A New Useless Skill?

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I wish I could say I had been out making money, but the truth is, I have been out spending it.

Since the last post, I have been to three bead shows and Brimfield.

Brimfield in July, and, apparently, when the economy is bad, is full of things you want and need, and people are really motivated to deal.  In fact, I, who am the world's worst negotiator, snagged a couple of deals of which I am extremely proud. 

The first of which was a large Amethyst Moderntone Tumbler, which I got for less than $20. The truth is, I've never seen the tumblers, large or small in Amethyst, and the Blue ones go for big bucks.

I bought several other cigar boxes (I now I have enough that if anyone wants me to make them jewelry showcases or jewelry boxes, I can.) I am also looking for a new source since I see this one only three times a year at Brimfield.

I also went to Intergem, the day before Brimfield.  The huge mistake in this was that Intergem is massive (held in a convention center) and they had the tent "extension."  Too much walking for someone who would be walking the next day as well.

But, I got some great deals there, too. These lead-free multistrand bead separators (or whatever they're called) have come in really handy. They've inspired me to try to do more bracelets than just the Edwardian-inspired mesh that I designed in May. This one, the first, seems almost Zuni-inspired.

The other two bead shows were last weekend in Concord and Nashua. They were interesting, too, and I finally broke down and bought a kumihimo disk to learn Japanese braiding. I got off to a bang of a start (see the first image), because I just knew they'd be a great addition to our jewelry.

Unfortunately, I doubt that the casual viewer will even notice that the necklaces are hand-braided. It's fun, but I don't know if it enhances the jewelry enough to make it worth the effort.

Oh well, until I lose interest in it, I have another "useless" skill and another aspect of my "Japanophile" side: I guess anime really is a "gateway drug."

Is the Moon in Cancer?

...cause everyone I've run into in the past three days has been crabby.

I'm sure most people have excuses (some people are naturally cranky, I suppose), but I am usually not. I think it's the Chinese Water Torture 

my building has been afflicting me with for the past three days. (My apologies to anyone who's Chinese...)

Since they rebuilt our porches four years ago, we have had what I call a "roving leak." First it's over the shower in the bathroom. Then it's down the wall by the kitchen. Next, it's in the hall by the linen closet. I've even found evidence of it in my closet! Despite the repeated phone calls to the landlord, no one can seem to trace this leak.

Now, it's back in the bathroom, worse than ever, keeping me up at night, waking me up earlier than I want to be awakened in the morning. 

So, I'm cranky.

Not even the fact that I finished my cigar box display for my sister has been able to bring me back from my cranky state. (Turned out pretty cool, didn't it?  If you go to Brimfield this week you might see it at my sister's booth in J&J.)

In fact, I'm so crabby, I'm afraid to outside.  It's days like this that I tend to swear at people who park "temporarily" blocking the handicap ramps, or who wait in the handicap parking spaces for their passengers who have just gone into the store "for a minute."  Are they going to move their car when someone REALLY handicapped needs that space? No, of course not.  Let's let that poor old guy with the two canes walk an extra ten feet to get to the motorized wheelchair. No problem!

This is the kind of day where I feel like ramming people who used the handicapped parking spaces as cart returns, even though they, themselves are not handicapped and the cart return is actually the same distance from their car.  You do realize those spaces are wider for a reason? You don't? OK, let's see how YOU like being handicapped and not being able to open the doors all the way to fit the wheelchair so you can get out of the car.

Well, I guess this post has helped me to vent, just a little. I'll leave you with a lovely picture of the Miracle Cat, Obi, who has survived for 3 years, even though the vets thought she would only last a "couple of months."  I got to feed and snuggle her last week, and over the holiday.

Hmm. Maybe to get rid of my crabbiness, all I need is a little "cat therapy."  Where's Ru?

CPAP Run, Run, PAP, Run

In the never-ending battle to get a good night's sleep, I have now been armed with a CPAP machine.

CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure (although my CPAP machine isn't actually Continuous, since it "breathes" with me.)

It's sort of a glorified fan which sends slightly pressurized air into a mask (and into me) at night, so that my airways don't close. It hasn't helped with the getting to sleep, but it seems to be helping with the staying asleep.

I've been on it two weeks, and now I'm finally not having dreams of scuba diving. (Although I am having really weird dreams about high school and the SCA.

And, while I do wake up with a slight headache about half the time, my concentration seems to have improved enough for me to start creating the "odd but pretty" jewelry that forms the "Amy half" of Piece by Piece.

The other big project, of course, is my sister's web site, Sport & Spool Antiques. It's still in the programming stages, but I now have hope that I will be able to muster the intelligence to do the javascript programming needed to go live in the next month (or two.)

Now, if I could only squeeze Piece by Piece's web site update in between S&P and the Puppet Showplace Theatre's updates. Oh, and adding new content to Rafael Sabatini, as well (though, poor old Raf has gotten pushed to the bottom of the todo list these days.

I've also taking to actually updating my etsy site, which, of course means new photographs. 

After trolling the internet looking for information on how to take better product photographs, I finally took the suggestion that I a) buy a tripod, and b) take some shots outdoors.

The results were somewhat less than spectacular given that the day was overcast, and I didn't like the way the earrings looked on the earring cards.  

However, I will probably upload the first photos to my etsy store within a few days. So look out.

But now, I'm running to the store, and then taking Peg to therapy (occupational, this time, although she's been doing physical for the last several weeks.

...And that's all she wrote.

Welcome to the Land of Shiny (and not-quite-so) Things

My apartment is in chaos (although my patio looks pretty good.)

My cats hate the way I have rearranged my bedroom (even though it is now CLEAN...I must have vacuumed two cats worth of hair from the rug.)

And I have to take stuff to the storage until soon, or there will be no way to walk from the center of the apartment to the patio or the door.

So, what am I doing? Straightening? Cleaning? No. I'm playing with beads, of course.

It was a week ago that Rings and Things had their road show in Burlington. Peggy and I were (naturally) there, with bells on (figuratively, although it could have been literally, knowing us.)

Every time I go to these shows I spend more money each time. This time, I decided just to buy what "called to me" and figured that since I have an enormous credit limit on my card (I have to call the bank and reduce it soon) I'd just not worry about it.

Well, true to form, I spent more money this time than last, but I found it much more enjoyable shopping without a budget, so to speak. And it's not as though I went way, way over what I thought I was going to spend, anyway.

Maybe my mind just calculates as I go, and I don't even know it and it signals that it's time to stop by making the stuff I'm looking at uninteresting.  Good kind of mind to have, but I'd prefer if I could do that consciously rather than un-.

So, now my apartment's a wreck and I have all these new beads to put away, and no "away" to put them.  I'm thinking of buying another bookcase, but my apartment is pretty much wall to wall bookcases filled with actual, you know, books. (And, of course, after 20 years collecting them, I'd just as soon part with the cats and the books...okay, the cats edge out the books, but it's close, and you know what I'm saying.)

Anyone out there who has ideas storage ideas that don't involve ousting my books, drop me an email. Otherwise, I'm really going to have to think of SOMETHING I can part with (at least to put into storage) so that I can get to the grocery store.

Diggin' It

During the Great Gap in my blog (May 20 through June 12), I went to visit my parents outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Since I live in Massachusetts, this should actually not be a big deal, but the airlines always seem to make it so.

There are no direct flights, and the options to layover are Philadelphia (which was kind of a dive of an airport last time I was there), LaGuardia (really, really busy, and no fun to be stranded at), and Newark.  (Also Detroit and Washington Dulles, but I just can see flying all the way past Pittsburgh only to get on another flight to, essentially, backtrack.)

This time I chose Newark and had beautiful weather and no problems with delays.

I go to visit my parents once a year. It used to be at Christmas, but I hate traveling in the winter, and with the craziness of the holidays, I prefer just to hide until the groundhog sees his shadow (or not.)

This, of course, means that "lists get generated." Lists of things I need to do when I'm there, things I need to bring, things I need to fix, things I need to teach them, places we want to go to, shopping trips, museums, etc.

I'm usually only there for a week or less, but to finish any of these lists would probably take much longer than that, and I really just want to hang out with my parents and take up space.

Well, this year, we had a warm spring, and I was itching to plant, but couldn't because I knew I was going to visit my parents in June.

I did manage to restrain myself, but then my mother decided to unleash the planting frenzy while I was visiting. I did all their containers, and, returned to Massachusetts in a dither to plant all MY containers.

I have alot of containers.

Today I finally finished (I think...I have a couple more 6 in pots that don't have plants in them, but I'm not sure where I can put them...) 

I have a new planting strategy.  Just one tomato plant (since I can't eat them raw), two kinds of Basil (spicy globe, and Tulsi), thyme, rosemary, Roman chamomile, and flowers.

But, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I planted ornamental grass to block some of the sun from the porch which gets really hot in the afternoon, in addition to morning glories on trellises. And flowers.

Did I mention flowers?

I hope to have a better picture of the whole porch when everything gets sorted, but at the moment, I'm a bit tired...kinda frenzied out.

I Can See Clearly Now...

Lots of stuff has been happening to me recently, so many, in fact, I haven't been able to sit down and blog about them. So, bit by bit, I'll try and catch you up.

The most obvious thing, if you look at me, is that I'm sporting some nifty new glasses when I drive.

Yes, it turns out I was slowing going blind (well fuzzy) in one eye and the other was compensating. I just didn't know.

In fact, I found out that I was exceedingly burry at the Registry when I went to get my new driver's license before going to visit my parents in Pennsylvannia.  

There are three section you have to look at a little scope and read letters. The left side was completely unreadable, but the other two (front and right) were clear. The clerk was merciful and let me go with a "get your eyes checked," but for a couple of weeks, I lived in dread that I had glaucoma, like my Dad.

So, all through my visit, I'm asking my Dad questions about getting his glaucoma under control (he says it's easy because he just uses drops, but you have to catch it early or you can damage your optic nerve and then your eyesight never improves after that.)

So, when I returned, I went to the ophthalmologist, who said I didn't have glaucoma (Yay!), but I did need glasses.

I picked them up on Tuesday, and have been getting used to them ever since. What a difference! Who knew that blurry blue car with the flashing light was actually a police car? Or that truck with the lights was an ambulance?  

(Just kidding, it was never that bad...I just had to be closer to the signs on the highway to read them, which made getting off at the proper exit a greater exercise in automotive dexterity than it should have been.)

The only problem I've been having so far is that I can really only use them in the car. If I try to use them in the store, I look down and can't read anything like labels or something because I'm blurry up close. (I have other glasses for the really close jewelry work.) I just have to remember NOT to push them up on my head, like I used to do with the cheap sunglasses.

Anyway, it's a whole new world out there and I can see it now.

Amy, Joey, and Katie go on an Adventure

I had meant to post about Brimfield on Sunday, but things kept popping up.

Katie, my friend from NYC (how posh does that sound?) came up to visit on Friday, and we had fun looking at the Piece by Piece jewelry she hadn't seen (or hadn't seen in a while.) We went out to dinner and to bed fairly early because we were to meet Joey in Brookline at 8am.

That doesn't sound early, I know, but I usually leave at least an hour to drive from Lowell to Brookline, although usually the traffic on a Saturday is not too bad. As it was, we left late, we stopped for breakfast, and we still made it on time.  I guess, if I had been on Amy-time I probably would have been a half-hour early. Katie-time is a little more nerve-wracking for me, but probably more efficient.

We called Joe from the car because I was carrying books for my sister and I didn't want to walk up three flights of stairs with them if I didn't have to. Then we piled into Joey's car and opened presents. We haven't seen each other since last Brimfield, so Joe had Katie's Christmas present and Katie had Joe's birthday present.

Then off we went to Brimfield.  Traffic was light, and we got a good parking place at May's. I think people might have been put off by the rain the night before, but we had listened to the radio and heard that it would stop in the morning, probably before we got there.

That happened to be the case, so we got to shop without the Brimfield dust, but with some of the Brimfield mud holes. A fine time was had by all.

I was very circumspect in my purchases, though. With Intergem last week and my trip to Pittsburgh, next week, I felt I had to show some restraint. In the end I got a nice vintage crystal necklace (which I am presently in the process of cleaning and restoring), and a couple of cigar boxes to be transformed in to display pieces.

We didn't make it to the J&J field until it had closed for the day, but we did have a nice visit with my sister and brother-in-law (Sport & Spool Antiques, picture above) while they were packing up.

It just seemed like an extremely short day, even though I got up at 5:30 and didn't return home until after 9.