It's Gonna Be Another Week

Before I get beads cleaned, photographed and listed in my shop.  There are still some discs in there that are feeling a bit lonely.  I am going on my fourth week of being friends with bronchitis.  Yesterday, I started in on round two of steroids and have noticed I'm breathing a bit easier today which is sooooo. very.  awesome.  Because being short of breath for a month = no fun.  

Panting Pony.  He doesn't look like it in this photo.  He looks like a calm sweet boy.  But he is on my Naughty List right now and not just for panting at night when we're trying to sleep.  He has been peeing on my deck.  Mellisa, I may be sending him out to you before the month is over.

My doctor even said I should be on bed rest for the next week to let my body heal.  I'm becoming one with my couch.  For the most part.  At least while the kids are in school.  In the afternoons after homework, we have karate and I am crocheting a blanket for the boy child during that time.

Ruby is settling in nicely.  She tries very hard to be good, but is still learning some manners.  Like to not snatch muffins out of Todd's hand as he walks back to his office.  She still likes to grab her water bowl, dump it out and then carry it around the house to clatter on the floor. 

And last night (while being one with the couch), I pulled out my external flash and played around while shooting the animules.  At first, Jezzie wasn't very cooperative and jumped right as I took this picture.  Thanks Jezz.

But then she sat still for a minute and I got this one.  And then that was enough for us both.

I love the catchlights in her eye.  It is the backsplash of my flash on the ceiling and wall behind me.

I have 7 sets of beads sitting above my kitchen sink that are waiting to be cleaned.  Most were made in the last week or two.  I'm excited to share them.  Next week.  When I'm more vertical than horizontal.  I promise.  And then we can finally move along to a new shop update.  Finally.

My Cat Thinks She Is a Bird

No bead pics today.  The beads are all etching and won't be ready for viewing until tomorrow. 

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you something that happened last week.  Jezzie learned she could climb our willow tree.

I need to climb the tree and start cutting back the larger branches that extend over our fence so she doesn't think she can jump into the neighbor's yard.  When she decides she has had enough perching and climbing, she drops out of the tree a good ten feet and lands with a thud.  Silly cat.

Come back tomorrow for pics of all the beads going into the shop on Saturday!

The Weekend and a Little Drama

The weekend was good.  We survived karate and a morning of two soccer games.  Even if it was freezing cold outside and about 15-20 degrees too cold inside the car.  ;)

The kids and I took Little Horse for a walk on Sunday afternoon.  They each practiced making snow angels, knowing that we would be hit with a big snowstorm.

The predictions of the weather forecasters did not disappoint.  We got two inches of snow in less that two hours and it was absolutely bee-you-tee-ful coming down.  I enjoyed listening to the sound of snowflakes hitting the trees and landing on the ground.  Like fairy wind chimes.  But there was a damper on this beauty.  We realized after dinner that Jezzie had been missing since lunch time.  Todd and I both walked the streets of our neighborhood calling her.  

And Todd continued those walks early this morning.  He was supposed to fly to Orlando this morning, but many of the highways were closed, our governor declared a State of Emergency and all flights were canceled out of the airport.

Georgia only has 11 snow plows (that'd be 11 more than I thought we had) and fewer than 200 salt trucks.  Needless to say, neighborhood streets are not the priorities.

School was canceled today and is canceled for tomorrow.  We are expecting there won't be any school for most of this week.  Our way of dealing with the snow is to wait for it to melt before driving around again.

At least for the sane or the cautious.  There are always the crazies out there who think they know how to drive on the snow and don't, or those who know they don't know how to drive on bad roads and don't care because they like to slam on the brakes and slide.

I'm glad the kids and I got to the farmer's market on Sunday afternoon and loaded up on our weekly groceries while Todd was playing in his first tennis match in two months.  

I love how the snow collected on this owl's feet.  He faces in towards my kitchen and is covered by the deck coming off our bedroom.  The snow had to work extra hard to come in and cover his feet!

Todd was out on his second or third search party walk around 9:30 this morning when I got a call from a neighbor who saw Jezzie in his front yard before she ran around the back of his house.  She had made tracks up to their front door.  With the length of time she was missing, we were both worried she was long gone.  But ended up only six doors down, thank goodness.

And thank goodness for facebook, prayers and good will sent by many friends to help us find her.  I don't think our neighbor would have known Jezzie was our cat if I hadn't posted her picture last night.

Abbie tried to keep me from working today by blocking my laptop.

And then Jezzie took her spot.  Jez slept most of today and was more cuddly than normal.  I hope this made a big impression on her that if she sneaks out, she'll be stuck overnight in the COLD and have to deal with a TON of snow so she won't even think about running away again.  So very thankful to have her back!

So that was my weekend.  How was yours?

I had planned on being on the torch tonight, but walking Little Horse with the boy child in the snow took longer than expected.  The boy had to make Owen Angels, which is the equivalent of a running start before a belly flop while doing the splits.  Tuesday night I will be on the torch.  I hope!

Tuesday Ramblings

A scorpion made its way into my kitchen last night.  It is the first time I have ever seen one alive and it made me yell at Todd to get his toukis off the sofa in the middle of the Vikings game and take care of it.  There was to be no waiting for a commercial break.  Even though I know scorpions in the SouthEast are not poisonous, it made me lose my senses and yell.  I probably saw Clash of the Titans one too many times as a child.  Glad I can take care of snakes, leezards and rodents without squealing like a school girl to help redeem myself when I lose it over creepy insects.

 I think I'm ready to make eggs again.  But not at the same level as I was previously.  I am willing to entertain custom requests, but not with a waiting list.  And so, I will be making random sets to throw into the shop here and there.  

I remembered the combination of glass I used to make this little guy and now want to make many, many more.  I lurve the colors!

Which leads to shop updates.  I am trying to lessen the time I spend on the computer so I can spend more time doing the things I want to be doing.  Reading to the kidlets.  Cooking.  Simplifying.  Torching.  Teaching Owen how to cook (did I tell you he is cooking dinner for us once a week?  he is so proud of himself!  not many other eight year olds in his class are cooking dinner for their families.  he feels so responsible.  and so NEEDED by our family.  I love that).  Holding my honeys hand.  Getting my mess of a yard in order because I've let it go too long.  It's disgraceful.  My goal is to get 2-3 nights a week on the torch and then add everything to the shop on Friday nights after I get the kids in bed at 8pm ET.  That should give me plenty of time throughout the week to get sunny pics of what comes out of the kiln.

Some of the ducks at the Cider Mill had crazy hair like this one. 

I am still coming off the high of having a wonderful weekend with my friend.  Hard coming back to reality, but now I have next Friday to look forward to...we'll be driving up to St. Louis to see my aunt get married.  Which means we can load up on Gooey Butter Cakes from Dierberg's and meals at the Pasta House Restaurant where they have wonderful salads and the best creamy cavatelli ever.

I moved my jewelry from Etsy to Facebook where I think it will be easier for my customers to make purchases and Paypal can still be used for the payment method.  If you're a Facebook fan of my page, that earns you an extra 10% off your purchase.  And I'm offering FREE shipping on all of my jewelry here in the states.  I plan on getting new necklaces into the shop this month that will have single pendants dangling from simple chains.  And more earrings.

This used bookstore in Cooperstown ROCKED!

While I ate these chimichangas for dinner last Friday night at Lorelei's house and then again for my breakfast on BOTH Saturday AND Sunday, I did not get my fill.  I will need to make a batch of my own this week.  I'm addicted.  Serious cravings are plaguing me morning, noon and night for these.

I am craving Mississippi Mud Cake.  Horribly.  And fighting off the strong desire to make the cake just so I can eat it all by myself.  Because I no longer have the same metabolism I had in high school where I could eat a whole batch of brownie mix or cookie dough in one sitting.  On a weekly basis.  Not that I want to do that on a weekly basis now.  But it would be nice.  Some weeks.  :)  On a similar note, I have slid from my No Soda path and am drinking more Coke Zeros than I would like to admit.  I need to become more diligent about making green tea and drinking more water.  Again. 

Jezzie caught and killed a chipmunk earlier.  Made me sad to see her run around the backyard with it dangling from her mouth and then tossing it up in the air.  I buried the little guy in our side yard.  He was so soft.

Later this week or early next, an interview is coming with the woman you see below.  I'm excited to share more with you about her studio (including LOTS of pics!) and her answers to the questions I still need to write.  :)

Shtuff That Is Awesome

In no particular order...

I love that his hair is growing out and that all summer mohawk signs are gone.  The boy does not share in this love, but that's okay.  I also love that he is doing so well in school, loves to read and is embracing teamwork in soccer like nobody's business.  We received a postcard that there is a season of indoor soccer starting in December and are excited about that....I played indoor soccer in junior high and high school and it was FUN!

Jezzie is becoming a proficient huntress.  She is catching more and more baby lizards like this one.  I'm glad I am able to save most of them.  Check out his long toes!

Jez also caught and killed this little snake which Todd found inside the house and asked me to pick up and remove (I'm so thankful he takes care of insects and spiders...I can deal with vertebrates!).  Although I was a little disturbed by the markings on this one.  Hmmm...anyone know what he is?

Okay, finding snakes in the house isn't very awesome.  But it fits in with my randomness.  Moving along.

Blogger added a tab for Stats to our admin functions so I can see things like this

That's right.  People searching for molar tooth shaped lampwork beads (something I have never made or attempted), how to get a ring out of your drain (people land here weekly for this video!) and wire wrapped stone like nina bagley (I enjoy nina's blog, outlook and creativity, but I don't recall ever mentioning her on my blog).  Apparently there is something for everyone here.  :D

I flew up to Syracuse this afternoon to spend the weekend with Lorelei.  I can't wait to see all the work she and Joe have put into their house and yard this past year and that I have only seen in pics.  I can't wait to have a weekend without an agenda or commitments.  She promised her husband will be making these chimichangas tonight.  They are my absolute favorite!

I think it's cool that both kids have been taking an interest in photography this year.  Owen was spending the night at my Mom's on this particular evening and we took Chloe out to eat.  She wanted to take pics of Todd and me and thought it was pretty cool that if she just held her finger down, she could take 67 pics in 4.5 seconds.  This was about the point that I was asking for her to hand back my camera.  There are only so many pics of myself that I want to see at a time.  Sixty seven in a row exceeds that limit...however.  I do love this pic of Todd :)

I worked over 40 hours in four days this week and wrangled my work email inbox from close to 500 down to 134 last night.  I tied up an inordinate amount of loose ends yesterday and that felt so good.  Not so awesome part is this is week two (in a row! boo. hiss.) that I have had very little chance to read blogs and see how everyone is doing.  Or set up my own blogs, which I normally do in the evenings between making beads.

Only 47 more days until we visit Disney.  I'm not sure what I'm more excited about...seeing my kids' faces and wonder over the Magical Kingdom for the first time or just spending the week with my family, mom, grandma and in-laws over my favorite holiday.

I didn't get any time on the torch this week like I had planned.  Probably because I was working every night after putting the kids to bed and then collapsing in exhaustion.  It wasn't intentional and I would certainly choose the torch over work any night, but it was a nice little break from creating after my marathon weeks of making headpins and mixed bead sets and buttons.  I am looking forward to next week and time back on the torch (I hope work behaves and quiets down)!  I have more ideas that I want to put into action and see what they look like when I pull them out of the kiln the next morning.

I made chili last night.  I lurve chili.  It makes me happy.  It makes my husband happy.  I would be happy to make it during the summer, but my husband thinks it should only be eaten in cold weather.  We have had a burst of fall this past week and temps that never climbed out of the 60s (that's above 20 for your Celsius folks).  Some people think it is insane to be such good friends with the 90s like I am, but I love summer and am having a hard time letting it go this year.

I will ship out any Etsy purchases on Monday once I return.  I hope you have an excellent weekend and look forward to showing you pics of my trip to Upstate New York once I get back!

Weekend Tutorial and Giveaway

Hop on over to Art Bead Scene when you get a moment.  Lorelei wrote a great tutorial on making your own photo collage using Picasa.  She was even so thoughtful as to include both Mac and PC instructions.  If you leave a comment on the ABS post, you are entered to win one of my new buttons.

A little catch up from the end of this week.  Thursday was our 10th wedding anniversary and we celebrated in high style when the kids went over to a friend's home (another brother and sister with same age distance as our kids).  Todd and I went through the drive-through.  At Taco Bell.  And we were really crazy and ate in the parking lot.  Then we drove to Wal-Mart to buy posterboard, sharpies and tape to make signs for the garage sale I held yesterday and today.  We were out. of. control.  We can also now walk through our attic again.  Yay!

To make up for our lack of celebratory activities on Thursday, we did go out for a nice steak dinner last night and then a movie.  They undercooked Todd's steak so it was still pink and he REALLY liked it (normally he wants it cooked well done or worse so he knows it won't walk off his plate).  I learned that the trick is dimming the lights so he can't see the pink.  Not that I want my steak mooing, but think medium rare to medium is perfect.  Then we saw the new Ben Affleck movie and enjoyed an escape from our reality.

We stopped at the grocery store on our way home to pick up two sprinkles doughnuts for Chloe to eat for her birthday breakfast as a special treat.  But they were sold out, so I woke up early to go buy two before she woke up.  Chloe is my little rooster and was sneaking up behind me before I had my shoes on.  So she was thrilled to go with me to pick out her doughnuts.  In her nightgown, with non-matching shoes (because that's one of the things that makes the girl child happy these days) and her ostrich named Goggle.  She was happy to stop for sunrise photos on the way home and then eager to help with day two of our garage sale.

The kids had a shared birthday party this afternoon which was a lot of fun.  They enjoyed pizza, cake, laughter, friendship and way too much sugar.  Or at least too much sugar for them because they rarely get candy or anything with sugar.  Which made for two hyper kids and a mom who lost her patience.  Which stunk because I don't like losing my cool.  With my kids.  On one of their birthdays.  I was glad when bedtime came and I'm looking forward to tomorrow when we have all had enough rest and the sugar is out of little bodies.  I was glad that she liked her birthday present, which was a very old, brass ferris wheel that spins when the music box is wound up.  The cars even rock and swing in place!

With that, I will leave you with a picture of Jezz trying to get to the highest point possible on my piano to chase some sort of insect or figment of her imagination tonight.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you all on Monday!

Radio Silence

I can't believe it's been almost a week since my last post!  I promise, I haven't been an all around slacker.  Just here.  On the torch, I have been very busy almost every night.  So here are a few sneak peeks of what is coming within the next week or two.

Do you not have enough time to do everything you want?  If not, read this post and perhaps you can learn to knit.  Or pick up a new hobby.  I thought this post was great!

Here is one of my attempts at a sunflower bead.

Jezzie has doubled in size since we brought her home a month ago.

Meet Sugar (who started out as Rumblebuffin and was re-named Hammy within an hour of coming home and another hour later to Sugar).  She was Owen's 8th birthday present.  When he is home, he gets her out of her cage to hold her on an hourly basis.  It is so sweet.  Yesterday he stayed home to be spoiled by grandparents.  Today he went to camp (our county is out for the week...they take a week off after every 7-8 weeks of school) and asked if I would get her out every 3 hours to hold and pet and love.  I'll see what I can do to get a better pic of her from the front when Owen is holding her another day.

Sometimes I feel unappreciated as a wife and mom.  I feel like I do so much and it goes un-noticed.  For the most part, I am ok with this and do not become resentful.  I don't expect thank yous for doing the laundry, cooking, making the bed, dishes, packing lunches or all the other things I do to keep our family going (although it would be nice to hear occasionally).  But over this past week, multiple things heaped on me (and I may have exaggerated some things in my mind about how I was being ignored or unappreciated having a rare pity party) and I started questioning if I was really where I was supposed to be.  I just needed a little solitude and distance to realize again I would not change my life for anything and love my husband and children.  This post could not have come at a better time for helping put an end to my pity party.  Tis a good one for other moms because we sometimes need humble reminders.  Or at least I do.

Chloe took this pic of me last night while we were at Owen's soccer practice.

ThyHand is having a giveaway on her blog with this bracelet made by Lorelei!

Tonight I am booking a rental home for the week of Thanksgiving in Orlando.  Our kids have been asking for years to go to Disney World and we are finally ready (ie. we have saved up the arms and legs required to pay for the admissions for a family of four).  I found a lovely four bedroom home to share with my Mom, Grandma and Todd's folks.  The kids will be spoiled in love from the grandparents and the splendor of Disney.  I haven't been since I was six and have no recollection of going, other than the pictures taken at the time and stories that I ruined it for my Mom because she wanted to go on the rides and I was too scared.   Todd went to Disney Land as a teenager, but this will be his first time going to Disney World.  I'm so excited about every aspect of this trip!  Lisa, I will email you the dates we'll be in town :D

Last week a new etsian committed to buy these three sets of beads, but never remitted payment or responded to my emails/convos.  So I canceled the sale today and relisted them.  If you liked them before, they are back in the shop now.

Laguna rounds

Candy nuggets

Swirling Willow Eggs

Here is my sunset this evening.

Since Todd has tennis practice tomorrow night and I'll be putting the kids to bed by myself, he is putting the kids to bed tonight.  I'm hopping over to the torch now to melt more glass.

Have a good evening!