Achoo

I had to stay home from my dance classes today, due to still being sick. It's an annoying feeling, knowing that I missed out on fun and learning due to some stupid germs, and now next week I'll have to work hard to catch up.

There's not really much else to say, I didn't do anything today. Hopefully all this rest/laziness means that I'll be better tomorrow, maybe I'll even finally go back to the gym.

Sarcasm dog sums up my day

This picture of Maggie rolling her eyes pretty much sums up how I feel about today.

It's just been one of those annoying days. My brother-in-law flew back to NY early this morning, and I figured I'd spend the day like any normal, houseguest-free Monday... Go to the gym, go grocery shopping, catch up on some chores, bead, dance, and maybe, just maybe, have a bit of a belated anniversary celebration with Chris. Instead, I woke up feeling sick. Then I had to deal with some internet drama, then my husband's boss decided that he should take a business trip to Phoenix. Tomorrow. Bah.

So Monday, I say nuts to you. I roll my eyes at you, a la Sarcasm Dog.

On a completely unrelated note, don't forget to check out this week's Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure auctions!

Bleh sick

I am sick again, and it is all because of Chris and his friend Rene. So phooey on them. I was enjoying being healthy, thank you very much. The unwelcome germs are being bombarded with vitamins, hydration, tea, and nasty thoughts in their general direction, so hopefully this stupid cold will not interfere with all my fun dance plans for the week.

In other news, it is also raining, so at least I didn't miss a beautiful weekend while I was being sick and cranky. And at least my plants, who are convinced that it is Spring, got another nice soaking.

Tiredy McTiredface

That's me! So tired! And on top of that, I have a cold. I think in the 10 years I've been working at gem show, I've only managed to avoid getting a cold twice. I was hoping that my greatly improved fitness (plus the immunity boosting tea I've been drinking all week) would have protected me, but alas, the germs got through anyway. Stupid germs.

The cold meant that I had to stay home from dance class, which annoys me for two reasons... first, tonight's focus was slow moves, which I REALLY need to work on, and second, there's no class next week. Two weeks without class, after already missing one due to weather. Grrr. I am SO mad about being sick. I don't think I can even express it without cursing, and I try to keep this blog clean.

Other than that, I'm having a great time, shopping, working, and seeing lots of friends. I look forward to sharing my finds when I've recovered, but right now I am just too worn-out to even think of messing around with photos.

Tomorrow is the Swarovski party, and I am determined to not be too sick to attend. I want to see the previews of the new items, hang out with friends (without stopping to help customers!), show off my new necklace, and dance.

Things I do when I'm sick

Today's Daily Special: Gothic Romance Earrings!

As the title suggests, I'm sick again. If you're wondering why there was no blog post yesterday, well, there's your answer. I tagged along with Chris when he drove a friend home from the airport, and that friend was sick, and now so am I. Joy.

In addition to being mad and wallowing in self-pity, I've been reading Nightwatch (as usual, the book is better than the movie), and I just put together another Treasury: Every leaf on every tree. I might even get as far as listing new items on Etsy, but probably not today.

Of course, I've also been flooding my body with fluids and vitamins like a good little girl, which is probably why I feel better today than yesterday. Come on body, let's continue this upwards trend!

Feeling better.

I'm almost over my cold, finally. It's so annoying because I feel like I've pretty much lost a week. All I did was read -- a lot. You can find reviews of the books I've been reading over at my writing blog. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm looking forward to getting back to beading. I've got flowers to make, and beaded shapes to try, and a BFAC project to start!

I also need to take some pictures. This blog is definitely suffering from a general lack of them, and I even have a few new pieces of jewelry that I haven't shown off yet. Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow, in between listing next week's BFAC auctions and tidying up the house and stringing pretty crystals.

Ah yes, the pretty crystals. After gem show, I picked up a job stringing crystals at home, for my gem show boss. It's much like working at gem show, except that I do it at home, and I'm stringing bicones instead of packaging rivolis. It's a nice way for me to earn a little bead money while jewelry sales are slow during the economy, and a fun way to see all of the different color/finish combinations of crystals. Tonight I'm working on emerald AB 2x. Yummy!

I built a desk!

With a little help from Chris, I finally completed the desk tonight. Woohoo! It's a very nice sense of accomplishment, especially since I found several steps in the instructions to be stupid, and I decided to do them my way instead, and it worked. That's the DIY attitude! Also, I avoided further injury, which is good.

I'm working on filling the desk with assorted beading and craft supplies which are scattered around the house, and once that's done I'll take a pretty picture of it. It will be nice to have things put away. The cabinet on my computer desk that should be holding my laptop and gaming bag is rather full of packages of beads and things, and the guest room has a few craft store bags full of miscellaneous stuff.

I am still sick, but sometimes when I have a cold I have a sudden burst of energy which makes me want to do something, like build a desk. Actually, I do feel almost all better, so hopefully I'll wake up healthy. I have big plans for tomorrow (ok, it's 1:30am, technically today), which involve friends and sushi and Mom and crafting, and maybe Chris and drywall.

So much better.

Ahhh, the cold is pretty much all gone. Glad that didn't linger much, I have plans for this weekend.

We went out for Malaysian tonight, which was OK, and then we went to the bookstore. Rather than buy more novels, I just picked up the latest Beadwork magazine. I also got a cool crochet hat book for my Mom, who is going to be recovering from surgery for a little while. I figure she might want to do something with her hands, and I know she really likes to crochet hats. I admit I have a little bit of an ulterior motive, because there were some pretty cool looking hoods in there that I wouldn't mind having!

A (crane)fly on the wall.

If you'd like to see a bigger, better image of my friend the cranefly, you should pop on over to InsectPOD! Although David seems to think that the good shot of the halteres is the best part of the image, I personally love the wings. They look like evil faerie wings, don't you think?

Anyway, David over at InsectPOD is a great guy, he gave me a lot of advice on how to use the macro mode on my camera. Getting a good shot of the cranefly wasn't hard, because it's huge (body alone is 1" long!), but the tiny beetles and spiders that I find turn into blurs. Hopefully by using his handy tips, I'll be able to take clear images of bugs that are smaller than 4mm Swarovski crystals.

I'm really enjoying my camera. I want to pick up a camera case and start taking it with me everywhere, for when I find cool or ironic things to photograph. For instance, the other day when we were out to lunch, we saw a guy who looked very much like a professor crossing the street to the college. The thing is, he was walking straight towards a no crossing sign. Oh, how I wished I'd had a camera with me!

As you can probably tell from the tone of my post, I'm feeling much better. I'm still sick, but at least I'm functioning.

Still sick, but good news anyway!

Seriously, I turn into a big baby when I have a cold, so it's a mercy that I'm keeping this brief.

Less about me, more about good news.

Good news item the first: My husband Chris is an official employee at his new job. Hurray for that!

Good news item the second: My Aunt B, aka my favorite aunt, just opened an Etsy shop. She makes gorgeous pendants. I have her one and only pendant with a cab set in it, and it's malachite. If you're wondering why she's my favorite aunt, it's because she's fun, loving, artistic, and makes good burritos.

Sick again.

I've come down with another cold. Yay, nasal congestion. Since I have some things that I need to do this week, regardless of being sick, I probably won't get around to updating the website.

I did get some good work done on Locked Away last night when I was feeling fine, so I'll probably post it tomorrow.

It's leap day... yay?

I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about Leap Day or anything else right now. I'm still sick, and I'm at that point where I'm tired of it. I want to be better and be beading, darn it! I feel like I've wasted this entire week, when I could have been making cool stuff. I was going to make a cuff bracelet and everything.

I shouldn't consider the week a total write-off, though. I did meet some nice people in the USO voting chat, and I've decided to join the little group of my friend's friends who move from worthy cause to worthy cause, voting for it until it wins. It's a nice thing to do and a cool way to meet interesting people. Yesterday I was talking to someone who does Sanskrit chanting.

Also, I did a lot of behind the scenes BFAC stuff. That's one thing that I can't ignore when I'm sick, because it really piles up! Our auctions start this weekend, so there were lots of last-minute things to take care of, plus making decisions on next year's challenge. I am really excited about the auctions! You can expect me to go on and on and on about them starting Sunday. You have been warned!

While we're speaking about BFAC, the vow of silence about the kit is lifted on Monday, so I hope to be able to post an image then. Yippy!

Not at all productive.

I had a lot less energy yesterday than I thought, and today I'm really beat. Blah.

I don't like to bead when I'm sick, because I just feel gross and it's like I'm going to transfer that grossness to the beads... Much in the same way that a lot of creative people don't like to create when they're in a negative mood, lest the negativity affect their art.

I'm not sure if I agree with that concept whole-heartedly, but I often find that I CAN'T create when I'm upset. My muse just shuts down. There are rare exceptions. I have a beautiful necklace that I made for myself one day when I was feeling down because someone was tearing into me on-line. It remains one of my favorite necklaces. The person, the forum, and the game tied to it are long gone for my life, but the necklace remains.

I have found that if I write when I'm in a bad mood, it has a negative effect on my characters. All of the sudden, even the nice ones are getting snarky, and everyone gets into fights with each other, and then I have to re-write it all next time I'm at my computer.

And Chris wonders why I usually sit around doing nothing when I'm mad or sad...

A Simple Transformation.

This is a necklace that I've been wearing a lot lately. It's actually an old necklace, with a new component added.

You see, I've had this copper leaf for a long time. At one point, I was going to hang it from my really cool staff that I used to take to Ren Faire, but then I stopped taking the staff. Well, I found it when I was cleaning and I said "Hey! Wouldn't this look cool with a faerie on it?" First I tried the pretty green super model faerie that I bought at the September show (don't remember her? see her here!). Well, she didn't quite fit, due to the angle of her wings. Then I found this golden faerie, which was part of my secret birthday buddy present last year, and she lined up perfectly. I wired them up, and then figured I'd make a necklace eventually. In the meantime, I could wear the pendant on a ribbon.

When I did the wire, I shaped it into sort of a closed hook in the back, but it could be pushed open. Well, conveniently, that meant that I could hook it over this herringbone spiral, which has been part of my collection for 5+ years. I like how it looks so much that I think I'll leave it like that. The nice part is, I can take the pendant off whenever I want, and wear the spiral as a simple necklace like I used to.

Anyway, today is somewhat annoying because I'm sick. Blah. I have a bad sore throat, but I'm alert and coherent, so I'm going to try to get a lot done today... that way if I start to feel worse, I can get away with being lazy. Of course, so far all I've done today is a ton of e-mail and forum posts!