Don't Faint - I actually Posted Something!

Yeah, so I'm actually posting something. Now, now, don't roll over and faint. It's only been what...9 months, but honestly I had a good excuse. 2010 started out pretty well with getting my beloved Gracie puppy (whose 1 year old birthday is tomorrow BTW!). Then in April I suffered a stroke, on my birthday of all days and I'm not that old! I also found out while I was in the hospital that I had a leak in one of my heart valves that was misdiagnosed as asthma for about 8 years. Luckily, the stroke was pretty mild and I was out of the hospital the next day. It only affected my speech slightly and the thumb, pointer and index fingers of my right hand. However, that is my drawing hand! I recovered remarkedly fast - didn't need rehab or occupational therapy at all. They were pretty surprised when I walked in with this drawing done 22 days post-stroke:



Regardless it's taken me awhile to get back into the swing of things art-wise, especially painting. I put even attempting that until the end of October. Pencil work was OK, even though struggling with fine detail work a bit, but because I use such small brushes I just wasn't sure how much control I was going to have painting. I decided to start with an OSWOA (Original Small Work of Art) and have it halfway finished. The weather hasn't been cooperating all that well for working out in my studio. I don't have water out there for cleaning brushes so have to run back into the house when I need to do that. I've done a few other pieces in the last several months, but have pretty much been taking it easy with the art work. I'm currently working on setting up shops at Artfire.com, Etsy.com, and possibly Zazzle.com







On the plus side from the stroke and heart issues, I've really changed my eating - no processed foods (fresh fruits, veggies, and lean meat), no salt, no dairy, very little fats (even the good kind) and started walking about 5 miles a day. I have become an expert on what foods have the lowest sodium content and what foods will give me the biggest bang for my sodium goals. My main goal is to NEVER end up in the hospital again if I can help it and I want to be around for a good long time. So while I didn't make those changes with the intention of losing weight, I've lost 64 lbs and am down to a size 8, plus I physically feel better than I have in years. It doesn't take much to make a difference, it just takes the will to make changes and stick with them :)

Gracie has been SO much fun! We get a huge kick out of her. She is such a character and is very human-like in wanting to talk to or communicate with us. We've found that when she thinks it's bedtime at shows, she's not happy until I go to bed - she's very much into power napping! She is a very tall, leggy girl and she is much slower to mature than her littermates. She still looks rather puppyish compared to her sister Sophie. So I'm putting her up for the year and will bring her out again next spring. Hopefully she will have matured and filled out more by then. I'll be trying her on stock for the first time in two weeks. Considering that she has shown a recent demonic need to shear my sheepskin throw of all of it's wool, I hope the sheep at the test fare better - LOL! Here are a couple of pix of Gracie at her first show at 6 mos. old in May 2010.






Well, that's it from the Celestria front for now, but I'll try to post much more often in the future :)

What's New in the Celestria Zoo

Wow, I didn't realize that it has been that long since I posted anything on here. I admit it. I'm a really terrible blogger! Actually, just got very busy during July and August getting ready for, organizing and putting on the BCCNC specialty show. Then was sick most of September, followed by a few more health issues in October, which was followed by the holidays. But it's a new year so will try to get back to posting on a regular basis :)

OK, so here are a few updates.

Celestria Dogs - We have a new little furkid here at Celestria. I'd like to introduce you to Gracie (aka Fallon's Divine Grace at Celestria)! She is a great-granddaughter of my beloved Skye (wow - where did the time go?) and definitely shares some of great grandma's personality traits. Gracie's sire is Concho (CH Celestria Caliente's Concho) and her dam is Misty (CH Shoreland's Misty Moonlight). Is she adorable or what? She's got my husband totally wrapped around that little paw of hers. I'm so looking forward to showing her later this spring!

Grandma Bunny absolutely adores Gracie and they play just about all day long. I think Gracie is really good for Bunny because I think Bunny has missed Skye quite a bit.

Loki is continuing with his herding training although I've decided to let my herding instructor handle him. He's a lot of dog and he can totally wear me out. I think he'll progress much faster with her working him. I'm hoping he'll be ready for Started later this spring, but he still gets major teenage boy brain and he really ought to be past that by now. However, he adores Debbie and loves to work stock so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

Took Gracie and Laura up to play in the snow on Valentine's Day. Totally last minute idea. We were past 5,000 feet before we even saw snow which really surprised us. Since we were more than halfway to Reno at that point I called some friends to see if they wanted to visit for a bit. Laura is NOT thrilled with snow and thought it was really rude that we expected her to pee in that cold stuff - LOL! However, she got to go play ball with some cute doggie buds until she was about ready to pass out, so that made it up to her. Gracie liked the snow, but since she's still just in her puppy coat she got cold rather quickly.

Art Work - Well, haven't really done much in the last six months but here are the latest few pieces I've done. This one was a commissioned piece of a Bearded Collie:

These are some colored pencil pieces I did on Kentucky Black Slate. I've actually done about eight of them now. People seem to really like these and I love the uniqueness of each piece of rock. The hard part is finding the right size and thickness in the pieces of slate. Not to mention slate is a fairly fragile rock - it shatters and it has extremely sharp edges:

This one is Jamie Jackson's Bryson.

This one is Sandy Bohr's Alex.

That's about it for updates right now :)