What More Could A Beader Want?

How about another chance to win Marcia's book? Hop on over to Lorelei's Blog and leave a comment. Maybe you'll win. Maybe I'll win. Someone is going to win!

AND if you pre-order Beverly's new book (also signed), you receive free beads and a chance to win beads and fibers worth over $400!

Don't forget about Art Bead Scene with their weekly giveaways and the monthly challenge. The newest challenge started this week. Take yourself on over and see the inspirational painting.

Everything I did bead-wise over the weekend must be redone. SIGH And I must go back to my orthopedic surgeon in two weeks to have a little something fixed. SIGH BUT the grandsons are growing like weeds and doing just fine, so something in my world is still okay!

Giveaway Wednesday And Other News!

So I changed the day of the week. Look, I'm lucky if I know what year it is right now! First, Cindy at Sweet Bead Studio has a little giveaway that is right up my alley. I've really been wanting to delve into more wire work and this is perfect for a beginner when it comes to just that.

Lorelei has the final Green Girl Studios giveaway -- hearts! Yum. Go leave your comment and good luck.

Can you name these beads? If you can, you might just win some. Go help Kelley out.

And one of my favorite places, Art Bead Scene, is having a book giveaway. We all know we need more beading books, and this one is from my pal Marcia DeCoster!

Babies: Natalie was supposed to be able to hold Marshall for the first time last night. I'm waiting for an update and new pictures. Max is in the intermediate care nursery now. His next step will be to actually nurse. He's rooting and trying to tell everyone he's ready.

Knee: I'm just waiting on my therapist for today's torture session.

Beady stuff: Little feelings of creativity are surfacing. I just need to be able to sit up without becoming utterly exhausted. Here's a hint, kids, when your doctor says to take it easy he really means it. When you end up overdoing, you kind of slide bassackwards. Know what I mean? (but I would do it again in a heartbeat!)

Giveaways And The Prize

WARNING: BIG-ASS LONG POST!
Everyone loves free stuff, right? Well I thought I would put together some beady, artsy, desirable items for you that are free or next to free. Some have little caveats, like posting them on your blog, web site, Twitter or Facebook pages but that's still a pretty darn good deal. I've won several beady things and am never disappointed by what I receive. Beaders and bead makers are very generous people. Some of these are beads, some are jewelry, some are books but all are covetable. Ready? Fasten your seat belts, because here we go:

Art Bead Scene Studio Saturdays offers a weekly giveaway. All you need to do is leave a comment and hope yours is the one randomly drawn. I have won beads from these ladies and let me tell you, they are giving away some beauties! Give it a whirl.

Craft Gossip also has regular giveaways of all sorts. You have to check on a regular basis to see what's up for grabs.

Beaded Zen Designs has Free Jewelry Wednesdays! There are rules, but they're pretty easy to follow. And Nicolette Tallmadge has monthly giveaways.

Sorta Flowering Designs has a monthly give-away. Simply sign up for their newsletter to be entered (click on "About"). Kristi at Coliebug Beads also has a monthly giveaway. She's a sweetheart!

Lorelei is having another giveaway. All you have to do is comment, then commit and follow through if you win. And Bead Happily Ever After has regular giveaways. Be sure to follow the rules!

My beady friend Carol Dean Sharpe is giving away a bracelet simply for coming up with a good name for her new series of work.

Oh wait, I'm having a giveaway, too! You still have time to win!! What will you win? Well, a whole bunch of beads! These are in no way a hint at what bead soup I chose:

You will receive two 30g tubes of size 11° seed bead mixes (some of the last of the Bumble Beads stash), some teeny rose quartz stars, some green pyramids, vintage pearlized glass, a pair of vintage Venitian glass swirly beads in a fab rosy pink, Czech iris beads and a pressed glass mix called Spring Fling. You also receive a little post-it note book, made by yours truly, for jotting down ideas and inspirations. All you have to do is correctly guess which bead soup I chose as my prize from Beverly.

Well, that should get you started on your new giveaway addition. Just call me your enabler, after all I am experienced in that sort of thing. Happy hunting!

YUCK

Today is YUCK. Today is depressing. It is windy, it is cold, and it is raining non-stop. It's not just raining; the rain is coming down sideways from the north. Yuck. Plus, I did not sleep. It was HOT last night (yes, the freakish Central Texas weather strikes again) and the wind was blowing. There is something about that noise that totally unnerves me. I would never have made it as my ancestors did, traveling across the prairie, sleeping (or not) on the prairie. It's bad enough on our modern day Texas prairie; I cannot even imagine what it would be like without buildings and cars to buffer the noise.

Look what I won! How did you win that, T?? Well, you know all those links over there to the right?? You should visit some of them. Actually, I won this from Cindy Gimbrone when she and her studio were the subject of Studio Saturdays at Art Bead Scene. I don't often win things, so you can imagine my surprise on finding out that I got the prize!

I did a stupid thing yesterday when KC came by. I offered her some of the agaves that T-man had dropped near the drive way (there were simply too many to put into pots right away). I reached to pull one out, not realizing that they are firmly rooted now, the wind gusted and I got stuck by the freaking thorns. Now my hand hurts like hell!

What are agaves? Well, if you don't live down here, they are pretty much like big, bad-assed weeds, but they make for a lovely xeriscape and they need almost no care at all. They are the family of plants whence tequila comes (good word, "whence"). You can see the thorns in this picture.


I'm almost finished with the business card case. I've got another designed and waiting in the wings. I've been a stitching maniac, sore hand and all. So, I think I'll go watch some mindless TV and stitch away. Please send some sunshine my way today! I could really use it.

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!

Art Bead Scene Compliments

Oh my stars, if you scream in cyberspace, someone will hear you. I've been paid a cyber compliment by the lovely beaders at Art Bead Scene . If you haven't visited via my link over there on the right, take a little time today to inspect the eye candy made by some very talented art bead, well, artists! I found them via Heather Powers, with whom I first chatted years ago simply because people would get the names of our business confused: Bumble Beads and Humblebeads. I would get calls for her, she would get calls for me, and so on. So click on over there for a bit and then hop back over here. And many thanks to Elaine Ray for the compliment! I've added a link for blog over there on the right, also.

Today is T-man's birthday, and his third day on the new job, which he is just loving. I'll just be glad when our status quo returns and he can relax a bit. I think we need to plan a motorcycle ride here pretty soon. The weather has been just right and looks to stay that way for a while. This is a picture of us on our last ride in August. And no, the jacket is not hot, but it is armored in case of a fall.

N and I are off to the store to buy cake mix, ice cream and a card. So, dear readers, fellow beaders and assorted other beings, I'm signing off until tomorrow.