I am still here.....

Just really missing my computer :( I have so much I'd like to share but I really don't want to stuff Paige's computer full of my pics.

Alex finished his first cross. I made the frame for him and then showed him how to weave it. He did such a great job! I'm proud of him and he's happy with his gift, three more to go.

Started priming my bathroom. Ran out of primer and then put the brushes in water to clean while I went to get the other bucket. Yup, you heard right, got a little ahead of myself lol

Trying to decide which room to tackle next.
I still have to finish the ceiling in the laundry room. It has a seam I never finished, not sure how I managed that either. Get that seam finished and I can paper in there like I did the kitchen.
I can finish sanding the entry hall, texture and finish painting it.
I can sand the kids bathrooms - they were supposed to - and get started painting them.
Or I can head downstairs and finish the bedroom/gym.
They are all on the to do list - I made up a list of things I could do that don't require Alan to finish something first and was actually surprised at how much I had! Now I feel like a slacker lol

On the desk are my forum swap pieces. All cut, patinated, sanded and waiting for me to decide how to assemble. I really like them so far, hoping my friends do as well. I also made up the cutest little angels and IF I had a computer I'd show you! sigh. Apple is having a black Friday sale, maybe just maybe we'll have a little extra money in time for the sale. Fingers crossed.

It's been a really rough couple of weeks around here, I'm blessed to have such a wonderful family and enough to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied. I am ever thankful these types of weeks are rare in my life and I know without a doubt if we just keep moving forward we will be fine.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my ramblings once again :)
May you have a blessed Thanksgiving even if it isn't a holiday you celebrate in your locale, we all have something in our lives to be thankful for right?!
We'll be counting down the days to Christmas when I post next and as always I'm committed to a Handmade Holiday so look for gift ideas you can make for your loved ones to be posted soon!
See you next time!

On the Desk......

Let me start by apologizing for no new pics. I'm still using Paige's laptop and I haven't uploaded my camera to it yet. I have several pieces I need to list so I'll be retaking photos sometime this week. I think I'll take a peek into my shop and see which pieces need a refresher while I'm at it too.

On the Desk is a little some thing special this week. Christmas! For those of us who hand craft our gifts the time to create is here! I have goodies to make for the forum swap and Christmas gifts, and........ Alex wants to make crosses for a couple friends this year. Usually he wants ME to make them, I've called him my best repeat customer many times :) But this year, he wants me to TEACH HIM how to make them! I'm so excited, I love sharing wire working with my kids!

I don't remember if I mentioned here that I had picked up some new toys when I ran to Hobby Lobby with Paige. I've been playing with those toys and having so much fun! I also broke out the saw and made up a small coil for sawn jump rings. can I just say WOW!! The difference in the rings is amazing, no recutting anything. It's just like the difference from regular cutters to flush cutters. Playing with new tools always make me so happy!

In the Garden this week.... now that the temps have fallen below 100 the tomato plant has finally decided to grow. After producing a whopping TWO tomatoes this year it is now covered in blooms and small fruit. I hope a few get big enough to pick before the frost gets them. Garden fresh veggies were missed around here this year. Between the record heat and the drought I'm lucky I even have a tomato plant and am looking forward to a harvest.

On the Home Front I'm beginning texturing in my bathroom! Walls should be ready for paint by this weekend! It would be ready now, but I forgot the ceiling had that awful fiberglass wrapped sheet rock Lowe's was selling for awhile. My poor face was itchy and swollen for a few days after sanding it. sigh

Parent/Teacher conferences were last night. Alex has nearly all A's, two B's. One last conference this spring and then no more. All my babies are grown up, it happens so fast! I swear they were all just in Kindergarten last year.

All in all, itchy face aside, it has been a great week! Thanks for letting me share with you and I hope your week - minus the itchy face - is just as good!

Thanks for stopping by!
See you next time!

The Best Laid Plans

I had mentioned in an earlier post I had wanted to start writing daily. While I hadn't quite gotten the habit of daily down I did have quite a bit written. During the blog hop Jean, so full of faith in me, suggested I write. I was writing and it was just starting to really become cohesive. I was actually feeling pretty good about it, adding to it little by little.

Then my computer died. Thursday evening the power went out, and Friday morning when I tried to turn on my poor little Mac, nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Macs are awesome little machines, in the past 20+ years I've owned three, each lasting roughly seven years. As awesome a little machine as a Mac is, it's still a machine and does have limited life. I know this, and I do back up files. In fact, most of my files have been backed up. Most.

Just not my writing or my most recent pictures. It's been a couple months since I've backed anything up. I knew my Mac was running on limited time and I knew I needed to get the last couple of months files backed up, but..... I just didn't seem to get it done.

It's a heavy expense month so I'm not sure when the extra funds to replace my computer will become available. I'm hoping by Christmas. In the meantime, my daughter has graciously set up a profile for me on her laptop. She also chided me for not using Google Docs. hangs head

I am very thankful to Paige for sharing her laptop with me, but I don't want to monopolize it. I'm keeping my morning routine roughly the same, check e-mail and Etsy and then puttering around the house. Checking mail again in the afternoon before the kiddo gets home from college. I guess I should hit Google docs and start over, little by little.

On the bright side, this does force me to manage my time on the computer. I can be the queen of wasted time when I'm staring at a monitor! But I suppose that's true of anything. Well, I should get off of here. I have a bathroom wall awaiting tape and texture.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
See ya next time!

Believe

I've mentioned my favorite blog before. Brass Tack Thinking Todays post is just pretty inspiring. It's one of those "I just knew I could" stories.

Someone somewhere decided that an inspiring story had to be about overcoming adversity and this post has a touch of that too but the true inspiration comes in the form of I just knew I could.

Haven't we all done something that someone else thought impossible or improbable? But we just knew it would work and so we just did. And it did, and life was great and we just didn't get the fuss. Right?

Well if you haven't, you really should try it and you really should read this post.

http://www.brasstackthinking.com/2012/10/fate-serendipity-happiness-and-listening-for-patterns/

The guy swam 1000 miles with no special training. He just knew he could. Seriously! He knew he could swim 10 meters, so 1000 miles was a gimme. Even if it meant just swimming 10 meters at a time.

Is that not brilliant? We can all do pretty much anything a little at a time can't we? And that is what makes him so inspiring.

Let's all pick one thing we REALLY want to do but have been holding back on because the big picture was so darn intimidating. Now, what would we need to do to get from here to there? Break it down into manageable tasks. How much time will you need to achieve your first block of tasks? Set a goal and a goal date and lets do this!

I want my house finished by August and I have some writings I've been working on I would like to gel and be a little more cohesive. I've kicked around the Need to Do's but haven't actually written them down as a check list, I think it's time.

What about you? Have anything you'd like to share? Feel free to comment, if it's important to you - it's worth doing!

Thanks for stopping by!
See ya next time!

Things You Should Never Discuss in Polite Company

Politics
Religion
Sex

I think there were others but these are the ones that stick with me and I've tried to live by that rule. What makes it worse is it really seems these days all three of those are so intertwined that you can't avoid one if you make the mistake of mentioning one of the others!

I've made the mistake of not following that rule twice this week. TWICE bash me in the head now! Seriously when people ask your opinion, they don't really want your opinion. They want an affirmation of THEIR opinion, it's human nature and I KNOW this and yet I still offer my opinion.

The question was Who Do You Think Won The Debate? Not who you wanted to, but actually won.
To win a debate one must sway anothers opinion to your side. So my answer was: No One Won.
Let the name calling begin. And folks, I do know what those big words mean.
Apparently what I actually thought wasn't an acceptable answer as it was not an affirmation of the other posters opinions. I will say I did make the mistake of bringing up Big Bird in my answer as part of my reasoning. Believe it or not that turned into a homophobic rant. I was stunned! A perpetual 3 yo puppet as the target of a rant of that nature. Really? Which one is NOT like the other?

Just one more month, all I have to do is hang in there one more month and hopefully all my friends and their friends will return to nice people again. I miss them and I really do not like all the hateful spew being bantered around as if it were acceptable behavior. It's not and my heart hurts for the awful things I'm seeing!

I'm seriously considering a break from the internet. I have my shop to take care of and that's enough online time for me. I can write my blog posts offline, as I'm doing now. Post when I pop on to check on my shop. My poor computer is getting tired anyway it could probably use the break as well.

Bless your hearts.
See you next time.

of Saws and Spoons

Some months ago I bought myself a jewelers saw and had fully intended to play right away. But life, as it sometimes does, got in the way and the saw was put away in my tool drawer.

Paige is in 3D design this semester and needed some tools for a wire sculpture project. When I showed her where to find my tools and reminded her which were off limits for her project, my new saw quietly said Hi there! Remember me?

Paige and I had a few things to pick up and headed off to Wally World, while there I plunked down 94 cents for some stainless spoons. Figuring I could play with the saw and if I mangled the spoon well at least it wasn't antique cutlery!

First spoon up snapped. It didn't bend in a graceful arc at all, it bent at a hard 90 and then fell apart, oops!

So I break out the torch, obviously a little annealing is in order. Heat spoon number two to a soft glowing red all along the handle. That should do the trick! Sit down to my desk and grab the spoon with my right hand to adjust it for the pliers. OUCH that's HOT!

I've been playing with fire for years and still somehow managed to forget to quench my spoon. There I am looking at a perfectly scalloped scorch mark on my index finger and thumb, darn it! Walk into the kitchen, quench the spoon, set it down on the welders mat, and put some lavender oil on my fingers.

With some force I'm able to wrap the spoon around the mandrel. Rather lopsided and not at all graceful, it is a start. "Look!" I show the kids. The bowl of the spoon is still attached and they ask if I'm working on putting a knot in the spoon and offer free spoon bending if I just buy some ice cream! sigh

With children thoroughly unimpressed I pull out the saw and cut off the bowl end of the spoon. Slip it back onto the mandrel and estimate a current size and a desired size. With a few sizes in between those numbers I grab the hammer and start the process of convincing the handle it wants to be round and a much smaller size than it currently is.

When I was in high school my favorite ring was a spoon ring. After much coercing and a little pain I think a spoon ring may become a favorite yet again. It's a little "worn around the edges" and stands an inch tall but it wears every bit as comfortably as the one I had way back when.





It took snapping a couple blades but I think I've got the tension down and can hear the difference in the sound as the blade starts to dull. I'm really looking forward to continued playtime and you can look forward to seeing more sawn pieces in the future. Maybe...... even some pierce work :D

Thanks for stopping by!
See ya next time!

Scorpions can Walk on Ceilings and other bits

That is what I learned this week. Impressive isn't it? You really should learn something new every day or week. I just never thought that was a little tidbit that would ever come in handy. I was in the bathroom when something caught my eye on the ceiling. Since I'm finished in the kitchen until hubs gets those trim pieces cut and he finally turned his attention to our bath ((YAY!!!!)) I've been doing a little taping on the ceiling and shadows stand out really well on an all white surface. There it was walking along on the ceiling! So I slithered very non cowardly along the wall - so as not to be directly under it should it suddenly lose it's grip and fall. Hey I've been stung on two separate occasions now, it hurts, keeping it away from my face is survival mode lol So I'm slithering and calling for the hubs to come rescue me. He of course doesn't believe me - On the ceiling? He grabs his boot. We have 10 ft ceilings, hubs is 6 ft and change, that's why we have 10 ft ceilings! and here he is with a boot. I laugh, I mean it really is a sight to see. All I can think is he's going to shake his boot at the scorpion and warn it!! Have I mentioned, we have 10 ft ceilings!

The hubs gets in the bathroom, I flip on another light so he can see it. With boot poised for the kill he says, "Huh, it's on the ceiling." Face-palm "I know!! Good luck with that boot thing mister." I'm safe now, standing on the bedroom side of the archway.

He grabs my ladder, picks up my drywall spatula and ascends with spatula in one hand and boot in the other, very menacing. Flicks the scorpion off the ceiling and throws his boot at it.

It's a miss.
But he's a scared scorpion.

Back down the ladder, picks up the boot and misses again.

I'm thinking this little guy is going to be really po'd and there will be no sleeping tonight. Hubs goes for a third try, smacks him dead and finishes the job. My hero!

Scorpions CAN Walk On Ceilings! I'm in such big trouble, I have to watch my feet outside for snakes and now my ceilings for scorpions. There are walls and trees and things that must not be walked into this could be a problem!

On the jewelry front I have managed to get those charm bracelets listed! I have a couple pairs of earrings to get listed and I've just wrapped a pretty little cabochon I received from John during the Christmas swap with a piece of Vintaj filigree. Working on a beaded brass chain for it as I type this - that is I have several inches made up and I'll get back to work on it this afternoon :) I can actually see parts of my desk again!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope I haven't scarred you with my scorpion tale :D
See ya next time!
Dana