Hello everyone.  It’s been awhile since I have updated my blog.  I hope you are all still out there.  I know that some of you have been following me on Facebook and YouTube so you have probably seen some of the videos that I have started making.  I hope that you find them interesting.

Stanley and I were up to quite a bit both professionally and personally this last summer so I have a lot to tell you about.  I am writing this as I ride the train from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and back again.  I am grateful to have the New Mexico Rail Runner so close to our home.  The Santa Fe depot is about a five-minute walk from our front door and a train trip is always a chance to decompress and relax.

I am on the train because our vehicle gave up on us a few weeks ago and then the loaner car we were using (thank you Yvette) broke down. It’s now in the shop being repaired.  Fortunately, it only needed a new starter and will be repaired this afternoon.  Unfortunately, someone else needs it more then us so I will be turning it over to them on Friday.  Luckily, we live in a neighborhood where most everything is walking distance. We also still have our old pick-up truck and we are planning on purchasing a new vehicle at the end of the year after our trip to Vietnam (more on that later.)  Things could be worse

In July we participated in the Contemporary Hispanic Market.  It was a fun show.  The market takes place the last weekend of July on Lincoln Avenue which is just off the plaza.  It takes place in conjunction with the Spanish Market.  Stanley and I went all out and decked the booth out in his paintings, prints and cards and my ceramics. Our friends from the Santa Fe Artist Market Valerie, Paula and Theresa lent us some items that we needed for that special touch and the booth looked great.

Stanley worked for weeks on several new paintings for the market.

We also added the prints and note cards to our repertoire.  These should be making their way onto the website soon.  A lot of old friends came by the booth, we sold a lot of work and ate some good food.  Thank you Robert for all the corn on the cob and to Peter, owner of “The Butler Did It” for the great hors d’oeuvres.  Overall, we had a great time and are planning to do the market again next year.  Check out my video of the 2017  Contemporary Hispanic Market and the Spanish Market here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-C1Kuv4gE4&t=79s

Stanley’s birthday was next on the agenda.  We usually go on some sort of short trip for our birthdays so for this one we took a ride to Creede, Crestone and Alamosa Colorado.  We saw a really great show at the Creede Repertory Theatre called the Syringa Tree. http://creederep.org/ It was the best show I have seen in a very long time.  If you have the opportunity to visit Creede, Colorado I highly recommend seeing at show at Creede Repertory.  The next day we finally made it up to Crestone, Colorado to visit our friends Mary and Tim Budrys, a.k.a The Windwalkers. If you haven’t been to Crestone I highly recommend it.  It’s a beautiful place that is infused with spiritual centers of all kinds. Check out video of our 2017 Colorado trip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TrkHbUCqDU&t=43s

As some of you know my nieces, Reyna and Maya and I have been attending an opera at The Santa Fe Opera every year for the last five years.  In August, we attended a performance of The Golden Cockerel and for the first time Stanley got to come along with us.  It was also our first time tailgating in the opera parking lot.  I made us a picnic dinner of fried chicken, potato salad, green salad, Japanese soda pop that comes in a really cool bottle and Ube (purple yam) cake.  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/51518/ube-macapuno-cake/

While at the Contemporary Hispanic Market we were approached by the Kiwanas Club of Santa Fe. They put on Zozobra each year.  They asked us to participate in Zozofest, a fund raiser for the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe and Zozobra. It’s a good cause and we love The Burning of Zozobra so we pulled our resources and hurried to make a half a dozen cups for Zozofest and every one of them sold!  Now that we know about it we can plan to make more for next year.

I sold enough work at the Contemporary Hispanic Market that I have been having trouble catching up.  Both Stanley and I scrambled to getting ready for the Santa Fe Artist Market Show in the Cathedral Park and a three day show in Red River, New Mexico.  I’ll write more about  the Red River show later. Somehow, we managed to pull off both shows without a hitch.

This September I turned fifty! I guess there is nothing more that needs to be said about that.

I also marched in a parade for the first time ever.  In support of my favorite candidate for Mayor of Santa Fe, Ronald T. Trujillo, I marched in the Fiesta Parade.  It was a lot of fun.  I made a video of the event which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=959gaLEzrRY

We have also been slowly preparing for our upcoming trip to Vietnam.  We have started booking hotels and I purchased tickets to a contemporary dance production at the Siagon Opera House called “Teh Dar”.  I plan to start blogging about this upcoming trip soon.

A couple of other things that have been weighing on my mind and are on a more spiritual and emotional note is that my sister’s dog is going through treatments for heart worm and the husband of one of my oldest friends passed away last week.  My sister adopted JB last summer and was unaware that he was already infected with heart worm.  It wasn’t detected until his annual checkup this July.  He has been getting medication to weaken the worms for the last couple of months and had his first shot to start killing the worms yesterday.  I think it has been a stressful 24 hours for everyone that knows him.  Dogs can have a negative reaction to the shots and even if they are able to tolerate the medication the shots are given deep into their muscle so they are in a lot of pain for several days following the injection.  Poor JB is in such pain right now that he is unable to stand up.  It seems like things are going to be very touch and go for the next few months while he receives his course of shots.  I hope he makes it through.

The other thing is that one of my oldest friend’s husband passed away last week.  He had been ill for the last couple of years and finally lost his battle with cancer.  I have been thinking of my friend often and I wish there was something I could do to help her through her pain.  It also makes me think of my own relationship with Stanley and what I would do if I lost him.  He drives me nuts sometimes but I love him and I hope he will be around for a long time.

I am planning to post about our trip to Red River and the Aspencade Art Festival soon as well as to update everyone on our plans and the planning of our trip to Vietnam.  Thanks for reading my blog and thank you to everyone that has purchased my work this year!

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]