Dance To The Door

The Sandman Sucketh

2012-01-23T16:29:00.000-08:00

I have a rather rocky relationship with sleep. We've not really been on good terms for years now. Sleep is a grudging visitor at night, often arriving far too late and then fleeing before I'm ready for it to go. I sleep in fits and starts, and what I do manage to get is often punctuated by disturbing and extremely vivid dreams. Part of my issue with sleep is that my brain simply will not turn off. It doesn't matter how tired my body is. As soon as I climb into bed and turn the light off, it's like my brain decides it's time to drag up every worry or fear I could possibly have and parade them through my head like supermodels on a runway. I've tried everything to stop this. I've faithfully followed every piece of advice on relaxing before bed time, not using the computer or watching TV, letting myself unwind, not eating after a certain time, making sure the room is dark and quiet. I've counted sheep and I've gone through relaxation techniques and I've even tried to force my brain to picture a quiet meadow with wind blowing peacefully through the long grass. The problem with that is I have an overly active imagination that insists on populating the meadow with squirrels and rabbits and deer and creating stories about what they are doing. Eventually I'm obsessively building generations of wild animals that, akin to some Disney movie, live happy little lives until something awful happens. Like a fire.

To stop my brain from either going through the anxiety parade or sending squirrels to a fiery demise I just take OTC sleeping pills, of the sort you can get from any grocery stores.

I have been doing this for..oh..about four years now. Unfortunately they don't really provide me with good sleep. It's better than the no sleep I'd get without them, but I typically wake up feeling groggy and like someone has been beating me with a stick. I'm always exhausted and it takes me a few hours in the morning before I feel even remotely human. Over the years my quality of forced sleep has been getting worse and worse, to the point that I've been having episodes of sleep paralysis. On my list of fun things to personally experience, that one ranks very low indeed.

So this week I am attempting to venture back into the world of natural sleep. Last night was my first foray back into dreamland without the aid of sleeping pills. It went better than I expected, but still not as well as I would like. When I woke up this morning I didn't feel as groggy or sore like I usually do, but it took me so long to fall asleep last night that I spent the entire day yawning and doing my best not to doze off at my desk.

Probably I should finally give in and go to a doctor about it. I just wish I could do what I used to be able to and drift off into a peaceful, natural, deep sleep without my brain being an asshole about things and making it complicated. Sadly, something tells me that those days are probably long behind me. Unless I can find some sort of "off" switch to stop myself from focusing on every wretched little thing when I get into bed, I think I'm probably stuck with some form of assistance in getting myself to sleep.

Something New

2012-01-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

I've reached the point in my jewelry work where I am no longer comfortable teaching myself new techniques. I've taught myself wire wrapping, beadweaving, etching, piercing and cutting metal, and various other things over the years. I've wanted to get into metalsmithing badly for years now, but the fact that I am incredibly accident prone paired with having to use an open flame seemed like a really bad combination. It's not that I am careless. I'm just naturally clumsy, and even when I am being as careful as careful can be I seem to attract injuries like a magnet. Take yesterday, for instance. I was sitting in the break room, reading a book, when a co-worker walked past me swinging a can of soup in her hand. Somehow she managed to whack me squarely in the knee with the can of soup as she walked past me. My bad knee, mind you, the knee that dislocated in 2010 and is only really starting to heal properly. All my care and babying of my knee undone in an instant by an unintentionally well-aimed can of Progresso.

Because of incidents like that I'm pretty certain at times that the universe has it in for me. So again, me + open flames + trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing while unsupervised = bad things bound to happen.

One of the universities in the city I work in offers non-credit courses for a variety of hobbies. This year they're offering metalsmithing classes for a relatively reasonable price, so I went ahead and signed up for the first available class. I will be learning how to make a sterling silver bezel-set ring, and a small copper box. I'm having to overcome my various personal quirks with this class, though. I am a hermit by nature, preferring to hole up in my work room by myself. I tend to avoid other artists and haven't gotten involved in the local scene at all. It's not through any disdain or thinking myself above such things. It's rather a personal nervousness around people and new experiences that keeps me solitary. Right now I'm a swirl of anxiety at the thought of stepping outside of my personal comfort zone, paired with excitement at finally being able to learn a technique I've loved and coveted the knowledge of for years. I collect techniques like a crow collects shiny things, and no sooner do I learn one than my eye turns to something else, some other new fascinating thing that makes my heart pitter-pat a bit faster.

I'll be sure to post progress pictures as I make my venture into metalsmithing. Wish me luck for tonight!

Captain Underpants

2011-08-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

We've been living in the subdivision now for just over a year. We're only really familiar with a few of our neighbors, but mostly we just chat with our next door neighbors on either side. To the left of our house live a married couple close to our own age, and to the right of our house is a single mother and her 14 year old daughter.

The daughter recently lost her cat and had spent weeks combing the subdivision for it. She taped "lost cat" signs to every stop sign and put cat food out on our porch, as the last place the cat had been spotted was in my front flower bed. Eventually I had the bright idea of loaning her my father-in-law's live trap, and she caught her cat this past weekend. The trap was returned and profuse thanks offered, and the girl was happily re-united with her lost kitty.

Until this morning, when our doorbell rang about two minutes before my alarm went off. Our bedroom is at the front of the house, with our windows right next to the front porch. I groggily elbowed my husband and said "someone is ringing our doorbell!", to which he offered the response of "muuuugrrhhh...."

The doorbell ringing was followed by hard knocking, and then we heard the sound of someone hysterically crying. This spurred my husband into Instant Action Mode, which pretty much meant that he leapt out of bed and was out the front door in lightning speed, thinking Something Bad Was Happening Outside.

What had actually happened was that the girl's cat had darted outside again this morning when she was getting ready for school, and she was desperate to catch it and wanted to borrow the live trap again.

What also happened was that my husband went charging out the door onto the front lawn clad in nothing but his Marvel comic book hero t-shirt and a pair of baggy blue boxer-briefs. The trap was quickly retrieved and given to the girl, and then he seemed to realize that he was outside. In his underpants. In front of a teenaged girl and her mother. You know that sinking feeling you get when you realize you've done something horribly embarrassing? I'm guessing that was the feeling churning through my husband's gut as he hightailed it back into the house and retrieved his pants before the whole neighborhood got an eyeful.

While he was procuring his jeans, another bright idea crossed his mind. When he bought some special edition of one of the Call of Duty games, it came with a pair of functional if rather comical looking night vision goggles. I'm sure you can all imagine where this is going. Now clad properly in pants and t-shirt, my husband decided to join the cat hunt..with his Call of Duty night vision goggles on.

Because that's not weird, or anything. I suppose I should be grateful that he didn't decide to grab one of his replica lightsabers while he was at it. Just in case, you know, an evil sith lord appeared from the bushes.

Thankfully the cat bolted back inside when the mother raised their garage door, the trap was returned, and my husband came back inside. I'm pretty sure the cat was terrorized by the sight of my husband charging around on the lawn first in his underpants, and then in his night vision goggles, and decided "screw this outdoors shit, I'm going inside for some friskies!"

In which I attempt to take my husband's nose by force.

2011-08-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've been married for nearly a year now, and honestly it's not much different than just living with the man was. I can't say that marriage brought about any big surprises or revelations about my husband. I've known him since I was 15, and we've been together for about 8 years, so it's not as though there's much about him that remains a mystery to me. I know he likes to wear athletic socks and not dress socks. I know he likes funny t-shirts, and that he can recite episodes of Star Trek line by line, and I know his favorite foods and his favorite color and that he is excellent at cooking and useless at doing laundry.

So I knew going into this marriage that he snores like a fucking chainsaw being wielded by a pissed-off grizzly bear. I imagine that such a thing would sound like NNNNNNNG NNNNNNNG NNNNNNNNNNG BZZZZZZZRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOAR NNNNNNNNNG, which is exactly the same sound that emanates from my husband's nasal passages and mouth at 3:00 A.M. nearly every night of the week. Naturally, he refuses to accept or admit that he snores, let alone snores like an enraged power-tool using ursine, so of course one night while he snored away and I lay awake and balefully stared at him, I decided to grab my iPod and use the handy video feature to record evidence.

After capturing several seconds of his open-mouthed symphony I tried my usual methods of making him stop. I shook him. I elbowed him in the ribs. I flopped around in the bed like a fish hoping that my restless tossing and turning would penetrate his sleeping brain and send "stop snoring please for the love of god" signals to him. None of these things worked, so my next course of action was to extract myself from the warm cozy bed and stomp off to the kitchen in search of the box of breathe-right strips in the cabinet. I know those things don't stick worth a damn unless the wearer's nose is totally clean and dry, so I made a stop by the bathroom for a toner-soaked cotton ball to aid in my efforts.

Imagine, if you will, that it is 3 A.M. in a dark house. The only light is coming from the bathroom, the door of which has been left open to provide some illumination to the bedroom. In the bed there is a large, sleeping man who is snoring. Perched atop his chest is his much smaller and very pissed off wife, who is cleaning his nose with a cotton ball soaked in toner. The man, against all odds, is sleeping quite soundly through this experience even though the toner proclaims how refreshingly tingly it is (which is beauty product speak for "holy shit this stuff burns!"). The little plastic backings are peeled from the breathe-right strip. Ever so slowly, the wife applies it to the husband's nose. Probably thinking the unpleasant nasal-passage-lifting sensation he is experiencing processes as "bug trying to excavate my nostrils", and he keeps swatting her hand away in much the same way that you'd try to swat an annoying fly.

This continues for several moments, until the damned breathe-right strip is now utterly de-stickified and useless. The end result is one wasted strip, one still obliviously snoring husband, and one still exceedingly irritated wife who has just wasted a cotton-ball's worth of refreshingly tingly toner on her husband's undeserving nose.

I ended up just wadding my pillow up around my head and glaring at him for another hour before I finally fell back asleep. I presented him with the proof of his snoring the next day. He had no recollection of me attempting to open his sinuses by force. He claimed that he slept peacefully and listened with disbelief to the pissed-off-bear-with-chainsaw sounds emanating from my iPod. "That's YOU" I told him. "Wear a damned strip to bed or I will kill you in your sleep."

He always laughs when I threaten him, of course. But if he'll sleep through me sitting on his chest and trying to stick things to his face, I'm pretty sure he'd sleep through me smothering him with a pillow. Of course, then I wouldn't have anyone to get things out of high cabinets or open jars for me, but oh, the uninterrupted nights of quiet sleep just might be worth it.

Crazy Stamp Lady

2011-04-25T11:06:00.001-07:00

Today while I was on my lunch break I went to the small post office that's around the corner from work. There were only two people ahead of me in line, so I was internally congratulating myself for getting there before the rush hit. Unfortunately, I was so very, very wrong.

The two customers ahead of me both had rather involved transactions. One was a jeweler who was sending pieces of fine jewelry, which of course involved insurance and tracking numbers, and about a quarter of the two dozen packages he had were international, so they needed customs slips as well. His end of the counter was quickly covered in sheafs of little green customs slips and packages and insurance forms.

The other customer was an elderly woman who was purchasing stamps. She was toting a wheeled cart stuffed to the brim with empty Dillards bags, and she was sorting through the stamps with the intensity of a scholar perusing the Dead Sea Scrolls. The post office clerk brought out book after book of stamps, each one scrutinized and rejected for various reasons that the elderly lady loudly shared with the entire post office.

"Oh, if these had forget-me-nots on them instead of violets, I'd get these. These are nice, but I don't like that they say 'love' on them. Oh, I don't need Black History stamps..Oh, no, I don't even know who that singer is. These are too bright. These aren't bright enough" on and on she went, like some kind of Post Office Goldilocks, trying to find that "just right" book of stamps. 15 minutes she took, as she thumbed through each pile, asking if there were any others, if other post offices might have other designs. I leaned back against the counter and waited, inwardly grinding my teeth but outwardly radiating patience as I watched my lunch hour tick away while the woman hemmed and hawwed and compared stamp after stamp.

Finally she settled on some stamps featuring cats and dogs, but she made the post office clerk tear off a segment in such a way that the stamps would not have white cats on them. Because she didn't like white cats, you see, and simply would not send stamps with white cats on them.

After she left I mailed my one package and scooted out into the parking lot with a sigh of relief. But it wasn't over just yet. From across the lot came the reedy voice of the stamp lady: "Yoohoo! Miss! MISS! Are you going in the direction of Hikes Lane??? Would you give me a ride??"

I froze, and then told her in a regretful tone that I was going back to work, which was in the opposite direction, and hurried back to my car. Even if I had been going in her direction, my car was crammed to the brim with so much stuff that I had no room for the woman or her cart. Last I saw her, she was heading for the bus stop.

Girl on a Wire

2010-12-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've written before about my mother's overweight Houdini beagle, Bradley. Bradley's main goal in life is to escape through the fence in my mother's yard. Despite his corupulent size (he continues to find ways of sneaking food, despite my mother's efforts at putting him on a diet), he manages to wriggle through the smallest of gaps in a manner that would suggest he is actually half snake.

Nothing we do ever keeps him in for long. My mom went so far as to put dog-sized saddle bags on him, stuffed with tennis balls in an attempt to make him too bulky to wriggle free. This slowed him down until he figured out how to shed the saddlebags. So our next method of containment was to find every single Bradley-sized gap in the fence and fix it by using a layer of rabbit fence and lengths of rebar. This works in fixing each individual spot, but the problem is that my mother has 3 acres of land that slopes and is surrounded by woods. The undergrowth in some areas cannot be penetrated by anything larger than..well..a beagle. So his escape spots often go unfound because we simply cannot get to them.

My mother finally gave up on attempting to contain the dog, and simply walks him outside, in her fenced yard, on a leash. This is fairly successful during the nice sunny warm months, but right now when we're in the clutches of unusually cold weather, it's hard on her. Last week we had a small ice storm that coated the ground in a good inch thick layer of ice, and Mom simply couldn't do it. She has a number of health problems that make walking around on ice a very bad idea. She had to just let Bradley roam unattended in the yard, and hope that the ice was enough to keep him from escaping.

For two days, it worked. Bradley ran around outside, came in when called, and otherwise behaved himself. He was the model of good behavior during that time. Of course, like the ice, it did not last. It warmed up just enough on Saturday that everything started to thaw, and by that night it had thawed enough for him to make his escape.

The problem with that is the only remaining escape spots are along the side of the fence that runs down the length of a neighbor's horse pasture. The neighbor, by some miracle, has a fence that Bradley cannot escape through. He is also too stupid (his intelligence seems limited to figuring out ways of doing what he shouldn't) to figure out how to get back into the yard through the same way he got out, so when he discovered that he was trapped in the horse pasture, he began to wail in the way that only distressed beagles can. The neighbors were not home, and their pasture gate has a padlock on it, so getting him out that way was impossible.

So I had to go over to my mother's house at 7:30 PM and scale her side of the fence to get into the horse pasture. Luckily for me, there was a barrel located on the neighbor's side of the fence that allowed easy access for me, as the fence is tall and rather more of a drop than I care to make. So up the ice covered fence I went (getting snagged on the barbed wire top in the process, which took some time and wriggling to extract myself from), over the top and onto the barrel. The barrel, as it turned out, was there to block a rather large gap between the front of their fence and another neighbor's back yard. This gap also created a convenient spot to shove Bradley through, and was also luckily just wide enough for me to wriggle through as well once I had heaved the overweight and by now frantic beagle into the other neighbor's (thankfully unfenced) yard.

Since he'd burned his paws on the remaining ice, I had to carry him down the 3 acre length of the yard, into my mother's house. By the time we got inside, I was so out of breath that I could hardly speak. See, I am not in good shape. I am skinny by way of genetics, but I spend my entire day with my rear end firmly planted in an office chair. I also have a joint condition that has caused my knees and shoulders to deteriorate quite badly. So scaling an icy fence, getting tangled in barbed wire, and then carrying an overweight beagle down 3 acres of sloping yard was not exactly a Good Thing for me.

One of these days we will finally fix the last escape spot in the fence. I'm pretty sure that when that happens, Bradley will figure out how to climb, or build ladders in order to get out. Either that or he'll have become so fat by that point that he'll require us to carry him around on a litter.

the holiday rush

2010-11-01T06:31:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that the year is already in the second-to-last month. I've been building and building towards halloween, filling my days with decorations and crafts and spooky movies, and in one rather uneventful night it's all done with. Holidays are all like that, really. The anticipation and building towards them is almost always better than the day itself.

Then it's over, suddenly, in a span of hours. You wake up the next morning and realize that you'll have to take all of those decorations down. Throw away the jack-o-lanterns that have started to fall in on themselves. Take down the lights. Wrap and pack all of the little glass skulls and ghosts and pumpkins.

This time of year there is no rest to be had. I was in Target on Saturday and they were already playing Christmas music. The TV is full of ads for jewelry and toys, and they've started putting up garlands at the malls. Soon Christmas will become a relentless hammer of advertising and decorations, beating everyone into holly-jolly submission.

I am of course excited about the prospect of decorating for Christmas this year. It's our first house together, and I'm picturing where I'll put the tree, and how I'll put snowmen on the staircase and wrap the banister with garland. I've started stitching lots of little ornaments out of felt and beads and turning my eye towards gifts.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a break, though. To space things out a little more, to relax and breath in between the holidays. Instead the time from September to January becomes a constant bombardment of the senses, where we go from shrieking ghouls to laughing santas, with a turkey and some pilgrims thrown in somewhere in the middle. It's also a time where you start to feel, more than anything, what you do not have and must sacrifice in favor of necessary things. It's been a hard year for a lot of people, and for many it will only get worse.

On the other hand, perhaps having the holidays all bunched together like this is easier in some ways. In a three month span it's done with, over, gone for another whole year. You can pack away the decorations and forget about the whole thing, until Fall comes around again and suddenly the stores smell like cinnamon and cloves, and everything turns into a riot of color and want, want, want.

Today when I go home I'll pack away all of my halloween things, and eat whatever candy was left over after the horde of trick-or-treaters last night. I don't bother decorating for Thanksgiving. My only interest in that particular holiday is the dinner that my sister makes, and the introduction of pumpkin pie into my diet. Soon enough Thanksgiving will come and go, and the very next day I'll put up my first Christmas tree.

I'll miss my jack-o-lanterns, though.

I did it for the bees...

2010-10-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

Without fail, every time the temperature drops below 70 degrees my lips start to chap. Nothing has ever prevented this from happening. As soon as the season starts to shift from summer to fall, I start applying lip balm like a madwoman in a vain attempt to stop my lips from turning into cracked and reddened monsters that demand moisture every 10 seconds. It rather feels like going around with the plant from "Little Shop of Horrors" attached to my face. Every minute of the day, I can hear them screaming "FEED ME!!" (well, to be more accurate they actually scream "HYDRATE ME!!!", but that doesn't sound as funny), and I frantically delve into my purse or pockets in search of more balm.

I've tried every kind of lip balm out there. Chapstick doesn't really do much for me. Nor do the super fancy healing balms that proclaim they're so good that you'll practically sprout a lush tropical oasis in the middle of your face, complete with tiny waterfall. No, my balm of choice is Burt's Bees. I'm addicted to the stuff. In the event of a zombie uprising, those little yellow tubes will become to me what twinkies were to Woody Harrelson's character in "Zombieland". I will gather all of the balms that I can and hole myself up for the rest of my life, converting the empty tubes into miniature pipe bombs (pipe balms?) to defend my territory.

The weather has edged into the cooler temperatures, and one morning I felt the annoying tingle in my lips that meant if I didn't start slapping on the balm NOW, I'd suffer for it. I dug around in my purse, and...nothing. I rooted through my car. Nothing. I turned every purse in my closet upside down, in hopes of finding some balm.

Nothing.

See, we moved back in Spring. Somewhere in the shuffle, my container of extra lip balms vanished. I had one tube left, and hadn't bothered replacing it because I was simply too busy to think about it. But I knew I had another tube somewhere, because I'd used it just the other day. Perhaps I'd left it at work, I thought, or it had rolled under the couch. Trying to ignore the ever-increasing demands of my lips, I started pulling laundry from the washing machine. As I yanked pairs of jeans out of the washer, I heard it..a telltale "plonk..rattle rattle" in the barrel of the washing machine.

I peered inside, and there it was. My precious yellow tube of lip balm, ruined beyond all hope. I uncapped it and sniffed it, and it had turned into a squishy gooey substance that smelled like fabric softener.

In the back of my mind, my lips shrieked "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

It was OK, I reasoned. I'd be at the mall the next day, and there would surely be a store that sold more balm there. I'd be stuck there for a few hours, since my husband's car was in the shop and we were carpooling until it was fixed. He got out of work after I did, so I'd just kill time by window shopping until he was ready.

The next day I roamed the mall, licking my now cracked and flaking lips over and over, unable to stop myself even though I knew it would make them worse. Waldenbooks, I thought. They sold my preferred brand of lip balm. I knew I could find salvation there. I fairly trotted down the mall corridor, my mind focused on that one goal: obtaining more lip balm. I had to have it. Could imagine myself ripping the plastic seal from around the cap and ringing my mouth with sweet, sweet moisturizing manna from heaven.

Unfortunately for me, it didn't quite work out that way. I saw the display of balm at the register and grabbed one precious tube, clutching it like it was the holy grail. But there was no one at the register. I waited, growing increasingly anxious as the seconds ticked by and no one appeared to take my money. I looked around the store, but could see no employee anywhere. The woman behind me became impatient and actually started calling out for help, but no one came. It was like we'd entered into some alternate dimension where the book store was staffed by no one. I waited for two full minutes before I finally realized that I would not, in fact, be getting my balm from there. Dejected, I put it back into the display and left the store, mind frantically scrambling to think of where I could obtain more.

It was the mall, I thought. Surely some other store in the entire mall sold plain lip balm, right? Right??? I went the Hallmark store, where I discovered that Yankee Candle had started making lip balm. It came in tiny tubes that were shaped like the candle jars, and the flavors apparently were the more popular food related candle scents. It was also something like $5.95 for an incredibly small amount of balm, and I couldn't into the whole idea of smearing my lips with something that looked like a miniature candle and smelled like one, too. I went to Sephora, next, where I was reminded of the time I went to Victoria's Secret in search of a a plain half-slip. You see, Sephora simply does not do plain lip balm. if it's not glittery, tinted, plumping, or $45 a tube, they don't have it. With a sense of rising panic, I tried every department store, gift store, and kiosk in the mall. No one sold Burt's Bees, except for Waldenbooks, which was still evidently without a clerk manning the register.

I was now completely obsessed with finding lip balm. I got into my car and drove to store after store in the area, finding nothing. By that point I was so desperate that all I could think about was my increasingly chapped lips. Really, this is why I've never even tried anything addictive like cigarettes or alcohol. I'd probably go from "person who enjoys an occasional drink" to "raging alcoholic who drinks vodka at work" in a matter of days. My single-minded focus on things is useful in some situations, but when it's centered on something I do not have and cannot obtain, it only makes things worse.

Eventually I gave up my search, and went to my husband's place of work feeling completely dejected. I slumped on a stool and contemplated my misery, my lips now a mass of cracked and burning skin. My husband sighed, told his co-workers "I'll be right back", and came back 15 minutes later with a tube of Burt's Bees, having gone to Waldenbooks and hunted down the missing clerk, who apparently waited on him with great reluctance.

This, my friends, is why I married him. Also, because he cooks, and were it not for him I'd exist entirely on boxed macaroni and cheese and cereal.

I've since stocked up on balm, and am trying to remember to check my pockets before I toss my jeans in the washing machine. Hopefully these things will prevent me from turning into a gibbering idiot, standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign that proclaims my willingness to work for Burt's Bees.

Making the Cut

2010-10-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

I've made it my goal to learn at least one new technique a year.

My jewelry making has evolved a great deal over the years. I started out stringing beads, and then went to beadweaving. From there I went to bead embroidery, and then wirework, and then to etching. Now I've purchased a jeweler's saw, so I'm going to add piercing/cutting to my range of skills. Or so I hope, at least. In my previous post I mentioned my tendancy to injure myself, so this new idea may not end very well for me.

I've always been very obsessive when it comes to new things. When I find something I enjoy, I focus on it with great intensity and do only that thing for months. I'm that way with everything from food (I will eat the same thing for lunch every single day for weeks on end) to books (a new genre that I enjoy will become the only one I read for months). Techniques are the same way for me. Of course, I don't totally abandon my old favorites. They still get incorporated to some degree, re-visited, adored all over again. Nothing beats that initial learning process, though, that satisfaction when the first truly good piece is created after dozens of cast-offs and botched designs.

I don't know why I didn't learn how to pierce and cut sheet metal sooner. I cut my sheet metal now with a heavy set of metal shears, but those are heavy and clumsy and can only really produce a few simple shapes. I want to be able to make intricate cut-out designs, to be unlimited in what shapes and designs I make. It's time to learn something new, as well. I still love to wire wrap, and to etch copper, but this will open new doors for me.

Hopefully I won't damage myself too much during the learning process. I have my doubts about that, though. I'm sure there will be at least a little bit of blood at some point. I'm sure it will be well worth it, as my previous injuries have been while I've learned new things.

The Pumpkin Queen

2010-10-11T07:25:00.001-07:00

Growing up as a home schooled and very accident prone child, there were certain experiences that I missed out on. Carving a jack-o-lantern for Halloween was one of those things.

Now, I had a very rich and varied education with a lot of activites thrown in for good measure. I went places, and did things, and got to try as many arts-and-crafts projects as I wanted.

Except for anything involving pointy objects. I'm the girl who nearly cut the pad of her fingertip off on a catfood can lid. I once cut a chunk out of my middle finger with a pair of safety scissors. Yeah, that's right. Safety scissors. The sort that you're not supposed to be able to cut yourself with. I still have a scar from those things.

Over the years my injuries have been many, and the majority of them have involved my wrists and hands (and my head, a few times, but only bad enough to need stitches one time).

So pumpkin carving was something that was simply not done. That, and my mother was simply not fond of Halloween, having come from a country where such a holiday was not observed. She would dutifully take my sister and me trick-or-treating every year, and would even make all of our costumes by hand, but we didn't really decorate the house for it. I got to grow pumpkins as a kid. I had a whole garden full of the things, ranging in size from tiny to massive. But I was never permitted to take a knife to any of my home-grown pumpkins. I completely understand and appreciate my mother's reasons for this. Would you give me a knife for the purpose of disembowling a pumpkin and carving faces in it? Probably not, as the likely result would be a trip to the hospital and a halloween jack-o-lantern that was covered with real blood. I instead made my jack-o-lanterns out of construction paper (using the aforementioned not-so-safety scissors).

So I made it to the ripe age of 29 without ever having carved a pumpkin. I love Halloween and all of its trappings, so I don't know why I never just went out and bought myself some pumpkins one year and had at them. Probably some ingrained "must not risk fingers" instinct that was keeping me from ever considering it. My husband, however, discovered that my experience was sadly lacking, and decided to remedy this fact.

Last night we sacrificed one of our wedding pumpkins (I'd purchased some to use for decorations, and later re-located them to our front porch after the wedding was over) for my first jack-o-lantern experience. I let Adam cut the top off, and then I scooped out all of the guts. I'd forgotten how raw pumpkin smells..not like the delicious scent of pie at all, but something rather less pleasant. I chose the most basic jack-o-lantern design: Two triangular eyes, a triangle nose, and a gap-toothed grin. Adam added a stitched frankenstein-esque scar to the side.

It's not the prettiest jack-o-lantern around..nor the scariest. It's rather simple looking, but last night when we put it out on the front porch and lit the candle inside, I was terribly proud of myself.

I also managed to get through the experience with all of my fingers intact, and my friend and I are going to have a pumpkin-carving extravaganza this weekend. She and her mother are actual award-winning pumpkin carvers, so I fear my pride will be seriously squished by the end of it, but that's OK. One day, perhaps, I too will be the Pumpkin Queen..but for now, I'll settle for just being the Pumpkin Peasant.

Studly Fashion

2010-09-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my sister and I took advantage of the holiday weekend and went shopping. Now, it's been a little while since I went clothes shopping. Since we bought a house back in June, my closet space has expanded but my budget has shrunk. Besides, in a way I was using clothes and shoes as a void filler, and now that I have a house of my own I'm not quite so inclined to spend loads of money on new ones.

I still do love fashion, though, and as seasons change and shoes and clothes wear out, the time does come to replace certain things. The problem that I had, though, was that it seems as though fashion designers are not taking an "editing eye" to their latest lines.

It became very clear that embellishments are hugely in style right now. I noticed this past year that studs were creeping into fashion, and then flowers, and then random ruffles. Now it seems the military look is in, but it's being combined with studs and ruffles and flowers and buttons and chains and sequins and..and..and..and..it was like someone went back in time and unleashed the 1980s on Ft. Knox, after giving it a hefty dose of sugar and a bedazzler. Everything had some form of embellishment on it. I like those things in moderation. When you have one top that has ALL of those things on it, it becomes a bit much. I can just imagine walking down the hall at work in one of those things. There'd be some hugely important meeting going on, and from within the board room they'd hear this:

"clink clink clink clink clink clink"

Really, just pair it with some corduroy pants and I could start my own symphony just by walking. Either that or convince people that the ghost of christmas past was wandering the building, rattling chains and bewailing the state of humanity.

It makes me think of being a kid and making barbie clothes out of fabric scraps and whatever shiny crap I could find to sew on there. Rhinestones? Fantastic. Buttons? Perfect. Beads? Yes, please. Chains? Why not?

I didn't wear that much hardware when I was into the goth scene, decking myself out in bondage cuffs and dog collars. I had buckles on everything you could put a buckle on, and I still wasn't as bad as one of the dresses I saw. I can't imagine what going through a metal detector would be like (well, I can imagine what it'd be like at the local court house. The deputy manning the metal detector would determine that I am female, young, and thus not possibly smuggling anything in under my skirt, and would wave me on in a bored manner).

Really, is it so much to want something simple, or only slightly decorated? When you've got more metal on your chest than a high ranking military general, there just might be a need to cut back a bit. Not everyone needs to look like Houdini before he makes his grand escape.

Oh well. I do think some cute things have come from this trend, when the embellishments are used in moderation and don't dominate the entire outfit. Hopefully the trend will pass before we all go around sounding like someone threw a handful of pennies into a washing machine.

Treasure Hoard

2010-03-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to a bead show, as I do every spring. The bead show comes through town twice a year, once in March, and again in September. I always anticipate its arrival, reminding my fiance constantly that "the bead show is coming!!" for weeks before it gets here.

I buy most of my jewelry making supplies online. Copper wire, tools, all the chemicals and such I use for etching, and often times beads as well. But there's nothing quite like being able to sort through them in person, picking each stone, deciding between this strand or that one instead of relying on a vendor to do it for you.

I came away with a small hoard of gems, all sparkling and shimmering in their rather unglamorous brown paper bags. I didn't spend as much as I usually do, simply because I will hopefully be buying a house within the next few months, and I'll also be getting married this year. No matter how tempting a gigantic pile of sparkly jewels might be, I would very much like a proper work room to keep them in.

Here's a sampling of what I've made so far with my new pretties:

I'm really loving the aquamarine beads. I bought two strands of those, because I knew I'd be kicking myself if I only bought one. They were my most expensive purchase, but I think they were plenty worth it.

The next show won't be here until September, so I've got a while to play with new designs and work with what I bought this time around. Hopefully by the next show I'll be all settled into a new work space, with a proper bench for my anvil and other tools. Oh, and lots of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, because I plan on having a work room/library. Then my fiance would probably never see me again, because I would only emerge from that room to eat and use the bathroom.

So long, Jack Frost

2010-03-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

Today was the first truly warm day of the year. The temperature made it all the way up to 63 degrees, which meant that people everywhere were wandering around in shorts and short sleeved t-shirts. Not being a true Kentucky native, I never fully adapted to the colder weather. I can tolerate more than my fellow native Floridians, but I will never be brave enough to pull out the shorts until the weather is well into the high 70s. The people here will put on shorts as soon as it gets above 50 degrees.

This weekend I went shopping for a bit, enjoying the sun and the promise of spring. The stores were full of women buying pretty spring dresses, sandals, and sunglasses. Like Goldfinches we seek to shake off our drab hues and decorate ourselves with brilliant plumage as the weather heads towards something more tolerable. This was a long, difficult winter. Not just for us, but everywhere seemed to be hit hard by snow and ice. Here, it just seemed to be never ending bitterly cold weather, punctuated by inches of snow.

Having plenty of pretty dresses, I did resist the urge to indulge in something that will only languish in my closet for a while. I still need to do my seasonal closet purge, and I need to seriously reconsider my shoe collection. My knees have not been very happy with me, which means high heels are right out until my knees get better. I realized this past week that I have very few pairs of flat, practical shoes. I've been wearing the same pair of hastily purchased comfortable boots nearly every day, because about 95% of my shoe collection consists of heels. I bought the boots one day when I was walking around the mall and thought "I cannot take many more steps in these shoes". Luckily for me, Dillard's was having a massive sale on boots, so I got them for cheap, and they're my favorite comfort brand of shoe (Born).

I am looking forward to putting away the bulky layers of winter. I feel like an onion sometimes, shedding scraps of clothing everywhere I go, leaving trails of gloves and hats and scarves around the house, in my car, in my desk drawers at work. I've been viewing the world through the slit between the constrictor-like twists of my scarf and the bottom of my fashionably slouchy (and therefor cumbersome) hat.

Bring on the warm weather. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, I'd like to strip off a glove or two.

Lost in a haze of smoke and light...

2010-02-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset" -Crowfoot

The view from my back yard, at sunset. The column of smoke is from the power plant in the city.

I have a sharper picture of it, but I love the hazy look of the first picture.

My Favorite Things Part III

2010-02-25T16:13:00.000-08:00

Of all my worldly goods, books are probably what I love the most. In books there can be found so many things. Reading a book isn't just about gaining knowledge. It's the pleasure of it, the feel of the cover between your hands, the weight of it, the turning of each page, the smell of the ink and paper. Books contain entire worlds, anything you could possibly imagine, things fantastic and mysterious and heartbreaking.

Growing up homeschooled was difficult at times. I did get lonely on occasion. I had friends, but my world was something entirely different from theirs. Their lives revolved largely around what had happened at school that day. When you're the only person in your school, there is no drama, or gossip, or wondering what to wear. The bullies, the popular kids, the geeks, the outcasts..none of those people existed for me. I was all of those things, and none of them.

I frequently lost myself in my own imagination. Books were really not much different than that. It was just taking a break from my own head and losing myself in someone else's for a while. There was no loneliness in the turning of pages, in the stories playing out in each chapter. There was no one to judge me or think me strange, which is what often happened when I met other people my age. It was like someone had branded me with a big blazing mark that said "DIFFERENT", and of course when you're a child, and then a teenager, being different is usually considered to be a bad thing. I've never regretted my education, and I don't wish that I'd been allowed to attend public school. I just wish others had been more accepting of it.

So I read. I devoured books. I spent most of my allowance on new ones, and I always wanted more. Fantasy, history, true crime, mythology, fiction...I tried to fill myself to the brim with stories and facts, but my desire to read was bottomless. It's something I have never grown out of. I love books, and bookstores, and libraries. I hoard my books like a dragon guarding treasure, gloating over each new one I acquire. No matter how many I have, I will never have enough.

I dream of one day having a house with a proper library in it. I want every wall to have floor-to-ceiling bookcases loaded with books. My fiance is a smart man. For Valentine's Day, he didn't get me chocolate, or jewelry, or flowers. He bought me books, because he knows that's the way to my heart.

My Favorite Things, Part II

2010-02-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

To continue my post series about some of my favorite things, my next subject is: machinery!

I find old, broken-down, rusted machinery to be fascinating. All of those gears and bolts and knobs have always been so interesting to look at. I used to use pieces of old copper pipes in some of my artwork, and the more grungy they were, the better.

Living out in a rural area provides me with a lot of old broken-down farm equipment to choose from. People out here will frequently leave things to rust into nothingness in their fields, which itself is rather shameful for the environment, but provides me with lots of things to poke through.

In Pieces

2010-02-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

The owner of the auto shop my car is currently housed in called me this afternoon. He said it was awfully close, but the insurance company opted to fix my car rather than total it. Since the frame and engine were unharmed, and the car is still fairly new, it was considered to be worth fixing.

I was so relieved that my legs started shaking. I've always been an emotional person. I get very invested in things, and my car represented more than just a means of getting from point A to B. I still remember with some measure of regret important things I've lost over the years, like my favorite teddy bear. It wasn't the bear itself, but the comfort it represented that I missed. I place more meaning than I should, perhaps, in material objects. Rather than viewing them as replaceable, I instead view them with sentimental value attached. A replacement is not quite the same.

So in about two weeks, I'll have my car back. Right now it's sitting in pieces in the auto shop, stripped of its panels and bumper, waiting to be put back together. I'll be happy to go get it from the shop and bring it home.

A few of my favorite things

2010-01-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

In an effort to cheer myself up while waiting for news about my car, I thought I'd do a series of posts about things I love.

I love fashion. Accessories in particular. Scarves, pocketbooks, jewelry, belts..I am never without some sort of accessory when I'm out and about.

In the realm of jewelry, I have somewhat eclectic taste. I like classic jewelry, like strings of pearls and simple yet elegant rings, but I also like unique pieces that are bold and eye-catching. Keys are a particular favorite of mine. I recently bought two rather ornate sterling key pendants that have low grade rubies set in them. There's something very romantic about them, I think. They look like they ought to unlock something wonderful.

I've had this big silver ring forever. I bought it a few years ago, but I've only worn it a few times. I recently dug it out of my jewelry box and started wearing it more. The only problem is that I keep whacking it against everything. That's the reason why my engagement ring is actually a very small, delicate piece. I was afraid that if I wore a large stone, or one that stuck out, I'd damage the ring. The big chunky silver one is pretty much impossible to hurt, but I can't imagine wearing it every day.

The turquoise band on my ring finger is one that my mother bought for herself, but decided was too bulky to wear, so she gave it to me. It's positively dainty next to the other behemoth.

Now we move on to purses. I love purses. My love affair with purses and shoes didn't really start until I was in my mid twenties. Now I am always hunting for the next Perfect Purse, and that extends to pocketbooks and change purses, too. I found this little gem for $12 on the clearance table at Macy's. I have a particular weakness for Fossil bags, and I could not resist the berry color of the leather, nor the little bronze bird stitched onto it. It's just big enough to fit my mirror and a few tubes of lip balm.

Second Chances

2010-01-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

Thursday morning I got up to the sound of my alarm clock and went through my morning routine. Showered, got dressed, put on my makeup, and packed my lunch. I kissed my sleeping fiance goodbye, and headed off to work.

I made it exactly five miles. The roads where I live twist and turn, roll up and down hills, snaking away towards the city where everything finally becomes flat and straight. Going down and around a steep curve, the steering on my car felt oddly loose. One second later, the car was spinning out of control, and finally stopped when it hit a guardrail.

I'd hit a rather large patch of black ice. The entire road was slick with it, so once my car started sliding, there never was a time where it was off the ice. Unfortunately the fact that it was on a downhill curve meant that momentum took over and the car got out of control so badly and so fast that I barely had time to think before it was over.

I hit the emergency button on my OnStar and summoned police. An off-duty officer also happened to be passing by, and he sat there with me and reassured me. While we were sitting there, watching the morning turn from black to grey, another car came hurtling down the curve and spun into the side of the hill. They were able to drive away, at least.

It was over very quickly, really. Police came and went, the wrecker came for my car, and it was extracted from the guardrail and loaded up. I sat in my fiance's car and watched as the police swept away the pieces of my headlights from the road. 45 minutes was all that the entire process took, from the wreck to finding myself at home, stripping off my work clothes, rubbing away my makeup. My car sat in the driveway, its front end crumpled, headlights nothing but wires and smashed bulbs.

I saved for three years to buy that car. The money I made from my first major jewelry sale was the money I opened the savings account with. I researched cars online and drove my old car until it was on the verge of falling apart. I paid over half the cost of my new car in cash, and it felt so good to make that first major purchase in my life. I'd saved all the money myself, not taking help from my parents. I only had to take out a small loan to finance the rest. It would have been paid off this year.

I'm hoping they can fix it, that they don't have to total it. I don't want another new car right now. I want MY car back. The car I saved for and researched and finally drove off the lot in, thrilled at having something that didn't stall or leak rainwater from the doors, something I could call reliable, that started in the cold weather and didn't overheat when it was hot outside.

Of course insurance ruled the accident to be my fault. My deductible is high, but not unmanageable. I'd pay it to have that car back. I'm just waiting to hear if I do get to have it back, or if they'll decide it's not worth fixing. Three years of saving, two years of driving, one second to lose it. I wish I had a second chance with that morning. I'd have taken another road.

Magic Keys

2010-01-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by the idea of magic and mystery. What kid isn't, really? There's so much magic in childhood. We believe in more. Nothing is impossible. We believe that we can be anything when we grow up, that fairies might really exist, that one day the path we take every single day through the woods will lead us to a fairyland if we only find the right slant of light to step sideways through.

I spent hours playing in the woods when I was growing up, and I spent hours reading books. I loved the thought of other realms awaiting discovery, and wished I could find them.

Alas, eventually I grew up, and became involved in all of the adult things like bills and jobs and having to feed and clothe myself and worrying about the price of gas or if I'd forgotten to unplug the iron. But I still try to hold onto magic wherever I can. I still love being in the woods, and I still love to read, and all the magic I never did find as a child creeps its way into my jewelry from time to time.

I've been working on a series of key pendants, because keys are something else I've always loved. I collect sterling silver key pendants, and I dream of going round to antique malls and buying old skeleton keys. Keys just have so much potential. There's a certain mystery to a key, especially if it's an old one. Who used it? What did it unlock, or what did it keep contained?

The keys I've been making are meant to be magic keys, to unlock those mysterious, wonderful worlds I never quite managed to find in all my years of prowling the woods. Some part of me is convinced that somewhere out there, they do exist.

The Key to the Heavens is one of the more abstract keys, meant to fool the casual eye into thinking it merely a pretty design. Because one can't have just anyone unlocking its realm, after all...

A Dark and Stormy Night

2010-01-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

January is in its last week, and it seems as though this month has stretched on forever. It started off bitterly cold and then turned into a rain-soaked mess, which we are still in the middle of. Today was the first day we've had in a week where it was not pouring down.

It's been so foggy here that the mornings and nights have rendered the rest of the world invisible to me. When I look out my front door, all I can see of the house across the street is one hazy halo of light from their front porch. The trees are hulking spider-shapes that loom out unexpectedly whenever I leave the safety of my porch. It's wonderful and disturbing and makes me think that ghosts must be lurking somewhere out there, because if ever there was weather that suited a lost spirit, this is it.

Today was unusually warm for the season, and it was like the tiniest scrap of spring crept out for a single day, but next week it will be lost to the cold temperatures again. The ground is soggy, made up of sucking mud that weighs down my shoes and gets all over everything.

Such is winter, here in Kentucky. It's really no more than I expect. The only good thing so far is that we've not had another ice storm, like we did last year.

Despite the brief respite from the rain, I stayed inside for the most part today. I wanted to take my camera out and take some pictures of the bare trees, the flooded creeks, and my poor, mud-caked goat, but laziness prevailed. Not laziness, exactly, because I have been working today. I've been making jewelry, and etching copper, and doing the massive loads of laundry that this time of year generates.

I wish spring were here, and I look everywhere for signs of it, but I find none. It won't be until the end of next month that it starts to show itself in the red buds clustering on the maple trees, and the first crocus blooms pushing their way out of the ground. By the end of March the woods will have the faintest haze of green and Bluets will start to pop up in clusters around the yard.

For now it's just mud, and rain, and ice, and more fog than a victorian murder mystery would know what to do with, and a slow deep ache in my joints that begs for warmer, drier weather. Alas, I must wait.

In Stitches

2009-12-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

I have always had a lot of hobbies. I blame it on my mother. I grew up with a mother who could paint, sew, knit, crochet, and take amazing photographs. She has always been an incredibly creative person, and when you grow up in that environment it's hard not to pick up a few things. I alternate between being easily distracted (ooh, shiny!) and then becoming intensely focused on a single thing. If I try to juggle too many interests at once I end up with dozens of half finished projects and an endless pursuit of new things to do.

That's why I tend to let certain things fall by the wayside for a while. One of those things was sewing. As a kid, I had access to plenty of fabric scraps, needles, and thread. I'd make clothes for my barbie dolls, stitch together little pocket sized dolls, sachets, and other random projects (such as a patchwork cat with a zipper in its back). I taught my best friend how to sew, and we'd sit together and make things. I think she still has the lap quilt we made when we were about ten years old.

As I got older, sewing became one of those hobbies that got lost in favor of all the other things I liked to do. I was never great at it, but good enough for my little projects, so it wasn't a major skill I was neglecting.

I recently decided to dust off my sewing needles and give it another go. Partially through necessity, since my fiance seems to rip holes in nearly every article of clothing he owns, but also just for the fun of it. I know I will never be great at it. I don't have the time to devote to learning how to do anything beyond simple things, and frankly I probably should not be allowed near sewing machines. A big needle that moves rapidly up and down in close proximity to my fingers is a bad idea all around. If you doubt me on this, ask me how many times I've been to the hospital for stitches, or how many times I came awfully close to needing them. The answer would be "many", in case you were wondering.

I'm not overly ambitious with it. I know my limitations and am quite happy cobbling together the odd project here and there for my own amusement. I bought a bunch of felt and have been stitching up little christmas ornaments. I'm hardly turning out things that would land me on Project Runway, but something about making cheery little snowmen and mice is very satisfying. It reminds me of being a kid again, and my mom teaching me how to make my first crooked, overly large stitches while she was working on some project or another. My fiance just might come home and find all of his clothes patched with snowmen shaped patches.

The Cost of Art

2009-12-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Price is often a hotly debated subject in the art community. People often have their own ideas about how things should be priced. Some people price too low. Others price too high. Then there are those who constantly worry about how to price their work, always fearing that they're either too high or too low. They don't want to scare away customers with high prices, but don't want to undersell themselves, either.

Then there are the customers (or potential customers) themselves. There are people who are willing to pay the asking price because they feel that hand made goods are well worth it. Then there are those who think that hand made goods are no better than the mass produced things they can pick up at any store. Worse are those who think that hand made things are worth even less than that.

The thing is, it's hard to know how to price your work. Especially when you're just starting out. Selling your work can be an intimidating process, especially with so many conflicting opinions on how it should be priced.

My take on it is this. It takes a lot of work to make many hand made things. Hours of work in many cases. Also, very few artists spring forth with full knowledge and perfect technique. For jewelry specifically, there's a lot that has to be learned and practiced. Some people take classes, which are expensive. Others buy magazines, or books, like I did. Then you have the supplies. All of those lovely sparkling little beads cost money. The tools cost money. Good tools are expensive. A single pair of Lindstrom pliers can cost over $40. That's for one tool. One single tool in a craft that uses dozens.

Now, if you were paying me for the cost of my supplies alone, for those things I specifically turn into jewelry, you would not be paying me very much at all. A12"x6" sheet of solid copper costs around $13 from most places. I can get over a dozen pendants and dangles from one sheet of copper. Leather cord costs me $8 for several yards, from which I can produce about 10 necklaces. Then you get into the etching supplies. $9 for a bottle of etchant. $5 for a bottle of stop-out resist. I can etch several things from one bottle of etchant, and a bottle of resist can yield hundreds. Beads vary in price, but typically a necklace will use only two or three beads from a single 15" strand that usually has at least a dozen beads on it.

So why do I charge what I do for a single necklace that doesn't cost me that much to make? It's because you are not paying me just for my supplies. You are paying me $50+ for a necklace because of the time it took me to prepare everything. I hand cut those copper sheets into smaller pieces. I file their edges, polish them, and then draw the pictures I want to etch onto them and then paint over those pictures with resist. It takes me about half an hour to prepare one small piece of copper to be etched. The etching process takes at least an hour, sometimes longer as the etchant gets older and is used more.

Cleaning the etched piece takes time, and is a hazard to myself. Etchant and resist are both toxic substances. Breathing in copper dust while filing the edges can be dangerous as well.

The etched pieces have to be polished and drilled and polished again. Then if I want to oxidize them, that's more time and another toxic substance. They get polished another time, then put into a rock tumbler (which costs around $80 for a decent quality one, and then another $20 for the stainless steel shot that goes in it, and $5 for a bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid that is also used for tumbling) for an hour or two. That is for one etched piece. One single etched piece of copper takes hours to make when you add it all together. We haven't even gotten into the rest of the necklace, yet.

The frame of the focal for the necklace has to be built. Copper wire ($13 for a 1lb roll of it) has to be cut, shaped, and then hammered (hammer and anvil, $23 for a good quality hammer and $15 for a small bench block anvil). The stones are wired into place. Individual pieces are wired together. I have to make sure the wrapping is smooth, tight, and even. Then comes the process of polishing and oxidizing and tumbling. I have to make the clasps. Then, when everything is ready, I cut the leather cord to length, put on the clasp, and wire the focal to the cord. One completed necklace.

Oh, but we're not done just yet. I have to photograph the necklace from multiple angles (with my $250 camera that eats batteries like candy, so I bought the more expensive rechargeable batteries and a charger for them). The pictures are saved to the large SD card ($30), and then uploaded to my computer. I have to crop the photos and re-size them. Then comes to the process of listing, in which I have to describe the piece, upload the photos, and then pay the listing fee.

Most of all, you're paying for my skill. It took me years of work, of practicing, of wear and tear on my hands and my tools to get to where I am today. It took buying books and doing research. My skill as a painter comes into play when I draw and then paint those little pictures on the copper. Have you ever taken a really good look at an artist's hands? Mine are often stained, the skin cracked and rough, my nails kept short as possible. There are lots of tiny scars on my fingertips. I always have some fresh cut or scab. I also have a hell of a grip thanks to handling the heavier gauges of wire. This is because I can do what you cannot, and that's take those toxic substances and copper sheet and pieces of wire and leather and strands of beads and turn them into something wearable, something that will last a lifetime or longer.

After it's all said and done, when someone buys one of my necklaces, they're buying something utterly unique. Even if I replicate a design I've done before (which I do not often do), it will not be exactly like the previous piece. The wire never bends the same way twice. Stones vary in pattern and color. An etched picture won't ever turn out the same if I do another one in that style.

If someone doesn't want to pay that much for a single necklace, that's fine. I can understand that. Everyone has priorities and what they'll spend money on and what they won't. It's just that so many artists hear the dreaded words "I can buy that from Wal-Mart for $10!" that it tends to become a sore spot in the community. No one likes having the work of their heart compared to something you could buy off of any store shelf for a low, low price. That is what the art community wants people to understand. It's not just the parts. It's the labor...and since art is often a labor of love, hearing your work declared to be worth so very little hurts so very much.

I will leave you all on that note, because I feel the need to go play a round of Dragon Age ($50) before retiring for the evening to cuddle with my fiance (priceless).

The Origin of Art

2009-12-10T18:54:00.001-08:00

When people find out I make jewelry, or see something I've made, they invariably end up asking me how I learned to do it, or what got me into it. Honestly, I have my mother to thank and to blame for my obsession with jewelry making. I remember always having beads when I was growing up. From the time I could put them on a string, I was making jewelry or sewing beads onto things.

It was always more of a hobby than anything, nothing I was especially serious about, but enjoyed doing. One day my mother came home with an issue of Bead and Button, handed it to me, and asked "Why don't you learn how to do that?" while indicating the beadwoven piece on the cover.

I had never tried my hand at beadweaving, and always considered it to be something beyond my abilities. I told her that I couldn't possibly do such a thing. My mother, never one to let me get away with saying "I can't", asked me why I couldn't.

Really, I had no answer. Obviously I did not know how to do intricate beadwork, but she'd just provided me with a magazine that had instructions on the basics. So what excuse did I have, except to try it? So I bought myself a pack of beading needles and some cheap seed beads from wal-mart. My first beadwoven piece was made with sewing thread. I didn't know how to weave the ends in, so little knots stuck out everywhere. It was too tightly woven in some places, and far too loose in others. The beads themselves were somewhat misshapen, so even where my tension was good, the beads made the piece ripple and pucker. It was an ugly thing, the little peyote purse I made, but I was so ridiculously proud of it.

I learned the basics, and then the more advanced techniques, and soon enough I could make any number of things. Then one day after flipping through an issue of Art Jewelry and wishing I could do the intricate wirework, I remembered that day when my mother brought home Bead and Button, and asked myself "Well, why not?"

I taught myself wirework through books and magazines, until eventually I knew enough to make things people would actually want to wear. Much as I loved beadwork with its hundreds of teensy sparkling beads and time consuming needlework, wirework called to me in a way that no other technique had. I was simply fascinated by the art of shaping the wire and hammering it flat, of joining pieces together and wrapping stones. I can't say that I'd have gone down this path were it not for the fact that my mother simply didn't let me shrug and say I couldn't do such a thing. Now every time I find myself wanting to learn something new, I don't hold back for fear that I won't be able to. Mom's voice is a constant in those situations, nudging me towards trying my hand at the various things that take my fancy. I'll admit that some didn't make it. Knitting, for example. I'll leave the knitting to other people, for I fear my talent does not stretch to that. But at least I tried it before I decided that it wasn't for me.

My mother gets a piece of jewelry every year for Christmas. I figure it's the least I can do, considering all that she has done for me. It's my modern day version of the crayon drawing hung carefully on the fridge, a tribute to my mommy, without whom I couldn't do half of the things I've learned.

Roses are red

2009-11-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

I've been bit by the yarn bug pretty hard this year. When the weather starts getting cooler I always have the urge to dust off my crochet hooks, buy some pretty yarn, and make a scarf of a hat.

This year I've started experimenting with pieces that can be worn almost like jewelry. I do like scarves and hats, but when I get into the office in the mornings I have to take them off. I wanted things I could wear all day without looking like I'd just come in from outside.

The nice thing about crochet is that is can be very sculptural while still looking soft and delicate. There are so many fancy stitches, but even the most basic ones look wonderfully textured and touchable.

I've made a few lariats so far. The one I'm working on right now is in shades of oatmeal and a lovely deep reddish-brown.

This is the second one I made:

It's done in a very soft, slightly fuzzy yarn (Lion Brand Jiffy yarn). Narrow as the lariat is (it's about an inch and a half wide), it is also surprisingly warm. It can be worn a lot of different ways. As a belt, a scarf, looped several times around the neck or just once.

I've bought so much yarn these past few months that I'll be making a lot more. I'm also playing around with crocheted bangle bracelets and belts.

And in the end

2009-11-02T06:48:00.001-08:00

Two months left to go in this year. I can't help but wonder where the time went, as I do every year when the trees are stripped bare and I find frost on my windshield in the morning. Spring and summer went by in a rush, and autumn is tiptoeing towards winter, promising snow and ice as it goes.

I forgot about daylight savings this morning until I stepped out my front door into sunlight. I'd grown used to driving to work in the dark, used to the reflection of streetlights and headlights on the pavement, used to rounding the curves on the hill and seeing the city lit up in the fog just ahead of me.

This morning was misty and cold, and my breath blew out in clouds as I scraped the frost off of my car. I could see the crows strutting in the front yard and every bare limbed tree let shreds of the rising sun peek through. Another year come and gone, and so much has happened, and yet it's like nothing has happened at all, or not enough.

I wonder if there will ever be a year where I feel its passing and think to myself "I'm sorry to see it go"? In a way, I always am, but it's not so much that the year itself was so wonderful, but more that it never lived up to what I had hoped, and now it's gone.

So I drove to work this morning in the sharp air, watching the leaves scuttle across my path and blow down the hillside, taking with them the last bits and pieces of October, the ghost of so many seasons past gone off to haunt someone else for a while.

A Season Turning

2009-10-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

Autumn has always been a tricky season, here. It is never the same from year to year. Sometimes it stays hotter for longer than it should (like the month of my sister's wedding, where we baked in 90+ degree weather at the end of September), sometimes colder, and sometimes, like that last bowl of porridge, the season is just right.

This year has been the colder variety. It has rained nearly every week, beating the leaves off the trees right as they're changing color. It has washed away all traces of summer and left us with a soggy mess in place of the warm days we still expected to have. It's an unwelcome reminder that winter is just around the corner and that soon everything will be hard and bare.

But no matter what our weather is like, every year for a few brief weeks there is a short vivid burst of life as the seasons swing from one to the next. On one of the rare sunny days we've had so far, I decided to take my camera and catch a few such beautiful things.

Asters are everywhere here. If left unchecked, they grow in huge clouds of purple and white flowers. This year they overtook our pasture and ringed our pond until you can't even see the water. Butterflies and bees love the flowers. I spent half an hour stalking butterflies through the asters, trying to sneak up on them without disturbing them.

My goat was tethered near the biggest bunch of asters, and he apparently disapproved of me paying so much attention to the butterflies, and so little attention to him.

The trees looked promising this season until the rain took its toll. They are rather less spectacular now, since most of them have been stripped of leaves save for the lowest branches.

Then I stumbled across the tiniest maple tree that was all decked out:

It was barely five inches high. I hope the little guy grows until eventually it becomes as big as the other maples in the yard.

A few years ago a huge old tree was ripped up by its roots during a bad storm. The crater its roots left behind turned into a small pond that is largely populated by frogs. I never can sneak up on the frogs. Unlike the butterflies, they always know I'm coming and before I even come into full view of the pond I hear little croaks of alarm and then splashing plops as they jump into the water.

I did get some pictures of the maple leaves floating in the pond, even if the frogs eluded me.

Last but not least, we have the true harbinger of the changing season. We always have a lot of crows around, but in autumn they become overwhelming. You can't step outside without hearing them cawing in the trees.

Attack of the Killer Squirrels

2009-10-12T11:44:00.001-07:00

Living in a rural area means that we have a lot of critters of the small and fuzzy variety. Of course, we also have critters of the Big and Scary variety, but luckily I don't encounter those quite as often.

Ever since the ice storm I have noticed that all the fuzzy little things have moved closer to populated areas. I think a lot of hidey holes ended up being destroyed when so many trees and branches came down. I used to rarely see squirrels on our road. Rabbits, sure. Groundhogs were even a fairly common sight, as were chipmunks. But squirrels were like elusive little gray ghosts. You knew they were around somewhere, but you never really knew where.

This year has been different. They're everywhere this year. Every time I look out the window, or pull into my driveway, there are squirrels cavorting in my yard. They're digging in the ditches by the road and leaving piles of chewed up hickory nut husks everywhere. They went from being rarely seen to rarely not seen.

The thing about squirrels is that they're fearless. I don't know if this is because they're too stupid to know any better, or because they're simply brazen and don't care. Either way, I find myself having to drive like a stunt driver to avoid turning them into furry little splats in the road. Our road is very narrow and steep, so all of this swerving and slamming on brakes often takes its toll on my nerves.

I think they're aiming for me, though. I think they wait for me to pass and then radio ahead to other squirrels, so that my drive to and from home is fraught with kamikaze squirrels who launch themselves with great abandon towards the wheels of my car. Of course their frantic dashing is usually aimed towards snatching some acorn or other treasure from my path, lest it be crushed into useless powder before it can be stashed away. I halfway expect to see them clad in tiny helmets as they run crazily around in the road, tails whirling like windmills.

I guess it could be worse, though. Squirrel are just a part of living here, like the rabbits and the birds and the shirtless drunken country boys riding their horses down the road at 2:00 AM.

I just hope the squirrels and my car can survive each other.

Body Odd

2009-10-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

I posted before about my annoyance with sweaters this season. It's nearly impossible to find a well made sweater that doesn't have elbow length or dolman sleeves this year. I ran into that problem again this past weekend, when I once more made a fruitless trip to look for winter clothes. The temperature has dropped like a stone here, and it's colder than usual for this time of year. We're usually not this chilly until mid November.

In addition to sweater shopping, I decided to look for slacks to wear to work, and a pair of nice leather gloves. Leather gloves are something I mean to get for myself every year, and then don't due to price or not finding a style I like, or not being able to find a pair that's not trimmed with rabbit fur. I can wear leather, but the feel of fur gives me the creeps. It's just too real feeling. It reminds me of my little hamsters and how soft their fur was. I don't want to feel like I've got their pelts around my wrists.

But my efforts to buy either of those things were met with frustration. See, I have an Odd Body. My waist is two sizes smaller than my rear, and my hips are a size in between. So slacks are a constant struggle for me. I own two pairs. That's it. I've owned two pairs for three years, because every year I go shopping for slacks, and every year I come away from the stores empty handed. If it fits one place on my body, it doesn't fit the rest of me. I could go up a size or two and then have them tailored to fit, but tailoring is so darned expensive that I find myself resisting the idea of it. This is the year I will probably give in and have it done.

When I was a teenager, and then into my early 20s, I was lacking in the hip and rear department. Clothing hung like a tent on me. I was frustrated when I outgrew the Juniors department and found that everything in Misses made me look like a kid playing dress-up. Once I got over age 25, got a desk job, and ran out of time to do all the active things I used to, I sprouted curves. But only on my lower half. Now I'm frustrated that all the things that hung like tents on me now squeeze me like a drunken relative at Christmas.

As far as gloves go, my hands are another issue. I have long, skinny fingers and wide palms. My wrists are scrawny things that make my hands look larger than they really are. Small gloves don't fit. Medium gloves almost fit. Large gloves? Too bunchy around my wrists and fingers. They fit the length of my fingers, but that's it.

So what exactly are my options? Knit gloves that stretch, but get soggy if I have to scrape my windshield or touch anything wet. Fingerless gloves that leave my fingers exposed, which is bad due to my joint problems since it makes my hands stiffen up and ache.

I guess my only option this year is to do what I did last year. Gloveless and wearing nothing but dresses with tights and boots. Which is a good look, but not one I want to do every single day at work. I need to find that magical place where they sell things for a woman with a size 2 waist and a size 6 ass. Hopefully this place will also carry sweaters with sleeves and leather gloves that fit my odd hands.

Until then, I will continue to search, and likely walk away frustrated about a body I shouldn't have to feel bad about. That is the only time I ever feel bad about myself, is when I've tried on a dozen things that don't fit and eventually give it up as a lost cause.

Off with her head

2009-10-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

History has always been a passion of mine. The often dark and bloody history of England has been especially fascinating to me. My mother grew up in England and always supplied me with books about the kings and queens and battles there.

Of course everyone is into Henry VIII since Showtime started airing "The Tudors", which is now in its third season. Henry and the unfortunate Anne Boleyn were always extensively covered by in books both fictional and factual, and of course in movies. Now there are even more books coming out, which is good for those of us who love that period in history!

So out of boredom one night, after reading a book on his various wives and their often tragic endings, I decided to make an Anne Boleyn doll. I do not work off of patterns with crochet. It's all done freehand, since I have what can only be described as "the dumb" when it comes to reading crochet patterns. She is entirely of my own design.

Being as my sense of humor can be a little warped at times, I decided that she of course needed to be the headless version, with the classic black Xs for eyes.

I even recreated her famous "B" gold and pearl necklace using gold filled wire and seed pearls. The longer necklace is made with teensy faceted garnets and pearls. She stands about 5" high.

I'll have to take some better pictures of her dress. I only had a few minutes to take those yesterday, so her dress isn't arranged properly.

I brought her in to my office to show to a friend, and she pretty much went on a tour of the offices here. People kept coming and picking her up to show her to other people. I was afraid she'd go a-wandering and not come back eventually, so now she's safely on my desk at home where no one can bother her!

I do plan on making the rest of his wives at some point. It probably won't be until next month, though.

Feast your eyes upon...

2009-10-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

I made it on to craftgawker. go me!

http://http://craftgawker.com/post/2009/09/30/5858/

of course that pin sold in between the time I submitted it and the time they approved it, but oh well! perhaps it will still drive some traffic to my etsy shop.

Hook, line, and sinker

2009-10-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

Every year as the weather creeps closer and closer to winter, I get the urge to break out my crochet hook and make myself something warm and cozy. My ability to read crochet patterns is somewhat limited (in other words, the damned things make almost zero sense to me unless they're the kind with pretty little symbols instead of abbreviations), so my projects are never overly ambitious. I tend to stick to things that are fairly straightforward like afghans, scarves, shawls, or hats.

I'm nearly done with the wrap I've been working on. Realizing that the end was near, I started considering my next project. I decided on a mobius cowl that I can wear indoors without it looking too scarf-like. I bought the yarn for that, and then I bought more yarn. The "just because it's pretty" yarn that you buy when you have no real project in mind, but cannot resist its fluffy softness or nice color.

The funny thing that I've noticed is that most people don't seem to know the difference between knitting and crochet. I'll be sitting there working on a scarf and someone will come along and say "oooh! knitting!" well, no. I'm not knitting. I'm crocheting. Explaining it to people results in a blank stare like I've just revealed to them the secrets of the universe while speaking an alien tongue.

Of course, all of these projects make for lots of little scraps of yarn. I know most people use them for granny squares, but my granny squares aren't squares so much as they are mutant yarn monsters. I just can't seem to wrap my head (or my hook) around granny squares. They're one of the easiest things in the world, according to everyone who crochets. But mine always turn out looking like someone gave a ball of yarn to the world's most hyper kitten and said "here, see what you can do with this!"

Actually, the end result from a kitten attacking a ball of yarn would probably look better than my granny squares.

Oh well. Perhaps I will practice more until they look like proper granny squares and not something you'd see killing all the villagers with the power of worsted weight.

Here Comes Santa Clause

2009-09-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I went to Macy's on a quest for new pillows. Our current ones are getting to that "too flat to be comfortable" stage, so I figured I'd check out the sales and see if they had anything that appealed to me.

They keep the housewares on the third floor at the Macy's here, so as I rode up the escalator, I found myself at eye level with something that I did not quite expect to see.

Christmas decorations. Directly across from the top of the escalator, Macy's had set up their Christmas department. Artificial trees festooned with blown glass ornaments glittered in the glow of a thousand little twinkly lights. Tinsel adorned the walls and the railings. I think if you went into the Christmas department and stood still for more than a minute, you'd sprout a fine patina of glitter like mold growing on bread.

I am of course all for Christmas. I like it well enough. I can be holly jolly and dreaming of a white christmas while I deck the halls. But it's not even October yet. Halloween hasn't come and gone. Thanksgiving has yet to pass. Isn't it a little too early for the dizzying displays of Christmas cheer? I need the time to enjoy the smell of pumpkin spice and cloves before they start trotting out the freshly cut pine and apple cinnamon scents in stores. Give me a little more time with my gargoyles and pumpkins and rubber bats before you start assaulting my senses with Santa's plump and cheerful visage.

That being said, I have started to keep an eye out for Christmas presents. I've already found something for my mother. But I still want to look around and see grinning jack-o-lanterns while I peruse the stores. Give me garlands of felted ghosts, or give me..well. Give me garlands of tinsel, apparently.

All in a day's work

2009-09-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a busy one for me. I only work two saturdays a year, and this was the saturday that I had to go in. It was only for a few hours, but it still bit a chunk out of my day.

Once I got back from work, did all the usual things that needed doing, and settled in for the evening, I sat myself down in front of my anvil and worked on some new things. I've been making a lot of smaller shawl pins that are fairly quick and easy to make. I'd also been etching a lot of pendants over the course of the week, so I had to mix up some liver of sulfer so I could oxidize them.

By the time I was finished it was nearly 9:30 at night, and my fingers were stained with etching solution, resist, and the excess patina that I'd polished off the copper and silver when I was done oxidizing it.

This is one of the etched pieces I put together:

and some of the shawl pins:

and a pair of earrings:

I have about half a dozen more etched pieces waiting to be made into necklaces. I'll take care of those tomorrow after I get out of work. Ah, to be able to do this full time. But my regular job is what pays the bills, so keep it I must.

Stormy weather

2009-09-25T05:14:00.001-07:00

This week has been incredibly dreary. It started raining on Sunday, and it hasn't stopped since. Wet leaves have plastered everything outside, and muddy water is pouring from ditches and turning potholes into swimming pools for frogs.

This morning was thick with fog and flying leaves, rain battering everything into a sopping mess. I know eventually the sun will come back, but it seems like it never will.

I've been holed up inside making shawl pins and etching pieces of copper for pendants. I finally made a few shawl pins in sterling silver, since christmas is coming and I need to get more stock in my etsy store. I figure not everyone wants to wear copper.

Other than that, I've been crocheting my fingers to the bone. I have orders for three witch dolls, and I'm making myself a wrap to wear here at work, where they keep the air conditioner running until mid October. I think my hands simply can't stay still. They have to be busy with something, even when I'm watching TV. Crocheting is good for keeping them occupied without having to pay much attention to what it is I'm working on. The wrap I'm making is a deep burgundy color, done in an open V stitch. So far it's looking quite nice. I think I'll make myself a complimenting shawl pin, so I can keep it in place and advertise at the same time.

This week's weather is a reminder that the year is starting to wind down. I only have four dental appointments left until I'm done. Though it's not even officially Fall yet, I'm preparing myself for winter, hoping that this time there won't be another ice storm. I hope that autumn lingers this year. I want long golden days filled with brilliantly colored leaves before everything starts to turn brown and withered. Most of all right now, I want this soggy weather to stop.

In my etsy store right now:

2009-09-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

The long and short of it

2009-09-23T05:05:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of the cooler weather headed our way, I have been sweater shopping a few times already this month. Last year I waited until it got cold enough to need sweaters, and was unable to find anything even remotely nice in my size. I went through last winter with a few cheaply made pitiful sweaters that ended up bagging at the elbows and unraveling before the season was out. I should have probably splurged on some nice hand made ones, but alas, I simply wasn't thinking.

So this year I was determined that I would NOT be stuck with a few pathetic little scraps of yarn cobbled into sweater form. It would appear that this year, there's a terrible yarn shortage. Why would I think that? Because none of the sweaters have proper sleeves. Oh, I like the dolman sleeve. It's cute, if it's not overly huge. But I don't want every sweater in my wardrobe to be something I could take off in on a windy day. If the sweaters didn't have dolman sleeves, they lacked sleeves at all. Forget finding a cardigan. The only buttons to be seen were purely decorative ones on sleeves or shoulders. Nothing functional.

It's early in the season yet, so perhaps as the colder weather creeps closer they will suddenly discover sweaters with plain old long sleeves, that aren't huge and floppy, or elbow length, or embellished with buttons. A girl can dream, right?

First Impressions

2009-08-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my second dentist appointment in as many days. Going to the dentist twice a month is bad enough. Going to the dentist twice in one week, two days in a row, is not exactly my idea of a wonderful time.

But I'm finally nearing the end of my dental work. This week they prepped me for the first of three crowns. That naturally involved cutting down the tooth, making a temporary crown, and taking the impression for the permanent one. It took my dentist three attempts to get an impression for the crown. My mouth just didn't want to cooperate. On the list of disgusting things I have personally experienced, the impression goo is probably number 3. It's like the bastard child of a bottle of mint pepto bismol and the pink ooze from Ghostbusters. It expands in a rather horrifying way and creeps its cold, gooey way towards the back of its unsuspecting victim's throat. When it's removed, it feels as though it's trying to take all of your teeth with it.

So now I have a temporary crown cemented to my tooth, and it's bothering me to no end. It feels like a hardened old piece of gum has been wrapped around my molar. I'm stuck with it for a week and a half. I can't stop worrying at it with my tongue. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself. It's just so obviously there that I find myself poking at it constantly.

Now I just have to go through this two more times, and I'll be done. Done with a capital D. I don't know what I'll do with myself when I don't have to go to the dentist so much.

I wonder if they'll let me keep the temporary crowns so I can burn them when I'm finally finished?

Something Witchy This Way Comes...

2009-08-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my earlier post about halloween, I decided to share some of my latest projects.

This is one of my small cemetery pendants:

The Jack-O-Lantern, complete with bats:

A two-piece cemetery necklace:

One of the crocheted witch dolls:

and a "witch-o-lantern" hair stick:

My new bottle of etching solution is on its way, so I'll be able to make some more halloween jewelry when it gets here. I'm also working on a standing witch holding a broom, and a pumpkin patch of crocheted jack-o-lanterns. I'm selling the jewelry in my etsy store, but not the dolls. They don't fit with my other stuff, really, and I don't have the time to handle two shops and making stock for them.

This Is Halloween

2009-08-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

I know that it's a little early yet, but I'm feeling impatient for fall to get here. The stores have just started to get their halloween stock in, and it's a nice thing to see. Hobby Lobby is overflowing with garlands of silk leaves in autumn colors. Scarecrows sit beside pumpkins and black cats. TJ Maxx, which is perhaps my favorite store in the world, got their halloween goodies in a couple of weeks ago. Pumpkin spice candles are everywhere.

I love it when the season starts to edge its way into coolness. The mornings have been ever so slightly chilly here, though we've a few weeks to go before it truly starts to change. I want the colorful leaves and the crisp, apple-bite air.

In the spirit of the coming season, I've already started making halloween things. I've started etching copper more and more, and have created haunted graveyard scenes and grinning jack-o-lanterns surrounded by clouds of bats. I'm in the mood to crochet scarves with little pumpkin bobbles amongst the fringe. I've already started making my yearly coven of witch dolls.

This has been an unusual year so far with the weather. It's already cooler than normal, with more rain than we usually get. The fog has been thick every night. Our weatherman has been predicting a dire winter, as he does every year, but this might be the one year he's right.

But in the meantime, I'll continue to count down the days until fall is well and truly here, and I can decorate my desk at work with witches and jack-o-lanterns.

Shades of Grey

2009-07-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I took the time to sit down and draw a little. Painting was my first love, before I ever picked up a bead and put it on a string. I don't draw or paint very often anymore. It's just one of those things that fell by the wayside as I started working full time and moved in with my fiance. There are only so many hours in the day once I get home from work. I often pick jewelry making as my hobby of choice, since right now it's my only lucrative (well, sort of) one. I don't think I could ever sell my artwork, and honestly, I'm not sure I really want to.

Seeing as I was alone until 10:00 PM, once I'd made it home and finished all of the little daily things that needed doing, I turned off the TV, put in the latest VAST album, and settled in to sketch a little.

It was really enjoyable. I need to do it more often, really, instead of just pushing it aside as another thing I don't really have time for. I need to drag out my easel and my paints so I can get back into that as well. I usually only draw in charcoal, so my fingers quickly turned varying shades of black and grey, as did anything else I touched.

By the time I was finished, my fiance was home, and it was creeping up on my bedtime. The days where I could stay up past midnight are long gone, unfortunately. I'm not quite sure when that happened. Somewhere between starting a full-time job and turning 25, I think. It's like once I hit my mid 20s, the ability to stay up all night seeped out of me.

I think this week I'll pay a visit to the art supply store across the street from work and buy myself some more charcoal pencils, and maybe a new sketch pad. Time to make time for more of the things I love.

The Monster Mash

2009-07-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

This month the Palace Theatre is running all of the old classic monster movies. Every friday and saturday night they show a different one. Last weekend we went and saw The Phantom of the Opera and Dracula. This coming weekend it will be Frankenstein and The Mummy.

I do love spooky things. I always have, ever since I was a little girl. I would read every book on true ghost stories I could get my hands on. I watched every episode of Unsolved Mysteries just for the ghosts and aliens. I had a huge fascination with the undead, which eventually resulted in an odd fear of unfenced graveyards (my logic being that if the shambling undead arose from their graves, they wouldn't be able to climb fences or unlatch gates with their stiff and clumsy limbs). Actually, unfenced graveyards still give me the willies.

These days it's easy to be into the supernatural. You can't swing a stick in the bookstore without hitting ten books on zombies, or vampires, or ghosts (actually, I'm pretty sure you just plain can't swing a stick in a bookstore, being as the employees would probably frown upon it). There are fiction books. There are books about "true" encounters. There are joke books, and reference books, and historical books, and field guides on every kind of spook that lurked in your closet as a kid. There are movies and TV shows and t-shirts and posters everywhere. The vampire trend has kind of always been around, but now it's even bigger. Zombies tend to go in and out of style.

My library is expanding rapidly with the sort of books I used to have to hunt high and low for. The books that you could find every so often on the clearance table because no one else wanted them. Suddenly, I've gone from the chick with the weird book collection to having people ask me to recommend things to them. It's an odd feeling.

But I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Especially the monster movies.

All books (and pants) half off.

2009-07-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

I love books. I love books almost more than I love my fiance. I love books so much that if I lost my job, I'd stand by the roadside with a sign that proclaimed my willingness to work for books. I love books even more than I love my blood, which is saying a lot because if you'll remember, my blood is the best thing since sliced bread.

I also love bargains. Not as much as I love books, but it's a pretty close second. So as you can imagine, a bargain book is my main reason for living (but don't tell my fiance, since he thinks it's him, and don't tell my blood, because strictly speaking that IS the reason I'm living). Barnes and Noble is my bookstore of choice when it comes to a good selection of cheap books. I buy at least two huge boxes of books from their website every month.

They had a sale recently. Bargain books were an even better bargain. Books for $1.99, and if you were a B&N member (which it goes without saying that I am, but I'm saying it anyways...yes, yes I am) you got them for $1.76. I bought lots of books. LOTS of books. I bought so many books that when they arrived, the box was so big that I'm pretty sure the UPS woman cursed the day I discovered the clearance book section on their website. She may have even placed a pox upon my household.

So when I came home to discover the box that my fiance had managed to drag into the house, I ripped into it like a kid on christmas who knows that not only did Santa bring the coveted pony, but left a few dozen kittens along with it. I pulled my treasures out one by one. True crime. Historical fiction. Ghost stories. A few fantasy books. Oh, and a book written by a police officer on how to avoid getting tickets, purchased for my sister who just got pulled over and ticketed last week. Because I care. Actually, because I wanted to poke fun at her. But we'll pretend it's because I care.

But then...I pulled something else out of the box. It was a hardcover. It had a bright pink band around it. It also had a barely clothed woman sprawled across the cover. It was..a book on how to find a man, seduce him, and then..keep him by your side with excellent sexual techniques. Written by a former porn star, in fact. It had illustrations. Very..detailed illustrations. Anatomically correct illustrations. Beneath the hardcover was another book. A paperback, this time, which featured a shirtless man. A romance novel about one woman and three brothers. I did not order either of those books. They were not on the packing slip. I was not charged for them. Yet, there they were, nestled in with all of the nice shiny new books I had ordered. What is it, Barnes and Noble? Did you look at my purchases and figure I was a lonely person who needed a little nudge in the right direction? Are your customer service people raving perverts who have decided that this is a new perk to being a Barnes and Noble member?? Did you mistake the meaning behind the word "member" and figured that when I renewed my membership, that was what I really meant??

Of course, I really assume that there was a wee mix-up, and someone somewhere is eagerly awaiting their book with a ripply muscled man on the cover and a guide on how to get one of their very own, but what the heck am I to do with these books? Call them up and say "Uh, hey guys, I don't want your pervy sex manual or the romance novel that you also thoughtfully included, so please pay for me to send these back"?

My fiance, by the way, was unconvinced that I hadn't ordered those books until I showed him the packing slip. He's showing a little too much interest in the sex manual, and I'm fairly certain his intention is not to go pick up a man and show him a good time. I guess I'll e-mail their customer service department tomorrow and ask if they'd like to have their dirty books back. In the meantime, I need to keep him away from them.

Fly away home

2009-07-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I received a somewhat frantic phone call from my mother. It seemed that a hummingbird had managed to get itself into her garage, and was flinging itself against the skylight. Mom had opened the door and tried to shoo it out, but it was intent on escaping through the clear plastic ceiling panel instead.

I only live a few miles away from her, so my fiance and I went down to her house to find her balanced on a chair in the middle of the garage, waving a broom at the hummingbird. She was trying to get it to land on the broom so she could lower it down to the door and set it free. By the time we got there, the bird was so exhausted that it had finally landed on the waving broom head.

She lowered the bird ever so slowly down to me, and I was able to pick it up off the broom and carry it outside. It sat in my cupped hand like it did things like that every day, utterly calm (though more likely too tired and battered to do much more).

I have never felt anything so fast as that bird's heartbeat. It pittered against my fingertips like a runaway train made in miniature. I wasn't quite sure what to do. The bird seemed content to just sit there, cradled in my palm, emerald feathers trembling in time to its racing heartbeat, eyes blinking open and shut like a sleepy child's.

Finally I found a safe place to put it, in a tiny swinging birdbath that Mom never kept filled. We watched it, anxious, afraid it had flung itself too hard against the ceiling and wouldn't survive. But a few minutes later its eyes popped open, and it hopped onto the edge of the bath, fluffing itself and fanning its wings, slow at first, then faster, even faster, becoming a blur in the twilight until it lifted and flew away.

I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of that bird's heartbeat in my hand.

As The Tumbler Turns

2009-07-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

Right now my rock tumbler is happily humming away, churning 3 lbs of mixed steel shot and several copper pieces for hair sticks. I've taken advantage of my 3 day weekend by getting a good start on more stock for my etsy store. Sales picked up recently, and I've found that of all the things I make, the hair sticks always sell the best.

I like the work involved in making things. I love the bending of wire, hammering it, shaping it into swirls and elaborate designs. This batch is adorned with little creatures. Turtles, frogs, and butterflies are currently spinning round in my tumbler, caught in spirals of copper. Once they're done tumbling I'll pull them out, polish them up with some steel wool, and toss them back in for another 45 minutes.

It's more satisfying than any job I've ever had. There is a measure of satisfaction in my day job, my full time work in which I am a receptionist for a university. There are always problems to be sorted out, parents to diffuse, students to soothe (sometimes with limited success). But this work is the work of my heart, the thing I would give up just about any job for if I could afford to do so. No matter how good sales might be, I still have to do the daily nine to five (or in my case, 7:30 - 4:30) to pay the bills.

But as long as I can afford to do this, I'm content. I make enough off my jewelry for it to pay for itself and have a little extra left over. I make enough at my day job to pay my bills, put aside money for a house, and have enough left over for as many bargain books as I want (oh, Barnes and Noble, how I love you and your cheap, cheap clearance books). I am also lucky enough to have a wonderfully supportive fiance who would stand by me even if I made nothing for all of my twiddling with wire.

So on this lovely sunny 3 day weekend with its unsually cool weather, I am happy to sit here and listen to my tumbler spin and know that inside it, I have things that someone, somewhere, will want to adorn themselves with. On Monday I will go back to my job, and perhaps grumble a bit at having to get up so very early, but right now I consider it to be worth it.

twinkle, twinkle

2009-06-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Summer has hit with a vengeance this year. The weather cannot seem to make up its mind. Either it's blisteringly hot and humid, or it's storming so badly that it turns the ditches into creeks and the creeks into rivers. The air conditioning in my office is not working properly, so we have been alternating between arctic temperatures that penguins would declare to be too cold, or we sit here and wilt like flowers in air that feels like it hasn't moved in 30 years.

Meanwhile, our local weatherman John Belsky is talking about how we're heading towards the worst winter ever. No one wants to hear that, Belsky. Keep it to yourself.

But along with the oppressive heat and the storms, all of the wonderful things about summer have arrived as well. Last night we were driving home at sunset, along the twisting hill roads that rise and fall and weave their way through the trees strong enough to survive the storms. The sky was full of swirling clouds whose undersides were lit with pink and gold. By the time we got home it was dusk, and the fireflies had started to come out. I love fireflies. Every year I look forward to the first night that I see them, and every year it's just as magical as it ever was.

Between the heat and the rain the nights have been thick and foggy here, and the fields are hazy and glittering by the time it reaches full dark. About that time the bats come out. Which is a good thing, because naturally this weather breeds mosquitos and horseflies and other undesireable biting things.

I love it all so much. The fog, the fireflies, the bats, the thick smell of honeysuckle in that humid heavy air, the frogs singing in the pond...I don't think I could ever leave it all behind for city life. It's become too much a part of my life by this point. As much as I dislike the heat, and as bad as the storms have become, I wouldn't give up our summers for anything.

Etsy seller feature: Serenity Art

2009-05-19T16:20:00.001-07:00

Being part of the Etsy community, I'd like to share some of the wonderful shops that can be found there. The seller I'm featuring today offers some really beautiful fairy prints and paintings, along with tarot readings and astrological charts. Her art is pure fantasy: whimsical, magical, full of imagination and beauty. If you're a lover of fairies, I highly recommend her shop!

Her shop is here: http://rhiannon228.etsy.com

You can also check out her blog here: http://serenityart.webs.com/apps/blog

Her blog is also fascinating, detailing how she works and showing her paintings as she works, adding details and changing features.

Blood from a stone

2009-05-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the Red Cross came to my place of employment for a blood drive. They come here a few times a year, and each year I think about donating and then never actually do it. I decided that this would be the time I finally would.

So I gathered up my rather small amount of courage, steeled myself against the idea of a GIANT NEEDLE going into my vein, and trotted down to the room they'd set up in. I passed the general screening and the iron test, so I went over to the row of cots and gave them my little info packet and collection of blood bags. The woman drawing blood took one look at my arm and told me she probably couldn't do anything with me. She smacked her fingers against my vein, made me squeeze a ball, pumped up the blood pressure cuff, and..nothing. My vein wouldn't rise. She tried the other arm, and..nothing. She called over another red cross person, who also tried to get my veins up. Nope. It wasn't working. Apparently my veins are so small that the giant needle would collapse them if they tried to use it on me. They shook their heads, told me they weren't comfortable even trying to get blood from me, and sent me on my way. So much for my good deed of the day.

Looking at my arms, I can't even see my veins through the skin. Last time I had blood drawn for a blood test, they had to stick me twice with the tiny butterfly needle before they could find the vein. I guess that should've been a clue that I wouldn't be the best candidate for giving blood.

Oh well. Now I know that any vampires looking for a late night snack will be sorely dissapointed if they try to suck my blood. Take that, Dracula. My tiny veins shall thwart your evil plot!

A murder of crows

2009-04-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Being out in the country, it is of course entirely natural and expected to see all sorts of critters roaming the area. There's a groundhog that lives in our back yard, and a fox that I see all the time down the road. Deer are everywhere, of course, and the usual suspects like racoons, possums, and so many rabbits that it's not uncommon to see about a dozen of them in the yard.

Then you've got the scaled, slithering, hopping and crawling things like frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, and skinks. We have an ample supply of bugs, too..which leads, naturally, to bats. Lots of bats. I like to sit on the porch in summer when dusk is just starting to fall and watch the bats swoop and dart overhead. That's perhaps my favorite thing in summer. The thick, heady, heavy nights where the fields burn with millions of fireflies, the air smells of honeysuckle and cut grass, and the bats turn into leather-winged acrobats just overhead. If one ignores the mosquitos, it's perfect.

But lately we have had an influx of crows. We have a small flock of chickens, and one day as I watched them scratch and peck in the front yard I realized that one of them was not, in fact, a chicken. It was a crow, mixed in with the flock just as comfy as could be, as though it belonged.

I don't mind crows. But the sheer number of them lately is a tad disturbing. Especially as they're everywhere. They sit low in the trees by the roadside and swoop out as cars pass by. I've so far avoided hitting one, but I've come pretty close. They gather on the wild grape vine we have and cackle at each other like a bunch of gossips. They apparently have infiltrated the chickens. Some mornings when I go outside there are so many in the trees that I feel like I'm stuck in some sort of Hitchcock movie. So far they haven't been a bother, but as all of those black beady eyes turn towards me and they shift and mutter on their perches, I can't help but feel as though they're plotting something.

But then, I'm probably just paranoid after the Thrush went after me the other week. Maybe all of these crows are hitmen hired by the thrush, and they're just waiting for me to accept them as a normal part of the landscape.

If anyone sees a report on the news about a woman in kentucky getting pecked to death by crows, inform the police that a thrush was behind it all.

My current etsy selection:

2009-04-23T12:49:00.001-07:00

Give in to the pretties. You know you want to.

Watch out for that tree..

2009-04-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon on my way home from the gym, I passed a rather unusual sight. I live on one of the hills that make up a rather deep valley. To get home, I have to drive a winding, curvy road that twists and turns and has sudden drop-offs that are, for the most part, protected by guardrail. It's a difficult road to drive if you don't know how to handle it, and a lot of people do not know how to handle it.

The first curve of the hill road is one of the worst. It's a sharp, sudden one, wrapping around a jut of rock that has always, to me, resembled a dinosaur head poking out of the hillside. The outer edge of the curve butts against a gravel driveway. As I came up on the curve, I noticed that our sheriff and several other officers were parked in the gravel driveway. Then I saw why. Suspended about 6 feet off the ground was a little red ford taurus. It was stuck firmly in a tree.

It would seem that the drive of the taurus took the curve too quickly, lost control, went airborne across the driveway and went off the side of the hill. Except there happened to be some trees in the way, which stopped the car from going over the side completely. There was no sign of the driver, so I'm assuming they're probably in a hospital somewhere. The sheriff and other officers were all standing around, looking at the car in the tree, obviously trying to figure out how in the holy heck they'd get it out of there.

They must have figured it out because it was gone by this morning.

I really need to remember to carry my camera with me. This particular road has been the source of many, many accidents caused by people who drive it too fast, or don't pay enough attention. Being a rural road, it is of course not uncommon to find escaped livestock wandering across it, or get stuck behind a farmer on a tractor. One of the oddest sights was a local riding a cooler that had somehow been converted into a scooter. But anyone who drives that road on a daily basis learns to look out for the unexpected. I have seen cars upside down in the ditches, cars gone sideways off a curve, cars rolled into trees, cars stuck in the creek at its bottom. Had I remembered my camera, I could now have a coffee table book full of the stupid accidents on this road. Just last week someone flipped their Blazer going too fast down the hill. It's a road you have to treat with respect, because you never know what's around the next loop or bend.

Were it not such a liability, I think they should have left the taurus stuck in the trees as a warning to everyone else. Maybe seeing that would slow people down a little, make them realize that whatever their destination is, and how much of a hurry they're in, it's not worth that much.

all knotted up

2009-04-20T18:38:00.001-07:00

Tonight I feel slightly frustrated. After I finished physical therapy, I sat down and tried to make some jewelry. But after about a month of not making much of anything, my fingers were clumsy and refused to cooperate with me. Every little, delicate thing I tried to make ended up bigger than I wanted and badly formed. Finally I gave up after beating on a few pieces of copper sheet. That I can do. Whacking something with a hammer doesn't require one to be precise.

I've not washed my hands yet, so my fingers smell like a combination of latex from the resistance bands and pennies from the copper sheet. It reminds me of when I worked retail. At the end of the day, my fingertips would be black and stinking of old, dirty change. No matter how many times I washed them through out the day, within an hour they'd be filthy again. One reason why I rarely carry coins on me, now. I've seen just how nasty they can be.

I've been in physical therapy for nearly a month now. I like to ignore problems until they go away, which rarely works and usually makes things worse. I've been ignoring my painful joints since I was about 20 years old until I realized how weak I was becoming. So now I have to contort myself in various ways using latex bands and a squishy ball. The exercises range from the mundane to the ridiculous. All of them hurt like the dickens. As soon as I get used to the exercises, the physical therapist adds more reps and new things to do. I'm pretty sure she's in league with my dentist and they meet in secret each week to discuss new ways of torturing me.

But this friday marks the end of my weekly visits to her office. I get to go from once a week to once every 3 weeks, though still doing the cursed exercises every day at home. I know eventually it will all pay off. But as I curse and grunt and bend myself into each new position, it seems futile at times. Especially when I sit down and my hands won't even let me shape wire properly.

I guess I'll go wash the stink off of my hands and throw my pity party in bed. I have a date with two Tylenol PM and a cup of tea. My fiance will be home soon, and I'll get him to rub out all the knots, and the welt on my stomach from where one of the resistance bands slipped off the doorknob and snapped back into me. Hey, those suckers HURT when they do that.

Tomorrow I'll be feeling better. I'll just sit down again and make my hands listen to me, to the shape of the pliers against my palm, and the sharp gleam of the copper wire until something beautiful comes out.

Not quite the bluebird of happiness..

2009-04-15T06:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had yet another marathon dentist appointment. Three hours to remove an old filling and place the core and pins for a crown. By the time it was all over with I was puffy faced and numb on the entire left side of my jaw. My lips were cracked and I had the imprint of various dental implements stamped across my face. Not exactly my most charming moment, I must confess.

I left the dental school and wobbled my way through the parking lot on jelly legs, got into my car, and left the lot. Instead of change, the parking meter gave me a slip stating I was owed $4, with no instructions on how to actually get the money back. I then found my way to the interstate and battled downtown rush hour traffic that moved as sluggishly as I felt. It was nearly 6:00 PM by the time I finally got home. My face was still numb. Ever since my root canal, when the pulp of my tooth hadn't numbed despite a full course of anesthesia, they tend to overdo it with the drugs.

After cleaning myself up a bit and changing out of my work clothes, I went down to my mother's house to take the garbage down to the curb for her. While I was over there, she asked me to see if I could retrieve her dog's saddlebags from somewhere in the yard. Yes, saddlebags. She has a beagle whose main purpose in life is to escape the yard. So she puts a pair of dog-sized saddlebags on him so he can't wriggle out from the fence. Yesterday he apparently managed to slip free from them, though he had not actually escaped. We fixed his last exit hole and since then he hasn't managed to find a new one. But he still wears the saddlebags as a precaution.

So out into the yard I went, figuring the most likely spot was the last place he'd been getting out through. Sure enough, I could see them laying beside the fence. Naturally they were behind some small cedar trees, honeysuckle, and a large wild rose bush. I started to wedge myself through the various trees and bushes, and was just reaching for the saddlebags when I heard a very odd sort of noise.

Brr, brr brr.

It sounded slightly electrical, like short bursts on a small drill or something shorting out. The electric fence had been disconnected for years, and I couldn't imagine what else it might be. Then I heard some crackling in the biggest cedar tree, followed by angry chirping and more of the odd sounds. I slowly turned and found myself eye to beady eye with an extremely pissed off thrush. Apparently the bird had a nest in the cedar tree and was ready to defend it at any cost. But there I was, stuck in the middle of a bunch of bushes, fingertips trembling mere inches from the saddlebags. I ever so slowly grabbed the bags and started the painful (stupid rose bush) process of untangling myself from the vines and trees. The bird was not impressed by my slow retreat and decided to hurry me along by dive bombing me. So I'm trying to extract myself while also holding onto the saddlebags and fending off a brown blur of wings, beak, and claws all hell bent on my destruction. The air filled with chirps and yelling. My yelling was not especially helpful, especially considering that half my face was numb. So it went something like this:

"CHIRP CHIRP BRRR BRRR BRR CHIRP!"

"Thtop it, you thtupid bird! I don't want your eggth! Go away!"

Because birds, of course, can understand english and my pleading and cursing made perfect sense to it.

I finally managed to yank myself free from the undergrowth and beat a hasty retreat as the by now hopping mad bird watched me from its cedar tree. If birds had hands, I can only imagine it would've given me the finger as I left.

I went inside, gave my mom the saddlebags, and warned her not to go up there because a "thtupid thruth tried to kill me"

Mom, ever sympathetic, asked me if I'd encountered any "wascallay wabbits" while I was up there.

I went home that evening and picked bits of plants out of my hair, cleaned up the new scratches on my hands and leg, took the strongest painkillers I had (sadly, that was only tylenol extra strength), and didn't move from the bed for the rest of the night.

I'm not going into my mom's back yard for a while. Damned thrush probably has a price on my head.

Up to my knees in it

2009-02-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

My mother has always been fond of animals. She takes in the ones that no one else wants. The strays, the dumped, the hard luck cases from the Humane Society..Beagles are her favorite when it comes to dogs. She has one particular beagle by the name of Bradley whose main purpose in life seems to be escaping her back yard. The yard it fully fenced, but he will always find a way out. She has tried everything, including fitting him with a set of saddlebags made especially for dogs (they made him too bulky to fit through or under or over the fence). Those worked until he figured out how to chew them off of himself.

Last week he got out of his saddlebags and escaped. Mom was frustrated, as he refuses to come when called and will only take off running if you approach him while he's out of the yard. He is perhaps the most stubborn dog I have ever met. No amount of training has broken him of it.

I tried catching him once, when I saw him digging up mole holes along the side of her fence. Unfortunately he saw me coming at the last second and took off running. Half an hour later, there he was again..nose in the mud, digging furiously. So intent was he on his task that he didn't notice me this time. I crept up behind him as quietly as I possibly could. Traffic on the road helped mask the sound of my feet on the neighbor's gravel driveway as I crept closer and closer, intent on my mud covered and still furiously digging target.

Right as my fingers brushed his collar, he whipped around and tried to take off again. I wasn't having it this time, though. Yelling an inarticulate war cry along the lines of "BradleyARRRRRGH!", I flung myself on him like a football player sacking the quarterback, landing with a rather squishy thump on the ground. Unfortunately for me, his choice digging spot was right beside a ditch lined with fallen tree branches. It had rained recently. I believe I've mentioned before that Kentucky turns into sticky, clay-filled mud around this time of year. So there I was, half laying, half kneeling on the ground with one knee in a ditch full of water, tree branches jabbing me in the rear end, and one arm around 30 lbs of squirming, muddy, angry beagle.

Naturally a lot of traffic was passing by, so I had plenty of witnesses to my highly professional display of dog catching.

I managed to extricate myself from ditch and branches and got him into the house before he had a chance to make a break for it again. Mom is now only taking him out on a leash until she can figure out a different way of keeping him inside the fence.

I had to wash my jeans twice to get all the mud stains out. Luckily for him, Bradley only had to be washed once. Nothing quite like Kentucky mud...

Crow, anyone?

2009-02-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

Watch me prepare to eat my earlier words about the weather.

It snowed and iced some more, and on Tuesday evening the power went out. No big deal, I thought. We have a generator, and when our power goes out it's generally not out for more than a few hours at the most. When a bad wind storm ripped through the region last year, we were without power for 8 hours while a lot of people were out for 10 days.

The first day passed, and I became concerned. I cannot even remember when our power was out for an entire day. Then the second day passed with no power, and the salt trucks and snow plows did not come near our road. My mother and sister had also lost their electricity, and my fiance and I tried to get down to my mother's house to check on her. Our road was a disaster area. It was covered with ice and littered with fallen trees, shattered branches, and downed power lines. We had to turn back because our road is a dead end, and our only way out was blocked by power lines and a tangle of tree branches.

Thursday afternoon finally saw us able to leave our road. Neighbors with tractors had been pulling the debris off the road and moving the downed lines off to the side, because the road crews wouldn't come near our road. We bundled up in layer upon layer of clothing and made our way down to my mother's house. Her driveway was completely blocked by massive branches. It took hours to clear it. Massive limbs from a maple tree had ripped her fence to pieces, and I had to patch it with a spool of fencing wire. It had to be laced back together like an old boot.

The electric company wasn't able to tell us much, beyond "oh, you'll get your power back by the weekend." Except the weekend came and went and no one had been up to assess the damage, let alone attempt to fix it.

We finally got power back today. It's certainly been an experience...I know there are still several thousand people who will be without electricity for at least another week.

I did get some pictures in the 3 days I was stuck here.

Behold, the icicle as long as I am tall. I'm 5'5, so that should give a good idea of size.

Touche, John Belsky.

2009-01-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

Here I am, at home. I should be at work. Should be, but it would appear Mr. Belsky was right for once...it iced and snowed and sleeted and now my driveway is one long slick crunchy sheet of snow, and our road has not been salted nor plowed at all. So here I sit, trapped on this cursed hill for today and possibly tomorrow.

Living in the country has its advantages. Those advantages disappear once winter hits. If I lived even 2 miles away, I would have been able to get to work this morning. My road is off a state road, which they have scraped, sanded, salted, and plowed so that it's nice and easy to drive. Since I live on a steep, narrow, curving nightmare of a rural road they plow it whenever they feel like getting around to it. Which is not often.

I've already e-mailed pathetic messages to my co-workers, complete with pictures of my road (because I am paranoid that they don't believe me when I tell them how bad it is, seeing as they all live in the city where the roads are well maintained). I suppose I'll try to do something productive with my day, other than watch my Fiance play Dragon Ball Z all afternoon (if I hear "we are a mighty race. don't underestimate us!" one more time from the Wii, I'm going to snap).

Damn you, John Belsky.

2009-01-26T19:08:00.000-08:00

Our friendly local weatherman John Belsky is warning of ice and snow tonight. The predictions started last week, and have turned from one or two inches of snow to six to eight inches of ice and snow. Naturally everyone at work is in a tizzy over it. It's as though once you get past a certain age, you are only allowed to discuss 4 subjects, with the weather being main subject #1. All day long everyone speculated about how much snow, if the roads would be bad, and compared stories from snow storms past. This is Kentucky. We don't get much in the way of snow anymore. Apparently there was a bad snow storm in the 70s, which of course I was not around for, not even being alive yet. I was here for the 20 inches that fell overnight in 1994. Our power was out for 3 days. There are few things worse than being a kid faced with thigh-high snow and not being able to play in it. Especially when you originally came from Florida, where 50 degrees is considered colder than weather has any right to be.

So here I am, talking about the weather, just like everyone else. My world seems to revolve around snow and dental work.

My fiance and I went to the grocery store tonight to do our usual weekly shopping. The store was a frenzy of people buying milk (the person behind us had 5 gallons), bread, and eggs. Why is it always those three things? Do people trapped by snow live on french toast until the world thaws out again?

I am convinced that John Belsky is actually in league with the grocery stores. He gets on the news and gives dire predictions of snow and ice and doom, and people rush out to the stores and stock up like radioactive waste is going to be falling from the sky and bread and gallons of milk are their last hope of survival. Usually we don't even end up getting anything, and everyone grumbles about how he's never right, but a few weeks later he's on the news again warning about snow and people race off to the grocery store to once more empty the shelves of dairy products and baked goods.

Oh well. Such is life...and maybe Belsky will actually be right and we'll get some snow. If we do, I'll be sure to have french toast. I'm pretty sure that's what I'm supposed to do.

Her perfume smells like burning leaves...

2008-11-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

I love fall. I love the colors, the crispness of the air, the depth of light. There's a different quality to the light in fall. It's mellow. More golden.
I especially love the scent of the leaves. That sweet, sharp smell that's especially strong after rain. I wish someone would bottle that and turn it into a perfume.

But this time of year also means that the colder weather is coming. Try as I might, I just cannot get used to it. I have been in KY now for most of my life, and while I can handle the cold better than I did when we first came here (from Florida, in the middle of January. To say it was a shocking difference is an understatement), I have never fully adjusted. It doesn't help that when the temperature starts to drop, my joints all ache. My hips have always given me trouble, but as I get older, they get worse. I can now accurately predict rain because my hips start to hurt about two days before an impending storm. Screw the weather channel. I don't need them. I've got my very own storm tracking devices!

It's not even winter and our bed is already heaped with every spare blanket we own. There is a regular comforter, a fleece blanket, a down alternative microfiber comforter, a cotton blanket, and a little fleece throw for my side of the bed. Currently, my fiance is sleeping on top of all the other covers but underneath my little throw. It doesn't cover him very well. He's twice my size, so his legs and chest stick out. He is also, might I add, on my side of the bed. This will not do. I see cold feet against bare shins in his future. That's my other problem with the cooler weather. My hands and feet go icy and don't thaw out again until spring. Thick socks and gloves don't help much. I can have on insulated wool boot socks and my toes still feel like stubby icicles.

I don't look forward to scraping ice off my windshield, or being able to see my breath, or having to wear layers of clothing every time I venture out the front door. I hate how dreary everything gets after this season of wild color and melting light. The fields turn brown and gray and the trees become ghosts of themselves. Crows replace the goldfinches and indigo buntings. There is some sort of stark beauty to it all. Sometimes I love it. Mostly I wish it were over.

Smile!

2008-11-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

I've had more sessions than I care to count with the student dentists. Each appointment consists of some new torture. I've had so many x-rays taken that whenever I brush my teeth, I look in the mirror and can clearly picture each blue-white phantom of roots and pulp. I know what each of my fillings look like, where the cavities are, and the empty gap where my molar used to be.

They took molds the week after the x-ray session, which was one of the more unpleasant experiences. I have never had dental molds taken before. The paste tasted like mint and windex, and it crept towards the back of my throat like some terrible swamp-dwelling blob. If the molding process was unpleasant, the removal of the molds were even worse. It felt like my teeth were getting pulled out as slowly as possible.

Last week's session was the mounting of the freshly made replicas. This involved a device that measured the angle of my jaw. It had two extensions that hooked into my ears and a metal plate covered with impression gel that I had to bite down on. They tightened the plate with a vice handle. I felt like they should have been wearing robes and asking me if I had consorted with the devil while they did it. After yanking the metal plate out of my mouth, they took the plaster replicas of my teeth and gums and mounted them to the whole contraption. It was rather creepy looking, to say the least, like a prop from a horror movie.

I have a break from them until the 21st, which is when they'll start working in earnest. I'm afraid of what else they have in store for me.

The cost of it all is rather daunting, but it's not something I can ignore any longer. I'd rather not get to the point where I need root canals (though one tooth might already be there). We have set a limit on Christmas this year, which is something I was already panning on doing, especially after my insurance company sent me a letter telling me my premium was going up. Not by much, but enough to make me wince a little.

But my jewelry sales have picked up somewhat for the holidays, and I've got a roof over my head and enough to cover my bills, so I'm thankful for that. I can live without new shoes for a while, and even with a limit on christmas I can get some pretty good gifts for everyone (I am the queen of bargains).

Fixing a Hole

2008-09-09T19:05:00.001-07:00

Today found me once more in the dentist's chair. Since I had my wisdom teeth removed I have not been experiencing the terrible tooth aches, ear aches, head aches, and neck pain that I'd been having off and on for the past few years. I was rather optimistic about the remainder of my dental work. My previous visit to this particular dentist had not yielded much beyond instructions to get my wisdom teeth and molar removed and then come back so he could get a better look at the rest of my teeth.

Unfortunately for me he peered at my x-rays and muttered various ominous sounding dental gibberish to his assistant. Then he informed me that I need 3 crowns. My stomach started to sink as I mentally calculated what that might cost me. When his assistant brought in the estimate I felt downright ill. $2,150 for what I need done. Ouch. That hurt almost as badly as those toothaches did. She told me that I'd get a $177 discount if I paid it all in full right then and there. Sadly, I do not have that much money just laying around waiting for me to throw it at my impossibly young dentist. My wisdom teeth, car insurance, and glasses all hit me within the same month. Hear that sound? That's not my wallet begging for mercy..that's my wallet begging on the street corner for any scrap that someone might throw.

Ah well. There is one small mercy in that I'll be having the crowns done at different times and so I can space them a few months apart. Give myself a little time to scrape together the money. Perhaps my jewelry sales will pick up enough to help me out a little more.

In the meantime I'm making a voodoo doll of my dentist.

Eye of the beholder

2008-09-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had an eye exam. I get one every year. I used to have them whenever I could be bothered to remember, but when you get engaged to an Optician you can't get away with that kind of thing anymore. Every year I resist getting a new eye exam, and every year he drags me kicking and screaming to the eye doctor. I'm also not allowed to clean my glasses on my shirt. Apparently it's bad for the lenses. Hmph.

This time I was pleased to learn that my prescription has barely changed. I have some minor change in my left eye. Usually my eyes get steadily worse each year. Perhaps they are finally levelling out.

My eye doctor was pointing out various things on the Optomap scan, telling me how this nerve or that random blob with some impossible to pronounce name looked fine. Then he told me that I have some "thinning" in my right eye, but not to worry because while it is rare, it isn't abnormal. I wanted to ask how something could be rare but not abnormal, because if it were normal, it wouldn't be rare, right? But I figured he's a good eye doctor, and if it's nothing to be concerned about I won't worry about it.

But I want to know why I can't have something rare happen that's actually worthwhile. Winning the lottery? Rare. Finding a diamond mine in my back yard? Pretty much impossible. Discovering a priceless artifact in my basement/attic/tool shed? Nope, sorry. Nothing but mice to be found there. Coming home to discover Orlando Bloom naked in my living room? Fate has other plans and he remains stubbornly clothed and located thousands of miles away with no knowledge of my existence.

Thinning of the eye? Yeah, that's the one I get. My sheer awesomeness is a wonder to behold.

Oh well. It could be a far worse kind of rare. At least this rare is the "nothing to worry about" kind, as opposed to the "limited chance of survival" kind.

It ended up costing just over $600 for the exam, my contacts, new glasses, and prescription sunglasses. That's after my fiance's discount, too. Ah, eyes and teeth..what expensive things they are.

Hello, Onstar?

2008-08-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I went to my bank to straighten out an error and also do my Secret Shop. Yes, that's right..I'm a secret shopper for my bank. Who would have thought that banks actually used such things? Every month they send me a postcard with my super secret instructions and a warning to Not Tell Anyone At The Bank that I am shopping them. Oh, and this post card will self destruct in 3..2..1...

My shop this time was for their loan department. I hate loan shops. I did one last year that only served to piss me off. I had saved a substantial amount of money towards a new car. Over half the cost of it, in fact. I decided to ask about a loan for the remaining amount. Imagine my surprise when the person who was helping me told me that I needed to get a loan for the entire amount of the car and roll the cash into a CD. When I told him I would rather not do that, he told me to have my father call him to discuss what I should do with my money.

Uh...'scuse me? My father? The man who has never been on my bank account, and hadn't contributed a single penny towards the amount I'd saved? Why on earth would I want him to call my bank to discuss my money?

Needless to say, the loan department did not get a good report that time. The gentleman who worked with me is no longer employed there. I doubt I was the cause of his dismissal, but I'm guessing my report was at least a contributing factor. The bank also did not get my loan. I put the majority of the money into the car, paid the insurance with the rest, and financed the remaining balance with the dealership, who offered me a far better interest rate than the bank ever could have.

But I digress.

After my loan shop yesterday (which went much better), I got into my car and pulled out my pen to jot down the required details. Except I dropped my pen between my seat and the center console of the car. Naturally, I reached down to get it.

Fun fact: Saturn Ions have a center console that is encased in plastic, as most cars do. The casing does not reach all the way to the floor of the car, but leaves a gap. The edge of the casing is also rather sharp.

My fingers got stuck under the edge. Not "oops, just let me pull that free" stuck..I'm talking STUCK stuck. The kind of stuck that is usually preceeded by "Hey y'all, watch this!" and then involves a horde of firemen armed with grease and saws to get free from.

I tugged, trying to free myself from the casing. Alas, this only served to get my hand stuck even more and it cut into my knuckles. Now I was starting to get concerned. There I was, trapped by my car, in my car, with my knuckles slowly starting to bleed. I tugged a few more times before deciding that was in fact a really bad idea and wasn't helping at all. I debated moving the seat forward, but had a mental image of my fingers getting severed (unlikely, but I do have a vivid imagination) by the force of the seat pressing against the plastic as it slid forward.

Then I started to imagine what I'd do if I couldn't get myself unstuck. My fiance was working until 9:00. My cell phone was out of reach in my purse, which was in the back seat. I thought about the call I'd have to place to OnStar. "Uh, hello, OnStar? Yeah..I'm..uh...stuck in my car. Yeah, my hand is trapped between the seat and the console. Uh...could you..uh...send someone to free me?? and then promise you're not going to hang up from this call and share the story with all of your co-workers?"

Thankfully common sense prevailed and I reached my left hand down into the gap and pushed in the plastic until I managed to work my right hand free. It hurt like hell, and I lost some more skin, but at last I was finally free without having to call OnStar for assistance. But I do wonder what they would have done..sent firemen? the police? That would have been just great..stuck in the parking lot of my bank while they had to free my hand because I dropped my stupid pen.

The pen is still down there. I'm not going after it. It wasn't that good of a pen anyways.

In which I make plans to lose my wisdom.

2008-07-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my appointment with the oral surgeon. I wasn't there to get my teeth removed just yet. It was just a consultation. I sat there surrounded by nervous teenagers and a man whose wife was having dental implants put in. He kept taking phone calls in the lobby, obviously not realizing we could hear him clearly through the walls. Apparently his co-worker is an asshole and his boss doesn't care. Also, he likes playing on the office sports team, but hates that the guy from Accounting is such a sore loser and has to one-up everyone.

They had the world's most uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. For an office that requires long periods of waiting, you would think they would perhaps get better chairs. But these were tiny wooden ones with thin fabric seats and oddly curving backs that forced you to sit awkwardly as some edge or corner dug into whatever unfortunate piece of flesh came into contact with it. I spent my hour shifting and then shifting again in a vain attempt to find a comfortable position. Apparently such a thing did not exist when it came to the chairs.

They were running behind by an hour. I kept eyeing the clock, wondering if their horrible chairs were part of some mental trick. By the time they call you back, you're practically relieved to be standing and moving around again. Doesn't matter if they're about to yank bits of you out one by one and charge you thousands for it. Anything to get away from the chairs.

The oral surgeon told me that they would take all of the wisdom teeth and the molar in one go. He quoted me a price that was less than I was expecting (I was thinking around $3,000..my total cost will be $1200), which was a relief. He spent perhaps 10 minutes explaining the process, briefing my Fiance on the aftercare, and prodding at my teeth. I scheduled my appointment for August 12th. So long, teeth..I can't say I'll miss them. I'll miss my molar, probably. But the wisdom teeth have been constant trouble. I'll also miss that $1200. I never got the chance to know it.

I suppose when I'm all healed I can go back to my impossibly young dentist and let him fill those two pesky cavities. I would say that after that I am swearing off dentists for a while, but doing just that is what brought me here in the first place. Let my soon to be absent molar serve as a reminder to everyone..don't ignore your teeth. They tend to pack their bags and go off in a huff if you do, leaving a gaping hole behind them.

In which I learn that wisdom teeth don't actually grant you any wisdom at all.

2008-07-19T17:59:00.001-07:00

Thursday afternoon found me sitting in a dentist's chair for the first time in six years. A constant toothache had finally driven me to make a long overdue appointment. Now, there I sat, berating myself for years of neglect as my teeth throbbed. I could feel it through my neck and up into my temple, a constant drumming of pain.

My dentist looked young. Too young to know what he was doing. But I have to keep reminding myself that I am 27 years old, now. Dentists and doctors are starting to look closer to me in age. My first reaction when he walked into the room was "Oh, god, he's 12 years old." Then I realized that he was probably not much older than me.

He pointed to various things on the X-Rays, prodded around in my mouth, and then delivered his verdict. My wisdom teeth had to go. One had actually killed the molar it was pushing against, so the molar was declared to be a loss as well. Other than that I have two cavities. One shallow, one possibly in need of a root canal, but he "had his fingers crossed" on it. He gave me two prescriptions. One for Vicodin, and one for an antibiotic.

I left his office with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was happy to hear that my teeth are not as bad as I had feared. On the other, I cannot delay having my wisdom teeth removed any longer. I have no dental insurance and I know it will cost a small fortune. I also feel regretful that my molar has to go as well. But I let it go too long, and my tooth is the price for foolishness.

I took a Vicodin when I got home, as his probing had sent my toothache into a full blown frenzy. It felt like demons were hammering spikes through my jaw. My gums were raw and swollen.

Vicodin is interesting. Within half an hour my head was swimming. My bones and muscles felt as though they had turned to liquid and were rolling through my skin like the tide. I couldn't walk without falling and my thoughts fuzzy and slow. Eventually my fiance forced me to lay down so that I wouldn't hurt myself. I stayed in bed and watched my arms, halfway expecting to see the skin drag back and forth in time with the swirling feeling inside it.

The next morning I felt terrible. It took hours for the fog to clear from my brain. I was groggy and slow and every bit of food I ate wanted to come right back up. Luckily I was able to keep my breakfast down.

I think I'd rather live with the pain until the antibiotics calm the inflammation down. I'm saving the vicodin for when I have my wisdom teeth out and don't give a damn if I'm groggy the next day.

The Final Voyage of Blackbeard.

2008-06-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Last friday I came home to find my pet hamster collapsed in the entrance to his favorite tunnel. He was an old hamster. He was balding, and what fur wasn't gone was turning from black to gray. He didn't run on his wheel anymore. He hardly ate. I knew he would be dying soon, so it wasn't a huge shock, but it was still sad. I lifted him from the cage and discovered that he was still alive, but barely. So I wrapped him in a wash cloth and stroked his head until he passed, and then I sat down and cried.

I have had other hamsters over the years, and their lifespans have always been heartbreakingly short. Blackbeard lived the longest, at nearly 4 years old. They were a sort of symbol for me, of a freedom finally gained.

When I was a child, I always wanted a rodent of some sort. A hamster or a mouse. My mother has never cared for them, and never let me have one, which I accepted. I figured I'd get one when I was old enough to make my own choices.

When I was 21 I became involved with a man who was verbally, emotionally, and borderline physically abusive. He told me that if I ever did get such a pet, he would kill it. I believed him. He'd quite calmly threatened to kill me before, and while I wasn't certain that he'd actually kill me, I was quite certain that he was crazy enough to kill a pet I loved. I stayed with him for a year, and finally tore myself free when I grew up enough to realize that I didn't have to take the abuse, and that such things were not normal, and that I certainly deserved better than him. Leaving him was a huge relief. Every outburst he'd had was more violent than the last, and I have no doubt that if I had stayed, he would have become full blown physically abusive towards me.

One of the first things I did after leaving him was buy myself a hamster. My sister took me to the pet store, and I bought myself a russian dwarf hamster. I named him Rasputin. It turned out to be accurate, since he was quite possibly the most evil little creature in the world. He was mean. He bit me every chance he got. He attacked anything I put into his cage until he'd collapse into an exhausted, panting heap in his wheel. He peed in his food dish. I had to handle him with gloves because he'd bite me as hard as he could.

Still, I loved him for all of his meanness. It was a way of moving beyond that hellish year..a sign of freedom. I could have a pet without fearing someone would kill it. I could do the things I wanted. I could be myself. Rasputin lived for three years. The only time I touched him bare handed was when I wrapped him up after he had died.

I also had Attila, who lived for just a few months after I adopted him. I think there must have been something wrong with him from the start. He never seemed to gain much weight or grow, but was active to the point of seeming manic.

Now that Blackbeard is gone as well, I am without a hamster for the first time in over five years. It's odd not hearing him in his cage. Sometimes when I'm alone in the house I think I hear the rattle of the wheel or the rustle of bedding. But it's just my imagination, or the house settling, or maybe the wind outside. I buried him in the back yard under an oak tree, with a pile of pink creek rock on top of his grave to keep the foxes from digging him up.

I may get another one eventually..I don't know. Whether I do or don't, I will always be grateful for how those furry little bright-eyed creatures played a part in the healing process. Rasputin, Attila, and Blackbeard all helped me move beyond the abuse, and the emotional issues I had afterwards. I am with someone now who treats me far better. Life became good again. I am no longer the same scared person that I was. Pets can be many things, regardless of their shape or size..companions, helpers, supporters, and friends.

I thank them for all of those things.

Snakes On A Shelf

2008-06-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday evening I came home and spent most of the night working on the computer. At around 9:30, I heard a crash from somewhere behind me. I turned around just in time to see several books and a large black snake falling down behind the bed.

Wait a minute..snake??

It seems that our sudden hot weather has sent the snakes in search of cool, dark enviroments to hide out in. Our air conditioned bedroom provided too great a temptation for the scaly home invader to resist. I located the snake (behind the headboard) and got my future father-in-law to help me catch it.

15 minutes later, the snake was relocated to the woods behind our house. That was the end of it..or so I thought.

At 12:41 in the morning, my fiance and I were both soundly asleep when the sound of falling books jerked us both awake. My fiance turned on the light to reveal the same snake on the same bookshelf. It had knocked all but two of my books off the shelf and was preparing to make a final descent onto the bed. My side of the bed, I might add, and Mr. Snake was hanging a mere foot away from my chest.

The snake was removed once more. My fiance spread around moth balls, which are apparently supposed to keep them away. We still have no idea how the snake managed to get into our bedroom. There must be a gap or a hole somewhere. I'm betting it's where a hole was drilled for the satellite dish cables.

I made myself a snake talisman yesterday night, out of copper and snakeskin jasper. I'm going to hang it on the wall by the shelf the snake seems to like so much.

Twisting and Turning

2008-06-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting with wire these days. There is something soothing about working it. Twisting and bending it into shape, Hammering it flat, adding texture, then puzzling the pieces together.

I've been on a Goddess kick. I love the shape of them. Making them is both frustrating and satisfying. I have destroyed my fingernails, several pieces of skin, and have bruised my thumbs. It's important to make sure that one's thumb isn't under the path of the hammer.

This one was my first:

And then I made one for a hair stick:

Experimented in sterling:

Spirals and stones:

I decided to take a break from goddesses and try something different:

But couldn't resist going back for a tiny one in Iolite and sterling:

I have more wire coming in tomorrow. I've blown through 50 feet of copper in just a few days. Those little things take a whole lot of wire. I have a few that I haven't assembled yet. I have a tin with little bodies and arms in it, waiting for me to take the time. I have eventual plans for a dragon, and some fairies. I also need to make necklace chains for the other ones.

She Sells Sea Shells

2008-05-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today while wandering the grounds of a local historic home, I caught a brief whiff of something dead. I started to walk away, but my curiosity (and too many hours of watching Forensic Files) kicked in and I simply had to go investigate. The stench was coming from an old basement foundation that's filled with waist-high plants. Visions of dead bodies skittered through my brain as I parted the weeds and peered into the dirt at the bottom of the foundation.

The dead thing did not show itself (puffs of bloody robin feathers gave me an inkling of what creature the smell was caused by), but as I was leaving the foundation I noticed something sparkling by my foot. Further investigation revealed that it was a shell fossil, still embedded in a chip of rock. Quite a nice shell fossil, in fact.

I decided that the proper thing to do would be to go to the Admin office of the home and offer the fossil to them, since I had found it on their grounds. In the admin office they gave me weird looks, talked amongst themselves, and then told me I could keep it. I'm happy because obviously I wanted the fossil, but figured it would be best to let them decide what to do with it. I don't mind being the weird rock lady. That's what I am, after all.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

2008-04-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I went to bed early. I had odd dreams all night..pink tentacled aliens with tabby cat faces took over my place of employment and put us all on trial for crimes against the universe. Note to self: No more cheese before bed.

I hate not being able to sleep well at night. Especially on weeknights, when I know the alarm clock will be going off as soon as I finally manage to sleep for a solid hour. Just as I was finally starting to drift off, I was rudely awakened by the entire bed shaking. In my fuzzy-minded state, I thought it was my fiance, having convulsions and causing the bed to shake. Then I realized that it wasn't just the bed..it was the entire house that was shaking. Glasses clinked in the cabinets. Books started to shimmy towards the edges of the shelves. I could hear the goat bleating outside in panic.

I slapped my hand down on my fiance's arm and he leapt out of bed, trying to drag me out with him. The room was swaying, shaking, floor creaking, bed inching across the floor.

Then, it was suddenly over. Everything went silent. We stared at each other, wide eyed, trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened. It was 5:47 in the morning. We're close enough to a military base for our windows to sometimes rattle when they're firing weapons or flying jets overhead, but this went far beyond that. It slowly dawned on me that it must have been an earthquake. Not exactly something we're used to, here.

The morning news confirmed that it had indeed been a minor quake. No damage was done to our house, but a building downtown lost some of its facade, a road was damaged, and some statues and a fountain got knocked over. No one was hurt. No major damage done.

I think I'd rather dream about aliens, though.

Rock On

2008-04-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon the weather happened to be on the verge of beautiful. The sun was shining but the wind was so strong that it felt like it could carry me away.

Since we'd had so much rain that week I decided to go rock hunting. Every time I think I've picked our yard clean, it will rain and expose more geodes, crinoids, and other fossils. This time I decided to dig around the pond, which is a place I have always avoided in the past. The pond is very large and deep, and the ground around it is soft and crumbly. When you can't swim, you tend to avoid any bodies of water larger than a bath. But I learned how to swim (or at least flail around and keep myself afloat) last summer, so the pond isn't much of a danger to me anymore.

The pond is set deeply into uneven ground, so it has banks that actually stretch up to 10 feet overhead around one side. That was the side I decided to poke around in. I climbed down the slope, clinging to exposed roots and slabs of stone until I was down by the water. The red bank rose overhead, streaked with veins of heavy gray clay. Already I could see fist-sized geodes stuck in the dirt.

I spent a good 20 minutes prying stones out and dropping them in a pile by my feet. By that point the wind had whipped my hair out of the ponytail I'd had it in, and my hands were far too muddy to do anything about it. My rain boots probably weighed ten pounds each from all the mud and clay that clung to them. But I had quite a haul..geodes and a slab of white stone that contained several shell fossils. I was getting ready to move on when I spotted a massive geode buried halfway up the bank. It was nearly the size of a watermelon. I couldn't pass that up.

Dirty, windblown, and weighed down with rocks and mud, I made my way to the fence and started dumping geodes over. A bucket would have been nice, but we have two horses and you can't enter that field with a bucket unless it contains feed. They will grab the bucket away from you if you dare go in there with an empty one.

A few days later, I went ahead and cracked open the big geode. This is what it contained:

It's very similar to the last large one I found, which my fiance had cut open for me with a diamond bladed saw.

This is the stone with fossilized shells in it. It's about the size of a small paving stone:

And the handful of Crinoids I also picked up:

All in all, a good day for rocks. I haven't cracked open the other geodes I found, yet. Some of them found other homes..I've been mailing off boxes of them to friends in other states. I think the postman must hate me by now.

Another Bullet Dodged

2008-04-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

When I was 13 years old, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember the day she told me what it was, and what they would have to do to make her better. It was a summer day, hot and bright, and she was sitting in a lawn chair while I sat in the grass. I remember the light glaring off of my father's white t-shirt, blinding as he turned and walked away.

13 years later, the doctor found spots on the upper lobe of her right lung. So we all waited, fearful, as she underwent tests and scans and more appointments, and I spent my nights feeling restless and trapped, my mind going in circles. What if, what if..what if this is the last year? The last mother's day? Christmas? What will we do, with her gone? I reverted back to that 13 year old girl, sitting in the long grass, stomach twisting as my thoughts chased each other round and round. Mom put up her strong front, saying that whatever happened, she would deal with it as she had dealt with years of illness, and cancer, and other health problems that by now would have sent most people to their beds.

My fiance was my support system. When my sister called to make sure I was OK, I shuffled her off the phone quickly so she wouldn't hear my voice break, and then I sat down and cried. The doctor thought it was probably cancer, but was confident that he could remove it. But still, what if...

This past Monday, my sister took our mother to her final appointment, the one where they'd finally give her the results. I sat at work and tried to think of other things, of anything else, anything at all. I answered phones and replied to e-mails and moved like a robot through the day, watching the clock constantly, wondering if they'd told her yet.

At 2:45, my mother called me, voice joyful, my sister laughing in the back ground. No cancer. The spots had disappeared. The doctor talked of infections in her lungs that had probably caused the spots, and then had gone away when she had been on antibiotics for an infection in her finger. She still has other problems with her lungs caused by her autoimmune illness, but nothing so bad as cancer.

We can all breathe, now. Another bullet dodged. My mind can finally rest and my stomach can unclench. Mom can stop making arrangements in her head, planning what would happen at the end. Finally, this year is looking up.

Something Itchy This Way Comes..

2008-03-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

I can tell by the pricking of my blotchy red thumbs.

The rash turned to hives. Big, red, splotchy hives. All over. In places that hives have no business being. I spent the entire weekend taking oatmeal baths and coating every square inch of skin with cortisone cream. Today I am finally free and clear. Stupid amoxicillin. Stupid strep throat. Stupid allergic reaction.

My fiance threatened to duct tape oven mitts to my hands. I spent a great deal of time furiously scratching whenever he was out of the room. Unfortunately the redness of my skin betrayed me..it's hard to hide that you've been clawing your skin to bits when there are white lines everywhere that you've scratched.

But now I can finally lay off the benadryl and cortisone, shave my legs, and no longer smell faintly of oatmeal. Interesting fact: When you have a pet goat, and you smell like oatmeal, it's a Bad Idea to go into the pasture. Nothing like being chased around by a small goat who thinks that you must be hiding something edible somewhere on your person.

Rashes, rashes..

2008-03-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I had strep throat for the first time in my life. Mine was fairly mild, and my doctor prescribed amoxicillin to treat it.
Six days into taking the pills, I broke out into a bright red head-to-toe rash. It started out on my arms and spread out from there, until eventually even my ears were a brilliant shade of red.

Feeling rather alarmed, I called my doctor. Turns out that I am allergic to amoxicillin. Oh what joy. I got to experience strep throat AND an allergic reaction to medication all in the course of a week! The strep throat is gone, but unfortunately I can't say the same for the rash. It has spread to everywhere but my face as of today. My feet are so bad that I can't even wear shoes (insert joke about being in kentucky and not wearing shoes here). I look diseased and I feel miserable. I'm fantasizing about household objects that could be used to rid myself of this rash. Cheese graters. Sand paper. Oh, it all sounds heavenly right about now. I think tonight I'll greet my fiance at the door with a belt sander and some benadryl laced wine. I haven't felt like this since an encounter with a poison ivy patch 15 years ago.

I'm hoping that it will clear up by Monday. I cannot miss another day of work. I can wear long sleeves and slacks to cover up my arms and legs, but I'm not sure what I'll do if my hands and feet are still bad. My office isn't casual enough for the gloves-and-bare-feet look.

Sticks and Stones.

2008-03-03T05:20:00.000-08:00

The weather this weekend was truly nice for the first time this year. I took advantage of the warmth and sunlight and went rock hunting.

I have always been a rock hound. When we lived in Florida, I spent my allowance on crystals from the little mall kiosks that sold jewelry and gemstones. When we moved here to Kentucky, I was delighted to discover that it was a literal treasure trove of fossils and other interesting rocks. I pried fist-sized stones that looked like brains from the creek and hoarded them like priceless jewels. When my father took a hammer and cracked one of them open, I was dismayed until he showed me that inside those bumpy, bubbly stones were hollow caves lined with crystals.

An addict was born. I'd go down to the creek on weekends and bring home bucketloads of them, then spend the afternoon happily whacking them with hammers until they broke open. My mother was frustrated by the mess I made..shards of rock, bits of crystal, hammer marks on the concrete..but I was hooked. I had boxes of them under my bed because I'd run out of shelf room for them all.

Now I live in an area where I can get them from my own back yard, and it shows. The porch railing is covered with cracked open geodes. There are piles of them in the yard. Yesterday I gathered enough to fill two five gallon buckets. Though not all of them are for me this time. I am sending some out to other people who would like the chance to crack open their own.

The crown jewel was a truly massive geode that had to be opened with a concrete saw. There was a four inch thick ring of solid quartz encasing a cave with mineral deposits. The minerals formed a bumpy, bubbly layer that looks like bubbles in oatmeal. I hardly ever find ones like that.

This is a small portion of my haul:

My other task for the weekend was to photograph the hair sticks I'd spent the previous weekend making:

I love hair sticks. Too bad my hair is too short for them at the moment. But I still enjoy making them, and I'm especially fond of this batch. I like the colors.

All in all it was a good weekend. When I get home tonight I have an appointment with a hammer, chisel, and a bucket full of stones.

Sparrow Deathmatch.

2008-02-20T05:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon I decided to brave the cold and take advantage of the lovely sunlight that was filling the yard. It was just right for taking jewelry photographs, and with the upcoming bad weather there's no telling when I'll get another sunny day.

Outside in the junipers, four sparrows were engaged in battle. It's that time of year, when Spring is like an itch between your shoulderblades..you can feel it lurking there, driving you a little bit crazy, but still completely unreachable. All of the critters here have sensed it. The trees and bushes are full of fighting, singing, dancing birds. Robins are on the front lawn. When digging in the yard over the weekend I found pale earthworms in the dirt.

Oh, and the mud. The other sign that spring is coming is when the ground thaws and turns into a shoe-sucking mixture of wet clay, dirt, and puddles of standing water. There's nothing quite like the mud here. I've been slogging through the yard in galoshes.

But I did get my photographs, even though I had to beat a hasty retreat when the sparrows started fighting in the eaves above my head. The piece I was photographing is yet unfinished, just waiting for four beads to arrive from Thailand. It will be several weeks before it's done. Ah well. I can wait. But I shall leave you with a preview: