Frantic Weekend

Good Morning!  Our weekend is looking pretty frantic here.  I am going to the beading group meeting this morning, while Chris and Mina take care of errands.  Later this afternoon, Mina has a basketball tournament in Kenesaw.  Tomorrow is church and confirmation class, then to Grand Island for Mina's Girl Scout Advisory Group meeting.  Lots of places to be, lots of things to do.  Feel a bit like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland!

I Have A Problem...

You might be a beadaholic if:

You work so you can buy beads. (Yep, that's me)
You sneak beads into the house.  (Been there, but just forgot they were in my purse)
You have a separate container for "orange." (No, purple does not count.) (I actually do)
You obsess about the one issue of Bead & Button you don't have. (Usually, Bead Unique instead)
The dustballs under the furniture remind you of really fluffy beads. (We have covered this, except I pull beads out of the dust bunnies)
You bead in the car at stoplights. And you're thinking about beading the car.  (Haven't done this at stoplights, but have gotten home and wasn't sure how, since I had thought about beads the whole time I was driving.)
Your kid's first words were "Pretty beads, mama!" (That was my clue...) (Mina just rolls her eyes, takes a lot to get her excited about beads anymore.)
Don't despair, there is help available! Place this card on your website, and someone, sometime, will contact you. Trust me, you are not alone. ;-)

I found this on the internet this morning and wanted to share it with all my "beadaholic" friends!  Glad to know you, and please know you are not alone.  The first step to better beading is admitting you have a "problem". Have a terrific weekend!
 
Clip art courtesy of

Aunt Molly's Bead Street

Growing Up...

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher

Often when we set out to have children, we envision their whole life, before they have even taken one single breath outside the womb.  We want the absolute best for our children and want them to be perfect in every way, at everything they set out to do, and that they have every single thing that we didn't growing up.  Whether that means toys or friends or popularity, we try to make up for our shortcomings through their lives.  
We have one tremendously lovely, incredibly smart, and tragically sharp witted (tragic for her parents egos) daughter.  Mina is truly a gift from God.  I thank Him for her every chance I get.  Being a parent is a difficult and mostly thankless job.  There is no pay in it, the hours suck, but the benefits are priceless.  When we finally got pregnant, we were stunned.  Chris and I walked around for the entire nine months, looking at each other and giggling.  We couldn't help thinking "what have we done?!".  I was sick every single day, and I would have done it again in a heartbeat.  When I first felt her move, I was lying on the couch (I slept A LOT), and it felt like a tiny butterfly moved in my tummy.  It was about this time of year actually (Mina was born in July).  We have cherished every giggle, every first day of school, the bug collecting, the playing with dollies, the mudpies, the toddler streaking naked through the yard, and making sure that she doesn't see us laughing when we have to punish her for something.  Yes, it is often tough to keep a straight face, we try not to take things too seriously, unless she is REALLY busted and then she knows it and faces the "punishment" valiantly.  We laugh a lot, and try hard to remember that she is a kid and will never be "perfect".
Why all the deep thoughts?  Being a parent means a great deal to me.  I grew up with "issues" as most of us did.  I have spent many years in therapy working out my "issues", and I have a dialog in my head that I run to try to keep my issues from bleeding out to my reactions to Mina.  Being a parent, means you do a lot of things you are not comfortable with, or that you would really rather not do.  Today was one of those days, and even though our time covering the issue was uncomfortable at best, it was still my job.
That is the job I took on, even when it is uncomfortable, unpleasant, or messy.  I thank God that I have that task. 

• Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.  ~Fran Lebowitz

•  Children make you want to start life over.  ~Muhammad Ali

• Children seldom misquote.  In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.  ~Author Unknown

• Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller (this is my philosophy~explains the post from Monday!)

 

Changes...

Changes are in the wind.  (Pretty flowers are coming too, I found this picture here.)

• Spring is coming slowly, but surely. 
• We have a rearranged and mostly cleaned up living room.  We got rid of part of our spare furniture yesterday. 
• I have my seed beading group this week, and I have started my project, so I might actually finish the one for this month! 
• Today or tomorrow, I will get my final piece of equipment that I need to make my new pendants and metal beading pieces to add to my jewelry and hopefully sell individually. 
• I have joined a blogging "carnival", and I have my first written assignment due next week.  We are working to promote Art Beads and you can visit the Art Bead Scene blog by clicking the button found on the top right of my blog. 
• Chris will be taking a Heather Trimlett class next month at the Hot Shops in Omaha to work with her and learn her fabulous button making techniques.You can see her beautiful works of art here.
• I will be taking a Sherry Serafini class (if I get in) in Lincoln in May to learn her fabulous seed bead techniques. See Sherry's amazing bead creations here.
• I am trying to post blog entries more often.  Thanks for reading what I write!  You can't know how much it means to me that I have this outlet and all of the amazing friends I have met and made and that follow my writing! 

Pip

This is Mr. Pip.  I love him, he is such a cutie!  Very photogenic for a hamster, don't you agree?  He loves raisins, craisins, fresh cucumber, freshly popped popcorn, Cheerios, Kashi, and pumpkin seeds.  We love hand feeding him, and getting him out to run around on our bed.  I took these pics last week of Chris holding him in his "apartment" that he sleeps in in his cage.  Too cute!

Confessions

I admit it.  I SUCK at housekeeping.  I was pretty good at it when I first got married.  I really don't know what happened, I have lost those mad skills, or have realized that there are only so many hours in the day.  We spent the past few days dealing with this, so that we could have room for our new couch (that they wanted to deliver on Thursday!).  So this is our general living room clutter, we can't control it, throw it away, or it is just multiplying like really happy bunnies!  There is beading stuff (which is a good amount of the mess) because I enjoy beading in front of the tv, video game consoles, tax work, and  A LOT OF DUST.  We have a very small house, and our living room was not designed for modern furniture (our house was built in 1910) and it makes fitting things into it very complicated.  Last year our tv died (we had a console style in a cabinet), and it took us until today to buy a stand for the flat screen tv we bought last year.  Until today, the new one sat on top of the old one.  Anyway, I wanted to show the before pics so when we are finished, I can post the after pics.

 

This is the main source of my losing the housekeeping skills, the time to clean house, and the additional source of clutter!  Just kidding, I would not trade her smile for a clean house! 

Observations

• Look at the beautiful bead mix Carla, of By C Boutique put together yesterday for springtime beading here.  Spring can't be far off. I saw Capris in the store on Sunday. GREAT news, unless you have seen my dry, scaly, pasty white legs.

• Heard on NPR this morning, a honey bee can use one unit of fuel more efficiently than a car can.  No Kidding!  I am NOT a scientist, and I could have come up with that one!  Most animals and insects are way more efficient than any human or machine.  (Want more bee pics? I found this one here.)
• My yard looks like an arctic tundra.  Warms up enough to thaw the ice puddles, but not enough to melt the snow, so you end up with bumpy, icy patches of snow.  They could do mogul skiing in our yard!

• This is my fabulous new ring!  I MADE it Saturday at my class here.  Who knew you could file away your skin while filing sterling silver sheet metal!  Silver may be a softer metal, but it sure didn't seem like it!  I love my ring because it is based on a pattern that I doodle all the time.  It is all me!  The gal that taught me, was VERY talented and still in high school!  She had an amazing ring that she made with Rhodocrisite along with several others that were beautiful.
• Will I be making more rings?  Doubtful, but I will be making metal free form design pendants.  I ordered the last of my equipment last night, so hopefully I will get them done for the Omaha Bead Show.
• Finally, the sun is out this morning!  Yeah, sun!  Always happier when the sun shines!  Mina has Quiz Bowl today and tomorrow I get to go to Julie's in Hastings and help price the 200 lbs. of beads she carried back from the Tuscan Bead Show!

Come Fly With Me

Lately, I have become fascinated by the Vintaj line of brass jewelry findings and design pieces.  I really love the nature designs and the filigree pieces.  This design I had put together before Christmas, didn't like how it looked and set it aside.  When I started beading again a couple weeks ago, I took it apart and restyled it.  I used some antique brass colored wire, dark, coppery colored freshwater pearl for the bird egg, and some bits of wire lace for the leaves.  I had gotten all three in a lovely destash goody bag from MyElements on Etsy, and wove the nest just by winding the wire around and over and under until it looked like a bird nest.  I wired in the "egg" and tied the wire lace and cut and frayed it.  I really love how it turned out, and had lots of compliments on it.  It looks lovely on the necklace display at Graham Gallery too!  I am taking a class in Silversmithing on Saturday in Omaha, in hopes of branching out my jewelry making.  I am a bit tired of "stringing" beads for jewelry and suffering a bit of burnout.  Just want to learn something new, and incorporate some of that into what I do.  I really love the stamped pendants and would love to get into adding that to what we do with the bead making and jewelry.

Jack Frost Nipping At Our ... Landscape

We are all really tired of winter.  Working in retail, it gives me something to talk to customers about.  We all complain, and at this point, we have all just had enough.  However, that being said, there are small beauties in each season, which is why I love living where we do.  Today (Sunday), we were shopping and it was snowing (again!), but it was gentle and lovely.  The snowflakes fell in such a way, that you could see the shapes of them on your clothing for just a few brief seconds before they melted away.  No two were the same, but we had fun watching for the "perfect" snowflake shaped ones.  Small, brief miracles are all around us and amazing when we take the time to see them.  I found these amazing frosty/snowy landscape pictures on the camera when I was working tonight and wanted to share them.  I took the top left picture one morning at work at 7am (yes it is still dark at that time of day, this time of year).  It was snowing huge flakes and I love the effect of the flash on the snowflakes.

Mina and Zoe

Last summer, Mina got something for her birthday that was very exciting.  She got a baby cousin.  Mina and Zoe are the only girls on the Haussler side of the family, and though they are 12 years apart they share the same birthday, AND they were born in the same hour.  Here are pictures of Mina and Zoe at Christmas.  Cousin Daniel (whose birthday is ON Christmas Day) is in one of the pics too.
Mina is competing at Central Community College today with her Jr. High Quiz Bowl team.  What an interesting competition to watch!  Hard to sit there and be quiet, and even harder to not feel ridiculously undereducated at not knowing the answers to the questions!

Photos of This and That...

I dumped pictures off the camera Sunday night when I was uploading items to Etsy.  Here are some jewelry photos from our December 5th show.  From the left, a close up of my favorite lampworker, some necklaces and bracelets, a shot of half of our table display, Chris and I (a rare shot, Thank You Leslie!), Bees and Honey earrings (bee charms with citrine and carnelian) and Chris doing demos at the show.

New Items on Etsy, and in the Glass Showcase...

Here are some new items I posted on Etsy tonight!  They are in the shop and ready to go to new homes!  They will also be featured in the Monday, February 8 Glass Showcase on Etsy.

Eat That Frog First...

Yesterday, was my day off.  I always have Thursday off, and try to be productive on that day.  I often have to go to Hastings for allergy shots (I get 3 shots every 2 weeks), but I didn't have to go yesterday which was really nice because the weather was putting a layer of snow on everything again.  So I had planned to work on our taxes, reconciling our checkbooks, and laminating and putting eyelets into some new style bead display cards.  How much did I get done? NONE, ZERO, ZIP.  Wasn't feeling great, so spent time on the internet and curled up on the couch instead.  While I was surfing blogs, I came across this one by SimpleMom and it really struck me as a terrific idea.  Basically stated, Eating That Frog means do the thing you hate the most, and the rest of the day will be a breeze.  What a terrific idea, and now I am inspired to try to put this into practice in my life.  The principle is based on a quote “Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” -Mark Twain 

So what will your frog be?  Have a terrific weekend!  My blog (though the counter only counts part of the visits) has had more than 2400 visitors since I put the new counter on, thanks for reading and stopping by for a visit to my world for a bit! 

New Friends...

Yesterday, I made a new internet friend.  When I had finished working with Jamie from The Critter Company, I clicked over to her blog and after looking at her really cute pictures, I looked at her followers and clicked the SugarberrySensations picture and followed the link to her blog, which got me to her Etsy store because her polymer clay sculptures were so adorable!  I have worked with polymer, and I really admire anyone who can get the stuff to look like anything recognizable!  So anywhoo, I was at the SugarberrySensations shop and noticed that she was located in North Platte, NE!  What a small world!  Through a gal that lives in South Carolina, I would meet a fellow artist, who only lives a couple hours from me in my state.  As it turns out, Lori also knows Chris's relatives, Janet and Les that run Dancing Leaf Lodge, which happens to be just south of North Platte.  Check out Lori's Valentine's giveaway to win this cute bunny.  Details are on her blog

Cute Beads for Summer Jewelry...

I found these wonderful beads from Jamie of The Critter Company on Etsy yesterday and after a long conversation I have a special order on my way to make some fun "younger" jewerly for my summer shows and for my neice Creighton for her 6th birthday! They are so cute! You need to check out her other items on her Etsy shop.  Her link is http://www.etsy.com/shop/crittercompany

An Evening for Art Lovers continued...

These are some of my favorite pieces on the art list for the Evening for Art Lovers at Graham Gallery on February 12.  The artists from above left are:  Marcella Beyer, Liz Halstead, Nicole Gustafsson , and Jorn Olsen.  The pieces by Jorn, Nicole, and Marcella remind me of a beautiful summer day, and Liz's hand dyed scarves are to "dye" for, so lovely!

An Evening for Art Lovers at Graham Gallery

This extremely lovely bracelet is our donation to the Evening fro Art Lovers event happening at Graham Gallery in Hastings, NE on February 12.  You can find out more about the event at http://www.graham-gallery.com/ .  The bracelet is showcasing Chris's new frit focals and my fringe work.  On each loop of fringe is a Swarovski 4mm crystal bead in amethyst or peridot.  The loops are done in opaque lime green (and an amethyst crystal) and matte wine (with a peridot crystal).  Lots of WOW factor!