Thursday, May 28, 2009

Bello Modo!

Hi everyone! Still I have no internet at home or phone but hope is alive! Tomorrow is supposedly the day we go "live" again after a month with no service.

Anyway, for any of you oh so lucky souls who will be attending Bead & Button in person in Milwaukee next week, stop on by Bello Modo's booth 957 and check out my etched pendants. My work will be represented by Pamela Maxfield at Bello Modo at the show. I will have copper, nickel and brass etched pendants as well as some sweet as pie little charms.

Next week, if the universe allows, I will be back online with pictures and real blogs instead of piecemeal-patch 'em together sentences here and there once a week.

Until then, have a great weekend. TGIF (almost!).

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Stringing!

I am pleased to announce that my work will be featured in Stringing magazine, fall 2009 issue. This is my first time in this publication. Tonight-- celebration dinner!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

I Heart Whole Foods

Still no internet at home, or phone, and barely television. Through some weird and cruel mis-alignment of the stars, planets and sun, we fell in amongst the .1 percent of people dissatisfied with Fios and utilized the 30 day money back guarantee to can the entire service. Apparently even though our building is wired to the hilt, we managed to find the one apartment where the internet, instead of being "blazing fast" as advertised by Verizon, was instead the Slowskies at work. The connection constantly dropped down to almost nothing or entirely nothing and really only would work at a minimal speed if we sat in the closet it was installed. So the whole thing with getting bounced around to 25 different Verizon "assistants" on the phone, from Richmond to Bangladesh, all unable or unwilling to help us, made me so angry that not only did I cancel the internet, but the television and telephone as well. So now we are going back to good ole reliable Cavalier service, with DSL and three channels on the television, at least until we can figure out what other service to get. I figure by the time we are ready to move out of this nutty place, we may actually have it relatively livable and wired for technology.

So no pictures of my pretty little green hutch. No photos of jewelry I've completed and sold recently, new etchings, or cute poses by Mango or Lucy. Hopefully next week our DSL modem will arrive and then the next day our phone service is supposed to kick in. It's always something, folks!!!

After a week at work I would prefer not to recall, where my most pressing need after every shift was a nap, an ice cold diet coke and a shoulder to cry on, we are now relaxing in the lovely air conditioned bliss of Whole Foods in Richmond. In front of me-- the biggest, flakiest chocolate croissant I've seen since Europe. In front of Michael? The heaviest pumpkin cream cheese muffin this side of the Mississippi. Heaven.

We watched the show on Farrah Fawcett last night. Man. What a gem she is and God bless her. How disturbing that anyone should have to go through such an ordeal. Watching it, I cried and cried, especially when she interacted with her elderly daddy. *sigh* So hard to watch. Then we took a walk and went to bed, where I fell into a deep, dream filled night of weirdness and bad dreams. Too much stress this past week I guess. But after watching that show, and thinking of all the people in the world going through so much more than my little Fios drama and so on, today and most days I know I have not a thing in the world to be upset about. Nothing nothing nothing.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I need a maid

I have my jewelry bench put together and all my paraphernalia in that department in place. Otherwise I would be embarrassed to have anyone come in here, it's such an incredibly huge mess. We have no time to unpack, everything is in total disarray and I am so tired at work it's all I can do to make it through a day. *sigh*

This weekend, my days off, I am working two ten hour days at the Intergalactic Bead show in Richmond, a rather foolish decision I now see, after our moving ordeal, from which not I nor my husband or parents are sufficiently recovered, physically or mentally.

And I'm working on jewelry orders with boxes piled to the ceiling, my fat kitty Mango leaping from stack to stack (fat boys are light on their feet, you know...), my dog Lucy wanting attention and and and... oh well. no use complaining. better off just jumping back in and getting busy. My husband just told me that Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms. We have 6 rooms. Why is this so hard??

Our kitchen is one of those things that makes no sense. Sometimes in an apartment or house, you just scratch your head and go, huh? 'cuz it makes no sense at all, the arrangement of it, the layout. Because by some sleep deprived state of dementia, when we looked at the apartment 5 weeks ago, I (and my husband) neglected to notice that this kitchen has one tiny countertop, next to the sink, and it has NO DRAWERS AT ALL! Seriously! No drawers. In the entire kitchen. None. I mean, WTF? Who thought of that? Crazy! And how did I miss it? I told you this was an old building but really, no drawers? So, I decided to do something original, stop whining, and get a hutch of some sort and put it in the kitchen. There's room for one. We went to Target and found a nice kitchen cupboard, waist high, with a nice countertop and three drawers. Not in stock. Went to two more Targets. Not in stock, only the floor model, which we didn't want.

After all those stops, time was up and it was back to the work week. Then, this past Saturday, we moaned and groaned, set the alarm for 6 and headed out with bed-head, no showers and rumpled clothes (oh yes we are living the good life these days...) for a huge yard sale on the southside of Richmond. We got there, found almost no one set up, browsed a bit, and left. Oh, I did find two little woven kitchen rugs, which after washing, Mango immediately appropriated them for his new bed on the sofa. They're still there for him. Our pets are our kids, after all, and we deny them very little.

So we figured it was a wash and headed for the James River farmer's market, a stupendously wonderful organic market off of Forest Hill Avenue (for you locals who haven't been there, get on over there, it's fabulous) that also houses local artist's wares. Turning back the road to the market, we spied a woman pulling stuff out of an old house and setting up a yard sale. There, gleaming on the side of the road, was my cupboard-- a vintage white enamel top cupboard with black enamel trim and lovely mint green crackle paint. It has two large drawers on the left side, one deep bread drawer on the top right that has intact the original punched tin sliding top, and a large double sided storage area underneath with chrome handles. Michael hit the brakes and swung into the drive. The lady was ready to make deals, and by 8:30 a.m. we were putting Lucy in the front seat, folding back seats down and loading up the lovely little gem, my new kitchen cupboard. A good scrubbing with Dow bathroom cleaner removed some of the paint and all of the grime, and it's now resting prettily in its new home- our little dumb drawer-less kitchen, full of bamboo utensil trays, vintage aprons and dish towels.

A little something to be happy about, just what I needed. =)