The usual Wednesday

It's a Wednesday like any other... gaming group will be here within the hour, we'll do some gaming, I'll string some crystals, etc etc. Things are finally back to normal after the upheaval of the holiday season.

Mostly my mind is looking ahead, to dance class tomorrow night. Despite my crazy-sore abs (darn you, CrossFit gym!), I need to go practice my new moves before people show up, and get a little zillage done, too.

I'm boring today!

Tonight is the last week of gaming-on-Tuesdays, unless of course the next session of Krav Maga classes is also on Wednesday nights. I'm not sure if they've set the schedule yet -- I'm too busy keeping track of my belly dance schedule, and already thinking ahead to gem show in a month and a half.

Anyway, since it's a gaming night, that means today is a cleaning day. I got sick of all the clutter and mess that had been building up, so I'm doing more than my usual spot cleaning. It's incredibly boring, but also necessary. I'd like to greet the New Year with a tidy house, and be ready to make some improvements before my in-laws visit in February. Chris pointed out the other day that it felt like we were still living in a rental, because we hadn't done much to make the house ours. What little effort has gone into the house has all been put into the game room, and even that's not finished yet.

Well, back to the grindstone for me.

Feels so... wrong!

Chris and half the guys in our gaming group currently have krav maga classes on Wednesday evenings, so we moved the game to Tuesday. Gaming! On Tuesday nights! What is the world coming to?!? Surely, this is a sign of the end times.

We're also gaming in the main house, because it's cold as heck and the game room is hard to heat. Guess I should go tidy up the living room, since we'll actually be using it.

Whoops!

Almost forgot to blog today. My schedule is still messed up from being in NY -- would you believe that I got up at 8:30am today? Ridiculous.

Just got done enjoying a nice evening of gaming with friends. I got some work done on Cthulhu, finishing his arm/hand *and* his face. Tomorrow I'll do the other arm, I hope. Would have started it tonight, but I was already sleepy and decided to just focus on the game.

Rarh! I'm a dragon!

Because I love dragons, today's Daily Special is In The Dragon Nest.

I really need to add more dragon jewelry to my line. I have lots of interesting dragon focals in my collection -- the problem is that I want to keep most of them for myself. It's the same with faeries. I'm just greedy that way.

Yesterday I made the copper and lava necklace that I was talking about. However, it didn't involve mother of pearl, as I apparently don't have any round MOP beads left. Denied the use of a neutral, I decided to go for contrast instead, and chose malachite. The deep, banded greens actually look great against the warm glow of the copper. I'll post pictures soon.

Last night was a gaming night, and it went surprisingly well given the large number of people who showed up and the fact that a lot of them don't get along. We really need to complete the work on the game room. I'm tired of it being half-finished, and all of our books being in boxes.

Not Snowdrop

I got a slow start today and didn't get out to the workshop again. That's the one problem with the new photo set-up. It seems like a real waste of time to go out there and set everything up just to photograph one necklace, especially when I'll have to tear everything back down on Wednesday night for the game.

Of course, that's assuming we have a game. One player has other plans, due to it being almost the holiday, and if anyone else has plans, we'll just cancel the game for this week. And as much as I enjoy the game, that will be fine if it happens. Gives us more time to get things ready for Thanksgiving!

Anyway, I might whip up some more earrings or something as soon as I get up tomorrow, to make the photography set-up worthwhile. Or maybe I'll take pretty new pictures of some old items and put them up on Etsy for the holidays. I do have a few other Wintry items that could use some love. Maybe Snow Angel? We'll see.

I'm one of the cool kids now.

I'm writing this on my laptop out in the game room. Everyone else always brings their laptop to the game, so I decided to bring mine out tonight, too. I just finished Wastelands Tribe, finally, and it looks pretty awesome. But I didn't feel like sorting out the Delica/11 mess for Snow Queen, so there's no beading tonight.

Technically I should be gaming, but everyone is talking about Fallout 3, a game which I am not playing. This always happens. Oh well. I needed time to blog anyway!

Chris's mid-week weekend was stymied by his boss, so we didn't get to do our other errands today. Instead, I spent all day doing housework. In fact, it was a pretty annoying day and the current lack of gaming is not making things better.

Tomorrow, I should be working on some neat earrings, and I should be able to take pictures of them and Wastelands Tribe. It's been too long since there's been new jewelry on this blog!

Hey look, a turtle!

I thought I'd post a little in-progress picture of my turtle project. As you can see, I liked those green satin beads from Mr. Skully-Man so much that I used them here, too. I thought it was a nice break from the size 15s I was using, adds a little more visual interest. Then I spent a while doing a brick stitch edge to hold the base and backing together, which gave me a headache and sore fingers. Next, I shall experiment with fringe! I'm still trying to decide exactly what to do for the actual necklace, too.

Last night's gaming went fairly well. Everyone seemed to enjoy playing at our place, and the dogs definitely liked having us home all night, along with extra people to shower them with affection. We did have a small problem as people were arriving. Maggie had managed to step on a nasty goat-head thorn, and didn't want to hold still to let me get it out -- she was more interested in limping around the yard to greet all of our guests. Our friend Casey was quick to help me hold her down while Chris searched for good thorn-removing tools, and as soon as I pulled it out, she was back to her usual happy self. I just need to figure out what plant is throwing those thorns and get it out of my yard! I hate those things.

By the way, I am part of this fun "Buy and Replace" Treasury on Etsy. I bought a pretty Japanese paper and glass pendant, and in return, got my earrings featured to replace it. Check out the items on display! The ring at the bottom is made by one of my Facebook pals, and she's the one who told me about the treasury.

What's on the horizon?

Sorry about not posting yesterday, I was feeling moody and wisely stayed away from my blog.

Anyway, there are things coming up soon. Since it looks like it may be months until I get erthefae.com back, Chris and I will be getting my website set up on erthefae.net. I really don't like having the 150 or so items on my website just sitting around doing nothing, and it would take forever to get them all transferred over to Etsy.

Speaking of large numbers of beaded jewelry, I think that once the website is back up, I'll be having a clearance sale. I have some very nice jewelry which has just been around for way too long. And because I keep making more jewelry, I am seriously running out of places to put all of this stuff!

I'm going to spend some more time tonight working on the "turtle soup" pendant. Note that I won't be calling that when it's finished, but it's a good working title. We're moving the Wednesday game to our house, due to various drama and the tendency of my dogs to eat my shoes and the cat's toys when we leave them at home along all night. By having the game here, I'll actually be able to have an Ott-Lite at hand to make working with those little size 15 Japanese seed beads easier. Assuming, of course, that I don't have a Daisy pup in my lap all night!

Good things coming tomorrow.

I finished my choker this afternoon, and I have to say, it looks incredible. It's another one of those "wish I could keep it" sort of pieces, not that I have anything to wear it with. I'll be posting it on my website tomorrow. It's been a fun past few days working on this piece -- except for the fact that my thread kept catching on the chair lever. Stupid lever!

With that done, I need to put my focus back on Locked Away. I have an order from Earthenwood Studios due within the next week or two, and I want to be free to play with those beads when they arrive. That means that I need to finish what I've got going on right now! Hopefully this time around the beads will behave.

I picked up The Beaded Garden by Diane Fitzgerald last night. I think that between it and Barbara Grainger's book, I should he able to make just about any sort of flower, leaf or vine that I want, plus a few insects.

In the meantime, I've got to go get ready for tonight's game. Once again I'm playing a new character, and this one should work out better than Saturday's did.

Ideas spring to mind.

I'm in a somewhat better mood today than yesterday. Still overwhelmed, but that's not going away anytime soon!

I had a nice flash of inspiration in the shower (my mind wanders a lot when I'm washing all this hair!), and I figured out how I wanted to do a certain necklace... The one involving the pretty hammered brass key that I bought at gem show. I'll probably make it tomorrow. I thought of taking it to the game today, but I'd rather do it at home where I can change things around more easily if need be.

Last night I went ahead and started Iron Council, because I couldn't sleep. I'm finding that it's not quite grabbing me in the same way that the previous two books did. Maybe it will get better. One thing that I do like is that the author chose to let his city evolve and change in the 20-25 years between the first two novels and this one. Some fantasy worlds get locked into too much of a status quo, and they feel stagnant. There was just enough change that it feels like a believable level of advancement, and keeps the same feel of the city. New technology, social changes due to events in previous books, interesting stuff like that. If only the characters didn't feel so boring and distant.

I need to go get ready for today's game. I'm playing a totally atypical character for me, in many ways. We'll see if that works out.

The end of an era, sort of.

Well, last night the D&D game that I've been playing in for the past three years or so finally came to its conclusion. I was growing a little tired of the system and the story, so I'm glad to have it done. I'm happy to say that the final session was a lot of fun, though, to the point where I actually wished we'd had one or two sessions left, just to carry the fun forward. Nonetheless, it was good that it ended where and when it did, and I'm looking forward to new games on the horizon. I call it the end of an era because it's very likely that I'll never play D&D again. Everyone in the group is really tired of it and far more interested in other systems, and no one wants to upgrade to the new 4th Edition which is coming out this year.

The game was so involved that I actually didn't make my crystal bracelets, which means I'll probably just take them to Wednesday's game and work on them there. Most of my beading at home is going to be focused on my BFAC project. I do have some ideas in mind for necklaces that I might make for the website and Etsy, though.

Not a whole lot else to say right now. I'm eager to get off of the computer and go bead!

Been all weekend-y.

Well, the past couple of days have been busy and weekend-y. On Friday night, Chris and I went out for a very nice dinner at The Melting Pot. It was the first time we've ever gone to a really nice, romantic restaurant and I have to say it was a pleasant experience. Also, the food was delicious. Plus I got to dress up, which is always a plus in my book!

Speaking of books, B&N is in the same mall as the restaurant, so I picked up The Scar on the way out. I'm being good and saving it until I dog sit in a few days.

Yesterday was D&D, and it was okay. I didn't really enjoy the game much, in fact I got annoyed a lot, but the storyline is finally almost over, and neither of the other loud groups were there.

Today we were supposed to go to the Renaissance Faire, but nooo, it had to be cold and rainy today. Seriously, it's been beautiful ALL week, and it decided to rain today. Hopefully next weekend will be better, because there's only two weekends left, and if I can't go to the Faire at all this year, I'll be quite sad.

Tomorrow, there should be new jewelry in Etsy and probably on the website, too.

Writing time.

I've been in a very writing-y mood over the past few days, so I'm about to sit down with the laptop and either work on my current book, or work on notes for that other fantasy book that I keep struggling with. Either way, it will be good to get back into the swing of that, and hopefully it won't lead to more nights of staying up until 4am.

We just got done watching 3:10 to Yuma, which I didn't think was that great. Don't get me wrong, all the actors did a good job and such, I just didn't care. I'm not much of a Western person. I did watch The Proposition, but that had two things going for it: Nick Cave, and Australian accents. 3:10 to Yuma had neither.

Not a whole lot else happened this weekend. My ill-fated henchman died in D&D again, I got into a bit of a tiff with one of my fellow gamers about some tasteless jokes, and I read Laura McCabe's book and worked some more on my rivoli pendant. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.

Nanananananana -- BAT BEAD!

I used some of my holiday money to buy a 3-part bat bead from Melanie this weekend. The bead just arrived today! He's really cute. I'm going to wear him to tonight's game, because last game, my character was invited to join the Bat Clan. I'm a nerd like that. My character probably won't join said Bat Clan, as much as she likes them, because she'd rather go study with the Ratlings and learn their name magic. My character is also a nerd like that. As a roleplayer, I find it's good to share a couple of traits with your character, so you can get into playing them a little better.

Oh, the other reason for not joining the Bat Clan is that it causes all of my friends (me included) to sing "Nananaanana BAT CLAN!" every time it's said, and that derails the game pretty quickly.

This is why I almost never talk about the details of my gaming life on this blog, by the way. It makes me look like a big geek!

I've done a whole bunch of nothing today, except for responding to a lot of BFAC e-mails. Oh yeah! The 2008 BFAC gallery will be live soon, so I will definitely post that here. I'm really proud of some of my awesome photographs. Not all of the photos are awesome, but none of them are bad, so I feel really good. I'm doing the 2009 photos, too, and it will be much easier now that I know what I'm doing.

I have to figure out what I'm going to bead during tonight's game. Probably something not-green, since this week's update was pretty green-heavy. But if that's the only color my muse wants to work in, that's what I'll have to go with.