SSDD?? Not Today!

No, these are not mine, but they show you what some of mine will look like. These are Cuckoo Marans chicks. They are a 200 year old breed from France, and they lay eggs that have chocolate brown shells. The eggs are also fairly large and are supposed to taste wonderful.

This is what the Rhode Island Red chicks will look like. They will be our big producers starting around September. They'll lay nice, big, brown eggs. These and the Marans will be our big layers. I also want to get some of the "Easter egg" chickens, or Ameraucanas, which lay blue or green eggs! That's the shell color, mind you. I'm not raising any Dr. Seuss chickens. And, let me tell you, T-man can't wait. The man loves his eggs! And look at these little egg cups and salt and pepper shakers I found at My Pet Chicken (yes, really). If you have quiche recipes, please start sending them! No mushrooms, no shellfish please. Everything else is A-OK!

Margot Potter (The Impatient Beader) has a new vlog about the creative process! I've missed her vlogs, and I'm so glad she got the camera working again. Go watch (it's short) and remember, the journey's the thing!

I did finish the first rendition of the newest pattern last night. I started the second one when I was way too tired, and had to pull it all out. Let's just say that by next week, I'll be itching to do something other than peyote stitch for a while! Have a wonderful weekend, beadlings!

My Latest Project

Yes, there it is. Isn't it lovely? sigh I'm chugging along last night, thinking that this baby was almost done. Then I notice that waaaaaaay back there, I've totally skipped a bead. See it? WAAAAAAAAAYYYY back there. Not only that, but I start looking at the length of this thing (it's supposed to be a business card case) and it's a bit short. I take it off the support tube and it's A LOT TIGHT! Oh my stars, have I been stressing??? And to top it all off I can barely squeeze one card into it. CRIKEY! So, I get the computer out to redesign, then I get the scissors out to unbead. The only saving grace was being able to watch my friend Judy's husband Frank on Trading Spaces. I actually met Judy many, many years ago at a Houston Bead Society bead bazaar. I get to see them now every year, when I got to Houston in November. Frank is a hoot! And I love to watch people's faces when they realize he is someone they've seen on TV. It is a gas!

And speaking of celebrities, I was surfing in the wee small hours of the morning (new meds induced insomnia!), and who should I happen upon but the delightful Margot Potter doing her stint on QVC. Even at 2:00 a.m. the girl looks gorgeous, and the jewelry is to die for!

Okay, you must go check this out. These are polymer clay by Jill Newman, also known as Tatercat. I once bid on one of her pieces on Just Beads. It was a three-dimensional fox head, with the ears connected by links. It was fanfreakintastic. I had to stop when the bidding went over $90. Damn, her stuff is out of this world!

Here is the ever elusive Callie. Callie was dumped out here when she was about 10 weeks old. We believe she was mistreated in a house with small children. She has finally stopped cringing when you lift you hand and she tolerates being in the same room with A. I can pet her, but it is very infrequent. She has a new pastime. She meows until I come throw a big, wooden bead for her. She would be content to do this all day, and doesn't understand the sentence "I need to work now, cat!" She is one of the very few cats I have that isn't gray or black. Isn't she pretty?

I'm leaving now, to start the card case AGAIN. I've made sure this time that it is long enough and wide enough. But first, I'll need to find something for the support tube since I increased the diameter. So, off I go on a scavenger hunt. See you tomorrow, bead friends, same bead time, same bead channel! (Holy Trademark and Copyright Infringement, Batman! Can she do that?)

Hellooooooo!

Wow, I feel like I've been gone for ages. It must be blog withdrawal or something. I spent a lovely morning with the Beadalicious Beading Babes in South Austin. Much hilarity and jollility was had by all. These little Friday get-togethers have become more important since I realized at the bead retreat just how much of a hermit I have become!

So, I guess you want details of the Austin Stitchers' exhibit and show, huh? Just promise to read my details first, and then go read Margot Potter's details about her trip to Tucson for the shows there. I'm so jealous! I've wanted to go for years, and her stories will make mine seem piddly, but I digress.

Okie dokie, here we go. The very first thing I did was to herniate a disc in my lower back with the very first thing I picked up to load into the car. I have a very light-weight table that I use, and as I walked out the front door with it, the wind caught it. But I didn't let go, oh no, no, no! And then I stumbled, and that was all she wrote. So I called T-man. "Can you come help me load the car?" No, he was the only person in the office at that time. "Can you meet me over there?" Sure. Well, I tried to pick up a box and carry it to the car. Oh, duh! Yeah, yeah, I know. Now it's time for A to be home from school (it's getting later and later at this point), and as she comes in I tell her how she's going to load the car for me and then help Dad set up my booth. So, off we go, only to get stuck in traffic in between two wrecks, and what should have been a 30 minute drive has taken two hours. We got there with just enough time to set up before the deadline. Everything else that weekend was a piece of cake. There was lots of schmoozing, lots of selling, lots of ooohs and aaaaahs, Donna won a ribbon with my design so people have requested more kits, I got to see some old friends and made a couple of new friends, I got some nifty new tools, I had the most wonderful chocolate cake I've ever eaten, and what was really three days of hard work was very enjoyable. There were some amazing pieces in the exhibit, as always, and I really regret not having my camera there.

Can I tell you how much I enjoyed doing a trunk show? Oh my stars, it was such a blast to have all those other designs in the booth! And extremely low stress to boot! I loved it. I want to do it again. I've discussed it with my distributor and we will probably do the same thing come May, so stay tuned! I sold out of several kits, both mine and hers, and I sold out of a few patterns. We definitely came home a little lighter. By the way, this was my 10-year anniversary with the Austin Stitchery Guild, so it was even more special to do this particular show. They are still some of my favorite people when it comes to beady things.

Some of you who were there noticed that I did this show solo, which I have never done before. Well, I usually get my dear Joyce to help me, but since she has become Regional Director for the South Central Region of the Embroiders' Guild of America, she hasn't had a lot of spare time. (I wanted to make sure I got the entire title in there, Your Majesty!) I did get a chance to give her a little something, which is pictured below. The pattern was adapted from one of Suzanne Cooper's patterns, called India. When I saw the pattern, it just seemed to have Joyce stamped all over it. The one thing I neglected to do was take my camera so I could get a picture of Joyce wearing her new goodies. Damn. Joyce does a lot to promote me and my little venture. I can never properly repay for the things she does and I wanted to do something special for her.

So, there it is. That's about all that happened. I had a good time, as always. And I'm ready to do it again, after a few days of rest. I'll be back Monday morning, bright and early. Have a great weekend, and bead your little hearts out!

Phew!

Okay beadlings, the web site is pretty much done. I've got one page that needs to be finished, but you can see the results here. Can I just state right here and right now that I really, really don't like Microsoft Front Page? Yuck. Why, back in the day when I first learned about making web pages, we had to type raw code with our little fingers! We didn't have no stinkin' shortcuts! You kids nowadays are spoiled rotten. Anyway . . .

For those of you who dream of supporting yourself solely with your art/jewelry/crafts, Margot Potter has some sage advice today. And wouldn't all you beaders love to have been this person?

I think I'll tackle this place next! Man, reinventing yourself is time consuming! Hah! But today, I've other things I must do. First off, I need a fire because it's freakishly cold outside. Then I've got orders and patterns to ship off. It's too gray to take photos today (as much as I would like to get that going). So, I'm off. Have a great weekend.

Yuck, Oh Yuck, and Yuck

Okay, I've got an appointment with the medicine man today. I'm starting to forget what it feels like to be human. I truly hope that Clara's comment from yesterday holds no weight with what's going on inside of me. Not the flu, not the flu, not the flu, NOT THE FLU!!! I have many important things to do, interesting places to go, wonderful people with whom to schmooze!

Margot has started doing video blogs, and I just love them. T-man made the comment last week "I bet you want to start doing that. You would just love it." For a brief second, I truly considered it, but then my personal reality hit me upside the back of my head. Those of you who know me well are familiar with my aversion to having my image captured by the strange shiny thing simply because I don't believe that I am photogenic. Plus (oh and I mean that soooo literally) since I am a "full figured" gal, I'm not in any hurry to see myself in a video, taking up the entire shot, on the world wide web. But go watch Margot -- she is very comfortable behind the camera, her topics apply to artists across the board, and by golly, she's cute and the vlog is just plain fun!

So This is Christmas

Okay, I've finally got a bit of Christmas spirit. Pam wanted to know if I had gotten it from a bottle. *snicker* Not yet, but I am spending Christmas Eve where I am not very wanted and don't really want to be, so it may well come from a bottle that afternoon and into that night. I'll try to be good, but I'm not promising anything. Oh, the things we do for love. Pass the spiked nog, please. My recipe for egg nog calls for egg nog (duh), cinnamon, Cool Whip (or comparable whipped topping) and Bicardi black or gold label rum. Put everything in the glass/punch bowl to taste. Yum!!! But not yet -- we'll have the first cups Sunday night, then Monday night, then Tuesday night. And then we'll have it again New Year's morning, but probably without the rum.

Hey, guess what? I slept last night. I realize it was from sheer exhaustion, but I did sleep. T-man had to leave at 2:30 this morning to be in Plano by 7:00. For you non-Texans, that's driving from just south of Austin up to just north of Dallas. And he got there just before 7:00 as planned. I vaguely remember him leaving. He should be home about the same time as A. I would have gone with him, but I had already promised to eat lunch with A at school. She was honored for her scholastic performance this past six weeks. She was very happy that I was there. She's going to be in junior high next year. Hard to believe, isn't it? (That was directed to all the adopted aunties in her life!)

We're putting the tree up tonight, but no one knows that yet. Tomorrow night, we want to take A to look at lights she hasn't seen since she was just a year old --- 37^th Street in Austin and the Trail of Lights at Zilker Park. We used to walk to the Trail of Lights from our old house in Austin when N was in grade school and A was just a sprout. It should be fun.

I have my first big beady income to-do for 2008 already planned. See? Making plans for changes is already working. So, first there was getting up earlier. The next change on the list is to become more active and work with my army of doctors to get all this excess weight off me one way or another. I'm stopping short of liposuction, but if I thought it would work without being in horrendous pain and the insurance company would pay for it, I'd do it. My third 2008 lifestyle change will be listed tomorrow morning (and maybe a couple more). Remember -- changes, not resolutions! There's a rumor that if you do something for 90 days it becomes part of your lifestyle. Three months doesn't seem that long in the great scheme of things, and that's how I have to look at it -- it's not that long in the great scheme of things and I'll be a better, healthier, happier person for it.

Have I mentioned that I have some of the best friends a person could ask for? The other High Priestesses of the Temple of the Goddess of Beading have arranged for me to attend the 2008 Texas Bead Retreat. This will be the very first time I've been able to go. This is a picture of us taken this past April. By the way, those tumblers are full of Cosmos. Never again, never again, never again. My Bead Angels are flexing their fingers, ready for more work regarding that first beady income to-do. I'll get a picture of them next time we are all together. I'm already planning our first pot-luck bead class for 2008, which T-man will be teaching. And Pam and I have some things we'll be working on very soon.

Go check out Art Bead Scene's 12 Days of Beading. It's great, with quite a few links for wonderfully beady things. Don't forget Suzanne Cooper's Countdown to Christmas. And tomorrow will be Margot Potter's last installment of Ornament Thursday, with lots of eye candy.

Tomorrow is cookie baking day. Just imagine my children when they get home, greeted by the smell of freshly baked cookies (mmmmmm) and the sight of mom covered in flour and drinking wine straight from the bottle (Oh MOM!). Did you know that Costco sells this giant box of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix? It makes 18 dozen cookies, I kid you not. Sorry, no homemade cookies here, except for the Tollhouse cookies. I leave all that to my youngest sister who proudly shows off her baking skills every Christmas. I will take my homemade lemon curd pie to Mom's, though. So tune in tomorrow beadlings (and others) for more items for change, maybe a picture of the tree, and other various and sundry STUFF that makes my world go round!