Who Lives Inside You?

No, it is not a weird question. It's a very important question. We all have someone living inside us, someone a bit different from the outside persona. Think about it. Is there a part of you that wants to spring forth, a part that you keep tucked quietly away in the recesses of your mind, a part that you firmly believe is just a fantasy? And no, I'm not speaking in terms of personality integration. I will elaborate.

Inside me there lives an artist. She is an artist who paints with watercolors. She paints delectable, dainty tableaux in muted Victorian colors with oodles of blossoms and lace. She paints portraits of elegant women with translucent skin like the one above, and babies swathed in lace christening gowns and little girls with ringlets caught up in huge satin bows. She sips tea out of fine china cups that let the light shine through, and she lives in a loft in Paris and watches the world stroll by her windows that face north, because that's where the best light lives. And she cradles a white Persian cat while she watches and sips and dreams.

Me? I can't draw a straight line. Okay, so maybe I can draw a little. This is one of my drawings. I live in a world littered with tiny bits of glass, and most of my cats are Russian blue or coal black. I work with needle and thread, and watercolors just frustrate me (yes, I gave them a try). My windows face east and west, where I get to watch glorious sunsets. And no one walks down our road, but we do get to hear the coyotes sing almost every night. It's a long way from here to Paris, unless you mean Paris, Texas. I also have a writer who lives in there (I have written and have won small awards), and a singer (once upon a time), and a photographer (I try), a free spirited hippie chick, and a gypsy queen who dances in the moonlight (did that, too). They all get along quite well, not that I'm talking to my other identities or anything.

My point is this. If I did not have all those other creative personae screaming for attention in the back of my mind, would I still have the strong streak of creativity that drives me to do what I love to do? So there, beadlings, is your question for the day.

I am working on a little "thank you" for Miss A, who had to load the car for Mommy and help Daddy set up Mommy's booth at the ASG exhibit and show. She's such a good kid! They are both good kids. Aw hell, let's just throw T-man in there too! I'm a lucky, lucky woman!

Here I Sit, With Cat In Lap

Do you have any idea how hard it is to type this way? From pictures I've seen, Carol Perrenoud beads with her cat in her lap. I'm not sure how that works, as Baby keeps putting her head in the crook of my arm and then rubbing. And apparently my lap is a most comfy spot for a bath! You would think I had been gone for a month instead of four days. You can't beat unconditional love, except maybe when you step on the foot of the adoring kitty. That's how closely she follows me. She's mad at me now, thinking I did it on purpose.

My Coral Reef bracelet is in the Etsy Treasury! Right now it's on the front page. I'm so excited! It's my first time! Woo hoo!!

I wear many hats. (How's that for a segue?) Today I am finishing up the new look of the web site. Right now it needs a lot of tweaking and editing, so don't go look until tomorrow. Then I'll revamp the blog. Then I'll take the new look over to the Etsy shop. And then N wants to set up a My Space page for me. I'm actually enjoying myself doing this. I just wish it went faster. Some days I just wish I could wiggle my nose and everything would be finished! Okay, maybe not everything, but lots of things would be done and I wouldn't have to worry about them anymore.

I leave you with this actual headline:

Court says monkeys, chimps can't sue
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SAN ANTONIO — A Texas appeals court has affirmed a lower court decision that a group of chimpanzees and monkeys that were brought to the Primarily Primates sanctuary in 2006 does not have a legal right to sue.

I guess it sucks to be a monkey in San Antonio!

There's No Place Like Home

How true is that statement? I so enjoyed my four days away, but I am so glad to be home. My family missed me, the cats missed me (Baby refuses to leave my lap, and typing around feline is no small feat), even the dog missed me. Here I am, back in my hovel. My hovel is fairly quiet, even with A home for Martin Luther King day.

I realized just how much of a hermit I have become. I was sitting in a room with roughly 80 other people, and at times it was just overwhelming. I was not only assaulted by the noise, but there was all the movement, good natured jostling, accidental bumping -- all things that are unknown to me here in the quiet of my solitude. And four days is not enough time to acclimate to such a change. And with three of us sharing a room, it was totally correct when GG commented that it had become a dorm room (something about all three hair dryers running at the same time!). But the best part was getting to spend four days with the other three High Priestesses of the Goddess of the Temple of Beading.

Anyway, I'm back. I'm catching up with my fellow bloggers, I've read through 200 emails, and now I've got to unpack and get cracking on four or five different projects! I've had very little sleep over the past few days (go figure), but last night I got a FULL 12 hours. T-man spiked my hot cocoa with a bit of rum and I slept fairly well. So, I'm energized and ready to push forward through my maze of projects. I came home with a bucket full of ideas. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I will have the pictures that Juls took so you can see what fun we had. I have missed you all, I hope you missed me just a little bit, but now it's time to bid you farewell until tomorrow morning! Have a beadiful day!

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.

Good Morning, Sunshine . . .

Okay, so my new business plan starts with early mornings, i.e. waking up and hauling my fat butt out of bed before 9:00 (okay, okay -- all your career ladder climbers can be quiet now). I mean, Ariel starts back to school on next Monday! Needless to say, especially if you know me well, that it's a very difficult thing for me to do, especially if I've had a particularly rough night. Well, last night was one of those --- toss and turn, covers on, covers off, left side, right side, sit up and stare at my storing husband, trying to wake him psychically. By the way, that doesn't work,either. So here I sit, bleary-eyed, trying to think of witty things to write. I feel like channeling Dave Barry today.

We have cats. I have an even dozen cats in the back yard. Most of them are feral, but they all seem to know their names. The three that are in the house are Casey (as in KC, for Kitty Cat), her sister Lazy Daisy (just Daisy), and Casey's very first kitten, Baby (my retarded kitty). Then someone dumped the prettiest little calico kitten out here, and I had her checked, cleaned her up, and named her Callie.

When Casey goes into heat, she becomes sneaky. She can slip through your legs and out the door without being seen. Then the next time you open the door, there she sits waiting to be let back in. Todd always, ALWAYS swears "The next time that cat gets pregnant, she's living outside!!! If you want to keep her, make sure she stays inside!!!" Well, guess whose legs she slipped through three months ago?

Anyway, the weekend before last, she had one little tom kitten, and his name is Buster. And he's adorable. All kittens are adorable. He's mostly adorable right now because he can't really crawl yet, so he stays in the box and out of my bead room, that's full of nooks and crannies where a kitten could hide out for days. Well, Daisy is jealous. She has decided that Buster is hers. I don't know if she and Casey had some sort of surrogate agreement or what, but Daisy wants that kitten. So she spends the day scouting out places in the bead room, looking for the best hiding spot. Then she waits for Casey to leave the box.

Now, the box is in the dining room because Casey feels she needs to be close to where I work. If we don't bring Buster out, she will! So I sit here and work on the computer, and the next thing you know, here comes Daisy with Buster, and when I say "Hey!", she drops him. Wherever. There's been a bit of daily rearranging of the furniture to get to the poor little fuzzball.
That's Daisy, acting all nonchalant, waiting for the right moment to jump in and steal "her" kitten.

You've all been subjected to this post because the Beadalicious Beaders told me to write anecdotes about the cats. If you would like to take it out on them, let me know!

Today, I bead.