A new decade

It appears I can't keep up with a blog anymore than I could keep up with a diary when I was younger. This is the year I hope to get more organized and get more of my jewelry and beads up on the internet. We shall see.
The last part of last year had a lot of ups and downs. My mother may need surgery and she's hesitant to have it. She's afraid it'll be something she can't recover from, meaning she'd never get back all her strength. She had a two day stay in the hospital which was horrible. We thought my son might have to have surgery on his shoulder which would have halted any possibility of him playing baseball in college. After many weeks of physical therapy, the doctor gave him the go ahead to continue with his pitching. We had to put down our horse and one of our dogs. Those were not good times. We've had horses for a long time and it's kind of sad not having one now. They are such beautiful creatures and even if we didn't ride them often, they were fed twice a day so there was a lot of interaction and I really miss that. Our dog we had to put down was a stray that showed up at our house the first week we were here. One thing about living in the country, people drop off their strays and if they're lucky they show up at our house! She walked up our driveway the first week we were here like she belonged and was with us for eight years. I used to tell my husband she was our "welcome to the neighborhood" along with our shotgun blasted mailbox!!!
The year ended with a White Christmas. Something I've never had before. Even living in Ohio for four years when I was growing up, it was never snowy on Christmas. How crazy is that, a white Christmas in Texas and not in New York!!! We probably got about eight inches which is more than I've ever seen here. It was so pretty and stuck around for a long time. It was still on the ground the next week when we had another snow!! Snow on top of snow in Texas??? Wow!!!
Now we've entered into 2010. I've already had another birthday and found out I was one year older than I thought. I got a Wii for Christmas and I exercise every morning. I'm bound and determined to lose weight and get fit this year. I've really let myself go. Imagine my surprise when the Wii wished me happy birthday and it was a year older than I thought. I did the math and dang Wii was right. That was depressing!!! lol Oh well I don't feel that old.
On the glass front, I'm trying out boro glass. It's a harder glass to work with, not really more difficult, but harder, it takes a much hotter flame to melt the glass. It moves around like a thick syrup and I'm really having a little trouble adapting to it. I have the hardest time getting the right shape, not to mention getting the colors to strike. Oh my gosh, what gorgeous colors they have and I have so much trouble getting them to come out. It's just one of those practice things.
On the home front, this is the year my baby will be leaving home. My son turned 18 in December and he'll be going away to college this year. He really has such a busy schedule now we don't see him much, with school and practice and games and such. But knowing that he's really gone is going to be tough. We'll still have our daughter at home, as she'll always be with us, but it'll be hard sending my six foot one baby out into the world.

Amazing Nature

Walking around the back of my house the other day, I ran into this!! Isn't it amazing??? I had thrown some Hollyhock seeds out last year, but it was in a spot the dogs insisted on lying in so nothing came of them. Everytime they tried to grow they got dug up, along with my zinnias. Well this year the little fella prevailed and look at him. Isn't he gorgeous???

This morning, my husband nonchalantly mentions there's a painted bunting on the fence out here. Of course I had to run go look. well I saw a reddish belly but that was all. So I scoffed at my dh, no it's not, I don't know what it is but it's not a painted bunting. I run get the binoculars, and dang if it's not a painted bunting. Much groveling later, and praising my husband for his keen vision, I admit to him he was right! Here's this amazingly colorful bird sitting on the fence. I wasn't able to get a picture, and even if I could my lens doesn't enlarge that much, so I found a painted bunting for all to enjoy.

Oh No you don't!!!!!

WEll it's spring in Texas so of course with the warm weather comes the snakes, lizards and toads.

This little story is called "a funny thing happened on the way to the hummingbird feeder"

We had this tarp that Greg had brought out for me for the last freeze, to cover my clematis and gardenia. It had been folded on top of a table up until about Thursday week before last, when Greg and I went fishing. He had caught 2 catfish, I had lost several!! Anyway, we have this scrap of silestone from my countertops, he uses to clean the fish. So he dumped the tarp on the porch floor. The next day or two, he casually mentioned we needed to get the tarp off the ground, it was a snake invitation. How true!! So a couple days later, I was headed to grab an empty feeder and I thought I really need to get that tarp off the ground so I bent over and picked it up. I got it about 2 feet off the ground and saw a snake coiled up under it. YIKES!! With my lightening quick observation skills, I knew (or was 98% sure), it was not poisonous. I grabbed a something that was there that had a long handle and proceeded to knock the tarp out into the yard. Ummm no snake... which way did he go.. which way did he go???? So I finally found the little sucker at the foot of my clematis. So I rannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn around the house and grabbed the hoe and rannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn back around to the back of the house. No snake. Well heck where had the little sucker gone. I looked and looked finally found him up in the corner. He was black, about an inch in diameter and three feet or there abouts. Well my "tree hugger self" sitting on one shoulder whispered in my ear, "you know, he's not poisonous, he probably was just looking for some place out of the sun, why don't you just throw him back out into the woods and let him go his merry way?" So I thought, Ok I can try that. So with my trusty hoe, I tried to pull the little sucker out of the corner. Well the idiot instead of going out towards the yard, turns around and starts back up on the porch where I'm standing. Talking about doing a little dance!!! I was dancing and yelling at him, "NO NOT THIS WAY!!!!", so he took the hint and started back into the flower bed. Heartrate back below 100 and I'm ready to proceed to step 2. He gets up in another corner and I try and get him out with my hoe. I try pulling him with the hoe part and lifting him with the handle part to no avail. He wasn't having any part of it. He goes back towards the porch and gets in the corner where the porch meets the house. I try and lift him again with the handle, no luck. While I'm watching this snake, he raises his head like he's going to go back on the porch, but he STARTS TO DISAPPEAR INSIDE MY HOUSE. He's found a hole/crack/crevice large enough for him to slip thru. NOW I'm REALLY dancing, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm trying to catch him with the hoe with no luck. So I reach down and grab the snake, (I know, I can't believe I did it either) and start pulling. Well he doesn't want to come out!!!! He's a strong little sucker. The siding on our house is that hardiplank siding, which is cement made to look like wood. Well heck I was afraid I was going to break the siding to get that little shit out!!! Finally, the head pops out and I sling him out in the yard. On my other shoulder is my little self that thinks the only good snake is a dead snake yelling kill the sucker, kill the sucker, so the tree hugger self gets knocked off and I hoed that little monster into postage stamps!!! How dare he try to get into my house!!! I think by the time I got in the house, my heartrate was well over 100 and my blood pressure was probably about stroke level!!! Wow what an afternoon!!!!

Branching out? Or maybe I"ve just lost my mind completely

I have two friends who are very talented artists, Lin and Penny, they're blogs are listed to the left. Penny has been doing these great drawings lately of children with the big eyes. Well, she's also got some collages she's done. So I was thinking, I have all these beautiful grandchildren! Sooooooooooooooooooo I thought I'd try a collage with two of them. It's not done and it's got lots of problems!! But it's kinda fun. Especially, since I'm not pressuring myself to be perfect. I'm not going to use it for anything, I'm just playing. Sometimes, just playing is a lot of fun. Another reason I started this, is it's been too dang cold to torch, and I'm not in jewelry mode! lol

The background got muddy, and it's not done, but this one is the learning experience! The dark haired girl has a lot of paper seams in her face which was a mistake, so I know to be more careful next time.

This was my first face, drawn from a template. LOL Even with a template, she's pretty bad.

Now this one was done freehand and I thought her face came out pretty good. I did another one and the face was ok but I got carried away with the paint so she looks like a country western singer from the 60's with the big hair!!! For some reason I can't get that picture to load.

This and That and More

The necklace has been sent and received, yay me for actually following thru on something!!!

Happy Birthday Linda! Now the beauty of internet friendships is I will never know if Linda hates it, cause even though she said she liked it, how will I ever know if she wears it!!! lol

The heart was cut out of 24 ga sterling silver, then filed, stamped, patinaed and put on a chain. I was pleased with the results and hope Linda really likes it!!

Ok let's talk about high school baseball. When did it become so bloodthirsty? When did the coaches become so obnoxious? and WHEN DID GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP FALL BY THE WAYSIDE???????????????

Friday night as I sat freezing my butt off I was truly disappointed at what I saw as poor sportsman like conduct and it was led by the opposing teams coaches. Our temperature which had been so pleasant, dropped on Friday to a blustery (and I mean the wind was brutal!!) 30 degrees with a windchill in the teens. I personally had on an undershirt, two long john shirts, a t shirt, long john bottoms, jeans, insulated coveralls, a knit cap and a hooded sweatshirt and I was still cold!!!!!!!!!!! OH AND I was sitting on the south side of the dugout, a little bit out of the wind. Several of the other local teams cancelled due to the weather. It dawned on me after the game, if our coach had suggested postponing the game, these opposing coaches would have jumped at it on the grounds we forfeited the game and so the game was played. Those boys played out in that weather in their uniforms and sweatshirts. The opposing team had set up their dugout with plywood boards to help cut the wind AND had a heater set up, so they could thaw out, no such accommodations were made for our team. I know it certainly wasn't a requirement, but it would have been nice. We lost a game we should have won, but this isn't about being a sore loser, really it isn't. I realized at the game, I'd seen this team play several times before and the coaches were the same. I just don't know why, they are allowed to be loud, obnoxious, argumentative to the referees and instill poor sportsmanship in their team. Come on guys this is 1A(small schools) baseball, we're not talking professional, college or even 5A(large schools)!! Oh well let it go I guess, but it sure was disappointing.

Ok have to get my flight of ideas under control so I can decide what to do today. Silver? Jewelry? Beads? or work on my little collage I'm trying to make?? Decisions decisions!!!

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder AKA Can't remember squat!!

I've self diagnosed myself with AADD. I'm sure I have it, either that or dementia is setting in!!
I go up to clean my messy craft area (I think it's #3) and I'm cleaning away and ooh ooh templates for scrapbooking. I've been wanting to make a necklace for a friend's birthday. She's an internet friend, I've never met her in person, or talked to her on the phone but I know she's a wonderful person. She's a gifted musician and singer, so I've been told. This lovely very Italian lady was born on St Patrick's Day which I think is so funny!!! Anyway, I always remember her birthday but I don't always send her the gift I had wanted, or the card that made me think of her so I usually end up doing nothing. I'm so bad!! So this year I wanted to make her a silver pendant. I've been thinking and thinking about how I was going to go about it. I know exactly what I'm going to stamp on the pendant etc. probably hang it on a simple chain, but I haven't completed that thought yet. Anyway in the midst of cleaning I come across this template and think.... AHA!!! A heart!!! I can make the pendant heart shaped!!! So before I know it the cleaning is long forgotten, and I've got my saw, silver, files and snips out cutting a piece of silver into a heart. Well I can't get too energetic, as I'm upstairs and my son's room is up there. And he was asleep, so I was impatiently waiting for him to get up. He's a teenager, they don't get up before noon!!! So I go down stairs, see it's almost lunch time, fix lunch and think ooh, it's Saturday.

Well I did a drawing on a yahoo group I'm in. I had some flower lampwork beads I made and had a drawing to give them away. Five beads to go to five people. So I get on the computer to get the rest of the names, and pick the winners. My Mom picked the five names and I was just fixing to send the announcement to the list. I remembered some of the people wanted to know about a website and mine is soooooo outdated, so I thought I'd update my blog to include my etsy shop which has some lampwork beads on chains for sale (oh yeah I bored yall with that a while back!!!).

So now instead of sending the drawing results, here I sit typing on my blog!!! LOL
Now you see why I think I have AADD(if that's even the way they abbreviate it!!).
So blah blah blah blah, aren't you sorry you came to my blog????? LOL

Dare I say it? Spring is here??

After freezing cold last week, a fire in the fireplace, Weds-Friday, it looks like spring may finally be here. I've got some flowers blooming and I noticed yesterday when I had to go to the accountants office (yeehaw) wisteria and all kinds of springy stuff going on!!!

The only thing, I'm impatiently awaiting the hummingbirds. They're my favorites of spring. I've got a couple feeders up and now the waiting begins. I think they're a little late this year, must be the crazy weather, cause it seems they're usually here by now. I've got a video from April 1st one year where there were at least a hundred hummers swarming around the feeder and it was snowing like crazy!!! If I knew how to attach a video, I'd show you!!! lol

I've got so much things on my to-do list I'm stressed out. My copper bracelet is brown and it only gets that way when I'm stressed!! lol I tried to explain that to my husband this morning and his remark was he had a lot of pennies on his chest of drawers and they were brown, did I think they were stressed??? He's such a brat sometimes!!!!

I'm still struggling with boro in my lampwork endeavors, but I did get a cool tutorial on making little face/head beads. Here's my first attempt and while she's got some crooked parts I think she turned out pretty cute. I call her Wanda.

I'd kinda like to make a body for her and maybe make her into an artdoll, but I'm going to have to find out how!!!

Well got company coming today, a possible candidate to provide respite care for my daughter, so dh and I can go to my son's baseball games. I guess I better clean some, so she won't be scared away by the mess. I sure hope she likes dogs!!!!!