I've been managing to stay off allergy meds so far this season, though the mornings are brutal.  My symptoms seem to mellow out by lunch time though, so I'm still not wanting to take my meds and endure the craptastic side-effects.

It's been a rough week or so though.  Allergies, hormonal issues, sleeping problems ...all likely related.  There have been a few terrifying health crises in the family.  There was a yelling match with my dad.  (Well, really, he pushed the buttons and I did all the yelling.)  My brain has been quite scrambled which makes every minute of work a constant uphill battle.  I've had my moments of losing my cool (yelling at Dad, blowing up in my blog, pouting, etc.), but for the most part I've been pretty good about riding out everything going on.  What can you do?  Life has these cycles.  I believe you can choose how you feel about things.  I may react in the heat of it all, but when my senses return I choose to believe that everything will work out in the end, and the bigger picture is still sunny and full of opportunities and blessings.

Life has had it's rough spots the past several days, but there's still a lot of good going on.

I spent some time online shopping for warmer weather clothes, and my purchases have started arriving.  I have a fun trench coat that I need to exchange for a smaller size, but the dress I fell in love with when I saw it online fits like it was tailor-made for me, *and* the materials and construction are of excellent quality!  I *LOVE* my new dress!  I don't know if we'll be dressing up for easter visiting, but you'd better bet I'm finding as many reasons as possible to wear my new dress in the coming months!

My interchangeable knitting needles came in the mail today!  Just in the nick of time too.  The project I'm working on has just about outgrown the circulars I have it on.  I love these needles!  This was a very good investment!  I have to get out my label maker today and label and arrange the storage case.  (Organizational lust!)  I'm also at a point where I need to make a new set of stitch markers for this project.  ...Which brings me to:

BEADS!  It's torching weather again!  I've got a little cleaning and organizing to do in the mudroom today, and then I'm setting up my torch!!!  *SQUEE!*  I will be ordering an exhaust fan before next week is over too (FINALLY!) so I can get my kiln fired up here soon!  I'm so excited to get back to hot glass though!  I've been daydreaming about making ribbon cane and hollow beads for weeks.  :)

Craig and I only have two weeks left of art class, and we've been talking about what comes next.  We'd discussed taking a break from classes and just practicing what we've learned so far, mostly for the financial reasons, but then the new course catalog came in the mail!  heh.  I'm 99.99% sure we're signing up for beginning welding!  It's not terribly expensive and it's one of the few crafts that neither of us has any experience in.  There's an initial five week course, with a continuing second five weeks you can register separately for.  It's looking like we're going to sign up for the first five and just try it to see if we want to continue with the second five.  ...I can almost guarantee we would though, what with the way we collect hobbies.  :)

It's almost noon and my nose has finally stopped running!  YAY!!!!!!   Now, I've got some work to do if I'm going to set up my torch today.  I love weekends!!!!!!!!!!

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Do any of you use Twine.com?  I found it yesterday.  It's social bookmarking on steroids; they call it "social interesting", I think.  It's like Delicious blended with a customizable Digg/Reddit format.  I was pretty confused about it until I found a video.  This particular video was made as a joke, but it really explains Twine better than anything else I'd read.  :)

Cleaning up my Delicious bookmarks was to be part of my spring cleaning this year anyhow, but now I think I'm going to do it while migrating everything into Twine.  I started on that yesterday, ...and I'm only about half way through the "a" tags.  *sigh*.  This will probably take a month or more.

So far I'm very impressed.  Twine is very feature-rich and versatile.  The biggest feature are the topic-based interest groups called, you'll never guess, ..."twines".  I joined a few: "Current Science", "Sustainable Living", "Local Food", "Knitting Purls", "Trawling the 'Net".  Whenever someone posts a book, video, bookmark or note to one of those twines/groups, it shows up in my "Interest Feed", thus making it like a custom version of Digg, albeit thankfully so far without all the juvenile pissing contests!  I joined a fabulously drool-worthy twine called "Hot Glass" which is all things glass related, though mostly blown glass, artists and exhibit links.  I needed a twine specifically for all my bookmarks for the at-home glass studio, beads and lampwork, and a few searches turned up nothing, so I started my own twine called "Lampwork Addicted".  It was super easy to start, and as soon as I get a little more content added, I'll start promoting it and hopefully get some more members adding relevant content.

Anyhow, I'm loving it!  I don't know if invites are still required, but if anyone wants to try it, I'd be happy to send one.

And speaking of spring cleaning, Craig moved his desk out of his office and into mine today, which is closer to the livingroom.  So now he can sit and play work on his computer and still be relatively close to me when I'm in knitting and/or watching tv.  This means his office is ready to be transformed into our craft room/second guest room.  Part of making space for his desk in my office was moving my craft armoire, which I had to partially empty to move.  It's good to get a reminder of everything I've hoarded in there, and I need to put it all back away now.  Seeing all of that stuff has renewed my determination to practice "use what you have" crafting though!  'Cause I have stuff!  HOOOOOO BOY, do I have stuff!

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I had to stop torching for a bit and let my fuel canister warm up.  There were icicles forming on the bottom.  heh

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After years of keeping the bunnies contained with a puppy gate, Mia has finally figured out how to fold it out of the way and let herself out.  While amusing, this is not a good development.  I'm sure I can secure it somehow (my brain is much bigger and I have opposable thumbs), but I'm lazy and it was nice just being able to easily slide it around myself whenever I needed to all this time.

Kroger had mini-muffin pans on sale, buy one, get one free.  YAY!  I've been wanting mini-muffin pans for a while, but have been too frugal to buy the good ones and too picky to buy the cheap crap.  I made zucchini mini-muffins today.  Delicious and so cute.

I've remembered that I can view text files on my mp3 player while listening to music.  This feature never really interested me before, but today when I was debating whether I should print out my recipe or haul my laptop out to the kitchen, I remembered about the text files and instead loaded the recipe onto my mp3 player.  It was quite a nice way to work, listening to music and always having my recipe at hand for reference.  Now I'm thinking about making an arm-band, or maybe figuring out how to hang it upside down from my neck so it's readable and mostly hands-free.

It's candle season again!  I have my first two burning right now.  My MIL gave me a couple more bags of church candles, so I'm quite candle-rich!  I love these church candles because they burn so very evenly and clean.  I really need to clean my house up and get my autumn decorations out, then deck the place out with candles.  I love this time of year!

...That's all I have right now, I guess.  I spent the weekend doing very minor home improvement type things, but it feels like time well-spent because the home projects list is soooooo long that any time I can cross something off it makes me feel accomplished.  I did get the mudroom cleaned up though, and that's most exciting because I have room to work with my torch in there again now.  I'm hoping the work I have planned for tomorrow goes smoothly and I can squeeze in some torch time!

Ok.  Time to feed the bunnies and call it a night.  I'm looking forward to this week.  I intend to get so very much done.

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Craig took me out for breakfast today.  The plan after that was to do some shopping for project supplies, then pick up my mom and check out a local fine arts show.

The art show was fun but HOT!  (I hate summer.)  I chatted up every flameworker there, and there were quite a few.  I talked to them all about their studio setup and equipment.  They were *all* extremely friendly and happy to talk shop with me.  There were also a bunch of glass-blowers, but I know nothing of glass blowing so I didn't pester them.  Still, glass work in all it's various forms seems to be the in thing right now.  Craig talked with all the woodworkers, the turners at least.  My mom just had a great time wandering around looking at all the pretties.  :)

After the art fair, we made a quick stop for a few groceries and then headed back to Mom's for an early dinner and a few hours in the pool.  Ah, the pool!  I love my mom's pool.  Soooo nice.  Ant stress or tension you're harboring just dissolves when you're floating in a pool.  I didn't want to get out, but my mom had baked brownies for us.

And it never seems to fail.  Whenever I'm feeling most ready to just be rid of everything I own, someone will give me some stuff.  My brother gave me two of my dad's paintings today.  *SQUEE!!!*  They aren't very good examples of his work, but they hung in the house I grew up in for as long as I can remember.  I was never sure what happened to them, but Marc had them apparently, and he passed them on to me.  I am so completely sentimentally attached to these paintings, I can't even tell you.  I'm *thrilled* to have them and I can't wait to hang them.  I just hope my dad won't see them and try to steal them back.  MINE!

I'm pooped out, and tomorrow there's work to be done again.  Bed time now.  Only a four day week though!  Craig has Friday off, as well as next Monday and Tuesday!  That's right.  My Big Birthday Weekend is going to be a 5-day celebration!!!  I have to cram a lot of work into the next four days and work hard in preparation for playing hard, because I am going to enjoy every single minute of next weekend.  Good times.

OH!  Real quick, Mom told me an Oona (my 3 yr old niece) story tonight.  I guess her dad took her to the mall to buy her first bike helmet.  She got to pick it out herself.  She was so excited and proud of her helmet.  Adrian put it on her to check the fit, and Oona did NOT want to take it off!  The cashier had to scan her head to ring up the sale.  *snort*  :)  She wore it through the mall, back to the car and all the way home.  :)  That's *my* chinstrap girl!  She's so much like her Aunt Meanie!  :D

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AIM Kiln

She's here!!!!!!  Isn't she beautiful?!!  Brick lining, quartz-encased heating elements, large mesh mandrel rack, two large doors and two bead doors, and programmable controller.  *SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!*

Now, the challenge is learning to use it.  It came with a two page feature sheet which is for their very basic model, and a "manual" for the digital controller that consists of three one-sided pages stapled together in the upper left corner.  heh.  Honestly though, the programming part doesn't look too tricky.  I can see where a non-tech person would be intimidated, lots of "SEG" and "F1" and "Err1" kinds of notation, but it seems pretty straight-forward.  But apparantly I need to do a lot of research on kiln use, maintenance and heat cylces for annealing beads and such.

The feature sheet gives examples of how to use the kiln for burnout (lost wax) molds and enameling!!!  I hadn't even considered those possibilities!

So much to learn!  So many glorious possibilities!!!!

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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!

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I made a handful of ugly beads yesterday.  That's ok though, I didn't really have a plan and wasn't really trying.  Mostly I just needed to clean up some rods that were left messy and get reacquainted with my small torch after using that fabulous $900 torch on Saturday (WANT!).  I pulled out the dirty and pointy rods and practiced mixing, swirling and striping.  Most beads came out either kind of boring or out-right ugly and misshapen, but I wound up with one "perfect" bead, and by "perfect" I mean it came out looking exactly like I had intended, which for a newbie like me doesn't happen often.  I made one with zebra stripes.  It's slightly lop-sided, but the stripes came out *perfectly*!

Stripes and Swirls and Color Mixing

I'm going to be doing a lot more of that this week.  It was stupid of me to let so many weeks go by without making torch time.  I get my priorities screwed up a lot.

Yesterday Craig asked me, "So, this is your Big Birthday *Month*, right?  Can I give you one of your presents?" then tells me he installed new speakers in my car for me!  *SQUEE!*  He'd been outside "fixing my loose door handle" (or so he said) and already installed them,.  :)  YAY!!!  I can listen to Muse again without having to turn the base almost completely down!

My bunny girls are finally getting along.  I'm not sure I'd say they're bonded, but this weekend I've started leaving them out together without having to constantly watch over them for fear that fur will start flying.  There's a wee bit of mutual grooming going on, but mostly they seem to ignore each other, which is a HUGE improvement over the months of aggression.  Not quite bonded yet, but I do get the impression they're starting to enjoy each other's company, for the most part.

Ok.  Time to get the day started.  This week needs to be very different from last week.

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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.

Raised Dot Practice

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Craig and I just put some hooks up in the house and garage that I can string a clothesline on as needed.  It's a small savings, not running the dryer for everything, but it's getting more and more to the point where every little bit counts, so it'll help.  Better for the planet too, drying with wind and solar energies.  Next weekend I want to build a solar oven.  ...Though I admit that one has more to do with having homemade cookies in the summer without having to heat up the house.  Yeah, free solar energy is better to use than the piped in gas and electricity, ...but COOKIES when it's too hot to turn on the oven!  :D  Cupcakes too.  :D

Craig took the day off Friday, and we started our day by having a nice breakfast (egg and biscuit sammiches) and spending some time walking around the neighborhood checking out the community garage sale.  We picked up some goodies; I tried to stick to only buying the immediately useful things, but *shrug*.  :)  I got a nice stockpot, some really nice pilsner glasses, a couple of heavy vases for my glass rods, a few candles, a CD, a PS2 game, some nice planters and a basket.  I wish we would've got the golf clubs too, but... *shrug*  Some day.  Someone is ALWAYS selling their clubs.

We then set off for the Antique Mall in Maumee to dig through even older crap.  :D  Craig was looking for some old hardware for a new closet door he just bought (trying to match the look of the rest of the house), and I was just looking for treasure.  And boy-howdy!  Did I find treasure!!!  I got a vintage ViewMaster viewer and some lovely green-stemmed wine glasses, but the best find was the baggie filled with watch parts!  See, I have this thing for watches.  I collect them, not necessarily nice watches, nothing worth displaying (for the most part), but I have this box full o'watches that's my secret little treasure chest.  They make me happy.  Fair warning too: I'm not above stealing your watch.  I've done it before.  If you take it off and leave it lying around, I will put it on, and if neither of us notices at the end of the day and it goes home with me, it usually ends up staying with me.  I'm just saying.  So I found this little baggie with almost 50 (47, I counted) broken watches in it for only $10!!!  I squeed with joy and carried it with me the rest of the day.  Check out my loot:

I have WATCHES!

I don't know for sure what I'm going to do with them.  I'm torn between wanting to bust them open and harvest all their pretty little gears for jewelry and crafting, or just wanting to add their fabulous carcasses to my box o'watches so I can open it up and lord over my treasure every once in a while.  I'll probably do a little of both.  There's certainly enough there.  *squee!*

After antiquing, we stopped for tea and scones which, while enjoyable enough, we both agreed is a far more enjoyable snack in Ireland along the Atlantic.  *le sigh*  Then we stopped for clothesline supplies and some fresh tanks for my torch, and came home to straighten up for a nice visit with my Dad.

Dad came over for pizza and chat.  We gave him his belated Father's Day gift, chowed my favorite pizza, and sat out on the deck talking and watching the sun get lower in the shy.  It was a very enjoyable visit.

I spent all of Saturday at my torch making fugly beads and frustrating myself with new-to-me skills.  It was still a really good time, despite the fact that none of the beads turned out anything like I was trying for!  heh.  It's all good.  I need the practice for sure.  Some day I'll be able to create the most amazing beads, but I have to get my lessons and practice in first.

As soon as I finish my entry and my coffee here, it's back to the torch for a while.  Then I'm probably going to do some gardening, take a nice long bath, and who knows what then?  Dinner and some tv/movies/Wii most likely.

I do so love the weekends!!!

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