29 posts tagged “glass”
Drinking green tea, trying to wake my brain. I realize I haven't blogged in a while, ...well, it's been a while for me anyhow. I've thought about it a few times, but I haven't really had any complete thoughts worth writing down. Now my head is filled with lots of thought fragments and I just need to empty it and start over.
- The "summer months" (June-August) are more than half over, and we've only used our air conditioner for maybe two weeks total. I hope the mild temps keep up. I wouldn't hate summer quite as much if it was always like this.
- We've done the 4th, the Chicken Fest, and the BSAF kite games. The last summer tradition is the Fulton County Fair, and we already have our season passes and our derby tickets! So looking forward to it! *squee!*
- Redid my old budget spreadsheet recently and realized how close we are to being debt-free. Very exciting! I've been dying for some retail therapy recently, but it's so hard to give in to even small indulgences with that goal so close. I can't find anything I want bad enough these days, not with "debt-free" dangling like a carrot almost within my reach. This is *very good*, and yet mildly irritating too. I need to find a new method of "therapy". heh.
- I do need to spend a bit on an exhaust fan for my glass studio. I've been promising myself that for a year now, but procrastinating at the thought of having to wire it up and for fear of not getting it right. Time to review all my research and put *something* together. I will be buying the fan before the week is over.
That does lead me to one larger, more complete thought I've had rattling around my head this past week. As a kid, I was very uptight and nervous. Rules were important to me. Perfection was something worth striving for. A place for everything and everything in it's place. I've spent most of my life trying to untie those knots at my core. I've learned to loosen up, to roll with changes (mostly), and to accept that good enough is often just that. I've recently realized that I've likely taken things too far the other way. It's occurred to me that I've forgotten how to even want excellence. I've gone from "I won't settle for anything but perfection," to "I can't achieve perfection so why try at all?" I have to find the part of me that had the crazy ambitions, and rather than letting her take charge again, I need to introduce her to my inner engineer who knows that a lot of things are indeed impossible, but that "you can still get close enough for all practical purposes."
Bleh. A lot of this noise would be better suited for morning pages. I should get back to writing those again.
Craig and I had a lovely day yesterday, I gifted him with some art supplies ...for only him, not a bowling ball gift. Girl Scout's honor! I gave him some pastel pencils and pastel board I found at our local art store, and he tried to give me the extra sheet of super-nice Wallis pastel board he had from class, but I made him keep it. *L*
Craig gave me an awesome "I Love Buffy" t-shirt I wanted, and an ice cube tray that makes skull & cross-bone shaped ice! :D My favorite though, was the hand-made card! He drew Tux the Penguin on the front holding a heart that said "GEEKED 4 U", and inside he wrote:
[craig@root]# chown jen /dev/heart/
BEST.VALENTINE.EVER! :D *sniffle* :D
We went into town for the day. Craig wanted to catch a bandsaw demonstration at WoodCraft. It was actually really interesting. ...And I was the only female in the room. heh. Then we went to Michael's armed with a 40% off coupon in order to buy some pastels.
Let me tell you about Michael's. You can get good coupons for that store just about everywhere you look, and let that be a warning! Wow, was their art stuff marked way the hell up! Dickblick.com has a set of half sticks in 30 colors for about $30 that I want. They price the full stick set at $54. Michael's didn't have the half-stick set, but they wanted $120(!!!) for the full stick set. Even with the 40% off coupon, that would've been $72, verses getting them online for $54. You could add in shipping, rush shipping even, and they still would've been cheaper on line than with a 40% off coupon at Michael's! Do your homework before shopping at Michael's. They obviously can afford to offer those great coupons so freely because they've marked everything way the hell up! I mean, that's common sense, but every time I see it for myself, well it's kind of infuriating. I should've known better than to get my hopes up. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything there.
We stopped at Chipotle for a late lunch (MMMM! Veggie burrito!!!), and still had an hour to kill before the movie we wanted to see would start, so Craig suggested we head down the road to downtown Maumee, and check out the glass shop there. I've always wanted to check the place out, but they aren't open evenings or Sundays, which always seemed to be when we were passing through.
Prism Glassworks, Ltd. was *nirvana*! They carried a lovely selection of the Moretti rods I like to use, a large selection of frit, tools, and all sorts of odds and ends. Most of the shop is dedicated to stained glass supplies, but those are a lot bigger supplies for a hobby that's a lot easier to do at home, so that's to be expected. My stuff was in the back, but it was still all there. *happy sigh* I talked to the owner a bit, mentioning how timid I am about prepping this kiln I have and putting it to use, and she very kindly explained *everything* I need to do ...which wasn't much at all. I'm going back this week to pick up some shelf primer so I can fire that baby up soon. :D I talked to another employee there too, and she was also very nice and extremely helpful. I think I love this place. :D They will definitely be getting some of my monies this year. :D
It was movie time, and based on Myke's recommendation, we went to see Coraline in 3D. It was an enchanting movie! So much so, that I rarely heard any of the many children in the theater, In fact, there were several quiet parts in the movie when I couldn't help but marvel at how very silent the theater full of very young humans was! Everyone loved it. Only Craig and I seemed to laugh now and then though, which was weird. There were some delightfully humorous moments. *shrug* And I fear a lot of the 3D was lost on me. I noticed a few magic moments that really stood out, and a few times I could see some depth in the scenes, but for the most part, my eyes don't get the 3D effect. Still, a fantastic movie! Even the soundtrack was hauntingly beautiful. Good times.
There were a couple more stops on the way home, to pick up some supplies for projects ...and for feeding the bunnies. :) Then we spent the rest of the night watching some of the last season of Lost, which we're trying to catch up on.
It was a lovely day, but much like the rest of the week, it seems to have gone by so fast! I'm going to do whatever it takes to let time linger this week, even if it means reading accounting books to slow things down with enforced boredom. (Totally joking about that! Accounting? *shiver*) Last week flew by, but this week will be savored, even if I have to wrestle time and pin it to the floor until I'm done with it!
*L* Ok, so my subject for this entry sounds pathetically emo, but I assure you, I mean it literally. I'm talking about broken glass here. I've been going through this thing for a while now where I'm breaking a lot of glass. I mean, I've always leaned a little to the clumsy side, but this is getting ridiculous. I broke my glass candy cane when I caught it one something and it flng to the floor. One night, after the lights were out, we heard something break, and turned on the light to see an old wine glass on my dresser (decorative) that I'm sentimentally attached to had broken, and I never really was sure how. Something must of fallen on it??? One night, I fumbled the plastic bottle-brush which fell only a few inches and landed in the dish water with a soft *sploosh*, and was followed by the sound of cracking glass. I fished all of the pieces of one of my beloved emerald green antique juice glasses out of the sink and set them aside to be melted into beads at some later date. Another night I was putting the stemware into the rack above the sink, and I smacked the bottom of a wine glass into the rim of one of my lovely martini glasses, and had glass rain down on me. And, there were, of course, ornaments dropped and done for in the Great Holiday Put-Away '09.
But yesterday... *sigh* Yesterday was the ...ARGH! I was doing the laundry. I took a shirt out of the washer, shook the wrinkles out, and tossed it into the dryer. One of the sleeves caught on my jar of expensive glass rods, the reduction and special colors, and the whole jar was flung to the floor. *head in hands* Like the juice glass, it's not a huge loss really. Not all of the rods broke, and the ones that did can be melted back together,...and even some of the fine shards can be ground or heated and dropped into water to make frit. It was just an aggravating mess. This trend must stop. I love glass and have lots of pretty glass things around the house, ...all which now seem to be awaiting their untimely demise. I'm kind of scared to go near any of it. Glass shelves, stained glass, jewelry, snow globes, ...I even have a one-of-a-kind stained glass plate and chalice that used to be used for communion in a church. I'm afraid to even walk by this stuff.
Yesterday was a *busy* day for me, and long before it was over, I was exhausted and cranky. I did get a lot done though. Of the 22 tasks that I'd wanted to get done, I checked 14 off, let 4 roll over to today and rescheduled 4. It felt good to get so much done. Still, Craig was encouraging me to take it easy today, hoping I won't get as cranky. :) (Sorry, Sweetie. I'll try not to get cranky today.) I only have 16 things marked due for today (including the rolled over 4 from yesterday), and a several of them are non-active things, like writing some thank-you notes and paying the bills. So in comparison, today will be an easy day, nowhere near as exhausting at the very least.
I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It's a decent read. I'm not a "huge" fan of his books. He has some very interesting premises, but he seems to really have to overwork them to fill up a book. Still, very interesting premises, and the point he makes in Outliers about 10,000 hours of practice bringing expertise is my favorite yet. There are a lot of creative things I love doing, but which I feel a bit guilty about making time for when there are so many "practical" type things that always need doing. He's got me thinking though, that if I make the time for the stuff I love to do now, I might just be able to turn a tidy profit from those things ten years down the line, and perhaps I'll even be able to bring in some extra income in our retirement some day, just from doing what I love to do. The thought that that could even be a possibility makes me happy. ...Plus, I'm all about finding ways to justify doing the things I love to do. :) And with that said, I think I'll go schedule myself some me time, or rather "practice time". :D
I should be making beads right now, but there's a whole lot of holding your arms in the air as steadily as possible, and I just got done hacking up a 10' section of PVC pipe with a not-very-sharp hack saw. (The coping saw worked much better until I broke it.) My arms think we can wait a little longer before making beads.
The PVC pipe is for glass storage. I got 12 sections out of that 10' pipe, and aside from the tired arms, I'm really wishing I'd bought two pipes. If I had just another 12 sections, I could completely empty out one of the vases I'm currently using for storage. Next weekend.
I still want to figure out a secure way to store the transparent colors in the window. I will figure it out eventually. Craig bought me a nice work light today, so it's not as important that I have lots of light coming in that window and I can start thinking more seriously about how I can store my glass there.
And YAY! Worklight! Now I can make beads even after dark. The overhead light in that room just doesn't cut it. Even the natural daylight doesn't always cut it. I was working pink glass on white yesterday, and once it was all red-hot, I couldn't distinguish the colors. :/
Ok, noodly arms or not, I have to go play with my torch for a bit.
Even though I have an intense aesthetic preference for smooth, round beads, today I used some tools to play with shapes, pinching, smooshing, pushing and smoothing. I used some of the newer colors I stocked. The hearts need a little work, but they're still cute.
Then I tried the "owl eye" type beads my drawing instructor described to me. They were fun to make, though I'm not very happy with my color combinations. I did one in brown, orange and yellow autumn colors, but the yellow melted enough for the brown behind it to tint it a little and it looks green. The other I did in Halloween black, orange and white, but again the black behind the white gave it a light blue tint. I'll have to try a lighter base color. Still, they were fun to make. That's my first star bead too. I want to do another one, but fill in the gaps with more layers of colors so it winds up being a disk made of staggered layers of colors. Maybe tomorrow.
We got news yesterday morning that my Aunt Jadine passed away Friday night. She and my uncle have lived in Denver my whole life, so I didn't know her as well as I would've liked to, but I knew her well enough to know that she was an awesome human being, and my heart breaks for my uncle and cousins and for my mom and everyone else who was close to her.
We got that news from my mom Saturday morning, and I asked if she wanted to cancel our plans to spend the day with her, if she wanted some quiet time instead, but she said she was still looking forward to our visit and that she needed the distraction. So we went out to breakfast, did some quick shopping at the farmers' market, and headed out to Mom's where we spent the day chatting and swimming and eating grilled meats and birthday cupcakes. Craig and I both got too much sun and feel a little sun-sick still this morning, but it still managed to be a nice day despite the sad start.
This morning I opened my eyes to see Craig standing next to me holding the box of glass I ordered. Yes, I got mail on a Sunday for my birthday! Usually the mailman brings packages around first and then walks the route delivering the lighter-weight envelopes. He came and went yesterday and never brought my glass order, so I figured I wouldn't have a chance of seeing it again until Tuesday, but Craig got up this morning and found it tucked between our front door and storm door. That was a nice way to start the day.
So far Craig baked a dutch baby for me for breakfast, and he gave me my presents. He made me a purpleheart "executive" yo-yo in it's own special homemade box - sooo cute! He also got me a really swank Delta Panthers hoodie to wear to the football games! It's black and the hood has a green plaid lining - I love it! And he got me my own weather station!!! I'm a HUGE weather geek and I can't wait to have it all set up! :D He still spoils me. One of these years he'll likely get sick of me, but I'm glad it hasn't happened yet. ;) *love*
Today will probably be a quiet day for this birthday hermit. I need to take some time to label all my new glass rods, and I definitely want to work at my torch a little. We'll probably run into town for a short bit as Craig needs to stop at WoodCraft and I want to shop around for a table/tool-stand for my kiln. We might pop over to the fair this evening too, to see the fireworks. Ok, so maybe tomorrow will be a good day for hermitting.
I accidentally ordered more glass. ...Ok, so it wasn't so much accidental as it was impulsive. I've been spending the evening painting the ends of all my rods (and my fingernails, because I'm 5) with white acrylic and using a Sharpie to note the color-number. Sounds kind of stupid, I know, but some of the colors (especially the transparents) are so similar that I want to have them all labeled to make sorting and putting away easier.
Anyhow, I had a color without any labels, so I went to the site I bought it from to look up the number, ...and they had new colors listed on the front page! NEW COLORS! I got a few standard colors and some new mandrels too, you know, as long as I was ordering. :D
In other happy-squee news, I got a call this afternoon from the gentleman I ordered my kiln from, a courtesy call to let me know it shipped and I should HAVE IT BEFORE THE WEEK IS OUT!!! *SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!* I was also warned that you practically need to be an engineer or programmer to figure out the digital controller that comes with the kiln, or even just to understand the manual. I refrained from mentioning that I've been both, just in case I do get stumped and wind up having to call him for help. :)
This all way makes up for the migraine I spent most of the day fighting. I did want to kill the phone when it rang, but I'm glad I answered it and got my happy kiln news!
I'm claiming it.
Craig has the 4th off and is taking Thursday off too, so it's a 3-day work week for him. I'm going to put the hammer down and try to log a bunch of hours early in the week so I can take some time off at the end of the week too. Right now it looks like there may be rain in the forecast for the 4th, but hopefully it won't be enough to stop us from catching the fireworks. I really love our traditional 4th of July picnic. :)
This morning started well, despite the "28 Weeks Later" dreams I had *ALL NIGHT LONG*! (I hate zombies!) The mailman brought me a crafting book and my glass order early this morning!!! *SQUEE!!!* I love colored glass! Now that I've spent a few minutes lording over my new glass, I'm already jonesing to put another order in! There are just *so many* colors, ...and I NEED THEM ALL!!! I really need to come up with a better organizational solution before I buy more glass though, and that means I need to clean up the mudroom and paint it. Trust me, it does. Unfortunately. heh.
Craig's sister and her family were over here yesterday, They brought the brass bed home for us with their truck. Craig was showing her his pen collection and the bowls he's been turning (he's getting REALLY good at bowls!), and I wanted to show off too, so I told her, "I've been crafting too!" and I put a string of my beads in her hands. There was a few seconds of her looking puzzled, and going, "ooooh", as in, "That's nice... you strung beads...???" *L* I'm speshull. :) I realized she didn't get it, so I told her, "I *made the beads*." She was suitably impressed then. *L* I showed off my torch and my glass and briefly explained how it's done.
...And now I have these wonderful new colors... *swoon* I finally have a bunch of white and clear to work with. And I can't wait to work with "Petroleum Green" - so pretty! I need to start a list of all the colors I've use so I can note how they are to work with, where I need to work them in the flame and whether or not they tend to scorch or devitrify, whether they're stiff or very drippy, ..., etc. Plus, how fun just to have a journal for colored glass! I should include color pictures.
Oy. I need to build a better ventilation system for my workspace, because I have a lot of ideas for these new colors, and I just can't work at my torch as long and as often as I want until I've got better ventilation.
Annerism, I ordered some dark red specifically to tempt you into coming over to play! ;) Let me get a good exhaust system set up, and we'll schedule a visit. Hopefully my kiln will be here within the month too!
I was talking with Craig's sister about the turkeys and ducks they're raising this year. Her sister-in-law lives behind her, and she's raising chickens. I'm so jealous! (We really need to move further out into the country!) My SIL was telling me the chickens are only a few weeks away from laying eggs. :) I forget how many she said they lay a day, but it's A LOT. I need to arrange a deal to buy fresh eggs from them. She told me their rooster is gay though. heh. And she also told me the turkeys totally worship the ducks, following them everywhere and acting all nervous when she let's the ducks out and the turkeys are left alone, duckless. heh. ...Someday I'll have some livestock and my own little barnyard dramas. :)
As a quick aside, I made fresh-squeezed lemonade this weekend, and it's such delicious nectar! I'm going to keep it stocked in my fridge for the rest of the summer. I can't believe I've never made lemonade before. Mmmm!
Ok. Time to put in some serious hours so I can spend the long weekend having fun with my man. It's gonna be a really good week!
Good days only happen once in a while. Usually, I have to work for a good day. Today I'm having to work really hard just to keep the day from being a disaster. :/ ...Is there a "reset" button?
But, I officially ordered my kiln last night, and that pleases me quite a bit. I ordered it from a very nice man. Even though I about swallowed my tongue in panic because he needed to talk to me on the phone to complete the transaction, he was very nice to talk to. It was my first chance to actually talk glass with someone, and that was kind of a thrill in a cheesy way. And as for the kiln, after much research I'm convinced it's the best kiln I could get, and I got it at the best price available.
Um... yeah. That's all I have today. ...After deleting all the venting and swearing anyhow. *bites tongue hard*
Ok. Back to trying not to stew over stupid shit. Back to trying to work out the kink in my neck. Back to work. Pft.
This weekend I practiced pulling stringers (very thin glass rods) and using them. Saturday I tried to draw with the stringers, but I was obviously getting way too ahead of myself, because that sucked. Bad. :) Sunday I stayed very basic and played with raised dots. I also worked on getting a consistent size and round shape on spacer beads. heh. I still have *A LOT* of practice time to put in, obviously! :D These were fun enough to share though.
