Water sucks!

My hot water pipes need to be replaced entirely. BOO! I hate water. Go ahead, ask me about my torrid history with water.

However, the heat appears to be working again, which means I can get into the bead room again, which means I can make jewelry again. Yay!

365 Days of Beading, too?

As I've been getting ready to embark on my year of belly dance practice, I'm wondering if I should set the same goal for beadwork. I didn't get nearly as much jewelry made as I wanted to this year, so spending at least half an hour a day, every day, would allow me to put more stock in my store, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs, create a few more necklaces for myself, and participate in more beading challenges. I suppose I'll have to wait and see if I get any time to bead today, and it's not looking likely.

You see, while I was gone, our furnace started acting up again (we already had to fix it once over Thanksgiving weekend). This time it appears to be a problem with the thermostat. The furnace itself seems to be working fine. So I've purchased a new, better thermostat (programmable!) and I'm just waiting for my Dad the electronics technician to come over and make sure I don't zap myself in the process of installing it.

But as if that's not enough, this morning I got up and went to wash my hands, only to be greeted by opaque orange water in my bathroom faucet! The kitchen was fine, and the orange went away, but now we have low water pressure in the bathroom sink and tub, which means no showers and probably another plumbing bill in my future. Why did I ever want to be a homeowner?

So beads would be really good therapy right about now, but first I have to fix the furnace because the beadroom is the coldest place in the house. Brrr.

Hope your New Year is off to a better start than mine!

Strangely Cold

It's cold and rainy and windy today, which is very odd for late April in Tucson. I don't know if it's remnants of El Nino, or freaky weather patterns caused by the Iceland volcano, or something else entirely. All I know is that it is NOT going to stop me from going to class tonight, because I need to be there to practice for this weekend's recital.

My Egg Moon pendant is almost done, now I just need to decide what to hang it from, and hope that the weather is nice enough for some photography.

Enough with the rain already!

Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I usually really like the rain... but seriously. We had lots of rain before my mother-in-law visited, perfect weather for the week she was here, and then the rain came back. It especially likes to hit on the weekends, which makes it impossible to enjoy any outdoor events or do much-needed yardwork (because the rain is of course making lots of weeds crop up). Now my game room roof is leaking, and my Dad generously offered to come over and have a look to see if it's an easy fix... and we haven't had a dry day since Saturday when it started leaking! Thankfully it's finally supposed to stop tomorrow, and the weekend is even supposed to be nice. Finally.

But for now, I'm just going to sulk because it's too cold and muddy to go dancing in the park!

New Jewelry Tomorrow

I made two necklaces today, but haven't had a chance to photograph them yet. They're both bound for Etsy tomorrow, however! Hopefully it will be nice and sunny again so I can get some good outdoor photos.

Tonight, I went over to Reid Park where the SCA meets. Though I still don't want to join the SCA, I did enjoy meeting some fellow dancers and dancing to some live drumming. It was really cold out, so I only stayed for an hour, but I'm going to try to go back often. It was fun to see where our dance vocabularies were the same, and where they were wildly different. I even learned a new move, though who knows if I'll remember it tomorrow, since I only did it twice :)

Autumn is Back

There's a chill in the air today! Looks like it may really be Autumn this time. As much as I do enjoy warm weather, it's unnatural for it to be warm this late in the year, so I guess I need to resign myself to lower temperatures.

My Dad came over today and winterized the cooler and set the furnace up for us, so I don't have to worry about freezing. We needed to ask for his help, as I'm afraid of heights and there's no way Chris was going up on the roof with one bad hand. It's nice to have family close enough to help.

The cool weather put me in an Autumn-y mood, so I put together a tasty dinner of ahi tuna, grain medley with dried berries, and squash tossed in a mixture of butter, maple syrup, and chai spices. Yum! We washed it all down with hot spiced cider. Hot drinks are the best thing about cold weather.

Who invited you, Autumn?

It was really windy yesterday. I had this silly hope that the wind was blowing in some much-needed rain, but no. It was blowing in Autumn! It's still windy today, but it's a cold wind, the kind that cuts right through clothing and leaves you shivering.

Summer was nice while it lasted!

Here in Tucson, sometimes we have very warm Halloweens, and I can wear belly dance costumes outdoors. Othertimes, like this year, it's the sort of Halloween where I want to just wrap up in a beautiful cloak. I'll probably compromise, and wear a belly dance costume, but not bare my midriff. Or I might just wear some Ren Faire clothes from my pre-dancing days. We'll see what mood strikes me on Saturday. Who knows, maybe it will have warmed up a bit.

Standing in the snow

Here you go, photographic evidence of the fact that it snowed in Tahoe, and I actually went outdoors! If you're wondering why my arms are crossed, it's because I didn't expect it to snow during the day, so I foolishly left my coat in my room. I was COLD!

The picture was taken by my friend Betcey, who is from the mountains of Colorado where snow is a frequent occurrence, and this tiny dusting would be nothing to remark upon in her home. But she knew that for a desert girl like me, this was a Big Deal, so she offered to take a picture for posterity :)

The snow came on so suddenly that most of the trees in the area hadn't changed colors yet, so you can see the pretty contrast of the white snow on the green leaves in the background. Some plants even had icicles on them, but I didn't have my camera at hand when I saw them.

I'm so glad to be back in AZ where the temps have been very pleasant 70s since I got home!

SNOW!

I walked through snow flurries in my pajamas today.

That's really all you need to know.

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.

Some New Earrings!

I just added these pretty earrings, called Sea Gems, to the website. More items will be coming later this week -- probably Friday. Don't forget that this weekend is the deadline to place holiday orders! I'll be making one last trip to the Post Office on Monday the 17th and then possibly not again until the New Year.

Today it is cold and wet and rainy. There's even snow up on the mountains. It's really good weather for beading, but unfortunately my muse has been stubborn and silent all week (still sulking over the missing pendant, I think), so I'm doing laundry instead. This is not good laundry weather, by the way. It's also not good going to Chinese class weather, but that's what I'll be doing in a little over an hour. This is the penultimate class!

My package o' beads still hasn't arrived. I'm hoping for tomorrow, that way I can come up with a nice project using new beads to take to the game, and then I can have it done in time for the update on Friday.