Dear ArtellaVision friends,  

I'm in southwestern Michigan (retired) after a full life in Chicago. This is the house and yard. I guess you could call maintenance and upkeep my "hobby."  After many years of living in an apartment with a super to call on for fix-it problems, now I'm the one in charge!
http://tinyurl.com/3dqnxp
The order of the pictures is the exact opposite of what I thought I was doing when I set up the page! I wanted to start with the house, then take you around back. Oh well!

Just imagine that we are having a chat over coffee on the deck!

Love,

Pat 

what a lovely home, pat!

i'm sara, 35/married/no kids. i grew up in southeastern minnesota and then moved to boston in 1997 to live with this wonderful man i met on the internet. (we married two years later). after several years we decided we wanted to buy a house -- but quickly discovered that the housing market in the boston area is insane and wayyyy too expensive for us. eventually we came to the conclusion that unless we wanted to be renting until we died, we'd have to leave boston. hubby works for IBM and so we started looking at IBM towns. austin TX became the clear winner, and so in fall 2004 we moved down here. austin RULES. we're pretty happy here.

the house is actually brand-new construction. people walk in and say "did you do the renovation yourselves?" they did a really good job of fitting the house in with the existing neighborhood. it's a great neighborhood and we're really happy here. plus, the people here are really really friendly.

 Hi, Sara! Thanks for your reply!

Your home looks great--and it does look like an older renovated house. And I like that upper porch--before air conditioning, porches like that were screened in and they were called "sleeping porches" for very good reasons! 

It's nice that you are in a friendly place--it just makes life so pleasant! Of course, even big cities can have friendly areas, too. When I lived in Chicago, I knew many people in my neighborhood--it felt like a small town! 

Have you found many artist-friends in Austin?

Thanks for checking out my house and garden.

Pat 

I am a 43 year old former Air Force brat who lives with her 24 year old  artist /writer daughter .

 I have been a widow  for  5 years now.

 I lost my husband of 20 years , Tom , to a yet unsolved murder.

 I am  most recently a  Western Massachusetts  transplant   .

I am very creative  and have always found outlets whether it be  in daily life  through cooking/baking , various media  or words .

I also help  to get my daughter's work  seen .

Currently I am in a hyper  creative mode with ideas  just bursting forth like ripe berries  on the vine.

My daughter and I spent the last 4 years with my parents.

It was a hard  four years.

We are now here on our own  .

We like to send  photobucket montages/slideshows  of some of our activities  here  , as they've never been to this part of the US.

A moving postcard , if you will.

This was our first spring up north in 6 years . I took a lot of footage .

We're neighbors!  I live in Western MA too; born and raised.  I checked out your Photobucket site.  I love your visit to NoHo.  My daughter goes to school on Pleasant St. in Northampton so we have walked Main St. a lot.  You'll have to go on New Years Eve.  It's a blast.  Thorne's Market and Faces are great places to shop.  I hope you're enjoying our little area of the world.  Where did you hail from?

I was born in Germany , my Dad is from Ohio ( the Toledo area) , my Mom from the gem stone town of Idar-Oberstein.

I spent my life  in Spain, Turkey , the Azores, summers in Germany with my Oma .

I also lived in Tampa FL, Biloxi Miss, Norfolk  VA and spent some time around Wichita Falls TX.

With my hubby  we lived in Germany,  Pennsylvania , West Virginia  and Maryland.

My daughter and I love this area !This is the first time in my life I chose  the place , instead of it being chosen for me.

We found this site  online called "Find Your Spot".

You put in stuff about an area that  you want  , and it comes up with matching  the  towns/states.

It came up with Shelburne Falls , and Northampton here plus a few places in Vermont  and Oregon.

 So we drove out here from the burbs of Houston ( where we had been living with my parents ) in late October last year .

It was a 2K trip.My daughter's first  long trip driving  , and  our first  time in New England .

After we got here  we found Shelburne Falls  had nothing decent to rent and came out to the Hamptons.

We have not regretted the move yet.

The scenery, the people , the  fresh food --  all feeds our weary spirits .

Shelburne Falls is one of my all-time favorite places in all the world.  I've taken so many photos there.  Here's a few if you want to take a look :  http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/170655243FoATdV?vhost=home-and-garden.  Glad you found the Valley.  It's a beautiful area.  Of course, you've already seen so much of the world.  I know there must be other locations just as pretty.  I'm just partial to ours.

Kim, thanks for posting your beautiful photos. Now I have a good idea of where you are, too!

And I loved peeking at your artwork...

Hugs,
Pat

We want to go back  and look around  , we haven't made it back since  November .

 It's so picturesque.

I didn't know places like this existed in the US.

I also enjoyed all your  snaps.

Good stuff.

 Thanks Pat!

Pat W. Shafer:

Kim, thanks for posting your beautiful photos. Now I have a good idea of where you are, too!

And I loved peeking at your artwork...

Hugs,
Pat

 

It's where I want to live.  I hope you get there soon. 

apjo:

We want to go back  and look around  , we haven't made it back since  November .

 It's so picturesque.

I didn't know places like this existed in the US.

I also enjoyed all your  snaps.

Good stuff.

April, I had a nomadic childhood, too....NY, England , South Africa, Puerto Rico, Germany, D.C....where in Germany have you lived? My folks were in Hamburg for 10 years.

I was not a military brat though, just a corporate one...my dad worked for Colgate-Palmolive!

I am glad your daughter and yourself have found a place that suits you so well. I am in CT, and cannot imagine leaving New England, after all my travels, it feels most like home. I have lived here longer then anywhere else in my life...7 years.

Mostly I have  been in the western middle section of Germany and  the south .

I've never been up north .

My mom being German and  with me spending so many summers over there , I learned to speak , read and write German .

I can understand Spanish( Torrejon AB /Madrid) , some French ,I can count to ten in Turkish( Adana /Incirlik AB )  , but I never picked up  Portuguese that year we lived in the Azores (Lajes AB /Terceira off the coast of Portugal ).Lots of  trips by car  and plane  all over the place  .

 I'm not really an American , but not really a European either.

 I'm from everywhere and nowhere .

I've enjoyed  the traveling  I've gotten to do, but that has made settling down really hard.

The longest I ever stayed anywhere was 5 years ( that was  97-02 in two different towns in Calvert County Maryland ).

So I can't even approach anywhere I live with a long term pov.

It's just my life, I know no other.

This area is  beautiful.

 Here is West Michigan, it's beautiful! Just a bare hint of fall in the air. We've had two days of rain and wind. It's cooler now. Exciting, in its own way.

And it's very exciting for me to have someone from my Art for Dummies class here at Artella Forum! But she is not a dummy! She's an accomplished artist and long time friend.

Welcome, Annie!

  Pat

Hi Artellaniks, Hi Pat S:

 Nice to meet you all!! I'm here in Three Rivers, Michigan, just a few blocks away from Pat S (*waving at Pat*). Pat is an amazing teacher, very inspiring and innovative. I get so many ideas in her class, I come home and want to paint... well, paint the WORLD (you all know how that goes since you are all artists). Not to mention the fact that I sold the first thing I made in her class - now that truly IS inspiring, to make a sale :)

 Happy painting everyone, 

from newbie Ann