Another New Year has arrived!
Here we are at the start of a brand new year. I don’t know what you think of New Year’s resolutions, but I have never really made any.
I’m not good at forming new habits unless they form themselves so I suppose it would be true to say, I let life lead me.
But if I were to make some wishes for the upcoming year they would be….
Take longer walks
Spend more time in my gardens
Hang out with the kids and grandkids as much as possible
Paint more – always paint more!
And my wish for you is for your own wishes to come true!
How can we ever thank you enough?
It is hard to express how much your support in 2023 and all the years before that mean to us. To simply say thank you doesn’t feel large enough. You have not just made Zinnia Sky Studio one of your favorite shops to get cards, but you have fulfilled our lives in so many ways. We love the sound of your online orders coming in and can’t wait to get them in your hands (super shipper Tim gets the credit for that!), but seeing your smiling faces walk up to our booth, whether it be at a farmers market or an art show is just the absolute best!
We hear from you how our cards help you stay in touch with all those who make your world complete. I started this business 10 years ago when we moved to Arizona to start a new life. While it was incredibly exciting to be somewhere different for the first time in my entire life, I was missing my family and people from home something terrible. When I looked for cards to send them – because believe it or not, I’ve always been a card person – I couldn’t find anything that looked like something I would choose. And since Tim had promised me that part of our new life would be doing something with the art I had always created but never pursued, creating cards became my new adventure!
Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts to you for making our new life better than we could ever have imagined!
We can’t wait to hang out with you again in 2024!
Finding the balance…
Tim and I both admit that we love to work. But while we love working, we’re also finding that we need to balance a little more life against that working. Turns out that when you work out of your home and it’s not possible to separate living spaces from work spaces, you have to get out of the house to get some true down time.
So in January 2023, we spent some good quality time at a resort in Mexico. We planned absolutely nothing and that’s what we did! Each morning we would make our way down to the cafe on the beach for coffee and breakfast. Then we wandered the meandering paths that went in and out of the jungle, past beautiful pools and along the rocky coast back to the resort. Along the way we watched monkeys, iguanas, so many birds and even a deer go about their day as we went about ours. At night there was entertainment and good food to be had. At the end of our trip, we felt refreshed and ready to go again – mission accomplished!
We have a big family and we live far apart.
That means travel is involved by someone for us to be together. In 2023, we were able to see almost all the kids and grandkids. Nathan and Lori, the Canadians, not only came to hang out in the winter, but then included me in a long weekend in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Rachel from Germany came to Arizona for a long visit. Jorie from Phoenix joined us and we explored and did our favorite things – nothing and eating. Rachel’s most favorite person, David, stayed back with best friend Dwight Dog.
We spent a few days in South Carolina with Wyatt, Carter and Eli, the grandkids and their dad Zach. We went for walks, played games, explored their city and just enjoyed being together. We missed their mom Renee, as her job required her to be away. Seeing their faces in person is the best but we’re so thankful for FaceTime too.
In between so much family time, we discovered our javelina family had babies – twice! We did markets and shows and spent amazing time with you. We chased sunsets and wildflowers, and went to the top of Mt. Lemmon for our anniversary where we made a new friend. In between our excursions and visits, we moved my mom into a new community that’s turning out to be exactly what we hoped for!
Despite all the good things that 2023 brought, it also brought us some heartache. After 10 wonderful years, we had to say goodbye to our little man Paco of calendar notoriety. He was somewhere around 17 years old and as with so many rescue dogs, he had a rough start to life. We couldn’t erase his past but we did all we could to give him the best life possible while he was with us. He left a hole in our hearts and our pack, but will live on forever in the calendars.
