Dad is doing much better and is out of the hospital. AFter a few scares, the doctor thinks his heart will beat normally now. whewww

I am out of gas, I hope I can talk "The Man" into hauling the tank to Airgas tomorrow. I have a couple of orders to fill and want to get back to it.

I have watched a great old movie. Its called "Pillow Talk" with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. If you want to see a great feel good movie that has lots of laughs........rent it.

Hmmm......... I guess thats all the news. I will post more pics of the beads I make...........when I make them.

illness, reflection and life

This past week my Dad has been in the hospital again. He has this strange genetic problem with his heart. Out of the blue it will speed up for no reason and just race along at a marathoners’ pace……but……without the marathon. It is pretty scary and potential dangerous. After dealing with it for years, he is going into the hospital this Wednesday to get it fixed. They snake a wire up to his heart via the leg vein and zap the cells that cause the problem. They say it’s a simple procedure……….but I still worry. He is 81 after all and I am not ready to loose my Dad over a “simple procedure”.

How did this happen, how did my Dad get to be 81……. so quickly. Is time really moving that fast? It just seems so strange to me to have both my parents at that point in “life”. I can’t say the words…………..can’t even type the words. Just the thought freezes me in place, not typing, not thinking of something to type……….but just thinking of my parents and reviewing my own life.

Deer in the Head Lights or......Yanni's coming to town

Most of you know my extreme illogical love for Yanni. I fell in love with his music years ago and I still have a fascination with it. Hey……….its good music as long as you don’t have to look at him perform. He is such an ego manic, so in love with himself and……... I admit………..is really gross to watch.

Moving on……….. He has a new show. PBS has been running their pledge week around this new performance. There was nothing else on tv to on Sunday so I turned it on. I was very pleased to see new music and a new style of songs…..well……….sort of. He had new musicians too. Yanni even sported a new hair cut, he no longer had those long locks of hair that he flipped around like some super model during a hair commercial for shampoo.

We ……….ummm………..no…………. I was enjoying the music; “The Man” was not. He would make comments every so often, mostly what he thought of Yanni, the way he moves like some gay guy on crack, or just comments on how little music he is playing but taking all the credit. He made one final comment that I thought was interesting. “The Man” said……… “I would probably enjoy it more if I was watching a live performance and was in the audience”. Just at that moment PBS went to their pledge break. They talked about all the different levels of support you could sign up for. The 300 dollar level will get you tickets to the show………….SHOW??? The 1000 dollar level will get you front row tickets to the show and back stage passes………….BACK STAGE PASSES?? I couldn’t believe it………. they were saying those magic words………..the words I have wanted to hear from many years…………… YANNI WAS COMING TO THE ARCO ARENA……..IN SACRAMENTO!!!

I squealed in delight, so happy and so excited to the possibility of maybe………..hopefully…………going to see my STAR!! I looked over to “The Man”, I could see the realization was taking shape, the realization that he was going to have to eat his words…………the realization that…………maybe………nope not…………he would have to actually GO see Yanni’s new show. His eyes were bugged; his eyes were glazed….. like those of a deer in the head lights, disbelief on his face, grasping at thoughts of running for his life.

Long story short…………….nope…………no Yanni, no front row seats, no back stage passes…………. Just promises of a maybe……….a cd when it comes out in the stores.

Goose Bumps or Soggy Moss

I have been in a rut when it comes to making different beads. I have great ideas before I sit down in front of the torch, but then for some reason they fly out of my head when I turn the torch on. ha Well,....not this time. I made some really odd looking but very fun beads. I saw this one bead online and took some of her ideas and added tons of mine. Here are a few of those beads.

Romance and Love ……..eternal

Yesterday was our anniversary. We have been married for 8 years but have been together for almost 11. I guess you can say we have a very odd relationship in the sense we never fight, or yell at each other or argue. Its not that we don’t occasionally piss each other off, we do that for sure. It’s just that we get along so well; there has never been a time that we felt we had to resort to fighting.

I am sure most of you have heard the word “soul mate”. It’s an over used term and I never gave it much thought. It was always a ridiculous idea to me. But……. this is how I would describe our marriage, we are “soul mates”, destined to be together through out our life. I know I know……. this posting is so oooooooy goooy silly. Oh well……….bit the bullet and read on.

“The Man’ had asked me two weeks ago what I wanted for our anniversary. I told him nothing, but then I thought of a fun little game. I said………lets write a love letter to each other. We can read it to each other during our anniversary dinner. He gave me that “LOOK”………which meant I was insane……..but yet there was something in his eyes that said he liked the idea. I started my letter right away, struggling to put my feelings into words. I found that it’s very hard to express such strong emotions in text. I would stop and start, erase and start again. I knew what I felt, but the words just were not right. It took me five days to finally come up with something I was proud of.

Last night we went out to our anniversary dinner. I asked “the Man” on our drive over to the restaurant if he had his letter, he pretended not to……but then smiled at me. I almost thought I saw a tear in his eye. Hmmm…….maybe not....hmmm maybe so. At the restaurant we sat down, got comfortable and ordered our meals. Before I could even ask “when” did we want to read our letters…………”the Man” brought his out. He started first………with tears in his eyes, he read out loud the words............the words that overwhelmed me, made my eyes tear up, made me smile and sob at the same time. I was blown away and SO PROUD OF HIM, and SO IN LOVE WITH HIM.......…………it was an amazing moment that I will cherish for ever.

I will always look back on this night and know, even though “the Man” doesn’t always say the words, I know in his heart he feels them and so do I.

All wet and freedom rings

I started my water aerobics class today at the local Gold’s gym. They have a fantastic indoor pool and it’s actually heated to the perfect temp…..at least for me. I have to admit it……….. I was a little intimidated at first, mostly from walking into the place and past all those beautiful people……NOT ha Once I got to the pool area and saw that the people in the pool were just like me......I relaxed. The water felt so good and very inviting. Once the exercise started I was a bit surprised to feel how much my knees hated the activity. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have any pain since I was weightless........but I guess not. (I hope in a year or two I can get those bad boys replaced).

But……..back to the pool………….. I never noticed how much my bathing suit likes to scoop up the water while I jog in place. I used to work out at the other pool with nothing but women, so it never was an issue, but at this new gym………..well………. I was jogging to the music, which was the perfect beat to get my heart rate up and work my ass off. Up and down, up and down I go in the water; I could feel the water swooshing in the front…….but forgot about that because I was having so much fun. I didn’t notice how much swoosh was going on until one of the older dudes was staring at me…….......well………..not me………but my girls!!! They were bobbing up and down like buoys in the ocean. I looked down myself and realized the “girls” were very close to escaping the bathing suit……..eeeeek…….. I quickly turned around and pulled up as best as I could to get the girls seated back where they belong. Despite the quick fix, I noticed that the same old man took every opportunity to check to see if my boobs were bobbing for freedom.

So tonight I will see if I can shorten the leashes on the girls and tighten everyone up. Wish me luck……………………..

Boring days,

I haven't posted in a while since there really isn't anything to talk about. ha The title of my blog really "DOES" say it all. ha

I had a great time this past weekend. I went into my sister’s house to celebrate her birthday. We had a sister’s slumber party. It was a blast, from the reading at the physic, to the fun we had on the Ouija board. It seemed like the weekend just blew by so fast. I guess that’s the sign of having fun.

I had another doctor’s appointment today, nothing special ........just jumping through the many hoops for my up and coming surgery. There are days it seems like it will never happen. But I have to keep a positive thought and just take one day at a time. I try to keep busy and…….. I have a lot to keep me busy with.

Melissa now has her own Etsy shop. I can not believe the beads she makes. It’s amazing to me that I showed her how to make beads and now she is making some of the most incredible beads I have ever seen. The hard part is convincing her to sell them for the amount of money I know that they are worth. Ha She makes beads better then I do. Here is a link to her shop if anyone is interested.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6821208


That goes the same with Kate. I gave her a few pointers with water colors. Her first picture was breath taking. I guess I should have known…. she used to paint when she was little and even then her pictures were most definitely “art”. Her latest picture was gold fish in a pond. She painted the picture like she was looking through a dream, the fish in was the main focal with all the extras in the haze. I loved it, I think she gave it to her friend.

I have two very talented daughters. They both have taken what I taught them and excelled beyond my own abilities. LOL I LOVE THAT!! Isn’t that how life should be, you teach your kids, you hope they do better then yourself…………and when they do…………it’s so rewarding. Life is good…………

The Heat is ON!

I had to show you fish before I tell the tail. ehhehe




I finally fired up my kiln. The electrician came, he installed a new outlet with more power capacity and we set up the hot box on Friday. It was so exciting to finally get to do some fusing and at the same time…………very frustrating. The instruction manual that came with the kiln must have been written by the people who built the kiln or their engineers. Or……..this is what I think……...it was written in another language and then translated into English with a lot of the info left out. It was supposed to be very simple to program the computer, but it took “The Man” and me about 20 minute to figure out where to start. I basically started pushing buttons until it said “fuse”. Lol The ramp up was incredibly slow……..it took over 4 hours just to get it up to 1200 degree and another hour to get it to fusing temp. I have read many different information sites online about fusing so I pretty much knew what needed to be done. All the info I read said after soaking your glass for 10 minutes you vent off the heat. But the manual ……………of course…………..never addressed that issue. I waited for the kilns computer to cool down the kiln, it did, but it was only 27 degrees per minute. So I popped the top and vented it myself. What a thrill that was……….the heat pouring out of it felt like a blast furnace, everything was glowing red hot and all the colors of the glass was red, black and more red. Ha I continued to vent for another 15 minutes until the interior temp was down to 960. That was over 4 hours ago………and its still cooling down…………. slowly. I will probably just wait until tomorrow to see how everything turned out. Long story short………….I LOVE TO FUSE. LOL I told “The Man” that all gift ideas will now be related to fusing. Lol From glass to molds……….I want it all. heheheh

THE HEAT IS ON




ROGER WANTS TO KNOW WHAT THE NOISE IS




VENTING FROM 1480 DEGREES DOWN TO 960 DEGREES




SNEAK A PEEK



THE RED GLOVES

getting charged up

I just had the electrician guy here to give me an estimate on putting in a new electrical outlet for my kiln. Thank goodness it’s not as expensive as I thought. They will come out Tuesday or Wednesday to put in the new line.
I am excited; I will be able to fuse to my hearts content by the end of next week. Everything is falling into place so easily this time. I usual have fight with someone when I make changes like this. Either "The Man" disagrees with my ideas, or the cost is too ridiculous, or the placement of my new shop just doesn't work with the arrangement in the garage or......etc. I have tried to set a new arrangement in motion before and hit one obstacle after another. So it’s really nice to sail right through this without a hitch. ha
I have a local bead store that is buying my beads now. Its really rewarding to know that there are people out there that love my beads as much as I do. Ha I have an appointment with the owner today to take in my second order of 20 sets. This time she wanted spring colors, MY FAVORITE! I love the bright happy colors that you see each spring and in these beads.

Here are a few pics of my new toy and where it will go.

School of Thought FISH

Ok, I am a nut............I can not stop making these silly little fish. I must admit, I am getting tons better. I am actual proud of what comes out of the kiln now. ha I will add a picture of my last three fish just to show off. LOL

Speaking of kilns...........I HAVE A NEW ONE! I am so excited. Its just for fusing. I have wanted to do fusing for years and years but never had the courage to give it a try. I am not sure why, when I make beads the glass is melting in the range of 1800 degrees, so why is fusing so intimidating........go figure. ha The new kiln came yesterday and is sitting in the garage in it's box until "The Man" comes home. I need help lifting out that heavy sucker so it can be set up. I do need to call a electrician to come out and add a new electrical line just for the kiln. It might be over kill, but......I do not want any issues in the future while fusing and ramping up the kiln.

I will take pictures as we set it up, and yes I know.........its silly !! ha

"The Man" helped me clean up the garage for the new kiln. Ok, he did ALL the heavy stuff, I sat and sorted out the junk. (I love "The Man" and all that he does for me.) I will actually have a "glass section" in the garage now, no longer the small little area on the side. Its amazing how much junk we accumulated over the years since we moved in. After going through the two huge standing shelves, sorting out the junk, sorting out the stuff for freecycle, we have almost one shelf empty. We had to hunt around the garage to find things to put on it. ha

Has anyone ever used the "freecycle" before. It is a wonderful website where you can get rid of usable items you no longer want or need. You just post that you have XYZ and then you wait for the emails to come in. I have given away tons of things through this website and in the past it has worked out really well. Lately it has been a pain in my ass. So many times now people say they will pick up the item and then never show up. URGHHH I don't know..........maybe its some of the younger generation with their "entitlement" attitude. Maybe I am just impatient for my "give aways" to be gone. But......I still think if you say you are are going to show up at a specific time.......they do it.

Actually, now that I think about it........I think I can blame my impatience on my ex, its his fault.!! LOL ( don't you just love it when you can blame everything on your ex, LOL) Ok........moving on with that goofy thought. He used to be.........actually, he still is.............ALWAYS LATE. No matter what the occasion, he was late. I used to tell him he would be late to his funeral. ha

Ok, I guess thats enough excitment and ranting for one day. ha Check out my fishy obsession. thanks for reading............

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6179096