Working It

For Christmas, my dad sent us a bundle of Amazon gift cards. After trying to figure out what to get with them (aside from Colden's new mp3 player), we decided to get some "real" office furniture for me for my living room corner office...

So the other night, Tom and Colden had a little putting-together party, and on Saturday I managed to drag myself out of bed long enough to do...

THIS! My new office setup in the living room! Great light coming in from the front window, and my back to the warm and cozy wood stove. I love it - the printer is up here. My Ott Lite is right above my work space. And I have a real bookcase for storage. I love it!

I was still feeling crappy on Saturday, even after a full 24 hours on the antibiotics, but the sight of the bookcase and desk sitting askew in the living room was too much for me. While Tom took Colden out to practice riding his tricycle, I moved stuff around and got organized. And promptly went right back to bed for a nap!

This morning, I'm glad to say that I'm feeling better. Still a little tired, still a little achy, but not as bad as it was on Thursday and Friday where even my fingers hurt. Glad that I went to the doctor Friday morning, because I do not want to miss this trip to Tucson!

More on my Tucson preparations later...for now, I have to get back to finishing my last two newsletters before I head out on Wednesday morning!

The Road to Tucson

Today is all about getting ready for Tucson! So was yesterday, and so will the rest of this week, in fact... I have a to-do list as long as my arm, but I am so excited to get on that plane on February 1 and jet off to sunny Tucson, Arizona for the bead shows!

Yesterday, in a fit of optimism, I went to Target and bought a couple of new shirts and a new pair of pants that actually fit me. In trying to plan my wardrobe for the trip, I discovered that I do not own a single pair of nice-looking pants that actually fit me anymore.

I've already picked out what jewelry I'm going to wear - at least I've got my priorities straight, right? I've been stitching away on this bead embroidered collar, and I'm down to the last 2 inches or so!

While I was shopping at Target, I found a lovely, warm, oversize lavender sweater wrap that will look just perfect with this!

This is a piece that I started years ago, back before I got pregnant with Colden. I think I may have actually started it during the early part of the pregnancy after the exhaustion went away but before the nausea stopped. I put it down and then just couldn't find the "oomph" to pick it up again until just recently. Now it's part of my goal for 2012 to finish beading all six brass embroidery collar blanks in my stash.

I had no idea where to start with the bead embroidery between the vintage Lucite cabs, which is probably why it sat in my UFO drawer for so very long. But since I've been having so much fun making those beaded mandalas lately, I decide to make "mini mandalas" between each of the cabs.

So far, so good, although I'm not 100% pleased with the color palette. It's a little more monochromatic than I had originally planned.

Once I get the embroidery done, I get to do the yummy part: glue it to the brass embroidery blank and stitch it to the Ultrasuede backing. Then the fringing, and I should be good to go before February 1! One collar down, one killer piece of beaded jewelry to wear in Tucson!

Copyright Rant Follow-Up: Copyright vs. Patent

So, it seems in the Crazy Copyright Cake War that was going on yesterday, there was some confusion between a copyright and a patent. I feel it is very important to clarify between the two, since this seems to be the source of the conflict.

As defined by the U.S. Patent Office:

"A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. U.S. patent grants are effective only within the United States, U.S. territories, and U.S. possessions. Under certain circumstances, patent term extensions or adjustments may be available.


"The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without aid of the USPTO.

"There are three types of patents:

"1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;
2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and
3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant."

To clarify the matter further, yes, you can patent a design. However, there is more information on what is and is not acceptable for a design patent:

"Improper Subject Matter for Design Patents
A design for an article of manufacture that is dictated primarily by the function of the article lacks ornamentality and is not proper statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 171. Specifically, if at the time the design was created, there was no unique or distinctive shape or appearance to the article not dictated by the function that it performs, the design lacks ornamentality and is not proper subject matter. In addition, 35 U.S.C. 171 requires that a design to be patentable must be “original.” Clearly a design that simulates a well-known or naturally occurring object or person is not original as required by the statute. Furthermore, subject matter that could be considered offensive to any race, religion, sex, ethnic group, or nationality is not proper subject matter for a design patent application (35 U.S.C. 171 and 37 CFR § 1.3)."


Now, I'm no attorney, but I take that to mean that since finger cuffs like this have been around for centuries, you can't file a patent on them and prevent someone else from making them. (You can't patent a pendant that hangs from a chain, because they have been around for thousands of years.) In this case, you might be able to patent a particular hinge joint on the finger cuffs, if it was deemed new and useful, but not the finger cuff itself, since these types of cuffs have been around for hundreds to years.

Copyright, on the other hand, is a very different sort of animal. A copyright would cover, say, the instructions for creating such a finger cuff and prevent someone from using those directions and then claiming that they were their own. However, a copyright does not prevent someone from making as many of these objects as they please.

You can take a beading stitch like peyote stitch, write and illustrate your own directions, and copyright those so that you have the exclusive rights to that particular set of directions. However, you have not earned the exclusive right to use peyote stitch and forbid all others to do so, as would be the case with a patent.

Does that make sense to everyone?


So there it is. If this person who claims to be suing Mikki thinks that she has a patent on beaded rings that cover more than one part of the finger, she's most likely mistaken. Either someone was asleep at the patent office that day, or this person is confusing the difference between patent and copyright, which are two entirely different things.

The bottom line is this: copying someone's work is just bad for everyone. That said, I do believe that more than one person can come up with the same design. There are lots of talented beaders out there, and you know what they say about great minds and all that.

What bothers me the most about all of this is the zeal with which Mikki has been attacked. Does the person who threatened to sue her REALLY think that she is going to earn fame, fortune and a mansion in Palm  Beach by patenting beaded finger cuffs? (Which she couldn't do, anyway!) If she does, well, good luck to her. Otherwise, this just seems way too mean-spirited to be of any merit to anyone.

And I think that's what a lot of this comes down to. Sure, there are things that you can do with a copyrighted pattern or design, as Sig rightly pointed out on my last post. But, really, is that an ethical or moral thing to do? Just because it's legal doesn't mean that it's right. We're all people trying to earn a living doing something we love, and we should be making an extra effort not to step on toes and to be respectful to each other and our craft.

Now. That's all done, and Colden and I are off to a play date this morning!

STOP THE MADNESS!

Really, is there a full moon? Or some planet in retrograde somewhere? Something is seriously screwed up in BeadLand this week, and I'm about to out a copyright-violating Etsy seller, so here we go, SOPA notwithstanding.

Yesterday, one of my wonderful friends on Facebook mentioned that this Etsy seller, Areva, was downloading free tutorials from some very well-known and well-respected bead artists and SELLING them in her Etsy shop!

At first, I was like, for real? Am I really seeing this? She wants $5 for a tutorial you can download for free on Sabine Lippert's website? Then I looked a little closer and, lo and behold!, she was charging $5 a pop for two of my free tutorials that I published when I was over at About.com!

Now, I don't own the copyright to those tutorials. But The New York Times does. After mulling over this for a few seconds, I promptly sent this thief messages that said I was the designer of those projects and the copyright owner was The New York Times and that they had been notified that she was violating their copyright.

And then this morning, lo and behold!, they were gone! Poof!

To the copyright thieves everywhere: do you really think we're this stupid? Do you really think that we're not going to find out if you try to sell our free tutorials in your Etsy shop?

The Sisterhood/Brotherhood of the Designing Beaders is stronger than you might imagine. When you mess with one of us, you mess with ALL of us, so take heed! If we find out that you are violating copyright, or just doing things are unethical and not very  nice, we will take you down.

So, in the middle of all this craziness over this person who thinks she can sell free patterns in her Etsy shop and get away with it, my dear friend Carol Dean Sharpe finds THIS on YouTube:





And I think more than a few of us threw up in our mouths a little when we saw this and heard what this clearly uninformed person had to say about copyright.

When I watched this, the first thing I thought was, "Are you kidding me, lady? Have you EVER tried to make a living as an artist selling your OWN designs and not just riding the backs of more talented artists than yourself?"

Did this person ever wonder why large companies and corporations hire entire teams of intellectual property lawyers to defend against copyright theft?

Then this afternoon, to add the icing to the Crazy Copyright Theft Cake, Mikki Ferrugiaro has been informed that she can't release the tutorial for her gorgeous Finger Armor design because there is someone out there who thinks that she can PATENT all beadwoven rings that cover more than one part of the finger. And apparently, this person has a very well-paid (and potentially unscrupulous) attorney who is suing Mikki. (Head on over to Mikki's blog and scroll down to see her gorgeous Finger Armor.)

Oh, but then it gets even better - this person also asked Mikki if she could share how she created the hinges in her Finger Armor design so they could be included in HER instructions.

Now, come on. You can't make this shit up.

So, here's my take on this whole thing:

If you didn't sketch it out, sit up for hours beading it while breaking needles, bleeding and missing out on much-needed sleep until all hours of the night, then sit down and write out the seventeen-page tutorial complete with illustrations that made you sweat more blood, you have no right to sell it.

There's a REASON why those companies have attorneys to protect their intellectual property interests. They spend a lot of time and money developing these things, and it's the same for independent artists, but without all 2,500 middle men between the CEO and the person who rings you up at the checkout.

And the independent artists might not have a whole team of high-priced corporate lawyers, but their rights are the same as the rights of the corporation. (Remember that whole corporations-are-people thing? Yeah, well, people are people, too! And we all have intellectual property rights!)

So even if the independent artist DOESN'T have all this legal firepower at their behest, it's still just not a very nice thing to do when you copy someone's work and sell it as your own. Remember when you were in grade school? If you looked over at your neighbor's math test and started copying their answers, then got caught, wouldn't you have just died of embarrassment? Well, it's the same thing now that we're all (supposedly) grown-ups. You gotta play nice.

My sister, a college English professor, routinely flunks students who she catches plagiarizing. And it's not just "kids" either. She's caught adults (who supposedly know better - one of them was a MINISTER, for cryin' out loud!) who think they can take someone's work and thoughts and vision and pass it off as their own.

Now, I don't think it's ILLEGAL to copy someone else's essay and turn it in to your college professor. But that violates academic standards for pretty much every college and university in the United States. And probably Europe, too. And if you get caught doing it, it's grounds to be kicked out of that school.

Note that last line: And if you get caught doing it, it's grounds to be kicked out of that school.

So, anyone who's thinking that "in these tough economic times" it's perfectly okay to take those designs that you see in magazines and on the Internet and copy them and sell them as your own should take note: if you get caught (and you will get caught), not only will you be publicly embarrassed and humiliated, but you will get kicked out of BeadLand for good.

Birthday Boy

The days are just slipping past me, here. January is more than half over. In just two weeks, I fly to Tucson for three nights for the gem and mineral (and bead!) shows. And my little boy turned four on Sunday!

We had a nice play date with some of his friends from preschool, and then Oma and Opa came over on his birthday to celebrate with us. He was hilarious as he opened his presents, which included some new wooden trains from the Thomas the Train collection and a brand-new Radio Flyer tricycle from Oma and Opa!

After a dinner of deer meat (Colden's request), vegetable stew and homemade bread, we had birthday cake. Colden made sure that we all wore our birthday hats, and he thoroughly enjoyed it when we sang to him.

Later, Colden and I were hamming it up for the camera and Tom snapped this picture of the two of us cuddling in a living room armchair.

Trying to get myself and Colden prepared for my trip to Tucson in two weeks. I'm so excited about the bead shows and the shopping and getting to meet so many of my beading heroines, but I'm a little worried about how Colden will deal with my absence again. I'm putting a positive spin on the trip, telling Colden that he gets to spend all this time with Daddy while I'm away and that I'll be bringing back some beautiful rocks and crystals just for him. I hope it works this time!

I'm also looking forward to getting some sleep while I'm away. The trip out to Tucson is going to be hellish - including a four-hour layover at the Las Vegas airport - because I won't land in Tucson until 11:10 p.m. AZ time, which is what, 2:00 a.m. East coast time? Bleagh. But sleeping around here has been difficult at best lately. Colden still insists on getting into bed with us at 1:00 a.m. every night, waking us up after only a couple of hours of sleep. And then he thrashes around in bed, kicking and hitting and pulling on my hair. What usually happens is that I end up abandoning ship and going to sleep in HIS empty bed until he wakes up around 5:30 and crawls in there with me.

Last night was particularly bad. Colden was restless, and we had some bad wind storms with gusts over 50 mph rattling our 80+ year old house. When I did fall asleep, I was having tornado nightmares. I'm writing this blog this morning in hopes that it will get my writing brain moving again, but so far, it doesn't feel so good...

Oh, well. Maybe a couple of other inspirational blogs before I get down to the other work I need to do today!

Michelle Mach's Snowflake Challenge Revealed!

I'm late to the party as always, and I'm not quite finished with my challenge piece yet, but here's what I'm doing with those gorgeous ceramic pieces by Chinook Jewelry:

I wanted to do some beadweaving (obviously), but it was a challenge for me to figure out how to suspend these gorgeous elements. What I finally did was use circular peyote and netting to create a star centerpiece, and then I started stitching a beaded chain.

Originally, I thought I was doing a chevron chain for the beaded chain. But at 3 a.m. as I was trying to get back to sleep, I realized that I wasn't doing chevron - I was actually doing a triangular version of right-angle weave! How did that happen? I don't know, but let's just say I'm thinking about right-angle weave in my sleep lately. (More on that in a future Beading Daily blog!)

Of course, I'll post a better picture of the completed piece once I finish it. But for today, we've got lots of birthday celebrating to do with my little four-year-old! How time flies! It's been quite an adventure since Tom and I embarked on this journey called parenthood, and I wouldn't trade a second of it for anything!

So, if you're having a nice, lazy Sunday morning, grab a cup of coffee or tea and check out the rest of the participants in Michelle Mach's Snowflake Blog Hop!

• Alice (Alice Dreaming)
• Chris (beadjewelry.net)
• Christa (Adventures of One Beady Woman)
• Crystal (Here Bead Dragons)
• Cynthia (Cynth's Blog)
  
• Dawn (Morning Glory Beading)
• Donetta (Simply Gorgeous)
• Erin A.
• Jennifer (JenniferJW)
• Jennifer (Jewelry, Art and Life)
  
• Kari W.
• Kate (We Can Make That at Home)
• Kay (Palm Coast Art)
• Linda (Lindy's Designs)
• Lisa C. (A Bead a Day)
  
• Lisa (Inspired Adornments)
• Mary (MLH Designs)
• Michelle (Beads & Books)
• Michelle B.
• Millie (AMM Jewelry)
  
• Norma (Moonlit Fantasies)
• Pam (The Crazier Sister)
• Rebecca J.
• Renetha (Lamplight Crafts)
• Rosemarie (Gem Rose Designs)
  
• Shannon (Falling into the Sky)
• Susan (Bead Inspired)
• Therese (Therese's Treasures)
• Therese (Domestic Goddess Enterprises)

Gorgeous stuff! Happy Beading, everybody!

The Office

Ever since the basement was wrecked in the spring floods, we've been pondering what to do about my office. Truthfully, I was not keen on the idea of working down there all winter. Unless the heat is cranked up, it's chilly down there, and I really didn't want us to spend the money on fuel oil just so I could work down there. But Tom didn't want my office in the living room anymore.

Once I made the fuel oil argument, however, he agreed that it would be much better for me to make a corner office in the living room.

So today, once the bills were paid and the dust settled, I went on over to Amazon and bought a new desk and matching bookcase. Hooray! The only thing I love more than buying new office supplies is buying new office furniture, so this was a real treat for me.

Tom's big treat will come when the new furniture actually arrives and I can clear up the clutter and get re-organized in the living room.

Hmmm...Do I need some new file boxes and a new desk set?

Why, yes, I think I do... Off to Staples this weekend for some new office supplies!

Night Owl

Back before I had Colden, I used to be a night owl. I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning after Tom went to sleep, beading and watching movies and sketching. I was always like that, even when I was a kid. If I went to bed before eleven p.m., it was an early night. Even when I owned the shop, we didn't open until ten in the morning, so I could easily sleep in until eight or nine after a long night of beading and art-making.

Since I had Colden, however, things have been different. Obviously, when you have a newborn, you sleep when you can. And then when Colden started with his crazy sleeping-waking patterns, I had to continue to sleep whenever I could. I found myself so exhausted at the end of the day that I couldn't stay awake past nine, even if I tried.

Lately, though, I've found that I start to get my creative juices going after dinner - which, of course, conflicts with other things like bath time and bed time and what precious little time I get to spend alone with Tom these days.

I'd love to find a way to get back into the swing of things and be able to work late into the night. But Tom gets up and is out the door around six every morning; Colden needs to be dressed, fed and ready to head out the door by eight-thirty. There's no way I can stay awake until two and then be up at six to get Colden ready.

But night time is always when I feel like I come alive. It's when my fingers and my beads all seem to be able to come together and the work and the designs just flow... One day, I'll be able to get back into my night time groove. Just not now. I just need to find a way to make my groove work during the day.

Present

Tonight, Tom and I are starting a four-week parenting class at Colden's preschool, given by his teacher. We've heard wonderful things about this class and we've been looking forward to taking it for several months now, but it's going to be a hard thing for us. Since it meets on a week night, this means that Colden has to spend the entire afternoon and most of the evening at Oma and Opa's house - a long time for a four-year-old to be away from home. And Tom and I are used to being in bed by nine p.m. lately, since we're still dealing with the middle-of-the-night wakings.

What makes me a little sad today is that this morning, I was totally not present at all during our morning routine. I was thinking about how much work I had to get done, my projects, my new camera lens, Colden's birthday this weekend, the bills...and before I knew it, Opa was here and it was time to get Colden dressed and out the door.

Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal, but that means it'll be twelve hours before I see my little boy again, and then he's going to have to go straight to bed (as are we) if we expect to be awake and ready to go on time the next morning.

Why does it seem like time moves so fast lately? The cousins were here for seconds; I turned around twice, and suddenly Colden is four years old and in preschool. I'm preparing for my upcoming trip to the Tucson gem and mineral shows, which will probably zip past at the speed of light...

Sometimes it seems like the only time I can slow things down is if I sit down with Colden and do something with him, or if I sit with my beads while he's playing with his trains or his crayons. Even my work days just seem to zip past me while I'm not paying attention lately.

If I could slow down time, or even back it up to this morning's breakfast routine, I would have spent more time with Colden instead of worrying about the dishes and the day's agenda and my deadlines. I'll always have deadlines. But my little boy is growing up right before my eyes.

Sad

It's a little sad without the cousins around anymore. Colden has talked about them every day since they left, and last night as we were doing bedtime, he just spontaneously started singing "Manamana" while Daddy was reading to him.

Putting together the gingerbread house on Christmas Eve...

Hamming it up at The Wild Center with Kinsey...

Reading Thomas the Train with Kady...

My sister and I didn't have cousins growing up, so we never had this kind of friendship, and I love watching how the girls and Colden have become friends.

I've spent the last few days looking for some plane tickets for later this summer so we can go out to Reno and visit them. It's been six years since we've been out there, so I think we're overdue for a trip, and I think Colden would have such a great time seeing the horses and the mountains out there.

Cold morning today. Not nearly as cold as it should be, but cold enough that we've had the wood stove going 24/7 for the last week. Some gentle snow falling today, and I'm hoping for more so that we can actually go sledding this winter! We're nearly halfway through January, which means that usually, we'd be planning our maple sugaring work for next month. But since we haven't had much of a freeze this winter, we're worried that we won't get much. Anyone who says that global climate change isn't happening is, in my honest opinion, obviously out of touch with what's going on in the world around them. But that's a whole other rant for another blog...

Mandalas

So, I mentioned earlier that I recently bought a copy of Wendy Ellsworth's amazing book about beading and spirituality, and I got totally hung up on the first project of beaded mandalas. Here are my first two efforts:

I knew which colors I wanted to use for the first (purple and orange) mandala, but couldn't get to it right away because of the holiday madness going on around here. But I sat down with my nieces one morning (which is a whole other blog post) and taught them how to do bead embroidery by making mandalas with them.

As I was stitching away on this one, I got to the chapter all about color, with Wendy's discussion about color and chakras at the end of the chapter. Which, of course, inspired me all over again to make a second mandala, this time in greens, maybe to help facilitate my healing in the coming weeks.

I started small with these mandalas, using a 2-inch square of Nicole's Bead Backing, and trying to limit myself to no more than four colors of beads.

Stitching away at these, I did notice a sense of relaxation, and a feeling of things starting to come together. I felt a little sad at the end when I finished the edging around each one, like maybe I wasn't ready to stop stitching just yet. These feelings have inspired me to start on a new, larger mandala at some point in the near future.

For now, I think I may have bit off more than I can chew in the beading department. I'm trying to keep up with my earring-a-day challenge over on Beading Daily, working towards my goals of completing one large bead embroidered collar every eight weeks or so, working my way through Rachel Nelson-Smith's Bead Riffs, and now wanting to work on these beaded mandalas.

I have to say, Wendy's book has definitely inspired me and made me stop to think about how I feel while I'm beading. I'm eager to continue exploring these feelings and to continue reading her book... But for now, back to the beads and the blogging before our farewell dinner with Kathy, Kevin, Kinsey and Kady tonight.

Bead Porn

Whenever I make one of these big, honkin' bead-embroidered collars (or cuffs), a few of my non-beading friends refer to them as "Bead Porn". And maybe that's what they are. A little over the top, but totally wearable, and so much fun to make!

I haven't finished one of these since 2008 when I had Colden. There was just no time! But since Colden is nearly four now (I can't believe it!) and he's in preschool and I'm working full-time again, I managed to squeeze in some beading time. And now I'm completely hooked.

So one of my goals for 2012 is to finish the other six blank brass embroidery collar forms that I have sitting on my dining room table. I've already got one of them started from back in 2007 - I had to set it aside when the nausea from the pregnancy got so bad that I couldn't sit up for very long - so I'll be working on that one this week.

First day back to work for me since the holidays, and Kathy and Kevin and the girls go home on Thursday. It feels like they just got here! And while I'm sad to see everyone go back to Reno, I'm craving a return to our usual routine.

My Word for 2012: Grace

I saw that my beady friend Jill Wiseman doesn't do New Year's resolutions, and I think that's smart. What she does instead, which I think is even smarter, is to pick a word for the year. She chose the word "Joy".

So on New Year's Eve, as I was closing my eyes and getting ready for sleep, I thought about what word I wanted to choose for this coming year. As I relaxed, the word "Grace" immediately popped into my head, so I looked it up to get a clearer definition. This is what I found:

"Grace: noun, \'gras\
1. unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration and sanctification
2. a virtue coming from God
3. a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine Grace"

After reading that very first definition, I knew this was my word for 2012. In 2011, my life changed in many wonderful ways, and I was utterly humbled and grateful for all of it. For 2012, I feel as though I'm ready to start exploring a more spiritual path as an artist, and this is going to be how I do it...

So many more things I want to write about today! But, I don't want to blow them all at once. For starters, I don't want to cram it all in to one blog post. One day at a time...

Beaded Laughter Blog

Okay, so one of the reasons why I love the online community of beaders and bead artists so much is...this. Bead artist Sylvie Elise Landsdowne, who makes amazing and brightly colored lampwork glass beads, has been horsing around making hunky inspirational posters for those artists who are frantically preparing for the Tucson shows coming up in less than a month.

They started out just as a little joke between her and artist Jill Wiseman, another insanely talented beadweaving artist, and now it's just taken on a life of its own! Check out Sylvie's new blog, Beaded Laughter...

And check out this morning's blog post with my favorite hunk-a, Robert Downey Jr...

Habit

I must be getting old, because I feel as though I've become quite a creature of habit. For breakfast every morning for the last several months (except during my little bout of cranky gallbladder syndrome), I cook a bowl of oatmeal with dried cranberries and toasted pecans and a cup of hot chocolate. (Made with milk, not water.) It's turned into a morning ritual of sorts, as I stir and pour while Colden eats his eggs or muffins or whatever he has requested for breakfast.

So this morning, with Tom home from work and me trying to get functional with dried-up sinuses, an aching lower back and a pending migraine, I found myself getting quite testy when I saw that Tom had left one of our ginormous house plants in the sink to be watered and drain, and that he had left all of the cooking utensils from his and Colden's breakfast scattered all over the stove and counter.

I grumbled to myself about messing with my morning ritual, but felt instantly better when Tom and Colden came into the kitchen with the huge airplane that Tom had built for Colden with the Tinker Toys from Santa.

Many more things I want/need to write about in the last few days, but it'll have to wait until later... Off to get our family picture taken today, and then dinner out with Kathy and Kevin!

Christmas

Christmas was pure magic at our house. Colden was so thrilled to see that Santa came, and he took his time opening all of his presents - almost a full hour! It was just so much fun to watch him and see his reaction as he realized what each one was. He was totally thrilled with his Thomas, Hiro and Spencer toy trains, so we may have to complete his set for his birthday in a couple of weeks.

We've been spending every day over at Oma and Opa's house with the cousins, and while I think Colden is having a blast playing with his Reno relatives, I think he's starting to feel a little overwhelmed. Maybe time for a little break for him this morning.

The office is closed this whole week until January 3rd. And while I'm loving the time off from deadlines, not writing every day is sort of driving me buggy. I keep trying to make a little time to do some writing or some beading, and it's just not happening. If we go over to Oma's house this morning, maybe I'll bring some beading with me.

That said, the other night I was browsing beading books on Amazon, and I stumbled across this volume by Wendy Ellsworth, one of the bead artists who got me inspired to start on this path. I've always loved and admired her work, her use of color and her flawless techniques, and I was absolutely thrilled to see that she has written a book about the connection between spirituality and beading! I was even more thrilled to see that it was available for download on my Kindle app, so I had it in seconds.

I finished the first chapter last night after everyone else had gone to sleep, and now I want to start stitching a mandala. After starting up with massage therapy and acupuncture this year to treat all those lovely digestive issues, 99% of which are probably from stress, I feel so strongly like I need to find my spiritual center again.

I had to force myself to put the book down last night, because I desperately needed some sleep, but I'll be picking it up again today. My only gripe is that there aren't any color pictures, but I'll get over it. Wendy's writing is easy to read and fascinating when she talks about the long history of beads as they have been used for spiritual purposes throughout human history. I think what appeals to me the most is that she's talking about spirituality - not religion - and cosmology as she takes you through each chapter and project. There are meditation exercises and beautiful beading projects for both beginner and advanced beaders. All I have to say is, Wow. This is such an amazing book.

So, before I start stitching on a mandala today or tomorrow, I need to get the breakfast dishes cleaned up, take a shower and get Colden and I dressed, and then clean off my work table. I've also got to run some errands in Lake Placid before we pick up Tom from work this afternoon... At this rate, I'll need a vacation from my vacation!

Finished?

This is the first "big" piece of bead embroidery that I've attempted since finding out that I was pregnant in 2007. It was supposed to be my entry into the December Etsy Beadweavers' Challenge with the theme of "Arabesque", but I just couldn't make the deadline.

So this afternoon when I found myself pretty much done with deadlines until January, I decided to pick it up and start stitching on it again. Lo and behold, the bead embroidery just sort of stitched itself, including some very unexpected embellishment with pearls.

And then...just when I thought I was finished...I had the "good" idea to embellish the cabochon bezels with pearls. Oh, wow. More embellishment...more pearls...totally yummy!

So, now I've got about a zillion more pearls to stitch on to this puppy. Will I have it finished for Christmas? Probably not. For New Year's? Very possibly. Will I list it in my Etsy shop? Highly unlikely.

Handmade ceramic cabochons by Lisa Peters Art. Stitched on a piece of wonderful, thick, powder blue Nicole's Bead Backing.

Thankful

I think we've got these holidays totally mixed up. Around Thanksgiving, I don't usually feel that "thankful" sort of thing that everyone says you should. I just feel mostly annoyed at the barrage of ads and sales and other nonsense that gets people lined up outside big box stores at midnight and pepper-spraying each other for video game consoles.

No, I start to get thankful around Christmas. When people seem to be focused on buying, buying, buying and more, more, more, I start to think about what I already have.

First of all, I have a wonderful family. Tom and Colden are more than I could ever have hoped for, and while things certainly haven't been easy these last few years, they have been more rewarding than I could ever have dreamed. Second of all, we have a beautiful home, Moose, the chickens and our gardens - they all go into making this place special. I'm thankful that we have a warm, bright home and that Tom and I have the resources and the ability to maintain it.

This year, I'm particularly thankful to have my health relatively intact after a tough year of doctor's visits and uncertainties. I'm thankful that I have the resources to address problems when they arise.

I'm thankful that I have a job that I love more than I could ever have imagined, with a team of co-workers who are truly delightful and talented, and who make me laugh out loud when I read their emails.

Lastly, I'm thankful for the healthy food in our cabinets and freezer, and our access to healthy, nourishing food. So many others are forced to go without, and with every meal, I am thankful that we have never suffered from hunger in this house.

What I'll be most thankful for this year is that we are going to have a wonderful holiday at our house, and we didn't have to spend a ton of money to do it.

Manhattan, Day 2

The next morning, we ate breakfast and then headed back into the city to meet up with Lisa Peters of Lisa Peters Art. I've been buying Lisa's cabs and beads for a couple of years now, and I swear, she puts some kind of highly addictive drug in her clay. Every time she lists her items on Etsy, I end up buying more. And more. And...you get the idea.

The first thing Lisa did was hand me a little package with my latest order in it. Yowza! These cabs and connectors were just gorgeous! This was already off to a good start!

We walked up to Beads on Fifth, where I had purchased and printed out a couple of special deal coupons - buy a certificate for $20 and redeem it for $40 at the store. Fantastic!

Beads on Fifth was small, but packed with beads, findings, charms and tools.

Lisa and I did a little creative collaborating...

And then we got down to the business of buying beads!

So much fun! Lisa even took a quick pic of me, Min Ping and Min Yee as we were browsing the trays and trays and trays of beads and findings.

Next up, we went to York Beads, where I nearly lost my mind just after walking in the door. All the colors, all the shapes, all the sparkle! It was almost too much!

Min Yee took my picture in front of the Wall O' Czech Seed Beads. I hadn't seen this many beads since I left my house on Saturday...

The only thing about is that you have to buy in quantity. They don't sell just a strand of daggers - you gotta buy the whole hank of daggers! Not necessarily a bad thing, but it meant that I could only get one hank of daggers, one hank of glowing copper drops and one hank of green lustered mushrooms. But considering I also picked up three new colors of 13/0 charlottes, some excellent Picasso-marbled tube beads and a strand of marbled green tribal curved daggers, I think I did pretty well.

After that, Min Ping and Min Yee went off to find lunch, but Lisa and I were just hungry for more beads. We went into Phoenix Beads, where we browsed but didn't buy, and City Beads, which was a very impressive shop, indeed. I found a few Swarovski crystal components that I need for projects for The Book, a strand of textured glass coin pearls, and a small package of metallicized plastic beads.

Lisa was totally smitten with a package of beads that looked like dice, so I helped her pick out a few little goodies to go with it for a special gift for her grandmother. (Can't wait to see that one!)

Then we wandered into the Toho store. And wow. The selection of components there was just unreal! I picked up more than a few beautiful items to bead around and to incorporate into beaded chains, as well as a set of beautiful gold wire mesh roses. (I've been lusting after those roses for a long, long time, and this seemed as good a time as any to give in!)

After we met up with the Mins again, we had some time to kill before our train back to NJ, so Lisa suggested we go into MJ Trimmings. Once again, total sensory overload combined with the deepest relief that I had left my credit card at home.

To get the full idea of what it's like in MJ Trimmings, imagine 20 foot high walls, stacked to the ceiling with boxes and boxes of buttons. All sorts of buttons. Toggles, shank buttons, painted, metal, glass, crystal...the place sparkled like sunshine! In the next room were nailheads, rhinestones and walls and walls of ribbons, lace and decorative edgings and trim.

Lisa came up to me as I was picking out a few buttons and told me that I had to see these amazing metal sequins - and I did. Oh, wow. I picked out three packages of them to take back with me.

By this time, I was totally exhausted, overwhelmed and excited all at the same time. We said goodbye to Lisa and went back to the train.

In a way, I'm glad that I don't live closer to Manhattan. I'd be in there all the time to buy beads! On the other hand, for me, the city is a place that is full of energy, excitement and inspiration, and I think I need to go back there maybe more than once a year!

Manhattan, Day 1

So,  my first morning in New Jersey with my friends, we decided to make the trek back into New York City and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I hadn't been to the Met in many, many years. Probably like ten years since my last visit - and for a place that has always provided me with inspiration and relaxation, that's ten years too long! I had wanted to go for a visit last fall when I was down in NYC for the About.com Guide event, but just couldn't make it in that weekend.

We hopped on a late morning train into NYC and then navigated the subway. I joked with Min Yee that I was too out of shape to keep up with her. It was all I could do to keep her bobbing pony tail in my sight as she raced up and down the streets of Manhattan toward the museum!

So, there I am in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Min Ping. I was so excited to go in there and see everything! I'd been having dreams about this place, and as soon as we got past the crowded entrance hall, it was amazing.

Almost the first thing we saw was this case full of ancient Egyptian beads. It still boggles my mind how these tiny, carefully and skillfully crafted bits of sand, stone and glass have survived for thousands and thousands of years.

Stunning, aren't they?

Then we decided to go spend some time in the Asian arts wing. We spent a couple of hours admiring the insanely beautiful and quiet art of China, Japan, Tibet and India. The sculptures and statues of the Buddha in all his many forms were very inspiring and soothing for me.

Here is Min Yee, hugging a post of Nan wood in the beautiful Chinese courtyard installation.

And I totally fell in love with these doors, leading into the interior of a traditional Chinese house. They just looked so soothing and inviting with the warm wood, the carved-out lattice work and the light falling gently onto the stone floor beneath our feet.

There were a series of lattice work windows all around the installation, and we got the idea of translating them into beading patterns for netting and right-angle weave - perfect for all those new Twin seed beads I just got from Sparkle Spot Bead Shop! (In all my free time, right? But these should work up quickly, so maybe I'll at least have the basics down before Christmas!)

Then we took a photo of this intricate carved rosewood roof on the way up to the galleries with the art of Bhutan and Tibet. The light was poor, and flash photography isn't allowed in the galleries, so this was the best we could do with my little Nikon point-n-shoot.

The craftsmanship of these types of installations just thrills me. I can imagine the craftsman at work, lying on his back, looking up at his work, patiently carving out each figure and pattern from the wood.

There were more things that we saw, but unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed. I can only say that I finally got to see the famous Met Nativity Scene live, in person and up close and it was as every bit as amazing as I had expected it to be; I found myself breathless at the sight of two 17th century Japanese kimonos that were embroidered with silk and precious metal threads; and the European decorative arts wing with all of the elaborate Baroque furniture was just as gorgeous as I remembered it.

We had long talks about the differences between Eastern and Western religious art and the differences and similarities between Chinese and Japanese art and culture.

And the sushi in the cafeteria wasn't half-bad, either!

On the way home, we took a "slight detour" (according to Min Yee, who could qualify as an Olympic marathon speed-walker) and went to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I need to figure out how to get the photo off of my phone, but we got there just as a show at Radio City Music Hall was letting out and the streets were packed with people and cars and police officers. The crowd at the Christmas tree was incredible - I don't think I've seen that many people in the same place at the same time since my first rock concert back in 1991.

I was absolutely exhausted when we got home, but a hot shower, a hot meal and some decent sleep had me recharged and ready to go the next day when we met up with Lisa Peters of Lisa Peters Art and did some serious bead shopping in the fashion district!

Friends

Wow. Just wow.

I posted on Facebook about this crazy convo I received yesterday, and I was overwhelmed with the dozens of responses that I got! Truly, I am in good company when it comes to dealing with insane people who have no idea what it takes to create the type of handmade jewelry that we do.

It inspired me to get this post out on Beading Daily about How to Price Your Handmade Jewelry. 

I was even more thrilled to discover that the amazing Margot Potter addressed this in her blog this morning! Way to go, Madge!

I think what thrills me the most about this whole situations was that through the power of the Internet and our collective dedication to the art of handmade, we took what could have been a very hurtful message and turned it into something positive and humorous! Way to go, Beaders!

It was one of those days where I just wanted to sit back and give a contented sigh of, "I love my job."

Happy December! I'll be packing tomorrow for my big New York City bead shopping trip! I'm planning to meet up with a couple of beading friends, spend some time wandering around New York City, and sleeping in past seven a.m. without a rambunctious four year old yanking on my hair. (Although I will miss the rambunctious four year old terribly while I'm gone.)

What's on your agenda this December?

Retrograde

I awoke this morning to a convo in my Etsy shop regarding this necklace which read:

"about your necklace are you seriously charging that much !!! i saw one idetical but with jade and it was only $50 your price is ridicolous besides a kid could make this minus the edging around the pietersite"

Now, my first reaction was to think, "That's just great. You can go buy that other necklace. You must have confused my work with that which is made by child labor in a sweat shop for a dime a day. So sorry." My other reaction was to send her back a long-winded reply about the time and particular techniques involved in this piece, but I decided to do neither.

My one-word reply to this crazy person? "Whatever."

I mean, come on, seriously? Surprisingly, I was not at all offended by this insane message. First of all, I found it highly amusing that she misspelled words like "identical" and "ridiculous" but somehow managed to spell "Pietersite" correctly.

Second of all, she obviously has no clue that the "edging around the pietersite" which is the only part of my necklace that could not be done by a child is, in fact, what makes the necklace handmade and unique.

And third, if she thinks my price is too high, well, she doesn't have to buy it. I don't care if she buys it. In fact, I would prefer that she NOT buy it, because she obviously has no respect for beautiful handmade objects and would most likely not care for it properly.

But I have to wonder, what did she think I was going to say?

"Oh, my goodness! I didn't realize that I was overpricing my work! How helpful of you to drop me such a direct note to let me know that I'm heading down the road to failure because I am charging too much for my handmade work! Would you like me to knock $85 off the price for you? And can I get you some cocoa with that?"

Or maybe...

"Wow, I had no idea that this is so overpriced. Thank you so much."

Or maybe this...

"Whatever."

Which brings me to a good story from a couple years ago at my farmer's market.

It was a lovely Sunday morning, warm and breezy, and it was getting to be near the end of the market that day. This was when I was selling my fused glass pendants and jewelry, and I had a lovely selection of brand new work displayed on my black velvet pads. I was especially proud of a new set of 1 3/4" dichroic glass pendants that had just come out of the kiln, all with sterling silver bails.

That day, I was set up next to a couple of guys in their 50s who were selling some absolutely amazing handmade rustic and birch bark furniture. Like, real Adirondack Great Camp style work. Well made, with dovetail joints and the whole bit. Real luxury stuff.

A woman came along to my table, two little kids in tow. She looked over my pendants, then picked up the largest piece, which incidentally, I had also decorated with traditional henna tattoo patterns using enamel paints. She held it up in the sun and admired it, then turned it over to see the price marked on the back.

"Forty-five DOLLARS?!" she gasped. She tossed it - literally, threw it! - back down on the table and huffed off with her children.

I hadn't even had time to react when one of the gentleman next to me leaned over and said, "Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers..."

I burst out laughing at that point, because what he said was absolutely true and was something that I had learned that summer while selling my work at the farmer's market. I do not sell jewelry that has been made in a sweatshop or by child labor for pennies a day. I sell handcrafted wearable art. Not everyone is looking for my kind of jewelry, and that's fine. The reason I sell my work at farmer's markets and fine craft shows is because, yes, there are people out there who are looking for unique, well-made, handcrafted jewelry. That simple.

So, hey, I'm not going to worry too much about that message from this morning. Because I know that this necklace will go to a good home when it's time, and I'm really not going to let this insane, unappreciative person who can't spell or punctuate to save her life get to me.

But at least it was good for a few chuckles when I shared it on Facebook this morning!

Words

Words are getting in the way today. I am trying like hell to finish up these blogs posts, but the words that usually come so easily seem like a distraction to me today. I can usually put Pandora radio on the iPad while I write and have background music, but today, I seem to notice every single word from the lyrics that are coming through the speakers. It's driving me mad. I need to concentrate on this, and, well, it's just not working...

Strange today that my back is hurting me down through my knees, the same way it did at the beginning of all this digestive unpleasantness, and sure enough, my stomach has gone on strike today. Nothing sits right when I eat. Going to the chiropractor this afternoon to see if that helps a bit, and then I think I should have acupuncture this Friday instead of trying to go for another two week stretch without a treatment. Damn it all...

Sunday

Tom is off deer hunting today, and he called me this morning to tell me that he got the buck he had been watching since he arrived in Greene on Friday afternoon! Truthfully, I was a little worried about what would happen if he didn't get a deer. He's had such rotten luck so far this season and he missed out on his big island hunt with Rob and The Guys in October. It'll be nice for him to have venison in the freezer this winter!

Colden and I are having a lazy morning. We're both still in our pajamas, although I did actually make it into the shower to wash my hair and clean up a bit. It's a windy, overcast day today, with a sprinkling of rain. We've had breakfast (sort of) and watched The Santa Clause 2 (oy) and are hanging out in his bedroom, sort of cleaning and straightening up and sort of playing with his favorite magnetic fishing game.

Tom called me last night when I was just about to have a nervous breakdown. I had finished the last of the "chicken" strips for lunch, and Colden decided that he wanted them for dinner. (After we had come back from Oma and Opa's house, where we had mac and cheese and peas for dinner.) So in addition to the guilt I felt from eating the last of the strips and the exhaustion and aches, I had a screaming nearly-four-year-old to soothe.

After Colden finally went to sleep, Tom sent me a text message. I can't repeat it here, but it made me laugh. So we sent text messages back and forth for about half an hour before we both conked out and needed to go to sleep. I felt like my sister, who texts back and forth with her husband all day long. What's next for Tom - a Facebook account?!

Beading later. I got some ideas that I need to start working on before my deadlines completely overwhelm me and I drown.

Up the Ante.

It's been years since I did any bead shopping down in New York City. The last time I went was the year before I got pregnant with Colden, and I can still remember traipsing around the fashion district with my two friends, buying beads, eating falafel from a street vendor...

I may not be able to do the street vendor falafel thing this time around, but I can certainly still shop for beads! (I'm thinking maybe some meal replacement bars from my favorite place in Willsboro will have to do instead of the falafel.) So the other day, I bought a train ticket down to Penn Station for the first weekend in December to spend some time hanging out with friends and hitting the bead shops in NYC.

Maybe it was that episode of Project Accessory where they went to the Swarovski store in Manhattan that got to me. Or maybe it's just that I haven't been away to do anything fun in a very long time. And now that I *can* have a little getaway without feeling horribly guilty over finances, I think I need to do this.

Besides, it'll give me great blogging material!

Speaking of blogging, make sure you take a few minutes and check out this blog over at the Lark Crafts site! They've asked bead artists for their recommendations for holiday book wishlists, and right now, you can read my recommendations (there are quite a few!) as well as the recommendations of my beady friend Jill Wiseman of Tapestry Beads!

Got to get back to it now...we've got a holiday weekend coming up, and I still need to get two more blog/newsletters out of my brain and on to the proof reader...

Babies

In the last month, four of my friends have announced that they are pregnant. Some of them are having second and third babies; some of them are having first babies. Most of them are my age or older, which made made Tom and I have the big talk again: are we going to have a second baby?

The more I thought about it, the more I thought that at this point in my life, with our financial situation being what it is, I can either have a second baby or a career. I don't see any practical way of doing both right now. And I'm 37. I certainly don't see myself doing the round-the-clock feeding thing again when I'm 40. (As it is now, we still have to get up sometimes four times a night with Colden!)

We had always thought about having a second baby so that Colden wouldn't be an only child. Tom's mom was an only child, and she has always said that the one thing she really wanted was a sibling. I have to admit that since my mom passed away a few years ago, I've become closer to my sister. I would love for Colden to have a brother or sister that he could have that experience like Tom and I did.

But. I just don't think it's in the cards. Not right now, anyway. Maybe I'll change my mind in a year. Maybe we'll find a way to do it in a year. But for right now, we're just going to enjoy Colden, and enjoy watching him grow up, even if it makes me a little sad that he's doing it all by himself...

More NaSeeBeMo

We are now at Day 14 of the month of November, and so far, I have managed to bead every single day, even if it was only for ten or fifteen minutes. Feels pretty darn good.

This is my Arabesque challenge piece for the Etsy Beadweavers' Team. I have to have this baby finished and listed in my Etsy shop before midnight on December 5. I'm pretty confident that I'll have it ready to go by then!

I'm amazed at how much I've accomplished just by breaking down this large-scale piece of bead embroidery into manageable pieces. I think to myself, okay, I'll just stitch this one line here. And then when that's done, I tell myself that I can stitch one more line before I have to get up and do something else. Then when my thread is finished, I start on another section of it.

I'm purposely keeping my threads short so that I give myself that good ol' pat on the back for accomplishing something. I love it.

I also managed to get the brass collar form for my Day of the Dead challenge covered in Ultrasuede the other day. Once I finish edging it with those tiny black seed beads using brick stitch, I'll start adding the embellishment with the beads. This is going to be interesting...I'm still trying to figure out how to add the lampwork sugar skull. It might involve some wire work and a cabochon, we'll see.

And on that note, I'm trying to plan a few days away down in NYC with some friends for some bead shopping. It's been far too long since I've been down there for a visit, and I need some time away from home to recharge my batteries. While I'm there, I think I'm going to have to hit Rockefeller Square to see all the Christmas decorations and eat some street vendor falafel. Sometimes I really miss living so close to the city, but I can't imagine living anywhere else but here.

Foggy

The last couple of days, I've felt like I've been in a total brain fog, which is not a good thing for a writer/blogger. My attention jumps from piece to piece as I'm writing. I probably shouldn't have sixteen pieces open at once in my word processor, but there it is.

I did, however, manage to finish two more pieces from Bead Riffs last night and get started on another one!

I have been just itching to make those lovely little Nightingale earrings. The idea of stitching together all those tiny, shiny little Swarovski rounds just tickled me! Once the pieces were finished, I was genuinely happy with my color choice of Crystal Copper for these earrings. I seem to be gravitating towards copper and warm brown tones lately, and these will go nicely with a number of sweaters and shirts I have for winter.

The only mishap occurred when I tried to attach the earrings to the fancy sterling ear wires that I got for the project. (They were similar to the ones pictured in the book, and not the sterling round hoops you see in the picture.) I went to gently open the bottom loop of the second ear wire to add the finished earring and the loop broke right off! Considering what I paid for them, I was a little annoyed, but decided that they look just as nice on the round hoops. Unfortunately, those round hoops are NOT comfortable for me to wear, so I'm probably going to find another pair of fancy ear wires for these.

Then I started in on Drop Me Off in Harlem, another 3-dimensional right-angle weave project that I was fascinated with making.

It's truly a stunning pendant, and it came together so easily! I stitched up both bases in just over an hour, and the embellishment itself only took me another hour or so. Stitching it together took no time at all, and now all I need is a chain for it!

Similar to the Night In Tunisia necklace, the real shape of this piece didn't come together until the last step when I was stitching the bases together. But it felt wonderful in my fingers as the curves and angles came out, and I'm also pleased with my color choice of a permanent-galvanized rose gold seed bead from Beyond Beadery. 

The only thing that really gave me problems was figuring out how to attach the rose montees to the top of the peyote bumps during the embellishment. I always felt like there was too much thread showing, and trying to keep those little crystals from flipping over before I could make the second and third thread passes was a challenge, too. Which leads me to....

The beginnings of 'Round Midnight! The color of this piece in the book is metallic silver, but I wanted to do something bright and cheery. I got these permanent silver-lined fuchsia from Beyond Beadery at Bead Fest a few years ago, and I've had the size 15s in this color for so long that I can't remember where I got them. (Beadin' Path? Whimbeads? I have no idea.)

If I want to master the art of adding montees to peyote bumps, this is going to be the piece that does it. I've got to add 12 montees to 12 peyote bumps. Three down, nine to go...

I really want to dive in to some of the larger and more complex pieces in the book, but I'm afraid those are going to have to wait until 2012. >sigh< I've got three big beading deadlines coming up in December, and even with NaSeeBeMo, I'll have to put off anything else until after Colden's birthday in January.


For now, though, I'm really thrilled with all the little sparkly pieces from Bead Riffs that are making their way into my jewelry box!

Sparklies

They're here! They're here! They're here!

I have been a very patient beader these last few weeks, and now it's paid off! I can't jump in and start Rondo or Dolled Up just yet since I don't have everything for those projects, but I can get started on some of those smaller pendants and rings - beaded rings! (Which will be great to go with my newly manicured fingernails.)

NaSeeBeMo

Maybe you've heard of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo - it's an event where writers are encouraged to write every single day during the month of November, with the idea that at the end of 30 days, you'll have a first draft of a novel, or pretty darn close to it.

One of my beading friends on Facebook, a very talented beader named Dulcey Heller, mused about what would happen if there were National Seed Beading Month in November. What a great idea! Beaders being encouraged to bead every single day for an entire 30 days!

All too often, at the end (or at the beginning) of my days, my beading gets pushed aside to do other things. I decided to pick on the NaSeeBeMo idea because I feel like I'm ready to get back into large-scale beading projects, and I just need some impetus to do it. Giving myself the encouragement to bead every single day for a whole month is something that I really need right now.

So far, we're five days into November, and I am happy to report that I have picked up my beads every single day for five days. I've made good progress on my Etsy Beadweavers' challenge piece (which is due on December 5th, yikes!) and I've made progress on a couple other pieces that were sitting on my work table.

Even if I only bead for five or ten minutes, it feels good to hold that needle in my fingers.

We'll see what the rest of NaSeeBeMo brings...!!!

Decisions, Decisions...

So, I got the order of brass bead embroidery collars from Designer's Findings the other day, so now I'm all set to start my project for The Hole Bead Shop!

...or so I thought...

My first thought was to make a collar covered in Ultrasuede (no bead embroidery actually on the collar) and then just fringe and embellish the hell out of it. But when I checked my Ultrasuede supply, I found that I didn't have enough black to do it. I had a large piece of the off-white, but I didn't want to use that because it seems to get dirty pretty easily on a big project like this. I had a very cool deep red/orange that would look fabulous, but without the black... Meh.

Fortunately, I am expecting a new order of Ultrasuede any second now. Which, translated into shipping times to rural areas like this, means sometime between now and the 17th of November.

So, I have a choice. Do I hold off on working on this collar until I get the Ultrasuede and go ahead with my original plan? OR do I just say to heck with it and do a bead embroidered front?

I'm thinking that I will probably stick with my original plan. I don't want the bead embroidery to take away from the lush and lavish fringe and embellishment that I have planned. And truthfully, I don't know if I'll have the time to do a full-on bead embroidered panel for the front. (I'm already working on a big Arabesque bead embroidered piece for my Etsy Beadweavers' Challenge this month so I don't get kicked off THAT team.)

I went into town today and had lunch with a friend, and it was a fabulous time. I miss having grown-up talk like that during the day. And I didn't even have any digestive issues with the lunch, either! Huzzah! Followed that up with a great acupuncture appointment, and came home to a hot meal of homemade Indian food, thanks to the spousal unit.

Tomorrow morning, I have to be at the lab bright and early when they open to get that last set of blood tests that the acupuncturist wanted. (Have I mentioned she is also a fabulous M.D.?) Then I think some Beading in Public at Starbucks before I have a manicure... And don't laugh. It's been two years since my last manicure, and I need to do something girly for myself this weekend.

Trying Times

We had a potty training meltdown this morning.

What is going on?!

Colden wouldn't get on the potty to poop. He ran away from me every time I tried to get him in the bathroom. I finally got him on the potty, and then he wanted to read every single book he owns. I couldn't get him off the potty. When I tried to get him off, he started screaming and just went limp so that I couldn't pick him up. I finally relented, and we wound up getting over to Oma and Opa's house at ten o clock in the morning.

Of course, the whole time this was going on, I was thinking about all the things I had to do today: the work, the writing, the beading, the photographs, the appointment for acupuncture... And I could feel myself just getting more and more stressed out. I had to walk away from Colden while he was sitting on the potty just to get myself together.

And then I start thinking that I must be doing something wrong. Is Colden's behavior my fault? Am I allowing him to get away with having a temper tantrum? Am I "enabling" as someone once told me?

The whole thing starts to make me feel like a very inadequate mother.

On the other hand, some mornings it's HARD getting a nearly-four-year-old washed, dressed and well-fed before we get out the door all by myself. Colden is a bright, active kid. It's hard to find a balance between letting him assert himself and making sure that I can get him to do the basics all within a reasonable amount of time.

On a good note, a friend emailed me this morning and asked me to have lunch with her. And I rescheduled my acupuncture appointment for later this afternoon. That will be a very nice break for me today.

Rejection

I got a rejection yesterday. I've gotten lots of rejections before, and while having your art rejected isn't fun, this particular rejection was just mean. The rejection letter said something like, "We have deemed that your work is not of sufficient quality or artistic merit for our program."

Wha?

Two of the pieces I submitted, mind you, were good enough to appear on the cover of a certain well-known beading magazine. But they were not of sufficient quality or artistic merit for their program.

My sister, who is an up-and-coming science fiction/fantasy/horror writer, called me and understood exactly what had happened. She said, "There's a difference between CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and just plain criticism."

What I experienced was the latter.

It got me so pissed off. How dare these people go so far as to insult me and my work like that? Being rejected is hard enough; but getting a MEAN rejection is just, well, mean.

I may write a response to their rejection letter and suggest that in the future they refrain from using those particular sentences when turning down candidates for their program. Why? Because nice matters.

Eggs

I was cooking an egg, avocado and Swiss cheese sandwich for myself this morning, and I was looking at the egg as I cracked it into the bowl. Last month when Tom's hunting buddies came up from downstate, we used up pretty much every egg the girls laid. And then we actually had to go BUY eggs, because until Tom got the red light installed in the coop for the winter, those girls were not generous in replenishing our supply. The other morning, Colden asked for an egg for breakfast, so I opened the store-bought carton of eggs.

The egg that I cracked into the bowl for him that morning was pale, neon yellow. It looked sick. I actually felt a little sick cooking it up for Colden, knowing that it probably came from a hen that was crammed into a tiny cage so that she couldn't even stand up or move her wings, and that her beak had probably been removed, too.

It did not look like a happy egg.

This morning, I had a nice supply of eggs from our girls to use, thanks to that red light that keeps them warm and gives them some extra light when the days get short. (I could probably use some extra light, too.)

When I cracked that egg into the bowl, I noticed what a deep gold it was, how it was a thicker yolk and a thicker shell. It tasted much better than the other eggs that I cooked from the store-bought container earlier in the week. It looked better. It looked like an egg.

So here's what I'm going to take away from this experience with the eggs: Our chickens are raised with care and love and pride. We do not remove their beaks. We play with them. We pick them up and pet them. We interact with them. They get good food, lots of fresh vegetable and meat scraps, lots of fresh grass from their huge enclosure, and they get to walk and run around in the fresh air and the sun every day. They get fresh water. They get love and attention.

And in return, they give us beautiful, nutritious eggs.

If you want to do something well, do it with care and love and pride. Do it with respect and a consciousness of your actions. Do it with the understanding that everything you do will affect someone else, somewhere.

Be nice to your chickens.