So much to do, so little time...

Feels like every day, I always leave a million things undone. Whether it's the cleaning or the laundry or something else for the business (like doing the books - eeks!), by the time Colden goes down for the night, I'm faced with a dilemma: catch up on some much-needed sleep or sit in front of the computer for a few hours more and try to be productive? Last night, I just gave up - after sitting in front of the computer for forty five minutes and realizing that I had just re-read the same line over about six times, I checked out Facebook and then started playing a computer game. Not exactly what you'd call productive.

But this morning, I FINALLY finished cleaning out the closet in Colden's room that I've been meaning to clean out for like two years now. I took six bags of clothing to the thrift shop, and I cleaned the living room and the kitchen. Tom has Colden in the backpack, fast asleep, and is doing the floors as I put my feet up for a few minutes before I go start lunch for us.

We're hoping the chickens give us a few more eggs before we start hard-boiling them this afternoon for decorating at Tom's parents' house tomorrow afternoon. We thought they might like to watch their grandson color eggs, even if Mommy and Daddy are doing most of it! Last year, we postponed Easter by a week because I was sick in bed with mastitis and was just so exhausted that I could barely move. We decorated eggs the week after Easter, and then had our big Easter feast with his folks that same weekend. Colden, as I recall, sat in his baby swing and watched us color eggs until he had one of his infamous ass-plosions that required a hosing off in the bathtub! Aaah, those were the days.

Anyway, I finally got to watch the end of "Marley and Me" this morning while Tom was out trying to scare up a few colonies of bees for us for this summer. It was totally something I could relate to - even if I don't quite look like Jennifer Aniston and I'm not exactly married to Owen Wilson. Ha! But the whole thing just really rang true to me - the early days of being a parent, forming an attachment to your pooch, trying to figure out what you want out of life - those themes are universal. And they portrayed them so well. I swear my husband and I have had those same arguments that John and Jen had in the movie, verbatim. I wish I could get Tom to watch it, but he doesn't want to see the end.

Since I'm not going to be doing much else this weekend, I'll just post a picture of the piece that Beadwork wants to publish in their Feb/March 2010 issue. I call it "Ode to a Grecian Urn", but I don't know what they will rename it for publication! So, here's hoping that everyone has a wonderful Passover and Easter weekend!

What did I do today?

No, seriously, I'm trying to figure out what I did today...

It feels like I just woke up, but as I write this, it's almost 9:45 p.m.

We woke up at a reasonable time this morning - around 7 a.m. - and we went and had some breakfast while I checked my email and Colden practiced walking around the kitchen like Frankenstein with his arms high above his head. I called the Tractor Supply store in Plattsburgh to find out if the baby chickens had arrived, and they had! So my next call was to Sandy (at 8 a.m., I was hoping that I didn't wake her up!) to see what time they wanted to come give me and Colden a ride to Plattsburgh.

We bought a dozen baby chicks - so sweet! They had three aluminum tubs full of baby chicks, all under heat lamps. You could hear them as soon as you walked in the store. I also picked up a 50-lb bag of chick mash, which we probably won't finish, but it was either a 5-lb bag or a 50, so I went with the 50!

When we got home, Tom's dad, thankfully, hung out with Colden while I went out to the chicken coop and got the babies settled in the brooder that Tom had made for them. It was frustrating trying to keep the temperature at the right level - it was 102 under the light when I got in there, but as soon as I lifted it up even a fraction of an inch, the temperature dropped down to 80! In the end, we decided that it would be better if we left the temperature warmer right under the heat lamp, since there was plenty of room for the babies to walk away and cool off, and if they did get too cold, they could always huddle underneath the heat lamp for a while.

So, after I lugged up the 50-lb bag of chicken feed and finished with the new babies, I came inside and gave Colden a snack, caught up on my email, and then got Colden some lunch. I wasn't terribly hungry (still tasting the garlic knots from last night's dinner!), so I kept working on editing my photos while Colden ate and fed Moose.

After lunch, I continued working on re-sizing my photos. There has got to be a better way to re-size 260 photos without having to do each one individually!

When Colden finally conked out for his nap around 3:00 p.m., I picked up my latest beading project and kept working on it. I am trying to find a way to simulate the granulation of 14th century Jewish wedding rings with size 15 seed beads and 3.5mm bead caps. I think I've figured it out, but we shall see...

Tom got home around 3:30 and told me that his new motorcycle helmet had come in and that he was going up to Plattsburgh to pick it up. I didn't want to go because Colden was still asleep, and I didn't want to wake him up, and I still had 130 photos to re-size! Tom came home around 5 with his new helmet which, thankfully, fits him! By that time, it was getting to be time for dinner, so I reheated last night's leftover pizza (and garlic knots!) and fed Colden. Our friend Rob and his two stepkids came over for a visit after their trip to Delaware, and they were all excited to see the new baby chicks.

While I was eating dinner, I realized that I had left the baby seat in Sandy and Tom's van! I need it to go to Lake Placid tomorrow to do my errands, so it was back out in the cold (and snow) to their house to drop off half a dozen eggs and get the baby seat.

When I got home, I made out a new to-do list for the rest of the week and then got Colden into his pajamas, got into my pajamas, and finished editing the photographs. (Hooray!)

So, without further ado...

Coming exclusively to my ArtFire store sometime over the next few days, here is my latest line of fused glass jewelry:










I'm actually quite proud of these little lovelies! In fact, I think that's what I'm probably going to call them: my Little Lovelies!

Ah, yes, so you can tell that it's getting late and I need to go to sleep now. And I think it's time for Colden to go to sleep, too, so good night!

I really hope this is not going to be a long night.

But it's the first night since Thursday that we didn't have to give Colden any Benadryl for his congestion, and he didn't go to sleep until about five minutes ago! Eeks. So that means I'm going to throw these pictures up here and then get myself to sleep, so here goes...

Here is a sneak peak at the new line of fused glass jewelry that I have to photograph tomorrow so I can start listing them on my ArtFire shop! I am currently running a sale on my fused glass items on my Etsy shop, so these aren't going there for a while!








And these are the two Flower Power/Peyote Burst necklaces I made. These photos are terrible - I'm sure I'll get much better shots in the light tent.









And just for the heck of it, a picture of my "cool kid" enjoying his bottle and playing with Mommy's new sunglasses! (Hence the reason I never pay more than $5 for a pair of sunglasses these days - they get lost or Colden gets his hands on them!)








Okay, off to bed now. Cross your fingers and send some sleep vibes our way...

Oooh, it was a good day in the mail!

I got my latest order from Fire Mountain Gems, which means that I can now start writing directions and work up the earring projects that Leslie from Step By Step Beads wants from me. I also got the teeny, tiny little bead caps that I ordered from someone on Etsy for my series of Jewish wedding rings. (And, by the way, they threw in the coolest free gift! I'll have to post pics of those later and mention the seller, whose name I can't remember right now.) And then we got two new movies from Netflix - "Marley and Me" with Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson, two of my all-time favorite actors, and "Happy Go Lucky" which is a British flick that Tom wants to see and looks very promising.

But the best thing that came in the mail was my check from my sales at ConDFW back in February! It was about alot more than I had expected, and I am totally psyched. I am loving that I am selling my work at these science fiction conventions. And all I have to do is buy my sister and her friend a nice dinner!

I got a ton of work done this weekend. I don't know what I did differently, but I'm glad I did! I got two new versions of the Flower Power necklace made, one in bright blue and deep metallic wine that I'm calling the Mardi Gras version, and another made with lovely, soft purple colors that I have no idea what to call. I also finished attaching findings to the first batch of my new fused glass line, which I am going to sell exclusively on ArtFire for the time being.

So, another cold, crappy morning in the Adirondacks today. It was grey and COLD and damp when we woke up. I made us a nice hot breakfast of oatmeal and (homemade) maple syrup. I had a cup of hot chocolate, too, to chase the chill away. Colden had his banana and some leftover scrammbled egg, and then I sat down and got to workin'! I'll have a sneak peak at the new items later today after I get my camera hooked up to the laptop.

For this afternoon, I am going to tackle my latest cleaning/organizing project: my worktable (again!) and Colden's room! We'll see how that goes...

Intersession at North Country School in Lake Placid

So, one of the things that I have been meaning to blog about here was the incredible, fun week I spent teaching a group of six students (and two grown-ups!) at North Country School over in Lake Placid.

Lauren McGovern contacted me a while back about filling in for another local artist and spending a week teaching about beads, glass and jewelry as art. Since I haven't had an opportunity to work with kids (other than my own!) in a while, I jumped at it.

The first day, we opened by talking about what we were going to do for the rest of the week, and if there was anything in particular that the kids wanted to do. I asked them a few (not so) basic questions like, "What is a bead?" and "What are beads used for?" The answers were great! These kids really thought about their answers, and I was surprised and delighted when one student even knew the answer to the question, "Is glass a solid, liquid or gas?" (It's actually considered a supercooled liquid because of it's molecular structure, and this kid blew me away by saying, "It's an amorphic solid." Correct!)

So after we were done talking, we set out making some simple strung bracelets and necklaces using stretchy cord and an assortment of beads provided by Lauren. The kids had a great time, and some of them made several bracelets using some of the coolest combinations of beads that I've seen in a while. It was great to see how enthusiastic they were to just jump right in and start beading! After a while, some of them wanted to try something else (you can only string so many stretchy cord bracelets, after all!), and we set up a table for some of them to try working with polymer clay.

Polymer clay has never been a favorite material of mine, but these kids were inspiring! One student in particular showed a knack for mixing the nicest pastel colors out of - wait for it - bright neon polymer clay! She made a beautiful lavender color and a gorgeous seafoam green out of the almost-gaudy neon colors of clay I had brought along. And the variation in creations was amazing again as well - beads, focal components, words with jumprings in them so they could be worn. These kids were not afraid to try anything!

The second day was devoted to glass fusing. Using some small pieces of sheet glass, some little glass circles and some millefiore, the kids let their imaginations run wild. There were fused glass robots, pendants, earrings, and even a large objet d'art that reminded me of a painting by Klimt! One student had told me the day before that she was afraid of glass. After that session, she informed me that she was no longer afraid. Yay!

The third day we did more polymer clay. Again, the things that these kids came up with was astounding. We did things a little differently that day, though. Instead of just launching right into it, the kids looked through some of the books I had brought on beads, beading and jewelry for inspiration, and they had to sketch out what they were going to make before they made it.

Before we finished up on the third day, we took a vote as to what we were going to learn on the fourth day. It was a landslide, and a peyote stitch bracelet was the winning project. So, that night, I went home and loaded up one of my suitcases with as many different colors and sizes of seed beads as I could carry to make sure that there was a wide selection and each student could pick out exactly what they wanted to use.

It was a fairly simple bracelet, but like Natalie Goldberg (a favorite author of mine) always says, I had forgotten how to be in the mind of a beginner. Even though it felt to some of the kids like they had bitten off more than they could chew, everyone gave it their best efforts and the results reflected that! There were a few students who just took to beadweaving like a fish to water. Everyone chose beautiful color combinations, and the finished products were pieces that they could all be proud to wear.

The last day was really a wrap-up of everything that we had done all week. We attached findings to the fused glass that one of the art teachers kindly fused for us in her huge floor kiln, some of the kids finished up their beadwoven bracelets, and some of the kids finished cooking their polymer clay creations in the toaster oven. I really felt heavy as I packed up to go home that day - I had had such a great time talking and laughing and joking with the kids, and like I said before, it was so inspiring to me to see all the things that they created.

I think the most important thing that *I* took away from that week was something that I saw from the kids over and over, as we introduced each project: they never thought, "Oh, I can't do this." They just asked me, "How would I do this?" Failure was not even in the back of their minds - they were just so sure that they could do whatever they wanted to with the materials that they just went ahead and did it! Now that's something that we could all learn from.

I did go back the following week to watch them give their presentation on their Intersession Workshop experience. That was another great experience for me - I was so proud as I watched them stand up in front of the whole school and talk about how much fun they had. I also enjoyed seeing the other students' reactions to their creations - all the "ooohs" and "aaahs".

I hope they ask me back for next year! It was such a great way to spend a week!

It was a hard week for me, too, as that was the week that Colden came down with the croup, poor little guy. He had a little upper respiratory bug on Monday. On Tuesday morning, he sounded pretty bad, so Tom took the day off from work and took him to the doctor. His cough got steadily worse all day, and we were watchful that evening as he went to sleep for any signs of distress from him. Well, he woke up around 2:30 a.m. in obvious distress, weezing and panicking as he tried to breathe. We bundled him up and took him on the back porch where it was sub-zero, hoping that the cold would ease the inflammation in his airways. When that didn't work, we sat in a warm, steamy bathroom hoping that that might have opened up his airways. When that didn't work, we took him to the emergency room in Lake Placid, about half an hour's drive from our house. In the ER, they told us that he did, indeed, have croup, and he needed an injection of a steroid and a breathing treatment delivered via nebulizer to open his airways. He finally conked out in my lap around 4:30 a.m., after we'd been there for an hour. We got home from the emergency room at 6:45 - just enough time for me to turn around, shower, change my clothes, and head back into Lake Placid to teach!

But it was all good. I got to take a nap that afternoon, and we all slept really well that night.

And speaking of sleep... It's after nine p.m. now, and once I finish this post, I am going to try to make one more beaded flower for a necklace and then hope to get some sleep myself.

Tomorrow morning, Colden and I are going to the Riverside Thrift Shop in Wilmington. It's their twice-yearly bag sale, and you can fill up a 13-gallon plastic bag with as many items of clothing as you can for a flat charge of $5. You better believe I'm going to clean them out of little boys' clothes!

Now's a good a time as any...

To finally update this blog!

So, let's see. We had Christmas, I got sick, Tom threw his back out, and then we had Colden's first birthday. After his birthday, Colden got sick what seemed like every week for two months. First he had a stomach flu; then a cold; then an upper respiratory bug that turned into the croup; then pneumonia! But we all seem healthy now, and things are starting to get back on track.

The first thing I want to put on here is my schedule for 2009. Keep in mind, this is subject to change as I get more information about dates and times. But for now, here's what I have scheduled:

May 2009:

Adirondack Farmers' Market, Elizabethtown, N.Y. (Behind the Adirondack History Center on Route 9)
Friday, May 15
Friday, May 22
Friday, May 29
Hours at the market are 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lots of great vegetables, baked goods, and of course, handmade jewelry!

June 2009:
Adirondack Farmers' Market, Elizabethtown, N.Y.
Friday, June 12
Friday, June 19
Friday, June 26
Hours at the market are 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Adirondack Farmers' Market, Keene, N.Y. (at Marcy Field on Route 73)
Sunday, June 21
Sunday, June 28
Hours at the market are 9:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council, Glens Falls City Park, Downtown Glens Falls
Saturday and Sunday, June 13 & 14
Hours of the Art Fair are 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. both days

More shows for July, August and September will be listed soon as I finalize details!

I've been working on a few new projects, and experimenting to figure out the best way for me to work at home. It's been a challenge. You may remember some of my previous posts where I put up some pictures of my "office" in the dining room and living room. Well, we finally got it all cleaned up and straightened up, and I moved my four big cabinets of beads back upstairs and into Colden's room (temporarily).
Hey, I never said it was neat. But I can get to everything when I need it instead of having to plan my trips downstairs and finding ways to amuse Colden while I look for beads!

I've actually found a great way to buy myself a few minutes when I need to look for beads. I have a few big drawers on the bottom of the cabinets that are filled with beads in tiny little bags and tubes with locking tops, so I pull out a drawer and I let Colden dig through it. He totally loves it! Sometimes he just wants to empty the entire drawer, sometimes he'll sit there and look at each and every bead that he takes out of the drawer. It's the cutest thing. He has a special fondness for the little bag of Swarovski rivolis. I'm going to have to order more to make sure I always have a little bag in there for him to discover!

More updates to the blog are coming this weekend. Really! I promise! I have a featured seller from Etsy, and I have some photos of new work that is for sale in my Etsy shop, and I have a few more thoughts I want to share with the world. (Or at least with the folks who read my blog!)

New Feature for the New Year!

Okay, so yesterday, I woke up to restored internet service (even though it went down again around 2:30 p.m., argh) and an email that my featured artist interview was posted on the blog of Doyle Jewelry Design! I was so excited that I decided I had to pay this forward, and immediately recruited a whole bunch of my fellow Etsians to feature on my blog throughout the coming year!

I've already got a whole slew of interviews back from people, so starting this week, I will posting at least one interview per week. I want someone else to get the thrill I felt seeing my interview posted on someone else's blog, and I also want to do something else to promote the importance of buying handmade items, particularly in tough economic times,

Speaking of buying handmade, I am nearly finished with my Christmas presents! With the exception of Colden (for whom I bought "crappy plastic toys", as Tom refers to them), I either made gifts for people or purchased handmade items from Etsy. I won't post the items and their pictures on here right now in case someone is reading this and will spoil the surprise, but boy, was I impressed with the range of handmade goods I could get on Etsy!!! I can't wait to post after Christmas with the photos of everything.

I have also decided to upgrade my Flickr account to a "Pro" account. This means that for $24.95 per year, I can post as many photos as I want, or as time will allow.

I have a new set of photos up on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/vanbeads) that is from the show I did in Essex two weeks ago. (I won't go into the details of the show, because it was another disappointing weekend, but this time it was incredibly frustrating because I don't think I actually did anything wrong!) At any rate, I arrived for the last day of show early, and it was cold and snowing that morning, and since the gallery didn't open for half an hour, I decided to walk around with my Nikon and take pictures of Essex. It's a beautiful little community on the shore of Lake Champlain, and some of the photos came out really well, I think. I also would like to think of that set of photos as a tribute to my mom, who was a wonderful photographer who truly loved her subjects.

As I get ready for Christmas this year, I can honestly say that I have never approached the holiday with such mixed emotions. This is the first Christmas without my mom, and that is going to be very, very difficult for me. On the other hand, this is Colden's first Christmas, and being the kid-at-heart that I am, I am pulling out all the stops for my little man! (He is lying next to me here, fast asleep, completely unaware of my plans for his first Christmas bash!)

Now that I am (nearly) done with Christmas presents, I am going to take some time this week to bake. That's right, you read right - to bake! Baking is a talent that I believed that I did not possess until I was about five months pregnant, and all of a sudden, I found myself baking jelly-filled whole wheat muffins, cheddar cheese scones, peanut butter cookies, and my favorite, my grandmother's recipe for Merry Christmas cookies! I also found that I could bake cakes (Mississippi Mud Cake being a favorite) and boiled spice cakes from a recipe in Vegetarian Times. Yummmmm... So, this week, I am going to devote some time to making some of those aforementioned Merry Christmas cookies, a boiled spice cake, and some peanut butter cookies, preferrably with the little Hershey Kisses smooshed into the top! (I gotta figure out how my grandmother used to do that.)

So, stay tuned for the first interview and for some new photos of my new work coming in the next few days!

Okay, one more post because I need to vent.

Some days, I just look around at me and think, "What the hell have I gotten myself into here?!" Today is one of those days. After I wrote that first post this morning about the new painted pendants that I am totally loving, I realized that I have a whole bunch of stuff to do. And of course, I have to keep Colden entertained at the same time, or I won't get ANYTHING done!

What has been driving me nuts is the lack of workspace for me lately. I can't work in the basement like I did when I was pregnant for a few reasons. First, there is waaaaaaay too much stuff down there that Colden gets into when I am down there to print something out or look for a particular bead or whatever. Plus, now he can climb stairs, and I am terrified that he will start climbing up the stairs, slip and fall, and put his tooth through his lip or bash his head against the concrete cinderblock wall. Second, it costs way too much to heat that part of the basement every single day. Third, I really don't like it down there because the light isn't great and it always feels like I'm working in a dungeon. Really.

So this is where I HAVE been working lately. (And please don't tell my husband you saw these pictures of our totally messed up house online because he'll kill me and make me take 'em down.)


This is where I have been stashing some of the beads I'm using on current projects. The big, blue suitcase is what I've been using to haul projects and inventory around to shows this fall.















My current "desk", a.k.a. our dining room table. (And no, that's not a bottle of wine. It's balsamic vinegar. Really.)












My other "office" in the living room. Think I've got enough clutter there? That's all gonna have to go somewhere before we put the Christmas tree up this year!!!










So, yeah, this is how I've been working lately. You don't even want to see what the glass workshop looks like. But we'll get to that later.

Anyway, now that I've posted my rant for today, I think I'm going to tackle some unfinished projects that I've been sitting on for a month now and see about getting some lunch for me and the kid!

New Handpainted Pendants Available on my Etsy Shop!

For the last few months, I've been tossing this idea around in my head about taking a bunch of fused glass pendants and painting them with lovely little nature scenes. (My first problem was that I can't paint, but I'm reasonably happy with the results!)

I got these wonderful acrylic enamel paints way back when I first sprung for all my glass fusing supplies, and they basically sat there, untouched, until last fall when I finally started feeling up to working with the glass again. I tried a few cuff bracelets with them, and they worked out pretty well, and then I decided to try my hand at painting a few pretty little scenes.

The photo on this one isn't very good, but you get the idea.













For this piece, I fused some white frit into the background to make it look like snow!













This is a much better photo of a painted pendant with a lone pine tree on a snowy landscape.













And then, just in case you were getting bored with the snow, I painted a few summery scenes. I love the way I can get texture from the paints by adding water or using them "dry", and because I am painting the top clear layer of glass, there are shadows underneath that give an unexpected depth to the whole piece.






I'll have more of these for sale as I finish them. The process to make them takes several steps in the kiln. First, I have to cut the pendant shapes from the glass and then full fuse them at 1550 dehrees Fahrenheit with a layer of clear on top for depth. After the pendants have cooled, I grind down any uneven edges and then firepolish them in the kiln again. Once the basic shape is perfect, I paint them with the enamels and allow the enamels to dry. Then it's once more back in the kiln, this time to a temperature of about 1350 degrees Fahrenheit to allow the enamels to cure and melt. Because the enamels are melted into the glass, the design is permanent and will not chip, fade or wear off. Once I'm happy with how everything looks, I will add the pendant finding, a length of satin cord or a fiber necklace, and put the little beauties out for sale!

As I'm gearing up for my last big show of the holiday season this coming weekend, I'll be working with some fusible paper in my designs this week. Once I get those done, I'll of course post some photos and some techniques here on the blog.

I've also been tossing around the idea of starting a jewelry makers guild up here in the Adirondacks, or at least revisiting the idea of starting up a bead society once again. (Tried that when I had the brick and mortar store, but I wasn't terribly motivated then, and I really am now!)

This weekend, I'll be at the Christmas in the Village celebration in Essex, N.Y. on Lake Champlain! I'll have lots of new work for sale at the Adirondack Art Association Gallery on Main Street in Essex on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, December 5, 6 and 7 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. each day. Let's hope the weather cooperates!

Another Monday...

And another bad day at a craft show. I just can't believe that it's all the economy. I think I had two sales the entire day, and I made just enough to pay for my table fee for the show at the Golden Arrow hotel in Lake Placid this weekend. I didn't even make my booth fee back! What was up with THAT?!

I have to admit, I think part of the problem was that I had a teeny, tiny little space. I should have sprung the extra $15 and gotten a larger space, something that I will do next year. I also want to have backdrops made for next year, which may help things look more professional. The space was just way too tiny, and I could only fit two tables in there instead of my usual three, and everything just looked crowded and cramped. Argh. I realized, also, when I got there that I had forgotten to bring an entire bag of earrings!!! Didn't matter, since I don't want to sell them anymore, anyway, and that way I didn't have to worry about squeezing them into my microscope slide-sized space.

I've made some changes to the blog in hopes that I can start to use this more as a promotional tool for my Etsy shop! (Someone may have noticed my Etsy minis all over the place! Buy something!) I think that from now on, Mondays will be my days to update my blog, post a few articles on my techniques and show what's new, and maybe post a schedule of shows or two.

Speaking of shows, I've finished a preliminary craft show calendar for 2009, and I hope it's going to be a good one. I'm looking to add a few high-end shows and some larger festivals, like maybe the Nyack Street Fair in May, and maybe see if I can get myself juried into one of the big shows down in Albany at the Empire State Plaza. (My old stomping grounds from when I worked in community development and it was aaaaaaaaaaaall politics!)

For this weekend, you can catch me at the Golden Arrow Best Western hotel in Lake Placid on Saturday, November 29 from 10 am until 4 pm. (Or until people stop buying stuff, whichever comes later!) Then after that, my last show of the season will be Christmas in the Village on Main Street in Essex at the Adirondack Art Association Gallery. I will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday, December 5-7 from 10 am until 4 pm. (Or, again, if we're busy, possibly later!) For more information, you can contact the Village of Essex.

As my tiny brain rests tonight, I am going to start thinking up articles to write about my work so I can write maybe one more short article about a new piece this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Complete Disgrace

Several weeks ago, I participated for the first time as a vendor at the annual Fall Arts and Crafts Show at Plattsburgh State University. I was incredibly disappointed, outraged and saddened, all at the same time.

It seemed as though the show managers were concerned only with collecting as many booth fees and entry fees as possible. 60% of the vendors at this "craft" show were selling items that were NOT handmade. 30% of the vendors were selling jewelry, and of those vendors, there were only 4 of us that were selling jewelry that we made ourselves and did not import or purchase for resale.

I counted one ceramic artist, one artist doing bags and hats, one photographer, one paper artist, and two wood artists. There were no functional glass artists (i.e., vases, plates, bowls, goblets and drinking glasses) and no one selling fiber or fiber art.

I was so outraged by this that I started a letter-writing campaign to everyone at the university that I could think of, as well as letters to the editors of our two local newspapers. So far, the only response I have received was from the editor of the Press Republican who told me that it wasn't that there is some debate over when an item becomes "handmade" and that I would have to scale my two-page manifesto back to 300 words or less if I wanted it published. The response from the editor, Bob Grady, reads as follows:

Jennifer,
I'm including an article we carried last May on the problem to which you allude. The college apparently is aware of the complaint.
If you'd like to write a Letter to the Editor on the subject (or any other, for that matter), we'd be glad to publish it. Our limit is 300 words per letter. Yours is substantially longer, so if you had intended it for publication in our paper, you'll need to shorten it.
We've heard from a number of people on this, over the years. Apparently, one of the sticky points is at what point a purchased item becomes a craft. If a person paints it, or decorates it, or ties a ribbon in it, does it become a handmade craft? And should the host of the show be responsible for policing it and making a determination on that point, ousting violators?
I'd be glad to have a Letter to the Editor offering your views, but you should know that there doesn't appear to be unanimity on the question.

Bob Grady
Editor

Since I could not respond as I would have liked to his letter and have it published, I am going to write my response here.

First of all, the managers of this "craft" show should look for some guidance from such respected organizations such as The American Craft Council. (Their website can be found at http://www.craftcouncil.org.) The American Craft Council is an arts organization that promotes handmade craft in the United States. They have a wonderful mission statement that can be found on their website, and numerous links and resources to help shape the notion that craft is, for all intents and purposes, art.

The show managers should also look at some of the websites popping up such as Etsy that showcase items made by real people. They could look at Craftster.org, indiepublic.com, Craftzine.com, the Northern Adirondack Trading Cooperative, or Interweave Press. These are all places that are promoting the work of independant artists who make their living working with their hands.

There are so many reasons why handmade is important. (Tainted milk, toxic baby toys and poisoned pet food ring any bells?) In the economy here in the Adirondack North Country, Handmade artists such as myself work hard to create beautiful pieces of art to support our families. It is just not right to promote a show as an "Arts and Crafts Show" and then allow vendors to set up who are simply there to sell cheap, imported crap. When I set up in a venue where I am competing with other Handmade artists and vendors, my sales are very strong. When I set up in a venue where I am competing with imported, mass-produced items, my sales are nonexistant.

Over the summer, I was a regular vendor at farmers' markets in Keene, N.Y. and in Elizabethtown, N.Y. Using only volunteer employees, the good people who run the Adirondack Farmers' Market Cooperative allowed only vendors who sell handmade work at these venues. There was one vendor at the Plattsburgh State show who I know for a fact had been kicked out of the Elizabethtown farmers' market because the items they were selling were in fact imported from Hong Kong. But Plattsburgh State let them in to what was supposed to be an "Art and Craft" show. Huh? The managers of the Plattsburgh State Show get PAID to do their jobs. They have the resources of the world-class art department of the university. And they still allowed someone selling Italian charm bracelets to set up her table one booth down from mine.

Why can the Farmers' Market Cooperative do what Plattsburgh State cannot, or is unwilling, to do? Is it just that they don't want to be bothered? Is it that they just don't know what they want the show to look like? Are they confused by the difference between a flea market and an Art and Craft Show? If the answer to any of these questions is YES, then they shouldn't be running an "Art and Craft" Show. They should call it a bazaar or a flea market and be done with it. Especially if they are unwilling to take the time to make any changes to the show, even after, as Bob Grady informed me, they were aware of the problem.

So, it is with this in mind that I am gearing up for my last two or three shows of the year. I will have my tables set up at the North Country Community College Holiday Craft Show this Sunday in Saranac Lake, N.Y., and then I will be set up for three days in Essex, N.Y. at the Adirondack Art Association Gallery on Main Street during their "Christmas in the Village" celebration.

And, of course, I will be promoting Handmade.

It's not just a hobby anymore...

Well, this summer just flew by. I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving!

I feel like I learned a lot this summer. I decided to try my hand at the Farmers' Market and craft show venues in the area, and have to say, it was quite an education.

The first thing I learned: using a leftover bug tent from a bachelor party does not work when doing an outdoor farmers' market at a windy field. I spent most of my first day there in the blinding heat and the whipping wind holding on to the tent so that we did not end up in the middle of Kansas. We went out and bought a real tent, and the difference was amazing. It worked great. It is now, thankfully, in storage for the winter, because you can only put that damn thing up every weekend for so long without getting really sick of it.

The second thing I learned: there are lots and lots of wonderful craft show venues within a 45-minute drive of my town. There are even a few that are literally right down the road from me, but unfortunately, they all conflicted with other shows this year, so I did not have the opportunity to roll out of bed and roll down the road to a show. Maybe next summer.

I also learned that there IS a local market for my work. Granted, many of my customers were tourists from out of state or even from out of the country, but wow, it was great to meet so many people who loved my work! I sold pieces to people from Belgium, England, Australia, South Africa, Germany, France and Portugal, just to name a few. I was thrilled when a family from Belgium came to my booth and bought jewelry sets to take home with them as souvenirs from their trip to the Adirondacks.

So, now I am gearing up for my last two holiday shows of the season, and I had an experience two weeks ago that I am going to blog about in a separate post because it is going to be long and it is going to be one of those soap-box posts that I need time to prepare. I hope it makes you think.

I am also working to update my Etsy website and shop in hopes that I can continue to generate income from my work. It was a great feeling to be able to do that over the summer!

I am also working with the wonderful and talented people over at the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Adirondack Trading Cooperative, and Stellar Marketing Solutions to give my business a complete makeover! It's a very exciting/terrifying/gratifying experience, and I think that this will be just what I need to be able to make this venture something sustainable over the long-term for me and my family.

So, now that I'm done with the boring stuff, on to the good stuff - the photos of my recent work!

I have started using a few new techniques with my fused glass. The first, and the one that I think I love the most, is using enamels to paint designs and scenes onto fused glass pendants. The design pictured here is white enamel fused to a red glass pendant, and is a traditional henna design. I found that henna designs translate very well to glass jewelry, and I am hoping to have a complete line of these designs available next year, including earrings and bracelets.





The other technique that I am using is including pieces of cut paper to make little scenes, like this underwater "fish tank". (I have always loved fish, and we always had a tank of them when I was a kid!) This involves cutting each little piece out of a piece of special, fusible paper that won't burn away when the glass is fused at 1550 degrees Fahrenheit. The pieces must be layered in between clear glass to prevent discoloration and to allow gasses to escape, so the piece is quite substantial. I think I have figured out a way to make them lighter and use less glass.


I've also been doing some beadweaving, and I'll have pictures of that work later on, too, but for now, I've got to go make some lunch for Colden and me!

I can't believe he's almost six weeks old already!

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This picture was taken last week when I went over to my in-laws' house to have lunch and get a change of scenery. My "little" man weighed in at 12 1/2 lbs, and he is wearing clothes in a 3-6 month size! For two days this past week, he wanted to nurse literally every hour, and we figured out that breast milk alone is just not satisfying his poor little tummy, so we started giving him some rice cereal as a supplement to help fill him up.

Getting up in the middle of the night is hard sometimes. Sometimes, I wake up and hear him crying and I think that he's there with me on my lap, and then once I open my eyes I realize he's still in his crib! Some nights, it's so tempting not to put him back in his crib, so I just snuggle him up on my shoulder, and we hunker down with Tom for the rest of the night. He's just so warm and cuddly! And yes, there are some nights when I am so tired that I feel as if I could just cry. In fact, the other night I was so tired, I cried. Being a Mom is HARD. But I love it. I just wish it came with a slightly better paycheck.

So, on my nightstand next to my bed, I have the following reading materials:
A copy of "Goodnight Moon" (Bedtime routine)
The latest issue of "Real Simple" magazine
The last two issues of "Vegetarian Times" magazine
My favorite vegetarian cookbook
Dr. Spock's guide to child care, updated
Caring For Your Child from Birth to Age 5
What to Expect the First Year

I think I've become a Mom! Actually, I knew I had become a Mom when I realized I had spilled my lunch down the same shirt that Colden had recently spit up on. That was when I was like, okay, it's official. I know have lunch, spit up, and dog fur all on the same t-shirt. I must be someone's mother. Hahahaa!

I'm wanting to start beading again now, and I want to be able to get back to work, but I can't do much of anything until we get Colden's feeding schedule worked out, and I get back some of the use of my lower abdominal muscles. I am walking around way better than I have in months, but it still hurts, and the last few days, my tailbone is incredibly sore. (Probably from sitting and nursing Colden so much through this latest growth spurt!) It absolutely amazes me how you just take those lower abdominal muscles for granted until you actually need them and can't use them. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night to get Colden, I'm stiff and sore from sleeping, and when I go to sit up, the pain will still take my breath away. I still need to grab onto the headboard and push myself up sometimes. Sometimes, I can sit myself up by rocking forward and grabbing my knees. But I am absolutely longing for the day when I can sleep on my side again. I tried to sleep on my side last night, but it was still too uncomfortable. It just felt like all of my insides were falling out when I rolled over.

Speaking of sleep, I would love to go close my eyes for a few minutes before Colden wakes up from his nap and needs to be fed again. Napping during the day, I think, has absolutely saved my life thus far...

Welcome, Colden Tonessen!

So here he is... My "little" man! Colden Tonessen was born at 8:27 a.m. at Champlain Valley Physician's Hospital in Plattsburgh, N.Y. He weighed in at 11 pounds 2 ounces and was 22 7/8 inches long. He was the hit of the nursery - all the nurses who came into our room said to me, "Are you the one who had the eleven pound baby?" My doctor said that I win the award for Biggest Baby of 2008, even though it was only halfway through January!!!

He really is such a wonderful little bundle... He is so good at night, he nurses well, and he is just so much fun to hold and to see. He smiles at you, he makes faces, and when he's awake, he's usually so quiet and alert, he just looks around with those big blue eyes of his.

It was a crazy weekend leading up to his birth. I went into labor on Saturday morning. All weekend, the contractions were getting stronger, but not necessarily closer together. They were erratic at times, going away for hours at a time, and then coming once every five or seven minutes. Finally, on Monday morning, nearing exhaustion and panic, I called my doctor's office and they said to come right in. So Tom and I drove up and they hooked me up to the monitors and the nurse said, "Yep, you're in labor, alright." The doctor checked me out and found that I was only 2cm dilated, and that Colden hadn't dropped down into my pelvis far enough - she could still wobble his head back and forth. When they checked an ultrasound for size, they estimated that this little guy was weighing in at 11 lb 8 oz. At that point, with all the other indicators, the doctor said that we needed to do a c-section, and scheduled me for the following morning at 7:30 a.m.

All night Monday night I had contractions. And all night, I just used my Hypnobirthing techniques and breathing to get through each one. When Tom was awake, he massaged my hand on the pressure points that the doula had showed him. When he woke up at 4:00 a.m. to start getting ready, he found that Route 86 was snow covered. He got ready and got me out of bed and into the car. The whole way up to the hospital, I just tried to relax and breathe and relax and breathe. When we got to the hospital, Tom brought a wheelchair out for me. As I got into it, I thought, oh nuts, I peed myself again. They wheeled me up to L&D and got me into bed, where I peed myself again. And then again. And when the nurse came to put in my urinary catheter and check my cervix, she found that my water had broken and I was 4 cm dilated! So my body was doing all the right things and trying to get Colden out, but he was just not cooperating. I was actually in active labor.

Nancy, my doula, arrived around 6:15 and she and Tom helped me breathe and relax through each contraction. It was so calming to have her and Tom just holding my hands and ankles through each contraction as I waited to be taken to the OR. In the OR, as they got me sitting up and on the edge of the table, the nausea just overwhelmed me and I started to dry heave. I panicked because I knew they wanted to get going with this surgery, and I wanted to get started, but I didn't think I could do it. My doctor said to go get Nancy, and she came into the OR all suited up and had me lean forward onto her. She held on to me and I held on to her as the anesthesiologist gave me the spinal injections, and literally fifteen seconds later, I was prepped and ready to go. I was so relieved to have her in the OR with me. It was the best comfort in the world to have her so close to me when I was so scared and nervous.

During the surgery, I laid there and continued to practice my breathing and relaxation. The nurses and the anesthesiologist were amazed - my blood pressure never spiked and my heart rate never spiked, because I was just so relaxed. Tom came in and sat with me behind the drape, and a few minutes later, someone told me to open my eyes and there was the doctor holding Colden above the drape for me to see!!!!

A few seconds later, Tom was holding our new son in his arms, and the anesthesiologist helped me turn my head and move my hand around the i.v. pole so that I could stroke his cheek. Tom and I just looked at each other and cried. And cried. And looked at our son. And cried. It was amazing.

So we're home now, and things are moving slowly. I am still healing and am in an incredible amount of pain, despite the narcotics and ibuprofen I take every four hours or so. But I am forcing myself to walk and move and do things, and I know it'll only get better over the next few weeks. Until then, Tom and I are busy taking care of Colden and each other.

Wait, did I say 3 1/2 pound baby?

The day after this picture was taken, I had my ultrasound, and they discovered that my "little" baby boy is actually weighing in somewhere around 8 lb 14 oz! So this explains why I'm too uncomfortable to move, to sit, to lie down, and to wear anything except my t-shirts and yoga pants. Hahaha!

I just keep telling myself, it could be any day now. I really hope it's any day now. I'm just so ready to have this baby.

My sister in law keeps telling me that this is the time when I should just be taking it easy and resting, but I want to cook! I've been beading a lot, and surfing the internet for interesting beads and jewelry designs, and I've been watching lots of "3rd Rock From the Sun" to keep my mind occupied. Poor Tom has had to take over the grocery shopping for the most part. He went to Plattsburgh this past weekend and came home totally ruffled. The shopping centers in Plattsburgh on the Saturday before Christmas are NOT the places to go if you want peace and tranquility!

So Moose has just been hanging out with me, what a good doggie!, and whenever I feel like I can move, I haul my butt into the kitchen to get a snack or to clean and do the dishes. We had Tom's parents over on Saturday for dinner, and I think we're still trying to catch up on washing the dishes. I didn't think we owned that many dishes!

I'll keep this blog updated as best I can until I have this baby. I just keep telling myself, any day now!

My latest update...

Well, my mother in law threw me a truly spectacular baby shower this past weekend. It was incredible. I was just glad that I could eat the food! A whole bunch of different kinds of tea sandwiches - egg salad, watercress and olive, cucumber, asparagus rolls, and pineapple and walnut. Woa. And homemade petits fours and lavender cookies, made by a neighbor who happens to be a professional pastry chef! Oh, and the cake - a diaper cake! I have never seen one of these before, but it's made from three tiers of rolled up diapers, and decorated with fuzzy Winnie the Pooh toys! How adorable!

A bunch of my friends came, and Tom's cousin came, and we sat around and ate and talked and just had a really great time. Wow. I couldn't believe it. I had such a good time, but was just sooooo tired by the time Tom's dad brought me home. And then I spent the rest of the night feeling sick as a dog, coughing and hacking and trying to keep my nose clear with saline spray and Vicks. Yuck. So much for getting a flu shot, I think I already had the flu!!!

Had my doctor's check up today, and everything looks good. Colden is still pointing head down and facing back (good boy!), and his heart rate was perfect. My next appointment is a week from today, and they'll do another ultrasound, and maybe I'll post some more pictures here when I get some more images from the ultrasound. Sandy is going to take me so I can get my bloodwork done right after the appointment, and I asked her if she wanted to sit in on the ultrasound with me and get a peek at her future grandson!

We had dinner with Kathy and Tom's parents tonight before Kathy goes home tomorrow morning. We ate an incredible spread of appetizers and snacks for about an hour and a half, and then Sandy made dinner!!! We were like, noooooooo more food! Hehhe... My stomach was feeling slightly uncomfortable, so I skipped dinner at the house and just re-heated a dish of leftovers when I got home.

Tomorrow night is Week 5 of our hypnobirthing class. I can't believe we only have one class left after tomorrow! Six weeks has just flown right by... Incredible...

Well, we got our plastic mattress cover today, so we've got to make up the bed with it tonight. Tom asked me why we needed a plastic mattress cover, and I said, "Just in case." He said, "Just in case what?" and I replied, "Just in case my water breaks while I'm asleep or lying in bed." He just got this horrified look on his face and said, "It wouldn't, would it?" I just laughed and said, "Just in case!"

Beading and Babies!

So, whaddya think? Do these jeans make me look pregnant? Oh, no, wait, that's the 3 1/2 pound baby boy I'm carrying that's making me look like that! Tom took this picture today for me to send to Kathy. I didn't realize that I was this big! I mean, yeah, I know that I don't feel as graceful as I usually do, and rolling over in bed is a major operation that requires both arms and several pillows, but damn! At least my arms and legs are still normally sized, even if everything between my armpits and my hips has expanded!

In the last few weeks, I've managed to sort of get back on track with the beading and jewelry making. I've made some really cool fused glass bracelets, and I've been working on some other beaded projects, pictures of which I will post here as soon as I can format the photos.

The first piece I finished a few weeks ago is called "Flower Power" and I made it from Swarovski pearls with cylinder bead petals and strung with lots of cool vintage glass from my stash. The second doesn't have a name yet, but is made from pastel-colored wood discs that I knotted together. I used a pineapple quartz donut as the centerpiece and made a silk thread tassel for the bottom. Then today I finished a piece called "Butterfly Kisses" made with garnets and vintage brass butterfly findings. Next up for finishing tomorrow is a piece I'm calling "Bamboo Bib" that is a wire structure that is laced with bamboo beads, shells, and tribal-looking seed beads. After that, I've got a re-make of a vintage glass necklace with Swarovski crystals to string, a choker based on jewelry found in England in the Cheapside Horde, a woven necklace based on a piece I saw in "The Hudsucker Proxy", and then a whole series of woven pieces based on vintage lace collars. Woo-hoo!

Week 31 and Counting!

So, here I am at Week 31. I think the worst of the nausea is over, thank God, but I still have days (like today) where everything I eat upsets my stomach terribly. The good news is that I discovered that I can eat tempeh and seitan without too much trouble - two new sources of protein! Hooray!

Last week, my mother in law and I went down to Babies R Us to pick out some nursery furniture and other necessities. Tom and I set up the crib and the changing table in the baby's room (formerly my beading room!) and it just looks fantastic. I now have a new cozy corner in the basement, and while the light is less than ideal, I have a couple of good lamps and an Ott Lite that provides me with plenty of working light.

Now that I'm semi-organized down there, I finally started to pick up my beads again. I did manage to get out into the garage to make some fused glass a few weeks ago, but since the temperature dropped and the heater isn't working out there, I've had to cut back on the time I spend out there. (Not to mention the fact that I'm nearly out of glass and completely out of money with which I could buy more glass!) But I signed on to do the Beadin' Path's new bead challenge, Behind the Mask, and I've had some ideas already that I am working on.

So, with parenthood imminent, I'm really starting to think about how I can sell my work to make a living from home so that I can stay at home and raise my son. I still feel like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but life is a journey, not a destination, right? I just have to work it out as I go.

Well, it's getting late, and I need to get a snack and then get some sleep. We had Tom's parents and Rob over for dinner last night, and it was great - the first time we've had dinner guests since I started with this whole nausea thing - but today, I was completely exhausted!

It's not morning sickness...

It's really morning, noon and night sickness, ugh, and it's driving me mad and making me depressed. All I want to do is be able to get in the car and drive myself somewhere without feeling queasy, nauseous, or worrying about where I can pull over in a hurry if it gets too overwhelming and I have to puke. (Or dry heave, which is almost worse.) I've had to quit my job because I can't handle hearing all the people coming in and mulling around, it makes me feel sick to my stomach and if I'm already tense and feeling nauseous, it makes me throw up for sure. I can barely walk out to the chicken coop let alone do any real exercise, and that has me worried for labor and delivery. I've tried every drug they've thrown at me, Reglan, Pepcid, etc., but nothing really seems to work. The other day, I blew $40 and bought some vitamin B6 lozenges in the hopes that they will help. Yesterday and today were pretty good days, but I'm so afraid that tomorrow is just going to be another crap day.

It's really getting me depressed. All I can do most days is drive down to the post office, walk inside and pick up the mail, drive back home, and get into bed for most of the day. That's not what I'm used to doing. I'm really worried that it's going to stay this way for the duration of the pregnancy, and again, that has me worried about labor and delivery, not to mention how the hell I'm going to get to prenatal classes in Plattsburgh!

I shouldn't be stressing about this too much, I know. What's going to happen is going to happen, and I just need to find a way to deal with it.

Tom has been much better lately in dealing with my incapacitation. He was great the other night when my stomach was out of control - he kept bringing me fresh towels and ice packs and he rubbed my feet and brought me cold ginger tonic. He kept saying, "Don't panic, calm down," but I'm not sure if he was talking to me or just to himself. He doesn't take illness any better than I do, particularly when I'm the one who is ill.

BUUUUUUUT, this month, September, is the month we have designated to clean out my former bead room and relocate everything into the basement in preparation for the kid! It's going to be one hell of an operation, considering I can't lug anything down the stairs, but when we're done, we'll be all ready to put up the crib and put together the dresser and the changing table. I wonder if we could get a rocking chair or some other type of comfy chair in there, too, so I have a place to crash while nursing. I think we're also going to put the spare bed from the basement up in there, so maybe that's what I'll make as my comfy spot.

The other day, I got a package from my sister containing two fleece sleepsuits that she bought for me while she was on vacation in Alabama. I took them out of the bag and got all teary-eyed, thinking, holy crap, we're actually going to have a little person to put in there! When Tom came home from work, I showed him, and he had the same reaction - teary-eyed, thinking about our son. Heh. Kids really do change you, I don't care what anybody says!

It's already the end of August, I can't believe it.

And the thing that I can't believe the most is that merely a week after I posted last on this blog, I found out that I am pregnant! Tom and I had talked about having a baby and starting a family, but we never really thought it would happen since in the past, I'd had some doctors tell me it might be difficult for me owing to the fact that I lost that one ovary years ago. Well, what do the doctors know? I am now in my 21st week of pregnancy, and if it weren't for the constant nausea and dry heaving, I'd actually be feeling pretty good.

The nausea has been the worst, absolutely the worst. For someone who hates to feel queasy and who used to have an iron stomach (I used to eat raw onions for BREAKFAST, for God's sake!), the stomach upset is killing me. I've tried every drug they've thrown at me - Pepcid, Reglan, Phenergan. The Phenergan is great when I don't need to do anything because it just knocks me right the hell out. I can't drive, I can't even keep my head up for more than a few minutes at a time. The Reglan worked great at first, but now I feel the same even when I take it, and sometimes I even feel worse when I take it. It works by speeding up the emptying of the stomach and stimulating peristalsis (the movements of the intestines), but since I'm eating small meals throughout the day, it empties my stomach TOO quickly. Nuts. The only thing left to try is Zofran, but unfortunately, not only does my insurance not cover it, but also it won't work on the nauseous feeling.

The nausea has been so bad that I've had to quit my job at the Historical Society because I just can't function the way I did last summer. I can't clean the bathrooms at all - some days, just walking in there is enough to set me off. And now that I'm twenty weeks, there is no way in hell I am climbing up any more ladders to put those "open" flags out. Uh-uh.

I tried acupuncture a few weeks ago, but it didn't do much. The ginger tonic I got from the acupuncturist seems to help, though, and it also makes sure that I don't get dehydrated, which is key. I've tried Preggy Pops and Preggy Drops, and those seem to help take the edge off when I'm REALLY bad, and today I finally cracked and spent $40 on some vitamin b6 lozenges that might help. Taking my prenatal vitamins has been a nightmare, literally, because the iron in them upsets my stomach so badly. But I've been nibbling on them at night with a large snack before I go to bed, so maybe that will help.

It's funny - the more women I talk to, the more I hear that they were sick as dogs throughout their entire pregnancy! It makes me feel good to know that it's not just me, but at the same time, I am just yearning for some RELIEF. Traveling in the car is a nightmare because I've developed wicked motion sickness, too - the only way to get me anywhere is to give me a pillow, a big mug of ice cold ginger tonic, and let me sleep as much as I can while Tom drives. Sometimes, I'm too sick even to sit in the car while he drives, and then it's a real nightmare.

I have to admit - I am getting real tired of not being able to go about my normal business anymore. I just want to be able to go to the post office and go to work without having to worry about feeling queasy and causing an accident anymore. I've missed jewelry shows all summer because I'm too queasy to sit there and smile pretty at people.

I've been trying some simple yoga breathing and simple sitting and standing postures. They seem to help some days. Others, there is nothing, short of knocking me unconscious all day, that will make the nausea go away. Argh.

BUT, on the more positive side, now that I'm about twenty weeks along, we had our "big" ultrasound last week and discovered that I am having a boy! The ultrasound technician said that there wasn't a doubt in her mind because his penis was "sticking straight out". I was like, "Yup, that'd be my kid!" I have pictures of all my scans, and I'll post them here later on after I get them off my thumb drive. I've got them from the second visit around eleven weeks until last week when you can actually make out the kid's head and toes and fingers and feet! It's amazing. And every time, EVERY TIME, the doctor or Suzi puts that little fetal heart monitor on my belly and I can hear the little heartbeat, it just makes me tear up. It's so amazing. I never realized how much I wanted a family until I got pregnant, and now, it's just this amazing, amazing thing.

The only thing that they found that was abnormal on the last ultrasound was a tiny cyst on the part of the baby's brain that makes the spinal fluid. The technician did look a little worried when she saw it, but she told me that these occur in about 3% of all normal pregnancies, and the only time to worry about them is when they are accompanied by other multiple and major abnormalities in the limbs, face and cardiac pictures. When it is accompanied by these things, it's a sign of something called Edwards Syndrome (I did my reading!), but when no other abnormalities are present, 99.9% of the time, they just clear up by themselves. Since everything else looked absolutely perfect, the only thing they are going to do is recheck it when I go back for my next prenatal visit in September, and they told me not to worry about it until then. So, since I'm still worrying about bringing in an income to keep us afloat with this debilitating nausea, I'm not going to worry about the cyst. The doctors and the tech both said that everything else looked perfect, and this most likely is just that cyst that they see in the 3% of all normal pregnancies and that it will have resolved itself by September or October.

At the beginning of the pregnancy, I also had some cramping and bleeding, which worried the doctors enough to do another ultrasound where they discovered that the baby was fine but that I had a hematoma right near the amniotic sac. This also resolved itself. And because of that, they also discovered, lucky me, that my blood type is O-negative, meaning I get to have these lovely shots of Rhogam in my ass until the baby is born to prevent any kind of complication from antibodies I make that might hurt the kid. After our terrified visit to the doctor that day, I called my father, suspecting that his blood type is negative, and asked, "Dad, what's your blood type?" "O negative," he replied. "Great," I said, "So I have YOU to thank for the shot in my ass this morning!" Man, did that shot hurt. I'm sure it didn't help that I was tense as hell because I was worried that I was going to lose the pregnancy and I was incredibly nauseous and had been running around all over Plattsburgh trying to get some bloodwork done stat so the doctors could check the results by the time I got in for my appointment.

We're all signed up for our prenatal classes and a hypnobirthing class, which is something like lamaze combined with meditation. We'll see how much it helps, especially if I'm puking all through the delivery. Yikes.

Anyway, I know there's more I want to say here, but I can't think of it now and I should go back upstairs and get myself another cold mug of something to drink. The heat this summer, while it hasn't been as bad as it has been in summers past, has left me absolutely wrecked with the nausea. It seems that as soon as the temperature goes past 85 degrees, the nausea just kicks in full-force and there's nothing for me to do except hide in the cool basement and watch movies on Netflix-on-demand. Heh.

So....... I'm gonna be a mom!