Phew!!!

Thanks to all of you who commented or e-mailed. It's nice to know there are people that care and who are willing to kick ass for me. You girls ROCK!!!

I made it through Friday at work. Although I kept sniffling while I was sitting at my desk. But time and distance gives you better prospective. It's work...it's not worth this much heartache. One of my co-workers sent me an e-mail that simply put stated that you can choose to accept someone's garbage or not. In the future I choose NOT. What truely matters is family and friends.

Speaking of family, I picked Lou up at the airport last night. It's so good to have him home. We curled up on the couch for a while last night until he started to crash. It took 27 hours to get home so he was tired. As I write this he is taking a nap. Korea is 13 hours ahead so it messed up his internal clock. Tonight we are having dinner with my family and tomorrow I am spending in my workroom. It's a good weekend.

And hopefully I won't have any more tirades for a while :))

Pics

Half lentil beads

I've been going disc crazy. I'm going to use these as pendants for necklaces. I was on a roll and I'm not done yet. I'm so compulsive that when I get going on a design I make it in every variation of style and design. There will be more of these.

Below are some bracelets that I made. I am prepping the photos for Etsy.

A weekend to myself

Lou is in Korea. I dropped him at the airport yesterday at 6:30AM and I got a phone call today at 9:30AM that he had just arrived in Pusan. That's such a long time to travel. It would drive me crazy. He is there for a week for his martial arts. He will be getting his 6th degree black belt in Hap Ki Do while he's there.

I took today off and I have the entire weekend to myself...at least the next 2 days. Sunday I am going to my Mom's....but today and Saturday I am playing. I have the clay out and plan to work on it all day and who knows what I'll do tomorrow. I have so many projects to work on...2 days isn't enough. But I'm off.......hopefully I'll post some pics later.

New Rules

Where does the time go??? It's been a week since I last blogged. Seems like all I did was work. I did have Monday off. I ran errands. While I was out I stopped at a couple wallpaper stores to see if they had old books that might be used for PMC texture. Didn't come up with much.

I fixed a couple of bracelets...one was one of my designs. It must have snagged on something tough because the toggle was bent way out of shape and that's not easy to do. The other was a piece of crap jewelry that was probably bought at the dollar store. But it belongs to the daughter of a co-worker so I said OK. I think I need to get tough.... NEW RULE #1 ...I will only repair my own work.

I've also had people buy strands of beads on vacation and then bring them to me and ask if I would design them something. My work goes in cycles....I work in different mediums based on my interests at the time. It irritates me to work on something that I have no interest in....especially if they are ugly beads..... NEW RULE #2....I will only design the things I choose. My time designing is limited and I resent repairing something that I didn't make or designing something I don't want to.

I also altered a necklace that I sold at the last show. That's the other thing I hate to do.....alter my designs. I make designs that please me and I must do an OK job at it because I do very well at shows. When somone asks me if I can change the design, it's a little insulting....you know....like my design was only OK but the buyer knows how to make it look so much better. Would you ask DaVinci to alter the Mona Lisa's smile??? I know that's a ridiculous analogy...but really would you??? People will go into a department store and drop a couple hundred bucks on a piece that was probably made in some sweat shop in China and wouldn't think of altering it because it has the name of some big designer on it. But they ask a jewelry artisan to change their designs because they put a lesser value on it. In fact they should put more value on it because it is hand made....New Rule #3 .... I will not alter my designs.....I will make them larger or smaller so they fit they buyer....but I will not alter the design.

On tap for this week.....I have to get the taxes to the accountant, finish show applications for this year (already missed a few deadlines), and take photos of my jewelry. I want to start an Etsy shop and I need photos. I'll post them as I take them so you can see some of my work.

Basket of Goodies

I did make it out on Sunday to the Hollow Bead workshop. Surprisingly after 31 hours of snow, the plows were able to clear the roads enough for me to make it out. Unfortunately they don't plow our driveway. Since I took Lou's truck I made it out of the driveway easily. He on the other hand got my car stuck and the neighbor had to help him get it out. I didn't feel too bad. Lou doesn't shovel snow. He feels that we can just drive over it....and most times we can. But not this time. So when he told me he got the car stuck I just smiled and suggested that we need to get a snowblower.
Below is a pic of Barbara Becker Simon goodies (taken by my friend Brenda).



She is an amazing artist and her hollow form beads are just fantastic. As with most things....once you see the technique it is easier than it looks .... but in this case tedious. A lot of sanding and fitting and sanding and fitting. The hardest part for me was mitering the side walls with an exacto knife. There is nothing about me that says finesse....so I was taking chuncks out of the side walls....which meant more sanding, fitting, and carving. Surprisingly once my bead went together it didn't look too bad. I haven't fired it yet. I want to try a few more before I run a load.

I had the day off today. I never turned my blackberry on...still haven't. I slept late, ran errands, worked on some jewelry. I stopped at a few wallpaper stores. I'm looking for the old books that they usually throw out....wallpaper with texture can be used on the PMC. The one store had just given away a book the was full of textured wallpaper. I did take one book but it only had two different textures, but I'll give them a try to see if they are of any interest. NowI have to get my tax records ready for the accountant so Lou will stop bugging me.

The blizzard that ate Cleveland

My front door. The drift on the top of the porch is about 3 feet tall. It has been snowing for 31 hours and isn't suppose to stop for another hour. The snow is up over the windows in the front and back of the living room. We did make it out of the driveway today to go to the grocery store. That was about 4 hours ago and the footprints that we left in the snow....are all gone now.

We have a bench in the font yard. The snow was up to the seat early this afternoon....it is now up over top. We just keep looking out the windows laughing....and it's still coming down. Needless to say that I didn't make it to the workshop today and probably won't make it tormorrow. Hell...I don't know if we'll ever make it out of the house again

Did I tell you I'm sick of winter??

The week started out with freezing rain. On Tuesday I came out to my car to find it coated with 1/4" of ice. I couldn't get the doors open. After about 5 minutes I managed to get the passenger door open. It took about 15 mnutes of scraping and having the heat on full blast to get to a point where I could see out the windows. But of course that didn't stop me from meeting Lou down at Fahrenheit's for dinner. It was spectacular. A five course meal with wines to complement. All the while we were there it continued to sleet but surprisingly it wasn't difficult to get home. Also surprisingly after 5 different wines I wasn't smashed. Of course they weren't full glasses.

Now today it has started snowing....and it is suppose to snow through Sunday early morning. The are predicting somewhere between 12-18 inches of snow. I'M SICK OF WINTER. I have the workshop this weekend and I don't know if I'm going to make it, but I'm going to try. The drive is normally 40 minutes....I'm expecting it to take much longer. I've convinced Lou and it would be best to take his truck so I have a better chance of making through the snow. I'm also taking some clothes with me. If I make it there I don't think I'm coming home Saturday night. One of my the girls has volunteered to put me up on Saturday night.....a slumber party...I haven't had one of those in ages :))

If I don't make it...I've got plenty to do here and I can blog some more.

Did you vote??

Today is the Democratic primary in Ohio. I voted. As I was going into the polling place there was an older lady...~75-80 ... thanking people for voting. I think it's great she is still politically active. My mom is...she's 84. She's republican so we don't agree on who to vote for. I always tell her that my vote is going to cancel hers out so she should just stay home :))

Lou and I are going out to dinner tonight to watch the election results come in. We are going to Fahrenheit in Tremont. They are having a wine tasting dinner. We don't get there are much as we would like. Hubby and I don't agree on politics so the conversation tonight should be interesting. He called me a tree hugger today. He also said he was going to become a Democrat so he can have some of the entitlements we hand out. I told him he was entitled to kiss my butt. He's been entitled to do that for a long time :))

This coming weekend I'll be taking a workshop with Barbara Becker Simon. She is coming to our PMC guild chapter for the weekend. Check out her website. Awesome artist in glass and PMC. We had so many chapter members wanting to take her classes we thought we were going to have to draw names. I'll be sure to get pictures of the workshops. Saturday is clasps and findings and sunday is hollow forms. We're going to have a pot luck Saturday night and she will give a presentation of her work. Below is a pic of her necklace. It won 2nd place in the Saul Bell Awards.



I think I'm going to take the following Monday off. I am so tired after a weekend workshop. I'm getting old. Or maybe it's that I work 2 jobs. Or that I stay up until ~2AM. Last night I was up late getting my taxes ready. I closed out the 2007 books for the bead business. Now I have to do my personal taxes. I actually don't do them. I just get everything ready for the accountant.