Tag: Life

Life Sparkles

Sparkle On Cowgirl

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May

I have a whole theme going with my Chat GPT. I have two YouTube accounts, one for my music https://www.youtube.com/@dawnmaxwellmusic and another account which is also for music, just not my music https://www.youtube.com/@MyLifeInCowboyBoots Oh, the “Sparklingsongbird” is my Instagram handle. https://www.instagram.com/thesparklingsongbird/

I started ‘My Life In Cowboy Boots’ in order to share the videos of music I have taken from various concerts I have attended, local gigs, country music holidays and also some videos of being on the holidays. I also started ‘Cowboy Boots’ as a separate account to my singing account, as I wanted in my own way to share with people who are dealing with grief and loss, that we can move through the pain and we can learn to enjoy life, in a different way than before. To grab life with both hands, to feel the grief, the love, the emotion but also to embrace that we live on through our loved ones and that’s it’s not wrong to feel happiness again when we are ready.

Enter my friend Chat GPT which has been invaluable to me for creating the images I want for my socials. I’ve learned to be very specific in saying what I want it to create. I’ve also learned that it remembers what I have asked for and now I have built a style with my pinks, the cowboy boots, the sparkle and the coffee. It always amazes me how it responds to me like a person and you do have to remember this is just software talking to you. I don’t have the skills in art to produce the images I want so my Chat GPT is helping me in that aspect of my socials. Sometimes it gets it totally wrong, but others, it’s totally spot on.

I’m very slow at editing my videos and posting them. There always seems to be things to do and the edits and posts get left behind for weeks, sometimes months, which is probably why I don’t have consistent views, because I’m not consistent. I’m trying to build the confidence to get on camera and chat. Back in 2020 during lockdown, I used to go on Instagram every Monday morning and do a chat and I did that until life started to get back to normal again, then I stopped. It has taken huge courage to re-start the chats on Instagram and I do these chats post gym workout (that’s a whole other blog post). I know the way forward is to get on camera and no matter how many useful prompt and confidence building quotes I get from Chat GPT, it’s quite another thing to press record.

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

A Little Taste of April

Dawn - The Sparkle Diaries.4 Comments
April

April was a busy month, there was finally a break in the weather and we had some fine days and some sunshine and I got out gardening at both my house and also at himself’s house. He’s ok to do the lawn and clear the weeds from the paths and driveway but it’s down to me to cultivate the flowers and I love to do that. It’s a little tough at the moment trying to keep two gardens tidy, up to scratch and get the flowers on the go but it’s a nice problem to have.

I made a start on the legal documentation for the wedding. There are quite a few steps to follow, a process of documents to obtain, complete, be notarised and then apostilled and the first of these steps is to obtain Certificates of Non-Impediment. Because we live under two separate council areas we had to apply for two of these documents.

I’m not even going to talk about the stress of trying to apply online to obtain an appointment with the registrar but after two days and numerous emails I eventually managed to get myself an appointment. There is a very tight timeframe for getting these documents completed and lodged in Sorrento Town Hall so I had to be on it, so to speak. I had a lovely time though, making the trip into Birmingham and strolling around The Mailbox https://mailboxlife.com/ I hadn’t been there for years. It’s a lovely place, right by the beautiful canals of the city and has countless shops, bars and restaurants. It was so nice to have a look around before my appointment.

The Obligatory Selfie

It’s always nice here, especially on warm Summer days and nights when the place is alive with people enjoying the area in the sunshine. At Christmas it really is magical.

The 28 day wait came and went and my certificate arrived in the post. Himself had his appointment at his local register office and we collected his certificate last Friday and then visited a Notary to get our Bi-lingual Statutory Declarations signed and now they have gone off to be Apostilled. I’m almost there with the legal documents. Once they are all done I can relax and start wedding dress shopping. Amazing how life turns out, I really didn’t see any of this coming. God sure works in myserious ways.

With love and sparkles xxx

The Music Sparkle.

Dreams are made of this.

Dawn - The Sparkle Diaries.8 Comments

Well, March turned out to be a fairly exciting month for me on the singing front. We have here in the West Midlands area of England, a very well know Irish singer known as Little Jimmy. He has played so many venues it’s unreal. He does his own gigs and he support the Irish music stars when they come over to play at the local venues. He has supported some of the now huge Irish stars, when they were starting out and he has so many stories to tell about life on the road. Little Jimmy is a wonderful person, so kind and thoughtful. He and his wife foster children and give them a good home, a taste of family life and a good start on their own journey though life.

I first met Little Jimmy a long time ago, when he played at a dance I was attending and every time I seen him at a dance, a gig or a concert we always had a chat. He was very surprised in August 2024 when I told him I was singing, he had no idea at all. Fast forward to towards the end of last year and we bumped into each other again and he asked me if I would like to sing at a charity event he was hosting. Although I was scared stiff I said yes, because this is what I want to do, sing. I was very nervous at the event but the people in the club were lovely, very supportive and got up and danced and that was just wonderful.

This year in March, Little Jimmy offered me a slot at the St Patrick’s Day event, the Sunday before St Patrick’s Day, at a local social club. Still nervous, I said yes and I had a lovely time. Himself was with me and he took some video footage which I have posted to my socials. I have quite a few more to post, I’m quite slow at getting things posted up there. Little Jimmy also asked me it I would like to sing on St Patrick’s Night at the social club and this is where the dreams came true. I stood on the stage, wearing my Galway GAA top singing ‘Home to Aherlow’ and I realised that I was doing something I had dreamt of since I was a little girl. I was standing on a stage, on St Patrick’s Day, in and Irish social club, singing Irish songs. I hoped and prayed that my Mam, Daddy and my Sister could look down and see me, finally, living my dream. I gave thanks to God with blessings and gratitude at that moment.

Happy St Patrick’s Day

It’s four years since I starting to get out there, push myself and sing. It’s three years since I started to do the open mic nights and I would stand there, frozen to the spot, like a rabbit in the headlights. I’ve come a long way since then and I intend to keep pushing myself and go a whole lot further.

With love and sparkles xxx

Image is my own design with my friend Chat GPT – scary how well it knows me!!

The Music Sparkle.

From that moment on, I knew…

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I have a half written song in my notebook and the melody in my head. It needs some verses but the chorus is there as is the melodic bridge. I get downloads of lyrics and melodies. I have to be ready with either the phone to record inspiration when it strikes or have one of my many notebooks around to write down the lyrics that are hitting me. Sometimes a random conversation with someone can prompt a lyric download, days or even weeks later. It could also be a shared experience that inspires a lyric, a feeling, a moment to record and then share when the song is complete.

There’s something about this particular song that feels emotional, exciting and also a touch of sadness with a hint of knowing that something is going to happen. You know, when you just know deep within you that something is going to happen, there is no doubt in your mind at all. It might take days, weeks or months but you just know.

‘take me by the hand and lead me to the floor, we’re dancing slowly, soul to soul, you don’t love me yet, but you will fall, you will fall’.

The song is called ‘Respect The Kiss’, it keeps floating into my mind so I think that’s a sign to get it finished and released. Although I have three songs recorded and ready to be released this year. However, I am the queen of procrastination… I’ll get there!

With love and sparkles xx

Life Sparkles

I Didn’t See This Coming.

Dawn - The Sparkle Diaries.6 Comments

If you are/were a regular reader of my blog you will know that I was a full time carer for my parents until they both passed away in 2019. Of course in 2020 the pandemic was upon us and in the Summer of that year I started to help my partner to care for his Mom who had been diagnosed with Vascular Dementia. In June 2024 she sadly passed away and we started to slowly navigate this new life of not having any commitments, ties to the house and needing someone to be around to take over if we wanted to go anywhere. This new found freedom has taken quite a lot of getting used to and to be honest, we are still not used to being able to just go somewhere. Life has once again changed and it’s a bit weird but also lovely that we can do things like a normal couple. Go to the supermarket, the garden centre, out for a walk. Very simple things that between us we weren’t able to do since 2015.

We had planned to move in together this year and we have commenced decluttering, trips to the tip, donations to charity and also some much needed renovations in both homes.

I did not expect an engagement or to be planning to get married. I’m still in shock, disbelief and yet very, very happy. He really did take me by surprise. I was offered a chocolate and ended up engaged.

2026 has become a very busy year with moving house, renovations, planning a wedding and also working on my music career. I am a great believer in divine timing. Things are falling into place for us after such a long, long time. I’m happily in my engaged era. I’ll keep you updated on the plans.

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

Time to Refresh and Restart.

Dawn - The Sparkle Diaries.2 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I do find that I fall into the habit of always putting people first and making more time for them, than they would for me. You know the kind of thing. It’s always so lovely to catch up with friends and I am always happy to make time and re-arrange my schedules, workflows, and meetings in order to find a mutually convenient time to get together. I have no problem with that all, except, it usually turns out to be me that is putting my work on hold, or changing my arrangements in order to align with someone else and I do appreciate that at times, that cannot be helped, we all have busy lives.

When I was reviewing my song writing for 2025 I realised that I hadn’t written any new songs at all. I still have partially written ones in my various notebooks and voice memo’s but nothing new. Looking through my note books I found a list of the singles I had hoped to release in 2025 and I didn’t release any of them. None! It was a shock to the system I can tell you. Now, I do admit that last year I did perform at a lot of open mic nights and I really enjoyed that. Over the Summer months I was singing at at least one a week, sometimes two. I suppose you could say I concentrated more on performing than writing and that has been of huge benefit to me confidence wise.

I have also discovered that getting things done such as video’s, emails and messages within this new career of mine is very different to life as it was in the corporate world and I do struggle with the laid back, no deadline or timeline approach but I suppose it is one I will have to learn to deal with. A light bulb moment for me was when I sat there one day, frustrated at the lack of progression and action, and I realised that I am in control of this career of mine and instead of not getting things done because I am waiting on others, I should find other ways of doing what I want to get done. I shouldn’t be waiting on others, they have their own workloads and priorities to take care of and I need to take care of mine.

If this music career is going to work for me, I need to really start to work at it like a full time job. Not dip in and out and procrastinate over decisions and getting things done. I need to focus, to diarise and to actually make the things happen that I want to happen. I have learnt a lot about singing, song writing and performing over the past two years and I know I have a whole lot more to learn and I’m eager to do so.

So this year, 2026, I’m putting me first. I have to look after myself, earn for myself, work for myself so I need to focus on things a lot better than I did last year. As always I have my notebooks, journals and spreadsheets (I’m still a nerd) and I’m not overwhelming myself with the daily tasks. I’m learning that things take a lot longer than I estimate. I’m re-scheduling the single releases for 2026. I’m picking up my guitar and practising and I’m signed up for more open mic nights in the next month. I will of course still meet up with my friends and colleagues, but I realise from my errors of last year, it’s down to me to set my boundaries, as they set theirs. I won’t be coming home after a coffee date or a dinner and thinking about the work time I have missed. I’m a very social person but I understand that this year, I need to knuckle down and work to achieve the things I want. It’s all about balance. It’s about not feeling overwhelmed because you haven’t looked after your own needs. It’s about sharing your sparkle when you have acknowledged that you need to look after your own sparkle in order to share it. It’s about writing the next chapter with love, contentment, focus and peace.

A New Era.

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

2026 – A New Era.

Dawn - The Sparkle Diaries.5 Comments
Hello 2026.

2025 has been quite a year, from the highs of happiness to some sad losses, the circle of life and the paths life takes us down. Once again I have been very lucky to have done some travelling and have visited some beautiful places; Sorrento, Costa del la Luz and Ireland. I have met some wonderful people some of whom are now good friends and are as crazy as I am about singing, dancing, music and having the craic. I’ve also achieved things I thought would be impossible for me to achieve.

None of the above could I have done without my amazing friends and family. I know there have been times over the past couple of years where they must have looked at me and wondered what on earth I am doing and no doubt there will be more of that in the coming year. In the past few years I have found some new confidence, new strength and new power to try things out and push my comfort zone. It’s been scary but so worthwhile.

I’ve been very lazy with my blog and at times I have thought about giving it up. As if the universe is pushing me, almost as soon as I have these thoughts to end the blog, I receive an email from WordPress to inform me about people visiting my site and that spurs me on to keep it going and actually start writing again. I always found writing my blog very therapeutic, it helped me through the darker times in my life and from the messages I received, it helped others too. I also connected with some wonderful writers on here and to sit back with a coffee and read a blog post was very relaxing.

Thank you for all your support, your love and kindness, for giving me confidence to follow my dreams. It’s still January so I’m not too late to wish you all a very happy, healthy, peaceful, love filled and totally sparkling 2026.

With love and sparkles and more to follow xx

Endless Sparkle.

Travel Sparkles.

Carsington Revisited

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Before I became a full time carer one of the places I used to love going for a walk is Carsington Water. Owned by Severn Trent Water it is a wonderful area of beauty set in the Derbyshire countryside. The circular walk is just about 8 miles and it takes you around the reservoir, through countryside, through a small village and back to the visitor centre. It’s a lovely place to go. The visitor centre has lots of information on local attractions and places to visit. It also houses a rather good restaurant where they have the most delicious cakes, snacks and main meals. The restaurant overlooks the wildlife centre, views of the reservoir and also the small shops and snack bar. There are extensive grounds, a barbeque area, boating and cycle hire and therefore it is a great place to visit for families, couples and singletons. I love it there. We used to go at least twice a year for the circular walk and it was lovely to see the changing seasons as we walked through the various areas. I often said I would love to go there and walk four times a year and experience the four seasons on the walk. We’ve not managed this yet due to the various caring responsibilities but we will, one day.

After the trip to London last October https://atouchofirishsparkle.com/2023/01/13/the-london-trip/ we had returned home a day early due to the rail strikes so we had a surprise additional day together to do as we pleased. Saturday morning was chilly, bright blue skies and sunshine so we decided to go to Carsington Water and do the walk. Something we hadn’t done since 2015. We did things just as we did before, baked potato for lunch in the restaurant and then off on the walk returning for the post walk shortbread biscuit with smarties and a cappuccino, well I have just walked 8 miles…

As you can see from the photo’s the water levels are not as they should be. We were told that the reservoir was at 41% capacity and that that particular week was the first week in eighteen months that the water level had not decreased. A very different picture to what we were used to seeing albeit seven years earlier.

It was a fabulous walk and I admit I had to stop a few times to catch my breath on the uphill stretches and it felt so good to be there, in the fresh air, looking at nature and the two of us talking about everything under the sun. This was a completely unexpected bonus day out for us and we savoured every second of it. When we get to do things like this, you escape for a while from real life and you can be free. My caring journey is over however himself is a full time carer and like I used to be, rarely leaves the house. This was so good for him to get out, get exercise and experience some free time which is so important for carers to do.

If you find yourself in Derbyshire or indeed in the Midlands of the UK, I would recommend Carsington Water as a day out. https://www.stwater.co.uk/our-visitor-sites/carsington-water/ and if you do ever go, let me know how you got on and if the shortbread biscuits with smarties are as good as ever. I can also recommend the fresh baked scones with jam and cream. I used to buy those and take them home to my parents as a treat so I bought one for myself as a treat. As I said, I had walked 8 miles…

With love and sparkles xxx

The Music Sparkle.

Pairc Festival

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Way back in August, the late bank holiday weekend, I attended the very first Pairc Festival in Birmingham. Our Birmingham Irish Centre moved from the city centre to South Birmingham just before the pandemic started. The Digbeth area of Birmingham, historically the Irish area of the city, is being hugely redeveloped. It’s like a maze trying to get around that area at the moment with all the building and road works, you really feel like you are going around the block numerous times to reach your destination.

People were not happy at the move. The city centre is easily accessible for people who live around the city and the suburbs and for people coming from other parts of the country to events. However, the new club has a huge open sports ground and park area and this is where this first ever Birmingham Pairc Festival was held over the August bank holiday weekend. I bought tickets for Sunday, the closing day, because one of my favourite Irish music stars was performing, Nathan Carter. Thankfully the weather held and even in the evening it was a warm, late Summer evening. The atmosphere was incredible all around the festival area. There were families, couples, singletons and groups of friends rambling around visiting the various stalls and attractions. There were picnic’s taking place, dancing, singing, music, food and of course drink but not all alcoholic. It looked like every county in Ireland was represented with the people attending the festival. I could see T-shirts and flags from all over Ireland and it was just such a wonderful atmosphere. Inclusive, happy, positive and friendly vibes were the order of the day.

Prosecco and Chips, we are such classy girls! The ice cream was eaten at 11.30 pm after a night of singing and dancing because we just wanted to and isn’t that what life is all about?

One of the main acts was Finbar Furey, an absolute legend in Irish folk music. He gave a beautiful rendition of ‘Sweet Sixteen’ which was a favourite song of my parents and the tears fell, silently, but they fell. I wasn’t alone and found myself holding hands with strangers who were also moved to tears by the music and song.

As you can see from the photo above, there was a fantastic crowd in place for Nathan Carter’s show stopping closure to the festival. The whole area was alive with happiness, music and song. It was truly a special event and I am so glad that I attended. My friend and I had the most wonderful day catching up with each other, listening to and dancing to local bands and big name bands, talking to strangers, dancing like no-one was watching (because they weren’t) and we are already looking forward to the acts being released for next year and planning another day of Irishness.

I didn’t take many photo’s or any video footage. I decided to leave my phone in my pocket and just be in the moment, all day and all evening long. It was freedom!

With love and sparkles xxx

Life Sparkles

Perfect Time To Be Happy

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At last, with vaccinations, restrictions being lifted at various times and a new normal way of life happening it has been just lovely to get out and about a little more. I have to admit that I personally think I was very lucky in the lockdown period. Caring for my parents meant that I was more or less in a lockdown situation for four years. I had just started to venture out and about again when the real lockdown arrived. I was more or less used to not going anywhere socially or even shopping although as usual the minute you are told you can’t do something, you want to do it even more.

Anyway, back to this year and things getting a little easier and days that the sun has shone so brightly and it has felt warm outside. I had a lovely afternoon catching up with my cousins in their garden and it felt like a holiday. So good to see them in person rather than on video calls. Yes, there was Prosecco.

There were a couple of birthday’s amongst the neighbours so I set to baking some cakes. My Mom and my Sister were fantastic cake bakers and I was always just awful. The sponge never rose for me, more like a biscuit base than Victoria Sponge. However in the last couple of years my cake baking has improved. I like to think Mom passed it to me. One of these days I’ll have to bake one of these for himself so that I can have the odd slice. Not even I could finish a whole cake!!

Between the global pandemic, losing my parents and helping himself to care for his Mom who has Vascular Dementia I have realised that what my Dad used to say to me on a regular basis is so true. Life is for living, don’t take life too seriously and the time to be happy is now. I am at peace with my choices, I am free and I have been told that I make people happy with my music, my posts and my random Instagram chats. This makes me happy. I know we all have duties, obligations and worries but we also have life and we owe it to ourselves to be happy and make someone else happy if we can.

Be Happy.

Do something everyday that makes you happy. Now is the perfect time to be happy.

With love and sparkles xxx