Something Magical.

There's something magical about the first nice day after a stretch of bad weather. Over the holiday weekend, our monsoons blew in, and it was unbearably hot and humid. I didn't do anything last week because of it. Every time I would try to get motivated to do anything that took more energy than watching DVDs, the heat would just sap the energy right out of me.

The storms were rather fierce for this part of the country. On Thursday, we had very strong winds, which picked up the dry dirt of the shared front yard of the apartment complex and sent it everywhere. The swimming pool was full of dirt, which didn't get cleaned up until yesterday. All the doors and cards had layers of dirt on them, and it had also blown into the laundry room, making quite a mess. Debris was strewn about. And the half-dead tree which stood next to the mailbox, which had once been beautiful, with delicate branches reaching down towards the earth, blew over. We had little rain, and the thunderstorm didn't even linger for long, but the wind made itself known.

But then yesterday came, and suddenly things were better. Oh, it was still hot and overcast, but not to unbearable levels. It was like a weight was finally lifted from my shoulders, and I felt like myself again. I was able to do a lot of the housework that had built up over the weekend, and start a bracelet (which I almost finished by the time the night was over), dance, and even start to think about working on a book again.

It's good to be back.

I know I promised a Independence Weekend sale, and I totally flubbed that. This weekend I'll have a big sale to make up for it. I'm about ready to start clearing things out to make way for new designs for Autumn. The bracelet I'm working on definitely has a Fall feel to it, and will go well with several of my existing necklaces and earrings.

Today's Cool Thing is Insect Lab. My husband's been on a bit of a steam punk kick lately (not that I can blame him, I enjoy a little steam punk myself), and this link is what he sent me this afternoon. The artist beautiful juxtaposes clockwork gears against insect specimens... My personal favorites are the beetles because not only do I love beetles, but their wider bodies allow for more added gears.