Weird Beads?

Are these beads too weird? If you know anything about my bead making "style" you know that I: a. love to experiment, b. like to make beads in many shapes and styles, and c. am always hoping to discover something new and different and exciting. The problem with trying to do things that are "different" is sometimes it's hard to know if what you've created is "different good" or just "different weird". For some reason, I really like elongated focal beads. When I get in the mood to make jewelery, I like to turn them into focal pendants. So I rather like these. Although it's hard to capture in photos, they are encased and have nice depth. I'm especially fond of the pink one. Rubino on silver pink encased in a pale pinkish-violet made an interesting magenta color. But as much as I like them, judging by the lack of bids and watchers on ebay, I'm guessing I may have crossed over the line to "Different Weird". I guess I'll have to wait and see. Even if they don't sell, it's always fascinating to see what people like, and what people don't. Sometimes the ebay experiment is almost as fun as the bead making experiments.

Old friends and weird cosmic experiences..

I know I've mentioned this before but I am always amazed and intrigued by the phenomena that I call "weird cosmic experiences"; which I define as those odd times when the stars and the moon seem to align in a meaningful away. Sometimes I want to call them "weird cosmic coincidences" but I deep down they don't seem like coincidences, but things that for some unknown reason are just meant to be.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my old favorite tie-dyed t-shirt. In that entry I mentioned that I had forgotten the name of the woman who had the tie-dye parties and taught me to tie-dye. On Saturday I need to fill a prescription, and since it was such a nice a day (and Matt had my car anyway) I decided to walk Daisy down to the walk up prescription window at Smiths. As I approached the window I saw a familiar face, and the pharmacy tech said "We played softball together!" Sure enough, it was Alisa (yeah for name tags), a woman from my intramural softball team 10+ years ago, who also happened to be woman threw the tie-dye party! It's funny how I had just recently been thinking of her and poof, bumped into her after not seeing her for ten years. As it turns out, after having two kids she decided it was time for a career change (she had been a lab tech like me) and was now in pharmacy school, and working at the pharmacy by my house. We had a really nice chat, I had always liked her and it was nice to catch up on what she'd been doing. I'm looking forward to bumping into her at the store again.

I find it sad that people come and go so easily from our lives. I guess it's only natural that people's lives head off in different directions, and it is so hard to keep track of all the people who have touched our lives. It's really nice when they pop back into your life, even for just a brief chat.

Nerd alert!

The good thing that happened the day Matt had his accident: when I returned to work that afternoon I noticed the little hillside by my building was covered in these wonderful purple flowers.

I recognized them immediately as a flower I should know from college. I majored in botany, and took taxonomy in the spring of my freshman year, so I studied lots of spring flowers. This one was Speedwell (common name) or veronica sp. (scientific name). Could I possibly have remembered that correctly after all these years? A quick google search when I got back the lab confirmed that I did indeed remember correctly. An accomplishment I think, as I took that taxonomy class way back in spring of ’79! Yeah, I know, another nerd alert moment for sure. (I am what I am!) I wonder how many truly useful and important things I have forgotten to allow room on my brain to remember my plant taxonomy for 28 years!


Spring weather being what it is, here’s a shot of that same hillside taken a week later!

Thank you!

I wanted to thank everyone for their concern and comments about Matt's car accident. I think I proved that saying "everyone loves a train wreck" (OK, car wreck!). My blog page had over 200 hits on Thursday! Normally a "good" day would only be about 20 hits. Hopefully it reminded everyone to drive carefully and defensively.

Another thing you often "hear" is that most accidents happen right near home. Sure enough, Matt was less than a mile from when he had his accident. Sandy's sad story, written on my comments page, reiterated how tragedy can happen just blocks from home. I have always been a seat belt nazi, regardless of whether I was driving 1 mile, or 10 miles, from home. People who don't use seat belts, or worse yet, don't buckle up their kids, really irritate me. Because it was never an option, my kids know to always buckle up, but I'm always shocked that when I pile five of my kids friends in my car I nearly always have to remind someone to buckle up. I never would have guessed that I would have to ask "Is everybody buckled?" to a bunch of teenagers just as I asked when they were tots. You'd think they'd all know better!

Thank goodness for airbags!

The bad part of my day... that phone call every mom of driving teenager fears. "I've been in an accident"... This is what's left of our '99 Chevy Prism after t-boning a Toyota Sequoia. My son was driving straight up the street when the other car pulled out of a side street to make a left hand turn. He slammed on the brakes but couldn't avoid the accident. All I can say is thank goodness for airbags!!! My son was pretty shaken up, is a bit bruised from the airbag(his chest hurts!), but is OK. The Sequoia was driven by a 17 year old girl with two passengers. The kids were all out of school for lunch hour.

When I arrived on the scene I made sure Matt was OK, talked to the sheriff and when the paramedics were finally done with them I walked over and spoke to the girls. I wanted to make sure they were OK. The three girls were pretty upset, the driver in tears but otherwise seemed fine. I felt really bad for them. I asked if their parents had come because they seemed quite alone. The driver pointed out a man walking around taking pictures and said it was her dad. It struck me as weird that the dad never came and said anything to my son or to me. He never even made eye contact with us. I keep thinking that if my son had caused the accident, I would have spoken to the other party, made sure nobody was hurt, apologized, discussed insurance or something. Does that seem odd to anyone besides me?

So Matt's poor car is toast, I suppose the good thing is that it wasn't his fault, although I have to admit that I'm just so thankful he is OK I'm not even worried about the car or the blame. I've never been in accident were airbags deployed. He said it was pretty scary. His knit hat got knocked right off his head, and if you look at the windshield you can see cracks on the passenger side where the airbag broke the window. He said the scariest thing was getting out of the car, feeling dazed, and realizing that nobody was getting out of the other car. He was afraid they were really hurt, and was quite relieved when he found out they were fine. I'm glad they had side curtain airbags.

So hug your kids, as you never know when something bad can happen!

Flip flops day four!

It is hard to believe that today is the 20th of March and I have been wearing flip flops for the last four days. On Saturday I took Daisy jogging down to the gully for her first swim of the year. I wore a tank top and shorts and was actually hot! In March! My crocuses have already bloomed and wilted and I have a single daffodil flower in my front yard. I don't recall ever having such spring-like weather this early in the year. Of course it won't last, the temperature is supposed to drop tonight and snow is predicted for the mountains. But while the spring was in the air I was inspired to make some springy beads.

So how does one define success on ebay?
Is total number of sales, total dollars of sales, high bid per auction? Ebay is an interesting venue. Prior to taking up lampworking I never would have guessed it would be an outlet for selling beads, and as a long time non-seller, it looked pretty intimidating to me. Thousands of lampwork bead listings, some sell, some don’t. Some sell for hundreds, or even thousands; others for dollars or pennys or not all.

As a hobbyist who has just recently begun to dabble in the ebay world it is really unclear to me how I would define success. I have to admit I'm at the stage where I'm thrilled to have a watcher or two, I'm thrilled when my number of views actually goes up, thrilled to get a bid and really thrilled when I get more than one, although that is rare. Today my auction selling success sits at 70%, I have no idea if that is good for a newbie or not, but I'm certainly not complaining.

Last week I had two ebay treats. My first trifecta - 3 beads for sale and they all sold. That was exciting for me. I listed more beads that night and had a bid with in an hour or so, and a bid on another bead by morning. Usually they languish and get a bid on the last day if I'm lucky, so getting early bids was really nice.

Tonight I had another exciting monment. I actually got sniped! Imagine my suprise when I checked my auction and in the last minute it went from one bidder to three! Woohoo! What a fun game ebay can be!!!

Another thing I am really happy about. Repeat buyers! I think of all the ebay things I find pleasing it is having repeat buyers that makes me the happiest! It is certainly a wonderful feeling to have someone come back for more! I don't know if anyone who has bought my beads reads here, but if you do, thank you very much!

I got home a little late last night since I stopped to pick up pizza on the way home from work. It was a little after 6 and my son was home but my daughter wasn’t there. I asked Matt if he knew where Sarah was and he said “no”, that he had just gotten home form work and that she wasn’t there and he had no idea where she was. Since 6 PM is check-in time I was a little miffed. After about a half and hour I said to Matt “Give your sister a call and find out where she is” He did, then grumbled about how once again she didn’t answer her phone, and about how he would have been in trouble had he not checked in. I assured him that yes, she was in trouble, and a half an hour later tried calling her again. Still no answer. I call one her friends to see if she had any idea who Sarah was hanging out with after school. She didn’t. So I decided too cool my heels and take the dog for walk. But first I thought I'd check and see if the girl across the street happened to notice who Sarah was with after school. Zoe hadn’t ridden the bus, so she didn’t know, but volunteered to text message Sarah for me. I said “sure, just tell her she better get home “ and then Daisy and I proceeded on our walk. I was about halfway down the street and Zoe came running after me. “I found her, I found her.” “Where is she?” I ask. “She’s home in her room!”. So here I am, fretting about my daughters whereabouts, while all the while she was at home, asleep in her room. Talk about feeling like an overanxious neurotic mother. One who’s not smart enough to find her kids in her own home. Duh. I felt kind of bad so I went to the store and bought Sarah’s favorite frozen pie and baked it for her, as it was Pi Day after all. Mom demerits for me this week!

Happy Pi Day!

One of the students in my lab walked up and wished me “Happy Pie Day” this morning, to which I responded “Huh? Pie Day?” and he said “Three fourteen, Pie Day!”. Then, of course, the light bulb came on. 3.14 (or more acurately 3.14159), Pi, the math Pi. As a bit of a self-ascribed nerd I am a bit embarrassed that I did not know about Pi Day, but a quick Google search affirmed that yes, people do celebrate Pi Day. There are Pi Day web sites with Pi Day songs and activities you can even send a Pi Day e-card!

I think that in an attempt to parlay my new found knowledge into something good for me I will use Pi day as an excuse not to cook tonight. I think I’ll pick up pizza, yup, pizza Pi on the way home from work today!

So Happy Pi Day everyone... take it easy and pick up a pizza for dinner!

Before and After

One of my New Years resolutions was to keep my workspace clean; you know, to clean up after each and every torch session. I think I managed to keep my resolution for about a week, then my typical chaos kicked in. This morning I told myself that today was the day I was going to clean my workbench, and low and behold, while I was procrastinating doing said chore, I read Lori Greenberg's blog where she showed before and after pictures of, guess what, her newly cleaned workspace! I took that as a sign that I should get off my lazy butt and really clean mine too. Really cleaning as opposed to saying I'm going to do it then going up stairs and have a dipped mandrel entice me to light the torch instead. That's what usually happens when I tell my self I'm going to clean. Not being one to ignore a good "sign" when the stars and moon align to show me one, I really cleaned today. That of course, was after I used my last four dipped mandrels. So here it is. Workbench, before and after:

Art Books

A friend of mine from work and I took a nice little lunch excursion today. We headed up to the Utah Museum of Fine Art to see The Guild of Book Workers 100th Anniversary Exhibition. It was a very interesting exhibit. Some books were pretty traditional, others extremely beautiful and artful and some were downright funky; to the point where I’m not sure I’d call them books. It was quite fascinating to see the range of creativity exhibited. There was even one that included glass art. The cover was made of wood, and embedded in the wood were a bunch of small dichroic glass cabochons, which the artist called glass stones. The only inside picture that could be seen looked like a watercolor painting of colored glass stones. One thing that I found a tad dissatisfying about the exhibit was that everything, just as one would expect in a museum, was under glass. I wanted to be able to pick up and look at the books, to actually see what was inside, rather than just the outside, or the displayed pages. I guess in my mind the book isn’t just about the cover, but what’s inside also counts. I guess there’s some truth the saying “you can’t judge a book by the cover”. These were pretty amazing covers; I can’t imagine the books contents were too lacking.

Out with the old?...

So is spring here? We had two huge snowstorms last week, but now its about 50 degrees and the snow is rapidly melting. The tulips are beginning to pop through the soil in my front yard garden. I had an ebay package to send off yesterday and instead of driving it to the post office Daisy and I jogged over to the post office. It was perfect running weather.

Sadly though, I came to the realization that I may have to retire one of my favorite jogging shirts. I admit to be a clothes hoarder, I have a hard time getting rid of clothes I like, especially if they are comfy. I have a couple of ancient tie-dyed long sleeve t-shirts that are long time favorites. They are at least 10 years old; I made them at a tie-dye party sponsored by a woman at work. Sadly, I’ve forgotten her name, but she liked to tie-dye and to offset some of her hobby expense she would throw dying parties. We would order our dyables through her, so we could get the bulk discount through Dharma Trading Company, and pay her some small fee for the rest of the supplies. She had tons of colors of dyes, and was a great instructor so it was a lot of fun. She would rinse and wash the shirts for us, a job I never truly appreciated until I got the job of rinsing and washing my Girl Scout troop’s shirts. Wow, that’s a lot of work!

I loved my tie-dye shirts but as the years went by and they became holier and holier they went from “everyday wearable shits” to “slop around the house shirts” to “sweaty jogging shirts”. Soft, comfy, worn out delightful shirts. Yesterday when I got dressed to jog I discovered that armpit hole in my turquoise and pink tie-dye had expanded from ping-pong ball size to baseball size. I guess it really is time to retire my shirt to the trash. Believe it or not, I spent much of my run telling myself that I was going to go home, strip off the shirt and toss it right in the trash. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. NO trip through the laundry. Then it occurred to me! My shirt would make a perfect glass rod wiping rag. So it’s in the laundry basket after all, and now I’ll have a colorful artsy-fartsy studio rag. Recycling at its best. I guess I’m just a crazy old woman who can’t get rid of old stuff. Heaven help my kids when they have to sell the house and put me in a home!

Snack time?

Look what I found at the dollar store Saturday. Edible gummy rats! Isn’t that the sort of thing that everyone is looking for? In my bizarre little world they were a big hit. In a “ha, ha” sort of way. (I work in a research lab with mice.)

What I want to know is how often have you had a little hunger pang and thought “Hmmm a chewy candy rat would really hit the spot!” My other big question is “What flavor is gray?” Are gray gummy rats tastier than white gummy rats?

A couple of people at work were brave enough to try them. Apparently the gray ones tasted a bit like grapefruit. Maybe someone will try a white one tomorrow. As appealing as the thought of ‘rat snacks’ is I personally don’t like gummy candy of any sort, so I didn’t indulge. You gotta just love the crazy things you can find at the dollar store!

Stanford Ferdinand

So who names a bead Stanford anyway? I guess I do! I really struggle with the naming beads thing. Occasionally one speaks to me and tells me it's name, but usually I have a hard time dreaming up spiffy bead nomenclature. So the other day when I was at a loss I for a name I asked my daughter and her friend for ideas. Her friend Ann instantly blurted out "Stanford", name it Stanford! Stanford Ferdinand!". And so I did.

Stanford gave me a little scare tonight. I have a very "sophisticated" system to keep track of my ebay beads. I have two plastic sandwich baggies on my dresser. One holds the beads that are currently up for auction, the other holds the ones that didn't sell in case I choose to re-list them. I went to slip a newly listed bead in its baggie tonight, and I realized Stanford wasn't there! Not good, as his auction runs until Sunday. My first thought - "Panic!" my second thought- "No one's even watching that auction, but I better find him anyway. Just in case". Fortunately, he hadn't run too far away. I'd stuck him in my pants pocket and forgot to take him out to put him in his baggie. When I hung up my pants he fell out of my pocket onto my closet floor, where luckily, I found him. I guess he's lucky he didn't get durability tested in the spin cycle of my washer!

I had this problem once before. On my very first auction. I was thrilled to death when I had my first watcher, then realized I couldn't find the bead. I didn't find it until the next day, and I was pretty anxious until I did. What a way to start my ebay career, losing my first potential sale! Turns out I had folded it up in my wallet, which I had taken out because ebay needed a credit card number. It ended up not selling anyway (ebay lesson one: Watcher doesn't always equal buyer!) I've done a much better job keeping track of things - until "Stanford" went missing. Gotta keep better eyes on those sly guys!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

The sun is shining and the sky is blue. It wasn’t that way when I woke up. It was snowing like crazy- About 8 inches of fresh snow fell at our house. Luckily, I like snow. My kids had a scheduled day off from school, and the plows, which usually hit our street around 6 AM hadn’t made a sweep yet, so I didn’t exactly rush out the door. I shoveled the driveway, played snowball with Daisy, took her for a walk around the block and let her play with the neighbor’s dog. The plows finally came around 9 so I thought I should head out. So now I’m at work, taking a break to eat a peanut butter sandwich, listening to some of my favorite music (Dan Fogelberg) on my headphones. You know what?, I feel good! I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s so nice out, or that I got a nice, much needed workout while shoveling this morning, or maybe today’s break from my normal routine was just what I needed. Maybe it’s the fact that I removed my big snowboots and am wearing birkenstock sandals. The telemark skiers have this saying “Free the Heel and Mind will Follow”. Maybe that applies to wearing sandals in the winter as well. Regardless of the reason, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Can’t you just hear Mr Roger sing?!

More from the eclectic beadery...

As part of my eclectic beading experience I have gotten in to making big hole beads lately. Great big, big big hole beads! I have no idea if there is much interest in big hole beads amongst ‘Bead People’, but I know my kids and their friends love them for their hemp creations! So if no one on ebay finds them interesting at least I know I have avid fans at my house everyday! The kids love my free beads. Wanna be a ‘cool’ mom? Let the 15 years raid your reject bead bowls!

I can think of all sorts of things to do with big hole beads. I think they would be great as sliders on bead crochet, or viking knit, two things I have no idea how to do. Maybe one day I’ll try to make a multi-strand necklace to slide them around on. That is something I could do. I really should find time to string more. It seems my creative time all goes in to making beads, but rarely using them. I must admit to feeling very satisfied when I get motivated to string up my beads into some type of creation. I should probably do it more often, and these big hole beads are giving my the itch to try some new things!

A Perfect Storm...

Today we had a perfect storm. It wasn't really snowing when I left my house day, but the flurries started soon after I left the coffee shop and headed to work. It was really starting to snow when I arrived at work, and by mid morning we were having quite the blizzard. As everyone else came to work I heard the stories of accidents everywhere, the busses quit running up the hills to the university, cars were all getting stuck then sliding backwards down the hills. I guess I was lucky I got to work before the brunt of the storm. Around noon we heard that the university president cancelled afternoon classes and closed the U. The funny thing was that within about half an hour of that announcement the snow let up, the sun came out and it was gloriously beautiful afternoon. Since I was already at work I stayed at work, but it sure would have been nice to go out and play in the snow.

When I went home at five I helped finish shoveling the 6 inches of wet heavy snow from our drive and the neighbors (gotta take care of 80 year old Auntie Mabel next door!). Had great game of snow ball with Daisy, and decided to to take her for a walk. We headed to the park, where the sidewalk was trampled enough to be walkable. There is something pleasant and satisfying about squeak and crunch of packed snow underfoot!

I'm calling these beads my "antiqued" beads. "Antiqued Teal" and "Antiqued Red". I've made these two, and a third in amethyst is upstairs cooling right now. Does this constitute a series? Other bead makers make beads in series, but me being the ecclectic beader I'm always doing something diferent. I kind of like these, so it might be fun to actually do a series in a variety of colors. I guess it will be interesting to see if they catch anyone's interest on ebay.

A week in the life...

Once again I haven't been good at updating this blog. It's been a busy week. I had Monday off of work for Presidents Day and went skiing with Matt. We had a glorious powder day. As it turns out, the new shorter skis do work better in powder. I'm officially glad I retired my 10 year old Pre's. Except that they were red. I miss having red skis.

Tuesday - we saw Styx in concert. Matt's friend Bobby's mom is the queen of winning concert tickets, CSN, Clapton, I swear when anyone good comes to town she wins tickets and occasionally gives them to Bobby and Matt. So my husband is always chiding Bobby, "When is your mom going win us some tickets". A couple of weeks ago Bobby comes running into my studio yelling "You're going to Styx, you're going to Styx". Turns out that his mom won tickets for Bobby but the concert was at a 21 and over club so he couldn't go. So she decided to give us the tickets. After the concert we stopped at the Bayou (the local New Orleans style club) for a snack. Turns out that it was Fat Tuesday and they had a great jazz band playing. The Bayou is known as Beervanna because of it's very extensive beer list. I drank a Scottish Kilt Lifter Ale. Gotta love the name.

Wednesday - I attended the first meeting of the "Women of the Vine" a new social group started by a friend. We met at her friend's coffee shop, everyone brought a bottle of Merlot and chipped in $10 for a delicious soup in a bread bowl dinner. It was a nice night, good to get out with a different group of people. Even if I was the token weird science nerd amongst a bunch of real estate people. Having teenager's proved handy - my friends daughter drove us there, and I had my son pick us up, so we could actually enjoy all the wine. Are you a bad mom ir you let your 17 year old be your designated driver? Or are you being a good role model?

Thurday - Jr. High school parent teacher conference. Which means wandering around the cafeteria for two hours waiting in line to talk to all your kids teachers. Always an exciting time. Especially when you have other things you need to do. Like take pictures for your submission for the ISGB's metamorphosis exhibit, which needs to be postmarked Friday. Someone tell me why I procrastinate!

Friday - Woke up with a sore throat. Go to work anyway. Mailed off my submission. Nothing ventured nothing gained right? Friday night I went to a gallery show for a friend who's an up and coming potter. My friend makes these exquisite tiny vases and other things as well! I met her teacher, who works in clay, fused glass and silver. She had some awesome pieces that combined all three. I really enjoyed talking to her. Even if it made me feel decidedly un-artist like.

Saturday - Woke up feeling like crap, so I didn't go skiing with Bob and Matt even though it would have been a great powder day. I think I just ran my self ragged all week. And stressed out too much about trying to submit the ISGB thingie. It's hard to go from being the boring person with virtually no social life to having stuff going on every night of the week. So I spent a lazy day, mostly on the computer listing beads on ebay. I think I need to change my "business" (can you really call it that?) name to Linda's Eclectic Beadery. I like to make so many different styles of beads.

Sunday - Sitting here slumming again. I woke up to houseful of kids. I would have sworn last night my daughter asked to sleep at her friends Adrian's house. The house was quiet when I went up to bed at 10:30 to watch Saturday Night Live. I guess they (6 of them) all walked to our house around 11 and spent the night at our house. Boys and girls sleeping all over the living room and den. So unbeknownst to me my daughter had a coed sleep over. Are you supposed to let your 15 year old daughter have coed sleepovers? That may have to be discussion for another blog.

Yikes, I think I have rambled way too much today. maybe I should quit and go upstairs and make some beads!

My Fan Club...

I had a meeting of my fan club Sunday night. The kids didn't have school on Monday, and for whatever reason (just because we allow it??) a bunch of kids showed up at my house. My daughter Sarah isn't terrible interested it my beads, but her friends are. Some of the girls wanted to see my beads, and I ended up bring down my wonky bowls for them to paw through. I have tons of wonkys. Well, not exactly wonkys in the mishappen way, but tons of experiments and practice beads, and beads that that when finished weren't what I really wanted. I told the girls to take what they wanted and showed them how to make a simple pendant with beads and colored artistic wire. Once I convinced them that it was really OK for them take them, that I was happy to give them way, they were like kids in a candy store, filling little baggies with my beady babies. It's kind of fun to see what the kids like, it nice that they don't see the flaws I see, and since they didn't make them they don't know that the design didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it to. I have to admit I like the teenage squeals of delight and thank you hugs!

Nostalgia....

Today is a day that I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for my childhood in Cincinnati. Cincinnati was mentioned on the news last night because of the severe winter storm. Just for the heck of it I got on the internet to see if my nieces and nephews had a "snow day". Sure enough, they did. I have fond memories of those winter mornings back when I was in Jr. high and high school. Radio tuned to WSAI AM, Jim Scott in the morning, waiting and listening and hoping that my school district would close the schools. Rumor had it that if Dr. Hammond, the superintendent of schools, slipped and fell while retrieving his morning paper from the driveway, school would be called off. If he made it back inside without incident, we'd have to go to school. Regardless of how the decision was made, our district was always the last to cancel school. Once, when I was in high school, I was on the bus halfway to school when a mother came out to the bus and told the driver that school had been closed. Those snow days were always exciting, there was nothing better than hearing your schools name on the cancellation list!

Sometimes I feel bad that my kids never experience snow days. Salt Lake is used to and prepared for heavy snow, so they pretty much never cancel school here. Once, when the kids were in elementary school, we awoke to 16 fresh inches, with snow still coming down like crazy, and they didn't cancel school. I thought it was unsafe to be out and about so I gave my kids a snow day, that was one and only snow day they ever had.

When I told my kids that their cousins had a snow day they sure were jealous!

Dazzling

My alter-ego strikes again. On one hand I'm the "miss all natural" type (just look at my gray hair!) but on the other hand I love a little glitz and sparkle. That's the side of me that loves dichroic glass! I recently purchased some super stellar dichro from Debbie, a fellow forum member. I like to call it "Debbie's Dazzling Dichro!" She had it specially made and it's the nicest dichro I've ever used. I'm having fun trying to come up with interesting ways to use it.


Here are few of my newest dichro creations. I tend to like my dichro kind of subtle; little glimmers of sparkle rather than something super glitzy.

One of those weeks...

Saturday-could have been a better day. First I received my Bead Review rejection in the mail. I had been doing my best to think positively about my submission so I a was a tad disappointed, but that's life. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Then I get a phone call from my son (danger boy, I should call him). He was up at Brighton trying out his new skis. "Mom, I fell in the half pipe and I'm coughing up blood. Do you think I should come home?" Now that's the kind of call a mother just loves to get! So 20 questions from me:"How much blood? Can you breathe OK? Do you feel bad?"..... It wasn't "that much blood" and he could breathe fine, but I told him he should come home anyway - Duh! Of course I was nervous waiting for him to get home, picturing his lungs filling with blood or him passing out or something. He arrived home safely, and when I had him spit in a cup there was only a tiny bit of blood. I think he's fine.

Later that day my husband goes to use the hot tub, and it is perilously low on water. When the water gets too low two of the jets shoot the water about 8 feet out of the tub. Refilling the tub in the winter is a pain in the butt. Hooking up frozen hoses at the spigot 6 inches above the ground behind my potting bench is always fun. Unfortunately, when we turned on the water as much water leaked out from behind the tap as came out the hose. Not a good sign. Oh well so a little water is running in to my crawlspace. No biggy, finish filling the tub.

Sunday- Matt wakes up feeling like he's been run over by a truck - *surprise*! I think he probably cracked a rib, which of course there's nothing much he can do for it. I go to take my shower, and there is no hot water, and no one else has used it all up.
Crap, I'd better do down in the crawlspace and see why my water heater's not working. I hate going in my crawlspace. It's more of a "stoopspace" but the floor is dirt and of course it spider webby. Sure enough the "little bit of water" managed to work it's way to the hole in the dirt where my water heater sits, and flooded it. So Bob and I crawl around in the mud and try to light it, to no avail. Time to call a plumber. So try to get a plumber to come out on Super Bowl Sunday! Plumber #1 - $250 to relight my water heater. No thank you. Plumber #2 - I wait and wait and no one comes. I call their dispatch who says "Oh didn't they tell you we're backed up and only doing warranty work today" Which, I think, means they're watching the game. Plumber #3 will come out at 9:30 Monday morning.

Monday- "Pioneer" showers suck! I took the morning off to meet the plumber, who had to take apart the water heater burner to unplug the waterlogged gas line. An hour and $55 later my water heater was working again. I think I got off easy. I need to get the plumber back to fix my pipe. He didn't have time to do that too. Thankfully it only leaks when the tap is on. Matt stayed home from school since he was hurting so bad from his little ski accident.

Things aren't much better at work. Our imaging system gives me an over-temperature error. Considering that every service call runs ~$5000 or more, we live in fear of it breaking. Luckily our department electronics guy found a bad fan near the laser, so he should be able to fix it. But of course his fan source is out of the part. I locate a different supplier- new fan $5.99! (Would be $59 from the instrument company! Hows that for mark up?) I think I'll have him replace them all. Better to spend $24 dollars on fans than to risk overheating a $50,000 laser. Later that day we notice things in the freezer that should be frozen are thawed. Crap...is the freezer broken or did someone leave the door open? If you don't put the sample racks back properly the door doesn't shut right. So I move all the expensive perishable enzymes to a different freezer just in case, shut the door and pray that everything is frozen in the morning. So now I'm scared to go to work tomorrow, for fear I'll have a broken freezer to deal with. We have 5 freezer, that are pretty darn full. No good overflow system if one breaks.

I need this crappy week to change!!! At least I managed to go the gym today, and walk the dog. Both things good for my stress level. And this morning my daughter made me happy. She thanked me for her "bones". She decided she likes her facial bone structure. A 15 year old girl who is actually happy about her appearance is a wonderful thing!

We can breathe again...

Yesterday morning we awoke to a few inches of snow, and today it's flurrying some more. Not a big storm, but enough to blow most of the crap out of the valley. We can actually see the Oquirhh mountains across the valley again and if I want I can actually use my fireplace tonight! We've been on burn restrictions for weeks. It's not supposed to last long, but thank goodness we have clean air for at least a couple of days. Take a deep breath .... Ahhhhh!!!!

The right stuff.

So why is it often so hard to do the right things for ones self? Admittedly, I have been in a bit of a funk lately. January is a funky month here. Like most Januaries, we have been having a lousy winter inversion. The skies are hazy, you can't see across the valley, the air stinks and is downright unhealthy . Over the weekend I was in a lousy mood, I didn't even feel like skiing on Sunday. Luckily for me, Matt convinced me to head up to the mountains with him. Of course when I got up there I had a wonderful time. It was sunny and beautiful and pretty warm. The total opposite of the Salt Lake Valley. The skiing was great and I feel really fortunate that my 17 year son still wants to ski with his old mom. Our skiing styles are different, I pretty much just cruise around and attempt the occasional mogul. He's always hitting the bumps and the jumps and catching air. He's "new school", I'm "old school" but we still have a great time together. Even though he's 17 he still likes to impress his mom. He sends me to the spot below the huge jumps so he can show off his tricks. This weeks tricks included some awesome 380's and 180 reversals. Of course as a mom I still have that moment where my heart flutters a bit as he comes off the jump; it's hard not to worry that this might be time he has a bad landing. Sometimes that "watch me mom" is a scary sentence! I'm so glad Matt forced me out of the house, it's good to have some one make me do the right thing when I'm not quite in the mood.

Finally, after 6 1/2 weeks, Sarah can quit using crutches. She has at least 3 more weeks in a "boot", but at least she's a little more ambulatory now. Because of the school days she she missed in December, we received our "1st Truancy Notification" in the mail the other day. Apparently it is a "Class B Misdemeanor" to fail to send your child to school. Now wouldn't you think that the fact that she's been on crutches for a month and a half, we've sent notes to school, both my husband I have been to the school to attempt to pick up her assignments would indicate that we don't exactly have a truancy problem going on here?!

I say attempt to get her assignments because I was shocked how downright uncooperative the school was. Bob went to the school and asked that a "runner" be sent around to Sarah's classes to pick up her assignments. The person in the counselors office told us that we should just check the web for assignments and that she won't send a runner until that is done. Of course, as it turns out, she had handouts and worksheets in nearly every class. So the next day I show up in the office, assignment list in hand, and ask for a runner. The office person was quite curt and huffy with me as well, and seemed rather put out that she actually had to send someone to pick up Sarah's work. You would think they could be a little more accommodating, especially considering the 3 story school has no elevator, making it really hard for someone to get around on crutches!

Wouldn't be nice if the school system were a little more concerned with educating are kids rather than harrassing well meaning parents about truancy?

Sky View...

We had a really pretty sunset yesterday.... probably because of the crappy air quality we've had due to a winter inversion... but beautiful none the less!

Your own Backyard...

You know, how you never do things in your own back yard. I have lived in Salt Lake for over 20 years now, and one thing that I have never done is go to the Sundance Film Festival. I never pay attention to what's going on to remember to look into buying tickets ahead of time (December I think), and when the festivals rolls around and I think of the crowds and hassle and freezing temperatures I think "eh, maybe next year".

This year is no different, except that we've been skiing Deer Valley this year, which is out in Park City where the festival takes place. So on saturday, after skiing, I was foolish enough to say to Bob and Matt, "We're right here, let's go into town and check out the Sundance crowds". So we left Deer valley and took a backroad up to the top of Main Street. Park City is an old mining town, the main street through town in a narrow one that runs or a half a mile or so up a hill that eventually leads to an old mine. I never would have guessed it would have taken 45 minutes to drive down the hill. Cars were lined up bumper to bumper, and occasionaly one would stop to load or unload people or something. Others would just stop suddenly, in the middle of the road, just to gawk at the crowd. Stylish (according to my son who actually recognizes designer duds) people were everywhere, and they didn't think twice about just walking out in front of moving cars. Many photographers were roaming about, one ran right in front of are car to the other side of the street and started snapping shots of some presumably famous person we didn't recognize. Bob and Matt saw one "celebrity" - an actor from the movie American Pie. I missed him, since I was the one trying to make sure I didn't rear end the car in front of me or run over pedestrians, but I was assured he was a guy from the front of the DVD case. I'm sure there were many more celebrity seekers than celebrities on the street, although, one of the guys from work was there (on foot) an hour before we where and stood feet away from the crowd mobbing a fur clad Ashley Simpson. My friend was a bit apalled by her head to toe furriness.

This whole celebrity chasing thing seems kind of silly to me... I can honestly say I'm not sure I can think of any celeb I would especially want to meet, and if I did, what would I even say to them? I think it wouldbe really weird. Wait, here's one... William H. Macy...apparently he was at a party my friend's (the one who saw Ashley), friend went to... I know he makes wooden bowls for a hobby... I could talk to him about turning bowls on a lathe... that would be my kind of celebrity discussion!

Here is the thing I found the weirdest... one of the Main Street storefronts had been transformed(temporarily I presume) in to a big Botox store!
That's right, a whole store just for Botox.
I guess if that's not bringing Hollywood to Utah, nothing is.

Party Night

Geez, this was my entryway when I came home from work tonight. Teenageers! They are everywhere. About a dozen I think. They have been coming and going all night. They move so fast I can't count. Turns out today is the end of the term and for some reason (probably Sarah's immobility!)they all ended up here to celebrate. I like the kids, but it's 11 pm and there are at least 10 here still, and I have no idea how many are spending the night. What do you suppose the chance is that they will be quiet enough me to sleep tonight?

One nice thing, a bunch of the girls are my biggest bead fans, so having them here always garners me compliments, especially on a night like tonight where I'm cleaning beads. They are smarties - they know if they're nice I'm happy to give them beads. I'm sure they'd be nice anyway! So tonight I gave a bunch of beads away, but I was smart and said - if you want them, you can clean them and handed over my dremel tool... and they happily dremeled away. It is sweet how they are so thankful, even if they are taking ones that I wasn't quite happy with. It's fun to have my housefull of adoring fans! ...If they only let sleep tonight... I wish I had some earplugs!

...Midnight, I got a correct count... there are 12 teens here... and a fish (a beta) in a bowl on my kitchen counter... I can't remember who's that is...

Thoughts on Martin Luther King Day...

....or Human Rights Day as it's known in Utah. I have been wondering if our country has begun to embrace a new type of acceptable prejudice? Prejudice against Hispanics. My daughter recently had a baby for the weekend... an electronic plastic baby, courtesy of her ninth grade teen living class. The exercise was designed to teach kids that they don't want to do do something foolish, like become teen parents. My daughter didn't feel like she learned much from the lesson because, as she said, "Duh Mom, I already knew it would be stupid to get pregnant at my age". She did end up learning something that made her unhappy about some of her classmates. About racism. You see, she chose the Hispanic plastic baby, and actually got numerous snide comments from her classmates about it. Not knowing she'd picked that baby, kids "felt bad" for her because she "got stuck" with the Hispanic baby. She has also told me that kids at her school frequently make racist comments towards Mexicans, and that they are also racist, to a lesser degree, against Asians. It is something that definitely upsets and disappoints her about her classmates.

I have to admit to hearing that racism runs rampant at her school surprising. We live in a good part of town, in fact many neighborhoods that feed her school are pretty affluent. When I think of affluent people I think of educated people. I think educated people *should* know better than to be racist. I thought we'd learned from history, from people like Martin Luther King. Or have we simply learned not to be prejudiced against blacks? With the all the controversy in recent years about illegal immigrants from Mexico have we somehow begun to sanction a new "acceptable" prejudice? Against Hispanics? I hope not, but I have begun to wonder.

Snow dog!

So what part of a dogs evolutionary history makes it like snow? We got about six inches of the white stuff today. I let Daisy out to play while I shoveled the driveway. She ran out the door, then looped through the yard. Leaping through the snow makes her happy. Does the snow make the wolves and coyotes happy? I picture canines in the wild hunkering down in their dens, waiting for storms to pass, hoping for better weather in which to go out and look for prey. I don’t picture them gleefully frolicking in the snow. And besides, who would be throwing them snowballs?

Daisy loves a good game of snowball. She stares at you intently, waiting for you to toss the ball. If you toss it off into the snow she leaps after it, then digs around looking for. I don’t think she understands why those snowballs are so darn hard to find. She’s happier if you throw it up in the air. She jumps and tries to catch in her mouth. Once again she is confused, she knows she caught the ball, but it disappears as she grabs it with her mouth. Then another one magically appears in her mammas hand and she forgets all about the first one. She never seems to tire of the snowball game!

Todays good news - snow removes little yellow birdy splat marks! Brushing the snow off of my car surrounded it in little piles of yellow snow...

Todays bad news - Poor Sarah has at least two more weeks on crutches. Not that it affects the outcome, but todays x-ray clearly showed that a third bone in her foot was indeed broken as the doc suspected.

Splat

One good reason to get my butt going in the morning:

Parking!

Parking sucks where I work. As a university staff person I have it better than the students, but it is still a hassle. I pay $216/year for a parking pass, which allows me to park, on a good day, relatively close to my building. I often judge my days as good or bad based on the parking space I score. School holidays? They are good days, even when I have to work because I know I can show up almost anytime and get a place to park. When school is in session you can just about tell time by the number of open parking spots in a lot. Today was a bad day. Since Sarah is on crutches, I have been taking her to school everyday, making my schedule run later than usual. Today was extra unusual because it is her birthday, and since it's her day she wanted me to stop at the store for a chocolate donut on the way to school. Being the sucker I am, I said yes, so I was running late. Even though I was running late I still stopped at my coffee shop to grab a cup of coffee (addictions you know!). So I pulled in to my parking lot of choice at 8:18, just in time to see another car get the last empty space. So I turned around and went to my second choice lot, which was also full, then got stuck waiting while another spot seeker did a 6 point turn in her big volvo to leave the spaceless lot. So I was stuck having to drive out of that area, through the stoplight, to a space across the road by the stadium. Practically in student parking. Oh well, I guess can use the exercise, I just hate waiting forever for the light to change so I can cross the street.

I now have a new parking lot benchmark...not just whether or not I get to work early enough to find a spot in the lot of my choice, but which particular spot to get. I usually park along the sidewalk, but the other day, because school is back in session I had to take a different spot. Under a tree I guess, because now my car is covered with zillions of bright fluoresent yellow green spots. Or should I say splats? Birdie turdy splats.

I guess I'll start trying to get to work in time to park in the bird free zone....and hope tomorrows snowstorm washes off my car. I wonder if splurging for the $1000+/year reserved parking pass guarantees splat free parking?

Repetition

It has been pointed out to me that I used the word "sushi" 13 times in my last post.
I guess too much sushi is a bad thing after all!

What is a good synonym for "sushi"?

(current sushi count = 3, oops, I guess it's 4 now!)

Sushi Snacks!

It’s back! Sushi that is. For some reason I don’t understand, the student union quits serving sushi during winter and summer break. Today the students have returned, and after a more than 2 week hiatus, so has sushi. I wish I could say that I was a sushi aficionado. I’m not. My family isn’t fond of sushi, so we rarely eat at sushi places. But I have gotten in the habit of grabbing sushi at the union for lunch once or twice a week. So I really miss it when it’s gone. I suppose the fact that I eat student union sushi means I’m no connoisseur; but I enjoy it as reasonably healthy lunch. I have mixed feelings about the raw fish aspect of sushi. Although I often find it tasty, I have spent too much time at biology field stations when parasitology was being taught to want eat much raw fish. I do occasionally indulge and have raw fish if I’m somewhere where I trust the sushi chef knows how to pick clean, fresh, fish. Somehow I don’t have that level of confidence in the staff at the student union, so I usually stick with cooked fish varieties. So do "institutional" places just buy the "sushi kit in the box" and let whatever yahoo who happens to be working that day roll it up? It’s not like we’re in Japan where there the training of a sushi chef is a fine tradition. My lunch sushi might not be top notch, but I sure like it anyway. I’m glad it’s back. Yum!

Web Connections.

I have to say that I feel a little tickled that I got such nice mention form Lori Greenberg in her blog the other day. I’m never quite sure what I think about the whole blogging business. On one hand it feels very weird to put your thoughts out there in such a public way. Then there’s the “why do I bother doing this if nobody reads it anyway?” thought, and the “oh god, what if someone actually reads this?” thought. On the other hand, there is something kind of affirming about actually putting thoughts in writing that kind of feels good.

When it comes to reading blogs I have found that I mostly enjoy reading blogs of people I know, I like getting that little snapshot of the daily life of my friends far away, even if they are people I don’t really well. Or maybe the fact that I don’t know them really well is why I like their blog, it gives me a chance to get to them better.

I really enjoy seeing how the world all connects together. Part of what’s appealing about the “world wide web” it is a web of connections. Lori mentioned something interesting in her blog the other day; a link to a blog she occasionally reads. Imagine my surprise when I clicked the link and found it went to blogger in my town. An ex-mormon living here in Salt Lake. I don’t want to spend time talking about Utah and the “great divide” (mormons vs. non mormons) and how Utah is a bit of an odd place to live (it is), but it is an interesting subject to me. I imagine the dooce.com blog may have entries I‘ll find interesting.

I’ll file Lori’s posting of that link under what I call “weird cosmic coincidences”. It is always interesting to me to have these weird little connections pop up in my life.


Now I have to add…
Lori mentioned the kind of mother I am… I have to add that, like in so many facets of my life, I’m pretty schizophrenic in my skills as a mom. I try to be the good mom who wants to provide positive experiences and memories for my kids, and I’m also the bitchy mom who incessantly rants about the kid's messes or their chores being undone. I can do quite the good mom/bad mom thing. Like the other night when I got home from work and Sarah was there with her friend Neeka and 3 teenage guys I'd never met before. The first thing I did was yell about all the dishes in the sink, (bad mom- I’m not supposed to yell when she has friends over), then I thought about making dinner. With 5 teenagers in the house I figured I’d better make a big dinner and I remembered that we were about to have a critical toilet paper shortage, so ran to the store to get the makings for a big pot of spaghetti and meat sauce. When I returned Sarah and one of the boys was outside. Since she’s on crutches she couldn’t very well help carry in groceries, so I tossed my big 24 pack of toilet paper to the boy and told him to make himself useful. Of course this totally embarrasses my daughter, (bad mom) but then I cooked them all dinner (good mom). Totally schizophrenic right? I guess I hope that in the long run the “good mom” moments out weight the “bad mom” ones

Fear of the torch...

One problem with the holiday season.. you get busy with all preparations and activities and next thing you know 3 weeks have passed and you haven't had a chance to light up the torch. Next comes the fear. The fear that any skill you may have had will have totally evaporated during the time away the torch. So even when free time emerges again, and your itching to start making things, it's easy to fear that you won't be able to make the glass behave like you use to, and therefore put off getting back up to the workbench. Over New Years weekend I finally, for the first time in weeks, made some beads. You'd think after a long break I'd have lots of creative energy, but in reality I had no idea where to start. So I decided to think towards the next holiday and make some hearts. The added bonus to making hearts is that because they are something I rarely do, I have no expectations for how they will come out. And, hearts are an inherently wonky shape so they'd be good for an potentially wonky day. Since I was already fearful that during my break I would have forgotten how to make anything decent, making something I'm not great anyway at seemed like a good first project. I'm not sure I have a future in the Valentines Day bead market. I don't think my hearts are quite "girlie" enough. Or maybe deep down I'm somewhat black hearted. Perhaps next time I make hearts I should break out my stash of pink Bullseye glass!

New looks for the new year

So am I bad mother? Would you let this guy lay a hand on your daughter? Well, I did. The thing Sarah really, really, wanted for Christmas was to get her nose pierced. It wasn't one of those spontaneous, teenage, peer pressure sort of desires; she has been asking to do this for over a year. I have to say I'm pretty ambivalent about nose piercing. Some people look cute with pierced noses, some look like total freakazoids. I think it just depends on how it's done, what jewelry is chosen, and what kind of look the person wishes to achieve. Since all of my research indicated that eventual removal of a nose ring leaves little or no scaring, and the "horror" stories seemed relatively few and far between, I decided to go ahead and give her a gift certificate to Koi, a local piercing salon as a Christmas gift.

I chose Koi because it has a reputation of being the best or at least one of the best piercing salons in town, and I certainly didn't want to risk getting her nose pierced by just anyone. I was happy that the shop was run very professionally, clean, autoclave trays and biohazard bags in plain site. The piercer actually spent a fair amount of time examining her nose to decide where to pierce it. I asked him to explain to me what he was looking for, and he gave me a pretty length explanation. Apparently you want the piercing situated just right in the crease in the nose, in a certain thin section of tissue, in the most aesthetically pleasing position. I was most pleased that he gave such a good explanation, and I felt that my daughter was in good hands and not just getting any old willy-nilly hole in her nose. After he gave me his detailed explanation he quipped "then I just guess". The actually piercing was really fast. He stuck this metal tube thing up her nose, than fast as lighting the big long piercing needle shot out her nostril. Sarah eyes were watering, mostly because she was laughing so hard because the swiftness of the piercing, which she watched in the mirror, was so darn startling. She's really happy with how it looks, and to be honest I think it looks cute too.