Monday, June 30, 2008

Weekend Update...

I sometimes think that it is good to come to work on Monday, to try to catch my breath and have a bit of relief from the weekend craziness! On Friday, I had my follow-up mammogram to check up on the lymph node on my left armpit that had shown up irregular at the beginning of the year, and everything looks fine so I don't have to come back for another until next year. Mom had her knee surgery, and though they didn't take her to surgery until 3:20pm, everything went well, and Dr. Bohlen (he is awesome and from Hastings Orthapaedics in Hastings, NE) said the bone was actually in better shape than her other leg when they did the first surgery on it. Of course, on that leg she had gone through a great deal of trauma from a very bad break at my niece's basketball game a couple years ago. So after Dad and I had dozed off in the waiting room (thankfully we were the only ones there), we got to go back to recovery and talk to Dr. Bohlen on the phone because he had been running behind, went upstairs to check a patient and then was late for something else, so forgot to stop back by and talk to us. Dad and I got a good chuckle out of that, because we were sleeping and he was late, and none of us even remembered the other until later! (Guess it was funnier at the time)! It was 9:30pm by the time I dropped Dad off and parked the car at home, and drug myself into the house. We had been at the hospital since 12 and we were pooped! Saturday morning took us to Morman Island near Grand Island, NE where we took 3 of our GS for an overnight camp out. We had a GREAT time! Hiking, cooking outside, doing a directional scavenger hunt, the girls went swimming in the lake, smores by the fire, making bracelets, walking sticks, and leaf coasters, and then being driven into the tents by the evening chill and the GIANT mosquitoes! We had a terrific time visiting with the girls from the other troops. Yesterday, we returned home briefly, unloaded the car, repacked Mina's suitcase, and returned to Hastings so that Grandpa and Granny H. could take their granddaughter for the week. Chris will bring her back home after the 4th of July shindig at Keith and Carol's. He is heading to Fairbury Thursday afternoon, and they will come home on Saturday so that Mina can accolyte at church on Sunday. Which leaves me in Lawrence to work on Friday and Saturday. Thankfully that is all that is going on this week, though we are filling beading orders for our special Pixybug customers, and trying to catch up on chores at home!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Medical Tests and Another Crazy Week...

This week is filled with medical tests. Sunday morning started with me doing the prep work for a colonoscopy, which I had done yesterday. YUCK! If you have never had to do this, consider yourself extremely lucky! For the rest of us, we hope we don't have to do that again. Though I am thankful it turned out to be nothing major that was wrong with me. On Friday, my Mom is having her third knee replacement surgery. No, she doesn't have 3 legs, just had to have one leg done twice because her bones are so soft from osteoporosis that the first surgery didn't take. DRINK YOUR MILK LADIES or take a supplement you do not want osteoporosis! I also have to have a mammogram repeated on my left armpit area because I had an irregular one in January and they repeat them in 6 months to check. At the time they diagnosed it as a benign lymph node, so hopefully everything is still the same. I am a big believer in preventative medicine, because when we were growing up, we had no medical insurance and that lead to not going to the dr. when we should have and there were long term problems afterwards. The other crazy thing about this week, is we're doing a backpacking camp with our GS on Saturday to Sunday at Morman Island in Grand Island, NE. The girls will learn about packing your pack and canoeing, and sleeping out while on a backpacking trip. Chris filled a couple special orders last night, and I made a gorgeous stone fringe bracelet that we will get pictures up to show you soon.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

New on Etsy

Would you believe I have items listed again on Etsy! Check it out. Not many, but keeping all those balls in the air is a challenge! A note of clarification, our house was not hit by a tornado, the inside just looks like it was! After I posted the other day, I went back a couple days later and reread what I had written and I was definitely in a fog of exhaustion. I appologize for any confusion. Now on to some new pics!

Chris, Mina, and I on the top of the observation tower at Platte River State Park.
The "Girls" hanging out at the top of the observation tower at Platte River State Park. There are SO many stairs to get to the top of that tower!


The results of "Our Big Girl Scout Adventure"!
Our crazy cat Sabrina, "helping" us pack for the Cottonwood festival.

Here is a new pin that was for sale at Cottonwood, but hasn't sold yet. I really love how this one turned out! Around the goddess bead are tiny 2mm Swarovski rounds.

Our Cottonwood Festival booth set up. This is the main table of jewelry.

Our side table with Chris' beads and a bit more jewelry. The earring display was made by local artist, Sally Buss, who is another of the artists at the Graham Gallery. The earring display now belongs to Pixybug Designs! It worked so well and matched our other displays, we just had to get it!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Finally a moment for a long deep breath...

We made it through the GS trip and Cottonwood Festival. Now we have time to put our home back in order, before the disaster relief people start to show up because of the "tornado" damage to our home! What a mess. We came home Friday afternoon about 4:30pm and we were unpacked and repacked and back in Hastings by 6pm. While we were trying to set up, people were sorting through our piles (that was CRAZY)! We did very well sales wise over the weekend and had a wonderful time meeting and talking with other artists from Graham Gallery. Mina came home with some wonderful art from the children's art tent. Local artists were asked to donate a piece of art and then the kids got to purchase the art for themselves. Adults weren't allowed in the tent! On the GS trip front~EXCITING! We spent Wednesday evening in the storm shelter due to all of the tornadoes in the area. That was the same night as the Boy Scout camp tragedy in Iowa. Thursday brought paddle boating, water parking, and play in a giant playground at Mahoney State Park. Friday we cooked breakfast, and then went horseback riding. I had "Lightning" which of course didn't bode well. He was an "independent" thinker, eating when he wasn't supposed to, trying to bite me for stopping the snacking, thwacking me in the head with a tree branch after another snack of leaves came loose, and dancing in a startled circle after a fish scared him. We were definitely ready to come home on Friday. Exhausted, the girls slept from the time we loaded them in the car in Lincoln after gas fill up and a quick lunch, until we got to Hastings to unload one of the girls with her family. Last night after we got home, I slept in the chair for an hour and went to bed at 9pm. I so didn't want to get up this morning!

Friday, June 6, 2008

Cottonwood Festival Coming Up and So Are The Hives...

We will be participating in the Cottonwood Festival next weekend, June 13, 14, and 15. Chris is taking his torch and will have a work table set up to do demos during the festival of working with the torch and glass to make lampwork beads. Also, a very talented glass blower, Art Ciccotti, will also be at the festival doing demos all weekend. There will also be other artists doing pottery demos, life size people paintings, the local belly dancing group will perform, live music and entertainment Friday evening and all day/evening on Saturday, and special events on Sunday for Father's Day. If you are in the area and would like to attend, you can find out more info here http://cottonwood-festival.org. We have been beading, and making beads like crazy this week, and I have the hives (and the blood shot eyes from late nights) to prove that the stress is starting to get to me! Chris had a phone call yesterday afternoon from the Hastings radio station "The Breeze" asking if they could interview him on the radio to tell about what we do. Pretty cool, huh! So since he is off Wednesday morning, before we leave for our 3 day Girl Scout trip, he will get interviewed about being an artist participating at Cottonwood. Did I mention a trip? Yes, we are insane. We are taking our GS troop Tuesday afternoon to Hebron, NE for an afternoon of Outdoor Education before returning home, and then leaving Wednesday afternoon to spend Wednesday evening, all day Thursday, and most of Friday at Platte River State Park and Mahoney State Park in the eastern part of Nebraska. Upon our return from our GS trip, we will proceed to Hastings to set up for the Cottonwood festival which will be starting about the same time we are getting there to set up! Great planning on our part, but we love our GS and they have worked for two years to earn this trip so it is worth a bit of insanity. We just have to get organized and packed for two events this weekend! If I am absent from my blogging next week~you now know why!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

New Beads by Chris

These lovely little googly-eyed fish are some that Chris has been practicing making. I personally love their pretty red lips!
Though hard to photograph, and the picture is slightly blurry, these are our new barnyard crew! I had the idea to make them into a charm bracelet, and my talented hubby, whipped me up a barnyard of animals for it.
These are some crazy face guys Chris has been playing with and getting great reviews from all who see them.
These are a pile of pretty buttons Chris made.
A gorgeous bead set in my favorite colors! It also has a button for the clasp.
More bead sets with a button included in each set for the clasp.
Pretty focal tab beads for sale at Beads and Botanicals!

Our Crazy Life, Part 2...

Just when we thought the weirdness of our life had settled back down, we just chased a BAT out of our house! I can honestly say that's a first! We were sitting in the living room watching the weather reports on the storms hitting the state AGAIN, and our cats started freaking out in the kitchen. Chris said, "must be a June bug in the kitchen", and it made sense since Sabrina has been dealing with our June bug problems very forcefully in the living room window each evening. It was not a June bug. Chris went into the kitchen when the other cat, Sassy, started to freak out, and he came back in ducking his head very startled! So, using the butterfly net that Mina conned her Grandpa into buying her last summer, he captured the bat after it flew into the wall and fell to the floor. I must point out that at no point did we touch the bat, and the bat was not harmed in the making of this blog entry. It was taken outside and freed from the net into the storm! Whatever happened to it after that was nature's doing, not ours!

Our Crazy Life...

Thank heavens this week is half over! We went to the water park on Sunday afternoon after church with some friends from church, and all was well, until about 4:30 when Mina started shivering in the sun (never a good sign!) and by the time we got her home, she had a fever of 102. We gave her the usual, Tylenol, off set with ibuprofen, and it went down a bit, but by 4:30am on Monday, the fever was at 103.6, and later when Chris took her to the dr. we had a positive diagnosis for strep throat. This is at least the 3rd maybe 4th time she has had it in 6 months, so that means most likely the tonsils will be coming out. They told us that after the second time she'd had it in a month that the "cooties" (a technical term!) were living in her tonsils. Okay, so we got the antibiotics, and the powerade and she was feeling better by yesterday. Last night we dropped her off with the same friends from church, so she could spend the night and babysit today, and Mina and the kids were out scootering when a bump ambushed her and she "flew" (her term) off the scooter and landed on her arm. So at 10:15pm we picked her back up from Blue Hill and made a visit to the emergency room at Mary Lanning hospital in Hastings. By the time we left there at 11:45, she had her arm in an ace bandage (we are thankful for her guardian angel), and instructions to keep it iced and take it easy for a few days. We were all quite tired and giggly by this time, and we had an interesting drive home after a quick trip through McDonald's to feed our little "danger" girl. Bed at 12:30, and morning came way too soon for Chris and I this morning! So how crazy is your life?!

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