Breads and Milk

I'm going to have to take back what I said on my previous post about bringing on the storm. I'd like to send it back and send it back with all of the destruction it brought when it came to town. And to the little old lady at Wal-Mart warning me to get my "breads and milk" before this blew in, I apologize for laughing about you with the people I work with. You were right.

This wasn't the ice on the roads type storm that I was expecting. It was so much worse. The storm moved in on Monday evening with some light freezing rain. By 5AM on Tuesday, we were without power. Okay - this won't be so bad. The electric company said it would be back on by Wednesday - I could make it one day. It actually came back on just after lunch on Tuesday long enough to make some coffee (it was getting cold). However, after a loud, scary explosion somewhere on my mountain, the power was out again.

The storm grew uglier. Tuesday afternoon was spent huddled under a blanket on the couch listening to the constant sound of breaking tree branches. The loud pops were followed by the deafening crashes as huge branches and top halves of trees came falling to the earth, to my house, on top of my neighbor's houses, in my yard, and almost on my car (I was sneaky and moved my car before it was too late). For about 5 hours it was nonstop snapping and popping until it started to slow down. It was dark by this point, so I wasn't able to see the destruction until Wednesday morning.

We spent Tuesday night in a dark house, playing Trivial Pursuit, cooking soup (thankfully my house has a gas stove) and letting the temp get very close to freezing in our living room.

Wednesday morning was scary. The entire area looked as though a frozen tornado ripped through the area. There was no way we were getting the cars off of our street - thankfully we had a friend who parked his Jeep down the street and could get out. We drove around that day, taking pictures, enjoying the heater in the car, and eating in a heated fast food place.

Wednesday evening was like Tuesday - but much, much colder.

Here I find myself at Thursday. I'm at a place that is warm and has internet and tonight we're all staying at a friend's house who has power (warm beds are always a good thing). Who knows when my house will have power again - this weekend? Next week? Dunno.

Send me good thoughts - this is surreal, scary, sad, and oddly enough, beautiful. Nature can really do some amazing things - even if they aren't ideal.

Possible Closures Reported

It seems as though we have some doomsday type weather heading our way here in NW Arkansas (and part of Oklahoma and Missouri). 1-2" of ice, power outages, yadda yadda yadda. The clip above doesn't sound doomsdayish - but people have been out of their freakin' minds while shopping for supplies and the news hasn't exactly helped the situation at all.

Now, now, I know what you northerners are saying "anytime it just hints of cold weather, people down south do the freak out dance". Let me tell you, 1-2" of ice isn't the same as snow or cold weather. We're talking ice rink conditions out there people. I live in a very hilly place and the last thing I want to do is test the traction on my very old and slightly balding tires while heading west on North street (if you are from around here, then you know which street I'm referring to).

If the power does go out then I'll feel badly for those with electric stoves and no blankets - but I've got a gas stove, plenty of cans of soup, and blankets enough for the entire block.

Bring it on.

Honesty Scraps

So Melodie, over at For Once In My Life, decided she loved me so much that she would tag me to do something that actually requires me to sit and think.

Thanks Mel.

I am supposed to come up with 10 things you might not know about me. So, here goes nothing..

1. I dread, DREAD, going to Little Rock for my mom's appointments with her nuero surgeon because I might run into the one person that I could TOTALLY do without seeing for the rest of my life. Yeah, that day in January of 2004 pissed me off that much.

2. I did drama in Jr. High and part of HS and have many trophies to show for it. I was good at picking duet partners and I was known to tell you "no" if you wanted me to be in a scene with you but I thought you were not "up to par". Yeah, I was super nice about it too.

3. I use to play Nerf Wars in the Fine Arts complex at UT Almost (Arlington) until the sun came up (or until campus police found us) with Kappa Kappa Psi. We'd all bring nerf guns and hunt each other down. The ladies of Tau Beta Sigma decided I was on their black list for hanging out with the guys ('cause I was cool enough to and they weren't perhaps?) and things fell into place for me to abandon ship at UT Almost and head back to UT Austin (thank God for Nerf Wars)

4. My one music obsession is Elton John. I cannot get enough of him and secretly with I had been a groupie of his in the early 70s even though he didn't go for my... ahem... type. He was married to a girl once, it could have been me!

5. Okay, I lied just now, I have 2 music obsessions. The 2nd being Barenaked Ladies and more specifically - Steven Page. Yes, I would marry him too... especially now that he's unmarried. Who cares if he was busted for coke in upstate NY - I'm sure he learned his lesson and such.

6. The only thing that scares me when I'm home alone is myself. I can be perfectly fine and then I create these outrageous scenarios involving vicious ghosts and intruders and I'm upstairs and hiding under my blankets in no time. I'm not sure why I do that to myself. I just like to claim it's my amazing, overactive imagination and you all should be so lucky.

7. I dislike Ashlee Simpson with every bone in my body. And no, NWArkansas does not have a "Rock Doc" - phsaw!

8. The only reason I own a bassoon is because Yo Yo Ma himself told me to buy one - "You create your own destiny" he told me - yes me. That meant go spend a lot of money on some wood so you can be happy in life... so I did (it was the only sensible thing to do).

9. If I was single I'd move to San Francisco or Chicago. I wouldn't even think twice about it - I'd find a job and move... or save up and move and then find a job. Some people dwell on moving to big, exciting places, not me, I'd just go. However, I'm in a relationship that I want to keep and the sweet boy doesn't want to move to San Francisco - the jury is still out on Chicago.

10. I'm a bit high stress and cause myself many problems because of it. I've always been that way and I'm not sure why. If I'm stressed, I get hives, if I'm stressed, I get sick, I have somehow given myself what I think is an ulcer because of the stress, and I continue to take on more and more projects at home and at work. Don't tell me to take it easy, that won't work because then I'll be bored and that will stress me out. Some people just live with it and thrive on it, maybe I'm one of those people. It keeps me organized at least.

Well - there you have it - I think I'll tag Girlchild, Beehive, and Dancing Mooney - enjoy :)

Theatrical and such

During a recent trip to Little Rock, I ran across some vintage/antique (not sure which) brass theater seat numbers. At first I didn't realize what they were, I just knew they were going to be made into jewelry so I bought what they had. It didn't dawn on me what they were until I was taking a seat for a show at work and looked down as I entered the aisle and went "AHAH!". Funny how things like that work - I see these elements in the theater weekly, but didn't really recognize it at first.

I've been holding on to them since then. I wasn't sure what I wanted to use them for. Well, I knew they would turn into necklaces, but I wasn't sure what the look would be. After playing around with them for weeks, I finally settled on a simple, elegant, and lovely design. It's vintage inspired in colors but perfect to wear nowadays to a theater performance, dinner, or just to work.

Speaking of Little Rock, I'm heading back down there tomorrow with my mom and my sister for my mom's follow up appointment with her surgeon. I'm not sure we'll find out much on this trip - they will do a new MRI and let us know where we stand at this point, but I think it will be the next round of MRIs that will tell us the stuff we need to know to move forward with cancer treatment. Have I mentioned lately that brain cancer sucks? I feel like we're just waiting around for someone to tell us something and we can't actively go find that something ourselves.

In other news - we have a new president and I can quit pretending I was from Canada. President Obama's speech was so motivating and really has me looking forward to our future. I'm holding out hope for a speedy recovery from the 8 years of hell that my country has gone through.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Something New

I broke out of the box today and made this:It's a wall hanging and I'm not sure if it is done yet... I'll look at it again tomorrow and think on it then.

I knew I wanted to do a patchwork style background. I used fabrics to represent the ground, green grass, the sky, etc. I then attached an embroidery hoop to give it some "depth". I knew I wanted a tree and bird theme but did not want to embroider the tree so I found a stick that looked pretty tree like to me, and attached it with some thread. I embroidered the spring leaves and the blue birds and viola - a wall hanging inspired by nature.

Singer and Craft Magazine are hosting a contest and if I still like this tomorrow, it will probably be my entry. It was fun to do something different for a change - perhaps I do this more often.

Hey kids... what does the Storque bring?

It brings my bracelet for all of Etsy to see... or all who read the Storque.

Go see the article here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/shop-makeover-series-feature-friendly-photos-3222/

I'm really excited that they chose my before and after images and am doing a happy wiggle in my chair.

For those who have followed my shop from the beginning, you know that I've gone through a few picture schemes. The first ones were so bad that I get embarrassed just by looking at them in Flickr. But I leave them there, they are part of my seller evolution. I went through a couple of other styles before landing with the white, sunny background that I have now for most of my items.

I've been playing around with lighting and props lately on some of my new designs. Perhaps another change is in the future for my shop pictures?

At Mom's

If you read my last post then you know that I spent this past weekend out at my mom's. She lives on the old family farm which is nestled in the woods, over looking Beaver Lake. It's very quiet out there. You can spend minute upon minute sitting out side listening to the birds, to the wind in the trees, and to nothing, all at the same time. You can gaze at the bald eagles that make their way down here this time of year, and dream lazily of hikes off through the trees. It's a wonderful place, it always has been.

I did help my mom out with some small projects, but mostly I reset myself. I was able to spend time with my mom, talk with her, laugh with her and gossip with her. A few months ago, those were things that I honestly didn't think I'd be doing right now. It's amazing what our family has been given with the progress my mom is making and I needed, really needed this past weekend with her.

Nothing profound was discussed, nothing amazing discovered, we just sat, talked, I knit, I did some cooking, we watched tv, read magazines and just spent the weekend on the farm.

I spent evenings in awe of how bright the moon was this weekend and spent nights sleeping under the comforting quilt in the pictures here in this post. It was vacation just 15 minutes from home.

I wouldn't have traded this past weekend for anything in the world... except for my mom to completely beat this cancer.

What's that doing in my living room?

I'm not sure things get done around the house when I'm at work during the day. This Lego Millennium Falcon keeps growing and the dishes keep piling up! Ah well, I suppose there are worse things.

By the way, that isn't my Lego set, it's the Sweet Boy's. He's got a thing for Legos... and Star Wars... and Lego sets that take up the entire coffee table.

I don't know about the rest of you, but this week has flown by for me. I'm not complaining one bit about that. Tomorrow is Friday and then I'm faced with the weekend, again. Thankfully. I'm going to pack up some knitting projects to take over to my mom's, some books, and my laptop and sit and be lazy. Hopefully she won't have too many projects for me to do, although, I'm sure there will be a few. While she is doing so much better than she was in October (when the surgery to remove most of her brain tumor was) she still needs help doing some things. Vacuuming isn't easy when you walk with a walker/cane, laundry needs doing, dusting, taking out the trash, and other such things. So, I'll help a bit, but then I'll tell her to relax and we'll sit and chill.

Famous last words? Perhaps. I'll report back next week.

Boo boos

While making some earrings last night, I managed to slice open my finger (no, not with jewelry tools, I'm very safe with those, but with the container I keep my itty bitty seed beads in). I always tend to hurt myself in the worst possible place. It's on the pointer finger on the side facing the thumb. It's where needles lie when I'm knitting, where yarn and wire wrap around when I'm knitting, where my pliers rest when I'm wire wrapping (I hold them weird), it's just in a really bad spot. I've injured my hand in the exact same spot a couple of summers ago (it really looked like a murder scene on my back porch when that happened - a terra cotta pot and I did not get along) so it only hurts worse now that I've done it again.

All that to say that I probably won't be creating much for a few days. In fact, I'm spending many evenings out at my mom's (she's staying on her own all night and most of the day now - yay) and will spend the weekend out there just to get away, so other than some spinning and reading, I don't think I'll be doing a single, productive thing. Seeing as how my vacation from work kind of went to crap, I'm looking forward to my escape to my mom's farm for a couple of days.

I'm actually kind of bummed about my creating. I was so thrilled with my new designs and I was just sure they would fly out of my shop, but they haven't. In fact, I've sold an old design since listing the new ones, but the new ones just sit. I know how cute they are, so I'll hold out hope. It hasn't been that long anyways. I just had high expectations!

Well, my finger is screaming at me to stop moving it so I'm going to head up to do some reading and go to bed.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what it is I'm reading, it's The Gentle Art of Domesticity. It's fabulous.

On A Roll

Well, it seems that the new year has brought many new things to my Etsy shops. I've listed even more today and plan on listing a few more items tonight. I'm hoping this creative streak lasts once work begins again on Monday. With the elimination of having to working special events weekly, I'll hopefully have more energy to make things at night and time to go home for lunch to photograph items (when the sun is at the perfect spot in my yard for pictures).

Over in the AREtsy blog, I wrote about New Year Resolutions for your shop/business. I talked briefly about some of mine, but I'll list them below:
1. Buy higher end supplies in order to raise the profit level on my jewelry
2. Create an inventory of supplies (including shipping) to avoid running out of my favorite beads or envelopes when I need them the most.
3. List new items each week (I'm not going to be any loftier than that)
4. Showcase my yarn or jewelry in at least one local shop and one not local shop
5. Recreate the look of my blog
6. Open up a business bank account

Yes, this should do it. All good resolutions, all reachable and all dependent on me.

I have something other than Etsy to talk about today. Did you know that most of the seed companies have sent out their spring/summer catalogs? Well, they have. I spent almost 3 entire evenings last week browsing through them, writing down lists of herbs I want, writing down lists of veggies I want and then throwing that list away as I remembered I don't have great sun in this yard, and writing down lists of flowers I want. I do this each year. I should know better and just stick to the standards. Flowers I'll never start from seed (except marigolds) - they are too easy to buy at the local nursery already blooming and ready to go. Herbs are something I do not need 20 of. I should stick to my favorites. No one needs 12 varieties of basil in their yard, but yet, 12 varieties some how end up in the ground, in pots, in seed packets... I have a problem.

It doesn't help that it was unseasonably warm today. Nevermind that the warmth is indication of a cold front moving it's way in, it certainly feels like seed planting weather. I'll revisit my lists and order soon. I'll be sure to blog about the purchases very soon.

With The New Year...

Come new items in my shop. Yes, I've got new yarn listed over at Woolyhands and new designs listed over at Idyllhands. I'm very excited about the new earrings and hope all of you are too!