Old friends

Today while we were driving around town running errands Dave got a call from an old co-worker of his. He had recently moved to Tallahassee and he was in town close by so he wanted to drop in to say hi. Of course that means the evening straightening for people coming over. My dining room is basically my "studio" and the dinning room table and hutch stay cluttered with my jewelry and clay. So I spent about an hour reorganizing and cleaning all that up. I found some old "friends" that I had forgotten about.

The first thing I found was this. My first successful (if you can call it that) attempt and wire wrapping. And I thought this thing looked amazing when I first did it, compared to my work now, not so much. LOL. But still, it brought back some old memories

The second thing I found were two stones that I had bought at an estate sale. The purple one is a very nice iolite cab that reminded me that I need to find some setting for it. I've wire wrapped stones this small before but this one I think needs more of a traditional setting.
The other reminded me why I have decided to save all the money I make off etsy to buy a kiln to use for metal clay. It is a beautiful jelly opal that has some very nice blue green fire in it. It will make an absolutely stunning ring but it's size is not a normal size you would find a setting for so it will have to be hand made.The past week or so has been good to me on etsy. I figure I have about 1/3 of what I need to buy one of the small recommended kilns. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll have enough in 3 or 4 months.

Friday! Woohoo!

Finally it's Friday, and with a week I've had where I haven't been able to keep what day of the week it is straight I am glad. Between me going home early the one day and feeling bad, then Little G being sick, it's been crazy.

Originally today was going to be a "grownup" day. Little G was going to go to daycare and we were going to start off by going out to breakfast. Also, our TV was supposed to be fixed today....funny how things can change so quickly...

Little G is staying home from daycare. He is extremely cranky this morning and didn't sleep well. I just can't take him to daycare knowing he's going to be overly tired. But that's really no big deal. The big deal right now is the TV.

We have a Sony 60inch LCD TV that we bought about 3 years ago from Best Buy. Great picture but thank goodness we got the extended warranty on the thing. First something started going out on it that was causing the screen to go yellow. That was an expensive fix and I guess it was pretty common because it was a Sony technician that came out to diagnose and replace the part. Okay cool, that was March of last year. Now the lamp has gone out on the thing. This is a pretty decent fix, the lamp, in a snap in-snap out type case costs like $145. Our warranty is still good so we go through warranty thing at Best Buy which is now run by Geek Squad.

The initial call went well. Dave called they took the info, told him what is was doing, the guy was like, yep it's a lamp that went out and we scheduled for the first available which was this morning. We were told someone would call the night before to confirm. The call comes in but it's some automated call that requires you to enter in some pass code. WTH? We don't have any pass code. So Dave calls them main line back, and gets disconnected. Calls back a second time to 1) have them ask if we received the part yet...? and then 2) after telling them we weren't supposed to be receiving and part find out that the part is in but there's been a scheduling error so we're not slated for Friday and they don't know when they will be here to fix it and that a scheduling supervisor will call in the next 4 business hours or definitely by this time tomorrow. This was at 7:00 at night. Ugh.

Is it Friday yet??

Today was a slow day. I think it took an hour for 10 minutes to go by at work. Seriously! Then of course once I get home the evening has flown by and here it is 9:00 and I'm wondering where my afternoon/evening went. I guess some days are just like that.

I'm taking Friday off from work. I need the day off. Plus Dave is taking the day off as well so it will be nice to have some alone time with Little G at daycare. I remember after we first had him that both of us were so against having to put him in daycare. Dave's contract had just went up so he basically had no job the same time I was on maternity leave as well as some months after I went back to work. So, Little G didn't go into daycare until he was 11 months old.

It was hard at first dropping him off. More for me than him of course which in some ways was even worse than if I had to walk out of there with him screaming for "mommy". Some mornings he had his issues but from the beginning he was always totally cool with it. He's 2 and now he comes home some days talking about things I had no idea he knows. One day we were reading a book and all the sudden he's saying "pine". I have no idea what he's talking about until he starts pointing to the outside of the book. He was showing me the spine of the book. At the time he was probably 18 months, and not exactly what you expect to here coming out of your child's mouth at that age.

He's doing better today I think. Didn't seem to be coughing as much but he had a fever again this evening so we'll see what tomorrow holds I guess.

Yay!!!

Today has been both a good and bad day. The bad part first...

I seem to be suffering from some kind of sinus thing or a relapse of what I had a couple of weeks ago, I'm not sure which. Today I went to work and could NOT breath plus the sinus pressure was killing me. So I worked half day, came home and took something for all of that and rested for a bit. Also, Little G hasn't been sleeping so great the past two nights coughing and what not. I picked him up from school today and his nose is running like a fountain and he has a horrible cough.

Now for the good...

I sold one of my more expensive pendants today. It really was one of my favorites and I was sad but proud to have it sold. I know, that sounds so totally sappy but really, it was an absolutely beautiful larimar stone and I was thrilled with how it came out. Here is a picture of it.

Larimar pendants tend to be one of my better sellers so I try to have one or two in my store that are of a nice quality. It's ironic in some ways that this one sold because I made one up this weekend and posted it which I think turned out really nice.It was a beautiful day today so I took a bunch of pictures outside to update some of my listings.

So, even though today has had it's "eh" moments it's turning out to be not to bad of a day.

Another monday

I can't really complain, today really wasn't that bad for a Monday. Work was better than expected and I am basically caught up on my part of a project that started 2 weeks behind as it was. That in itself is a total stress reliever.

Little G was in a good mood today. He's still a little confused about the TV being broken. We come home from day care and I get his snack ready that I let him eat in the living room. He looks at the TV and looks at me with his head coked to what side, " 'Prout? 'Prout pease?". We have DirectTV and we get the PBS preschool channel "Sprout". I tell him "No, that the TV is broken and we have a long time to wait to fix it." He looks a bit dejected and says "Oh" and sits down and starts to eat his Cheezy Crackers and Juice. Wouldn't it be nice if all of life's problems could be dealt with or gotten over that simply. Oh, if only Cheezy Crackers and Juice could solve everything.

Tonight I have been working on shawl pins and moved all of my wire wrapped pendants off of 1000Markets over to etsy. I just get more views there and I can actually see what people are interested in or designs and stones that they like because of which ones they heart. I just have no other REAL feedback on 1000Markets unless someone decides to post a message on your "wall". At least it was free and didn't cost anything to do.

Oh and the vest is coming along nicely, I'm already working on the arm holes for the back and might get to working on that tonight some more. It will definitely be finished by or on this weekend.

Every bad day deserves a good one

Yesterday must have been a bad alignment of stars for me or something. After Little G was put to bed Dave and I were watching TV and all the sudden we here this noise that sounds similar to when a light bulb goes out and then our TV goes dark. Apparently the lamp on it went out. Luckily we got one of those extended warranties on it so they are supposed to be coming out and fixing it Friday morning.

This morning things were doing a bit better. Little G had a good nights sleep and was in a great mood all day today. With the TV being broke we spent quite a bit of the day outside. We went to one of the local parks and Little G got to play on all of the equipment. They were also having a softball game and he thought that was the neatest thing too since he loves to watch Dave play baseball on the Wii.

I've gotten a ton done on Little G's vest and I have no doubt it will be ready for picture day. I also made two new pendants today and listed two others on etsy. I've totally given up on 1000markets. I log in and check it once a day but other than that I just don't get the views there that I get on etsy and it doesn't seem to be getting any better so I'm just not updating or listing anything there anymore.

Just one of those days

Today has just been one of those days. First, it started off with whatever blew in the other day with a front we got has played hell with my sinuses and this morning I felt horrible. So Little G and I stayed home while Dave went to the grocery store. When he got back he and bought me flowers. My husband regularly brings me flowers and while his intentions are good and I appreciate it the man can NOT pick out flowers. This was a spring bouquet with some spider mums, daisies and some flower closely related to a tiger lily. The lilies were all completely wilted because probably whatever they were in was low on water. I took out all of the wilted ones and my husband looks over and says, "I thought there were a lot more flowers than that?" I nicely explain to him that the other flowers were wilted. He felt a little bad but the rest of the flowers are nice and the spider mums are my favorite anyway.

Things started to pick up from here. I went to the knit shop for my usual Saturday knitting (as I have a vest I'm working on for Little G's picture day March 4th) and found out that one of my shawl pins had already sold. (I just dropped them off Thursday right before she closed) Then this one lady came in and bought three more of them and everyone that came in thought they were the cutest things. Sweet!

The rest of the day went pretty good until we decided to go out and about. We were originally going to go Old Town but halfway there we decide that Little G wasn't looking like he's up for it so we turn around and stop by Target to pick him up some Hot Wheels. He perks up at this idea and we go inside and pick out some and then Dave finds some G.I. Joe DVD toy he wants. We are down by the sports section when Little G, out of nowhere, just starts throwing up. If you have kids you know that when they're this little (2) that you feel bad for them and it's even worse when they look up at you with those "mommy make me feel better, what's happening?" eyes. It breaks your heart because until whatever it is runs it's course there's nothing you can do.

So, Dave stays with him while I got to get paper towels from the bathroom....there are only hand dryers in the bathroom. Doh! Luckily the cleaning closet by the bathrooms is wide open and what do I spy on the shelf but paper towels. Hallelujah! I take some back, get him cleaned up as possible, Dave takes him to the car and I purchase our items. After my kid puking in the general area of these things I am NOT going to be putting them back that would be gross. Little G seems to be doing 100% better the rest of the night so we're guessing something just didn't agree with him. But geeze, what a day.

Here comes the sun

After work I came home and baked my Sun shawl pin. It's bright and cheery and I'm happy with the way it turned out. I still have to put the glaze on it which I will do tonight.Here is the sea turtle I did, I've glazed this one already so there's kind of a nasty glare coming off of it but you get the idea.

I am not a germ-a-phobe.

There are some people out there that absolutely HAVE to wash any clothes they buy before they wear them. I am not one of those people. I have no problem in buying something, putting it in the closet and leaving the tags on it and not taking them off until I get ready to put whatever it is on. Today I think I just encountered why people just might wash everything before they wear it...

We went to our bi-weekly (more like tri-weekly) visit to Target to get out of the house and more importantly to get Starbucks. I'm not a big coffee person but I LOVE caramel macchiatos. Anyway, off to target to get me son (Little G as I like to call him) a couple of pairs of jeans and pajamas. We do our usual loop around the store and stop last to look at the kid clothes and get the jeans and then I find three sets of pajamas for Little G. (One by the way is a cute batman set with a removable cape).

Off to the checkout where they must be short staffed or something because it's one of the cart return guys that's manning the register, it's cool because he knows what he's doing so it's not like he's being slow or anything. Apparently this guy is suffering from whatever cold thing is going around which are household has already experienced. He's got a bit of the sniffles and he rubs his nose and then proceeds to pick up my son's pajamas and slide them across the scanner. Ugh. Grant you it's not like the guy left snot trails on the pajamas or anything but the thought that instantly ran through my head was, "I now know why people wash their clothes before wearing."

On the business front I made a boat load of those clay shawl pins I blogged about the other day and dropped them off at my local knit shop. I'm not expecting to sell out of the things in a week or anything but I am hoping to at least get some feedback of what people think of them that come in because the more I look at them the more I really like them and think that others would too. Oh, and I made this really cute one yesterday that looks like a sea turtle and one tonight that looks like a sun. Awesomeness! I'll post pictures tomorrow.

I love clay

During my long weekend I spent a lot of time working on making shawl pins. They turned out totally awesome and there's a possibility I might be able to show them at my local knit shop which would be awesome. I'm really happy with them though. They've turned out better than I thought they would which is always an added bonus. Here's a photo of my ladybug one that I have listed on etsy...

Yay for short weeks!

It was so awesome having today off. I got to spend the whole day with my son who was the perfect little angel for me today. Yesterday I was beginning to think aliens had switched him out as he slept because he was being a little monster. He's two so I know it's part of the terrible two's but still, he is usually from day to day, one mellow and happy little guy.

Dave had to work today so it was just the two of us. We started out with a trip to Joann's to pick up some clay for a project I'm working on. For some reason my little guy has a serious aversion to those green baskets. We went two weeks ago and he freaked out, "no basket, no basket" as he flails his feet. I thought it was just a fluke thing that day. Apparently not. I managed to get him in the basket today but he wasn't happy until we twirled around in the cart a couple times. Then everything was cool.

After that we came home, I prepped dinner for tonight and tomorrow, baked cookies and finished my labradorite pendant I had worked on. I must say it came out beautiful. I haven't posted it on etsy but I might tomorrow, it's name is Infinity because there's a figure-8 type shape on the side similar to the symbol for infinity.

Speaking of etsy I have one of my pendants in a showcase today that is one of my favorites. I had it listed at 1000markets for a while but just wasn't getting that much visability so I moved it over to etsy and in the showcase spot I purchased. It's doing quite well so far. 35 views for the day and a couple of hearts. Here's a picture and link to it (click on the picture).

3-day weekend...

It's finally the weekend and I get Monday off for President's Day. Work has been beyond busy this past week as I'm trying to finish up two of my maps as well as coordinate the work out of our unit for an Atlas. So, a three day weekend is more than welcome.

After being sick I've been kind of in a "crafting funk". I make jewelry and do a lot of knitting and the past couple of weeks I just haven't had the motivation, inspiration...something.

Yesterday I got three stones in the mail so I decided to start working on a new pendant for my etsy shop. I work on a lot of my jewelry at our kitchen table and I have a bad habit of while I'm wrapping a stone I'll lean back in the chair. Well, last night I paid the price because I dropped the stone which fell on the tile floor and broke. I was so mad at myself. The only good thing of it was that this stone was the same size of this really nice and flashy labradorite that I have so I was still able to use the wire. It really turned out nice. When I add the drop and get pictures I'll post it.

Also, this morning I went up to my local knit shop. I usually go almost every Saturday for a couple of hours but here recently I just haven't been making my usual trip. I have no ongoing projects I'm really interested in so I took a pattern I have for a head kercheif that I've done probably 4 times and just haven't found the right yarn for. I also just finished a totally awesome blanket for my son two weeks ago and I'm going to do a smaller version in a bright rainbow out of Cascade 220 wool. So, now I'm out of my "crafting funk" and it couldn't come at a better time wth the extra day off.

Oh and I made myself a new heading yesterday. I need to pull the color number of my background so it's not white but it's better than that generic one that I had.

What happend to those old fashioned Valentines???

So, my son is 2 and goes to daycare. They are having a Valentine's party on Friday and of course yesterday we got the list of the names of all the kids in the class. Last year I was going to be the over achieving, super mom and handmade every single one of the cards.

I used patterned card stock and then put a solid color piece trimmed down on top with Happy Valentine's Day hand stamped on each card. And this wasn't one of those all in one stamps, I did it with one of those alphabet kits and then I put little 3-D flowers made our of card stock on them that I bought.....yeah.....what the hell was I thinking. I won't tell you how much time I spent on those things for a class of one year olds. The day before the party I ended up buying whatever I could find at the store the next day and used those instead. I still have all the handmade ones though. You bet I kept those!

So, today I went over to Target at lunch and picked up a box of Valentine's. I just went for the ones that came with those mini tootsie pops. I remember in school you were too cool if you gave out those valentine's that had the red and white lifesaver lollipops on them. Those or the boxes of those message hearts that had a to and from on the back of the box were popular too. Anyway, I figure candy is good and go. I just finished making out all of them and I actually found myself analyzing the messages and making stacks of boy messages and girl messages. Like the 2 year old's can actually read them or something. Then there was the stack of no way am I giving these out.

The most hideous, by far, is this one of a little blond hair girl on a swing and the saying on it says "Be My Tootsie!" I understand that there are tootsie pops included but just WOW. Another has a picture of a deer with the saying, "You are Very Deer to Me". That's like something on a card for married people right there. The last one which proves the motto that a picture is worth a thousand words... A bear with these wide, crazy looking eyes and arms outstretched as if grabbing at/for something with the saying, "I Can't Bear to be Without You!". I bet there is someone, somewhere that totally was laughing to themselves when THAT one made the cut to be included.

The day after always sucks

Today felt like it was in slow motion. I'm chalking most of that up to the fact that yesterday all of us we're home with some kind of cold type thing going around. My son was up coughing half the night, I was just drained and my husband is on the upward end of it and was going to be working a night shift so he just stayed home for moral support. We are all doing somewhat better today so no PTO for me. Of course I had piles of stuff and e-mails to decipher waiting for me at work.

Today also was my first day of doing the South Beach diet. I've done something similar in the past so the whole idea behind it is nothing new to me and for the first day I've done really good and stuck to the guideline of what you're supposed to have. The evening is killing me though. The only comfort is knowing that after a couple of days the cravings for the sweet or starchy type things does go away. It's just getting through the first couple of days.

I received 2 stones in the mail yesterday that I bought online to make pendants out of. So far every time I've made a pendant from labradorite it sells pretty fast on my etsy site so one of those came in yesterday along with this really awesome purple and green banded fluorite. I'm anxious to wrap both of them but sense I haven't been feeling 100% it's just not happening.

In the beginning...

when blogging, you have no clue what you're doing or what to write about. I am no exception. Right now it's 10:30 pm and I have gotten to the point where I'm tired of waiting for my husband to actually set up a web page that includes a blog. So, here I am taking matters into my own hands which is a scary thought in itself. For now, if my blog looks boring and not all together on the layout, I'm learning so hopefully it will be getting better in the visual department in the near future.

I live in Florida and make maps for a living. Everyone always thinks this must be such an "exciting" job. Maybe they're saying it to be nice or it's just strikes them as it must be interesting because they don't run into that many people that do it. I dunno. I do it everyday and while there are days where it can be interesting, like most everyone else's outlook on their job....it's a job. And with the way things are right now I'm happy to have that.

I'm originally from Texas and most of the time I miss Texas. We tried moving back about a year and a half ago and things just didn't pan out for my husband job wise. Housing market was starting to tank and our house didn't sell and my husband got a better job offer back here and I got my old job back so things worked out in the end. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and not fight the current.