Housebound Today

I was all set to spend the entire day outside in 90 degree weather working the flowers beds in the back year. Almost our entire back yard is bordered with beds of one sort or another. I haven't worked in the beds for 2 years...I can't believe I just admitted that...and they have run amuck. I have a couple of very invasive plants in the bed bordering our fence. One is Sweet Woodruff, a delicate looking green border plant that has little white flowers in the spring.....


and the other is Gooseneck Loosestrife which grows about 12-18 inches tall and in the late summer has a bloom that looks like a goose stretching its head.


They are both wonderful when they bloom but I rip them out by buckets each year. If I let them go they would have taken over the entire backyard and half the house by now. So my plan today was to clean up the length of the fence. I was able to get out for bit. I cut some lower branches off the pine tree near the house and just started down the fence row when it started to rain. I kept working for a while but Lou started to bug me to come in. By the time I had taken a shower, it was just pouring. So I have been stuck in the house for the day. It's not all bad....I managed to take pics of the rest of my lampwork bracelets.

I just can't help myself....

more cat pictures

At times I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. Which is probably good because Lou has the mentality of a 12 year old boy. Maybe that's why we've been together for 20 years. We get each other.

I have a pile of paperwork about 2 inches thick. Bills, contracts, months worth of bank statements to go over. How did I ever get so behind?? Probably blogging on the internet. Gotta go. I really just wanted to post the cat picture. Go to http://icanhascheezburger.com If you are a cat lover you will enjoy it.

One week away from Bronze.....

Celie Fago's bracelet in bronze metal clay.

Next Monday I go to Perdue University for the PMC guild's meeting. Cris and I are going to take Celie's 2-day bronze class. There are a couple of other classes in bronze clay going on with Hadar Jacobson. We are going to be the first students to work with this new clay. Everybody is buzzing. Since silver has gotten so expensive this provides another medium to work in. It looks so amazing, warm and rich. I'm looking forward to this. Hopefully this week at work will fly by.

July 4th Celebration

We spent the 4th at my brother's house. It's an annual party that he throws for family and friends. Everybody brings something to eat, he grills burgers and dogs. When it gets dark there are fireworks. It's a good time.

His house is on Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes were formed at the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, when the Laurentide ice sheet receded. When this happened, the glaciers left behind a large amount of meltwater which filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes. I've know people that have never seen a Great lake and they were surprised to know that you cannot see across a Great lake.

A couple family pics...My mom and nephew, Matt and Lou.

Vitamin D Deficiency

That is what I have. I had blood drawn for my physical and they found my Vitamin D level extremely low. Who knew?? It causes fragile bones, bone pain, muscle pain, fatigue.....hell....I just thought I was getting old. So I am taking mega Vitamin D for the next 8 weeks and then down to a more normal level after that. We get vitamin D from some fish, fortified milk, and sunlight. I don't eat fish, I only have milk with cereal and that's not very often and I have been referred to as being "fish belly white" as my skin is so pale. I don't get out in the sun very often. I work in an office all day and pretty much crash when I get home. I have to try to get out in the sun for at least 15 minutes a day to see if I can get my levels back up.

I have been working on my Etsy site. It is up and running with 4 bracelets for sale. There will be more added as I get time to photograph and post. The link is over on the right hand side. Click on Moon River Beads in the Etsy box. That was the name for my business when I started. It was the style to have a name other than your own, but in hindsight I should have just used my own name. I am now going by Gail Lannum Designs but I cannot change the name of the Etsy shop.

Nothin' but Pics

Productive Weekend

I got alot done this weekend. Yesterday I cleaned the house. Today I spent 3 hours outside with the bumble bees weeding and pruning the landscaping. 3 hours doesn't sound like much but when you are constanly moving....it's alot. I filled 2 extra large garbage bags with trimmings. Below is the rock wall that borders the right side of our driveway. We used to have a railroad tie retaining wall there but a few years after we moved in the wall started to lean...badly. So we had a landscaper come in and build a rock wall. It's made of of Moss Rock which lichens tend to grow on. I think I'm likin' the lichens :))

This is the left side of the driveway and the entrance to the house. I had to cut back the pine tree to open up one of the flower beds. I need to get a few more geranium to fill in the bed. The clematis on the light pole was filled with flowers on Friday but with all the rain it has taken a beating. I took a close-up of a bloom after the rain.

The center of this bloom is awesome.

With Lou being into the martial arts we have pagodas all over the place. I usually put a stone bunny rabbit next them. It makes Lou crazy. I tell him our lanscaping is Bunny Zen. The one that was here sat out for a few too many winters and crumbled. I have to get another one. Another 3 hours session in the front of the house to lay down some mulch and finish weeding and I can move to the back of the house. I have three major flower beds there to clean up. I also have a friend that hangs around back.....

I threw out some bread but that wasn't good enough so I grabbed a bag of dried fruit and nuts....boy did Sammy the Squirrel like those. Just sat there munching away on the fruit.

Hot, Wet, and Sticky

Sounds like a porno movie....but that is the weather for this weekend. I hate weather like this...but I now have air-conditioning so I don't care. I have a ton of housework to do so staying inside isn't such a bad idea. I don't think I've cleaned in a month. I went from B&B to getting ready for a show so housework took a back seat. One of my guilty pleasures is watching "How Clean is Your House" on the BBC channel. They go into some of the worst rat holes I have ever seen and clean them up. There was one show that actually made me gag. They took 4.2 tons of garbage out of this guys house. When I watch it I never make it through a whole show because I feel guilty and get up and clean.

Lou is out of town so it's a chick weekend. I kinda like these weekends because I can do whatever I want, eat what and when I want, watch movies without someone moaning over my selections. So far I've watched "Dan in Real Life"...sweet, "Becoming Jane"....sad and "PS, I Love You"....Gerard Butler is soooooooo HOT with the crooked mouth and Scottish accent. But the downside is the house is empty.

Food for Thought

Can you cry under water?
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How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
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Why do you have to "put your two cents in"... but it's only a " penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
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Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
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Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
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What disease did cured ham actually have?
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How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
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Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?
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If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
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Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
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Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
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Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.
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Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?
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Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
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If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?
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Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane ?
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If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
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Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
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If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?
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If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
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If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
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Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
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Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?
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Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
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Do you ever wonder why you read my blog in the first place?

The Continental Bitch

So we booked our tickets to Paris today. We tried to book them over the phone but the woman from Continental was a total bitch. Lou gave her the dates and she asked if we were ready to book and he said yes. She asked for his credit card number and after giving it to her she then informed us what flights we were on. I said "NO" those are not the flights that I want. I have never had a rep do that to me before. They always ask if there is a particular time that you want to fly and then try to find flights that will work. It's usually a back and forth until you find the right combination of flights. This bealzabub started to tell Lou that the combination of flights that I wanted weren't "married" in her system and to book the flights that I wanted would be an extra charge of $250 per person because she had to special request them. At this point I ripped the phone out of Lou's hand and ask her why she couldn't give me those flights since I was looking at the Continental website and they were clearly "married" on the website. She kept talking over me and wouldn't listen. She told me we were already booked and I told her that I didn't want the flights that she had given us and asked again why she couldn't give me the combination I wanted since it was clearly on the web site. She suggested that if I could get the combination on the website then perhaps I should book it on the website. She said she would void the booking and I specified that she needed to void it without a charge on our card and she got even snottier and said "Fine" she would void it without a charge on the card. I was about ready to ask for her supervisor but let it go....but I was fuming for about an hour. I then hopped on the internet and booked the exact flight combination that we wanted and upgraded to business class wth Lou's frequent flyer miles. But I am still pissed. She tried to force flights on us and then got difficult when I wouldn't allow her to do this. I figure she voided the flight with a fight so I didn't get her supervisor involved.

My Pig Sty

I thought I would be relieved that the show is over and I don't have another until November. But now I have to catch up on all those things that I haven't done in the last month. First is cleaning the house. It's not so much dirty as it is cluttered. But that shouldn't surprise anyone who has seen me work before. Here is the workbench I shared with Cris at B&B. I think I managed to pull out every tool I had with me and stack them on my bench along with the requisite can of Diet Dr. Pepper which is one of my addictions. I had about a 6" square to work in once I was done.

This is also how my workbench at home can get. When I'm in production mode I don't put anything away....it just keeps piling up until I can't stand it.

So this is upstairs waiting for me to clean it up. Then I have to get outside and work in the flower beds. I haven't been out there since May. Life would be much easier if I could get by on 4 hours of sleep.

I'm back....

The show went well. The weather was great (at least until Saturday). Friday was beautiful and by far my best day. A number of the girls from the PMC group and the hospital stopped in for a visit. Saturday was much slower and the weather turned bad. About an hour before the show was suppose to end the promoter ran around and told everyone to breakdown and do it fast as a severe storm was on its way. Luckily I wasn't doing this alone. Lou and I scrambled to get all the jewelry put away and break down the displays and tent. Lou ran to get the truck and it started to pour rain, but we got out before it got really bad.

I had a great time people watching. Cleveland is split by the Cuyahoga River and the neighborhoods on either side of the river are distinct. It is a running joke in Cleveland that to cross the river you have to have your passport stamped. I live on the west side and what I really noticed is that the women on the east side LOVE their hats. All kinds of hats....small straw hats, big floppy hats, baseball caps. There was one woman in particular that I would have loved to take a picture of as a fashion DON'T. She was 60ish, overweight and wearing a clingy knit top and short skirt. She wasn't wearing a bra and let's just say its been a long time since anything on her has been considered "perky". She topped off her ensemble with a big floppy hat with rhinestones. You would have been truly proud of me as I did not point and laugh.....although I wanted to.

Below are some pics of my display. I was able to open up the back of the tent to let the air flow through.

Close up of my trees that I am hanging necklaces from

This is the view out the back of my tent. I was located on the inside of a circular drive. The building in the background is part of the private school.

I was so juiced today

Today was set-up day for the show. Lou helped me set up the tent this morning and then he took off to work. I spent the next couple hours putting up the sides and setting up my booth. Michael.... 2 tents down.... pulled his van up and started blasting 70's metal.... it was awesome and had me dancing around my tent. When I zipped up my tent and drove away I was so juiced. I am in a REAL art show. It was fantastic to not be in the office but to be outside and surrounded by other artists. Life gives you good days and bad days. When you get a day like this you just have to drink it up...to the last drop.


Cleveland has been in the news for it's poverty level but the city has stark contrasts. The art show is on the grounds of a private school (which is large enough to host 135 artists) and the surrounding neighborhood is very rich. Below is a picture of the house across the street from the school. The garage attached to this house if bigger than my first floor....I'm not kidding.

Well, I'm off to finish some necklaces for tomorrow. A lot of you have been commenting on my blog....I'll talk to you or e-mail you all once the show is over. Love to you all!!

Patina

I know.... I said I wasn't going to blog but I'm procrastinating.

So I took a couple of picutures of the patina that I did last night. I have had sooo many teachers who love to coax the color out of Liver of Sulfur. The use a teeny tiny piece of the solid LOS and put it in cold water and every so gently and slowly get color onto their silver pieces. I've tried to do that but I just don't have the patience. Somewhere around the second or third dip when it has barely turned color my head splits open and the Grizabella comes flying out ..... BWAAAHHH AH AH. She grabs boiling water and a chunk of LOS the size of a quarter......and straight to black in 30 seconds flat. Grizabella is satisfied.


Then I do some buffing and voila........


Maybe some day I'll learn to be subtle.......................NAAHHHHH.

Gail and Cris at Bead and Button

more cat pictures

Guess which one I am