or make snacks and share, or think hard and stay all day and enjoy the garden. (Sometimes, I do all those things in a single day.) Wow! I can't believe I haven't already written about this. I am really thrilled with my "new" art studio! 

During 2020, a year of finishing old projects and starting new ones, our family's storage space (which is an old shipping container) has been refurbished and has come to life as my adorable little art studio. I want to say thank you to my husband, Adrian Kosky, and to my step-son-tradie, Jake Kosky, and to friends and all the other tradies who helped complete the container project!

While I was trying to select photographs and gather my thoughts to write this blog entry, I became filled with self-doubt about whether my art is "good enough" for me to refer to this refurbished shipping container as an "art studio." Ever since I moved my art supplies into it in May, I have been hesitant to call the old container an art studio. There has been a thought in my head about professional artists being the only ones who can or should have an "art studio." I've been calling my studio the same thing I have been calling it for years: the shipping container. Yes, it's a shipping container, but it is much more than that now, with its new fit-out....it's definitely an art studio (complete with kitchen, washing machine, toilet, and shower!)....whether my art is studio-worthy or not.  

The two photos above are pictures I took the day the container arrived in the garden. Here are a few photos of the popping out of the container when it arrived and of the inside of the container when it was first set-up as a place to camp-out in the garden and before it became the filled-up/no-place-to-sit-down guest/craft room that nobody wanted to visit.

Since I've been taking photos of my backyard garden and the wildlife in it for over a decade, my "studio" has been featured in my pictures many times. It was, however, sitting as a filled-up storage space (like so many guest/craft rooms inevitably become), waiting to come alive in the background of my snapshots.

Now that I'm happy to say I have an "art studio," I'm also happy to share photos of the comforts inside it. 

I'm so pleased with my art studio, and I'm thankful for it. I'm even thankful for the extra art time provided by a COVID-19 pandemic lock down! I'm reminded that ("....all things work together for good...." Romans 8:28) 

Here's something that I have been reminded of, just today: no matter how spectacular (hahahaha) I think my art might be inside the container, it is NOTHING compared to the spectacular things that are happening in the garden outside.