Sure Happy It's Thursday

Do the acronym and that is exactly my feeling right now! Where did my week go?

Okay, not much news here. Today is an errand day but tomorrow I get to do lunch with my friend Joyce. I haven't seen much of Joyce these past two years as she has been Regional Director for the South Central Region of the Embroiders' Guild. I am taking her the sample for the piece I'll be teaching at next year's seminar in Dallas:



This weekend I'll be packing for my road trip with Carol to the Bead and Button show. Yes, we are driving. It would cost an arm and a leg and a kidney for Carol to ship all that glass, so we are hauling it up there ourselves. Actually, I love road trips. There is always so much to see along the way. And yes, I plan to take a camera.

So I'm off to get things rolling. More tomorrow. Bead on!

More On The Retreat

Here we are all. It's the last day of the retreat, hence the lack of beads and beadwork on the table and some empty tables in the background. The tables were all full for the weekend. Right to left is me, GG, Juls and Cat. Yuck. I hate pictures of myself. Moving on . .

There was the little bead war. Juls was working on a piece in blues and greens. I was working on a piece in reds. Juls would throw a reject bead, I would throw a reject bead. On Saturday night, everyone cuts loose, if you know what I mean. Well, Juls got up from the table and I sprinkled A PINCH of red beads in her pile. A while later, I got up to go to bed. When I came down the next morning, this is what I found:Do you see all the green and blue beads? I filled a little baggie with them. What started as a tiny skirmish quickly escalated to all out war!!

Speaking of little baggies, I was so tired Sunday morning. I did not sleep Saturday night. Cat and GG got back to room after 2:00 and I was still wide awake. Even after all the lights went out, I tossed and turned. The next morning, my half of the bed had no bottom sheet on it. There was a bunched up, knotted mess of what was my half of said bottom sheet. This was the reason I slept for 12 hours Sunday. I was so tired. I really thought the dark splotches under my eyes were make up that didn't get cleansed away. I was wrong:
I can't believe how the camera emphasized the bags under my eyes. Maybe I should start taking tea bags and cucumbers with me.

Today, I'm working on revamping the web site. I'm going to go ahead and put some dates in there for upcoming events. I will be doing the biennial show with the Austin Stichery Guild (ASG). Here's your first notice. I'll have some of my kits, and some kits from other wonderful designers, plus some bead packs in various palettes. I love doing that show. And in June, I'll be at the EGA South Central Region's seminar, with lots of goodies. This year they have a market day which is open to the public. I'll have many more new goodies then. But for now, I must type on something else for the rest of the day. My beady pal Jelcy sent this link, which she got from our pal Nancy. I seems that this Dutch department store was sold in June to a British investment firm. HEMA has stores all over Europe. This is the product page, but it's all in Dutch. You can't order anything, but just watch for a few minutes. Sound makes it better if you can have it. Later, beadlings!

Bead Musings

Bead musings are what this blog is supposed to be about, right? I suppose that every once in a while I should stick to the topic. Last night I found a really cool quote that I wanted to post today. Then T-man needed to work on the computer. Did I bookmark it? No. Did I write it down? No. Does my med-fuzzed brain remember it? Oh, hell no. And the short term memory lapse is really irritating, so I'll step back and punt.

While making my morning rounds yesterday, I stopped at Yellow Dog Beads where Pam had posted "I admire all those people who can officially 'blog' - just can't imagine the commitment it must take." For me, it has become fairly easy, especially with the kids gone during the day. I am here, by myself, with only the cats for company, and they don't care what I think or say. So, this is my outlet for conversation. It's great to have a one-sided conversation with no one arguing. I have discovered that I have gotten more visitors to my web site and my Etsy shop since I've started blogging, and that was the main purpose. It's become a very creative outlet. It's like bouncing ideas off of a big group, only no one ever disagrees with me! Oh, and never mind the fact that I am a frustrated novelist at heart. More on that later. I will admit that I had to force myself to sit down and type something the first week, but now it's a little easier. I'm still paranoid that no one reads this. If you scream in cyberspace can anyone hear you?

Then I surfed over to Kate's journal where she posted "Most people choose a life of art from a perspective of freedom, and the desire to have a life structure that isn't fraught with the playground politics of most offices. But get a Guild together, or some kind of power structure, and before you know it you have people who are meticulously recreating the very environment that most of us chose not to participate in in the first place." Okay, office politics were not the reason I did not reenter the workforce after A was born, but I certainly don't miss them. Later, I held offices in two different organizations, at the same time, and I wholeheartedly agree with what she says. T-man once told me if I ever ran for office in any club/society/guild again, he would divorce me! But I'm not sure I agree with her statement that a life of art entails freedom. There is still "WORK" to be done. It's not all fun and games, kids. In fact, very little of it is. Being a self-employed anything takes drive, commitment, organization, self-discipline and enormous motivation. It also entails being able to say "NO" firmly. I've been self-employed for ten years now, and I'm still working on all of those. I'm also still struggling with the frustration of dealing with people who believe that since you are at home, you're not doing anything important. By the way, I don't think that will ever go away.

But neither of these is the quote I seek. So let's talk about my muses, The Beads. As I told you yesterday, I am on an earring kick. I don't know why, it just seems to be the thing to do. I should be sending instructions, patterns and beads out to the angels, and I should be designing more projects for them to stitch. After all, February is just around the corner (I have a big to-do in February). And June is right behind February (I have the EGA Regional Seminar), and I need lots and lots of fabu kits, bead packs, instructions, etc.

But no, I have this need to churn out a bunch of dangly things right now. The first pair has already been grabbed up by N, although she will tell you differently -- her story is that I "offered" them to her. My story? I was holding them up for an opinion, only to be met with an open hand, beseeching me to bestow the pretties in it. I bought these beads specifically to put them on these oxidized head pins and ear wires. Then A wants to know if I can make her a smaller pair of dangly earrings. And she also wants the oxidized wires so they will look almost like the ones her big sister has. So, today is an earring day. More pictures tomorrow!

Beads and Friends

All the comments from Friday and this past weekend have been answered. If you don't ever read them, go through the posts and check them out. Just click on "comments" below, and feel free to leave one of your own.

I had so much fun yesterday! I love the ladies I bead with. Juls took lots of pictures, and as soon as I get them I'll put them up here and on the web site. I also love seeing the color combos everyone chooses. And this time they were gorgeous.

When we have our little "classes", we also do pot luck. Everyone brings a little something, and there is always a lot of fresh fruit and fresh veggies, which I absolutely love. N was munching on the broccoli last night. But this weekend Gaye brought venison sausage (thanks to her hubby the hunter). YUM! Pam brought homemade soup, and I've got to get the recipe. Again, YUM!. Juls brought pasta salad, which A took for lunch today. YUM! Cat made her tuna salad, which always reminds me of being at the lake. YUM! And it's all healthy and good for us, and we don't even realize it as we're scarfing it up!

The latest on the fire ant saga: The InTice works, just slowly. Now I am fascinated by the ants. To use the InTice, you put little dots about the size of a size 8 seed bead (how's that for relating?) every five to six inches. The ants are just drawn to it. But here's what they do. They drop whatever they are carrying, and go for the InTice. It's like a toddler carrying his little truck, but he sees a ball and the truck is suddenly forgotten. When the InTice is gone, we clean up the tiny piles of crumbs. And now when we open the microwave, instead of there being dozens of ants, there are only three or four. If you tap on the wall of the microwave, they all run away. I kid you not. They run to each other, one ant touches all the others, and then they form a retreat line and out of the microwave they go. Cat says I'm weird. I am just fascinated by this little nature study in my kitchen.

I am organizing this week. If I don't do this, I won't be able to bead anymore as I cannot find everything I need right now. I am also photographing items for Etsy (see the link to the store, over there on the right). And I'm designing. We have a big EGA show in February. That's what this week is. Not very entertaining, is it? Keep in mind that when I organize there are always several "I forgot I had that" moments. Don't worry, the camera battery will remain charged, because we never know what I might find!

It's a Bead-iful Day!

What a wonderful class last night. I had one baby beader (someone who has never beaded before). She was impressive. When something didn't look right, she instinctively ripped it out and started again. I always enjoy my classes with the Austin Stitchers. Here is a picture of some of them, beading away.

Okay, you people are a tough crowd! Still no comments, even though they have been requested. I tell you what. I will come up with some sort of contest, with a prize. I'll post rules and pictures on Tuesday, because Monday I'm teaching the Austin Stitchers again. And I might not be posting over the weekend, as I have a lot of organizing to do in the bead room, plus I have to design a beadiful prize! See ya later, alligator!

Da do do do, blah blah blah blah . . .

With apologies to The Police, today's theme is blah. Not enough sleep makes for short posts (as the crowd begs for more insomnia). Today I must make kits for tomorrow night's class. I also need to finish beading a sample bracelet for Joyce to take to the Embroiders' Guild of America National Seminar in Chicago. My patterns are making their national debut! (shameless plug --- I'm getting better). Joyce is the Regional Director of the EGA's South Central Region. She is a very brave woman. It is a lot of work.

I didn't want to leave you empty handed, though. This is the trumpet vine that grows on my fence. Usually by this time of year there are twice as many blooms, with too much rain followed by extreme heat, it's a bit bare this year.



And this is Sweet Boy on the back deck. He will be year old September 30. He wants all your attention, so much so that he will trip you to get it. He is long and rangy and there is a lot of Siamese in him.

A demain mes amis! J'aurai plus à dire alors.

Day By Day . . . .

I woke up early today. Then I did some research. I wanted to find out why artists blog. Oddly enough, I didn't find much in the way of viable information. I did read an excerpt from We've Got Blog, which is a compilation of different articles discussing the phenomenon known as blogging. I found this gem thanks to Pam . I go to her a lot for advice because she doesn't pull any punches. She puts it out there, and if you like, good. And if you don't like it, good. But she does open my eyes to a lot of things. She sent me to several psychological and psychiatric studies on blogging and society. Dry, but interesting reading.

Today I was trying to find out why artists blog. Maybe I'm just trying to justify doing so myself. One sentence from the book excerpt did ring home: if you're not having a good time, why bother? That one I will take to heart. I did find some advice on why to blog as an artist (notice that this does not address why artists blog). Artists should blog to display their art, to discuss their process and to make announcements. Hmm, kind of sounds like me, me, ME. That doesn't sound like a good time for you or me. But I do like the idea that it gives someone an idea of who I am, what I do, and maybe why I do it. Of course, it might do the same for me! Is that existential?

When I first started discussing blogging with Pam, she mentioned the commitment involved in blogging. If you are going to blog, it needs to be regular and it needs to be fairly often, or you lose your audience, who quite honestly, are potential customers. Am I right? Don't you just hate checking Jane Doe's blog, only to find that she hasn't posted anything for two months? Or how about no postings in over a YEAR? Not even a little web site update!! Now, before you get all hot and bothered, relax. I'm not talking about you, I'm not talking about Pam (she's a busy, busy woman!), I'm not talking about anyone anybody knows. Just obscure little sites here and there that started out with potential only to drift away and die of neglect.

I've always had difficulty with self-promotion. I was brought up to believe that it was conceited and self-serving, something a nice, well-bred southern lady would not do. So it's very difficult for me to fill the blog with pics of my work, links of what I'm doing, where I'll be, etc. I will give it go, though. In that vein . . .

As a good artist who blogs, on my honor, I will try to blog something every day, to have fun blogging, to discuss things other than me, myself and I, and entertain you once in a while.



Oh yeah, I'm teaching Thursday. This is a zinnia, which is going to the Austin Chapter of the Embroiders' Guild of America. How's that for a shameless plug of me??