I'm alive, uh huh, so alive

Whoa. It's been a while, eh? Well, I'm truly here to inform you that if you are missing my oh-so-interesante posts, you should tune in to my jewelry blog as I post there MUCH more often than here...obviously ;) It's not that I don't love the worldwinds, it's just that I find that is where I do most of my writing. Now, you will have to read about some boring flea market trips and adventures with spray paint (painting, not huffing) but my life is def chronicalled in there. So head that away to read about me and my oh-so-fascinatingly-exciting life ;)

I may be back here everyonce in a while. Mabes.

I'm a chicken with no head

It's been a busy week and I'm quite ready for Saturday when I'm not obligated to do ANYTHING. I think I'll catch up on my beauty sleep, run some laundry and cuddle with some kitties. The mister is going to visit his family so I can stretch out in the bed ;)

I'll get going by commenting on how saddened we are still about the passing of Hap. It's really hit us both harder than I imagined it would. He really brought a light to our everyday and there is an obvious presence missing with his absense from the block. We recieved confirmation that they are trying to find a place for Helen to live as she cannot care for herself. I'm not sure what ails her but her memory is far from good. She barely remembers the passing of Hap or spending two hours with officers at her home. I think though that it's somewhat of a blessing in disguise that she doesn't remember all of that so well.

As one can imagine, there's been a few people coming and going at the neighbor's house and one of their visitors leaked over to our house...the daughter of the original owners of our house! We bought our house from the original owners, a fact which I have always LOVED, and have come across so many things that we wonder about the history of. Has our bathroom always been so crowded? When did they add on to the kitchen? How in the world did 4 people live in that house?! Well, this daughter was able to answer so many questions for us! It was quite a treat. She was, however, deathly afraid of the beast as she was mauled by a German Shepard when she was a child. I've never seen a grown adult shudder at the sight and sounds of a dog before.

So today is an exceptionally busy day for me, I just happen to have this one hour this morning to kill time! In an hour and half, I will teach a two hour jewelry crash course to the ESL department (students, faculty and friends!) where I teach...I am SO excited! My jewelry partner has arranged her work schedule so she can help me with the instructions which makes me super happy and the class will be followed with a potluck! I LOVE to teach and I LOVE jewelry so combining these two aspects pretty much makes my day perfect. I've completed a power point complete with a necklace I've been working on and will finish in the class; I've purchased findings and such for them to use; and I've got the car loaded up with goodies for the class to take inspiration from!

Also today I am having my first annual, semi-annual, or tri-annual (not sure yet ;) Ladies' Social Hour! I decided I wanted to have an 'event' at my house that is nothing more than lots of lady who may or may not know each other, hanging out, eating lots and gabbing all night! I've been cleaning the house like a mad woman all week and my back is not so happy with me. I literally scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom from top to bottom which makes the place feel so so nice and I've spent last night cooking up a storm! It was especially nice to get the bathroom feeling so clean after being SO sick in their last week! As for the food preparations, I made a Greek White Bean Dip (reminds me a lot of humus), a fancy salsa, freshly chopped veggies for dipping, fresh grapes off the stems, and baked apples that are deeeeeeeeelish. Today I only lack the construction of an artichoke dip and I am done with food! Oh, I also made these little cheesy sandwich things for the potluck today as well :)

So after the jewelry class, I will run a couple more small errands and head home to dust, clean mirrors and glass, and clean the floors! Following that, I will sit down, put my feet up and have a cold one to celebrate my efforts of the week ;)

May 2009 Be the Year of the Artichoke

I suppose since it's the end of the year, I'm expected to review the year and list expectations for the new year? Well, here's at least an attempt at that.

Needless to say, this year has been a crazy one! Luckily we went through no major deaths like last year but there was lots of healing to be done this year from hardships that have occured in the recent past. Not completely healed but on the way :)

Let's see, this year several things have occured: I got MARRIED for one :) This is wildly important because I'm the type of person to never have a realy relationship, to never allow myself to be loved by someone else and here I am, happily married to my best friend. Truly. Knowing we'll always be each other's side kicks makes me happy every which way possible. We celebrated having our 80lb puppy for over a year now. Never thought I was a dog person and never thought I'd have a big dog but look at me now! I love our beast love having him as part of our lives. I completed an internship in Hungary focusing on English teaching practices in the country. I did this a little less than a month after being married and left the mister at home due to money constraints. I missed him terribly but find comfort in the fact that we can survive away from each other from time to time if needed. The trip was an amazing experience and I fell in love with the country. Perhaps one day I'll return :) What else? Well, this was the year that my father had an argument with a large firework and ended up in the ICU burn unit on a ventilator for three days. That was a tad bit stressful. But all turned out fine and became a reminder of how lucky we are to have each other, near or far. The mister, the beast and I took an 11 hour road trip across country for a wedding days after I returned from Hungary - it was the longest time the beast had been in the car which he did wonderfully with! The mister and I amazingly do very well on the roadtrips if I can keep my anxious little mouth shut about my car fears :) It was a great trip and is always nice to get away. Of course we all know that this was the year that I completed my comprehensive exams and graduated with my Masters in TESL! NEVER thought I would finish any type of schooling let alone a MASTERS! I must say, I'm pretty proud of myself for completing that endeavor :) What else, what else? On a lighter note, I cut off over a foot of hair again, was recognized for my jewelry work, met Pharrell Williams (who I'm secretly in love with), finished my first year of teaching, rearranged a few rooms, discovered my husband is a master juggler (seriously) and discovered that artichokes and brusselsprouts are long lost friends of mine. So there's my year in a nutshell.

What do I expect for 2009? Nothing really. I do hope to overcome some of my fears through having my thyroid regulated again - I haven't been proactive with working with it in years and am VERY suspicious that regulating that will help many of my anxieties...I hope, I hope. I hope to continue to be a successful teacher and continue to learn from my students while learning what works best for them. I hope that our marriage continues to be as enjoyable as it has been and that we become better partners than we already are. I hope the jewelry biz keeps kickin like it has been. I hope my family all finds the happiness they are seeking. I just hope for good and to be able to see the good.

So a New Year's Resolution? Not sure that I have any. Just want to continue taking care of myself and raising the best beast, mister and fuzzbuckets that I can. And I'd like to learn how to prepare artichokes from scratch. I suppose that's my resolution.

Unwrapping Emotional Packages

Christmas is over. Sigh. It was a whirlwind and it was a heavy holiday this year but it was nonetheless a good one. We were all over the state to visit all the appropriate holiday festivities and were well exhausted by the end of it. We even had family to our small abode Christmas evening!

I read, as I'm sure many of you did, about the Santa Shooter. It disturbed me so very very much. The main item of disturbance was the fact that this man, dressed as Santa, shot an eight year old girl in the face. She answered the door to see Santa and he shot her. How cruel. He truly stole her innocence and her family. Makes me downright sick. I'm so glad she survived and hope it doesn't plague her the rest of her life. Stories like these make me sometimes scared to be alive; scared that I may be in one of those terrible situations someday. It's of course the media that makes these type of stories more prevalent though. I need to take a break from media I believe.

During this time, I was down and thought much about how poorly I look upon American society. I've always been intrigued by the idea of picking up and relying on nothing but my senses to get me by. I'm sure I'll never do this but the idea of it is so romantic and appealing to me. This Christmas I acquired three new remote controls for three new plug-in gifts. I also received many new things to keep my jewelry habit alive and kicking. Combining these two acquisitions, I was forced to watch many movies over the break while working on jewelry. One of the movies I watched was called Into the Wild which is based off of a true story about an affluent young man who had just finished college and left to live off of the land with the ultimate goal of reaching and surviving in Alaska. It was such an appropriate film to me to watch at the time and it fulfilled something in me I needed to vicariously live through someone else.

I feel like I'm often battling an internal war between wanting to assimilate better into my culture and functioning normally versus wanting to run away and live a life without plans, without goals, without rules. When I assess my life and all that I have in it though, my drive to remain home with my family and what I'm familiar with wins. This Christmas, through heavy conversations, stark realizations, missing those no longer with us, I experienced extreme feelings of love, contentment, pride and perfection with life. It amazes me sometimes the depths we must go to realize how wonderful we have it, to realize that what matters in life is right in front of us.

This season I am grateful for:

Communication
Tears
Disabled Alarm Clocks
Family from afar
El Caminos
Friends who dig through the muck to find the gems
Family dinners eaten by those not technically family
Honesty
Working Toilets
Hot Tea
You

This Goes Here, That Goes There

so i've had LOTS of free time on my hands since the semester is over with and that i'm officially a graduate of graduate school! YEAH! that being said, i've found other things to fill my time :) the other day, i inventoried ALL of the jewelry that my jewelry partner and i have on the market. took about four hours but i believe will be totally worth it. everything has a code number which notes who made it, what year it was made and what order it was made...a simple 5 digit code :) in the midst of all of this, my mother and sister have found it entertaining to discuss my organization skills which, i must say, are quite stellar and are far from a problem as far as i am concerned.

Two of the examples discussed will now be discussed here. When I was probably about 10 or so, I decided to catalogue all of our family's VHS tapes. each started with a letter - K for Kid, A for Adult, F for family, H for home video and so on. Then, a number was assigned to each. I then made an inventory sheet so when we wanted to watch something, all we would need to do is look on the sheet, take into account who all were going to be watching and choose from the appropriate category as opposed to thumbing through all of the cumbersome tapes. made sense to me! when my mom and i reminded my sister of that, she did not remember BUT still has some of the tapes with my numbering on them and now knows what they are there for!

The second example was one that I had forgotten! My sister reminded me today. At my Granny and Papa's house, we had a plethora of puzzles with lots of grandkids to work on them and to lose the pieces. I took it upon myself to number the bottom of each puzzle box, complete each puzzle, turn them over and number the pieces to match the box so puzzles could be easily kept together. I found this sooooo funny to be reminded of. Sometimes I'm amazed as to how far back my organizing obsession goes!

Growing up, I was paid by my parents and my friends parents to clean and organize closets and cupboards in their homes. I'm talking from age 7 and up I was many peoples' organizer....and i loved it. I often thought for years growing up that I would perhaps just clean houses for a living! My childhood best friend, her sister and my sister would play what we called 'Townspeople' where we would all create businesses for ourselves, make storefronts in doorways and conduct business just as adults would do in the real world. There was the banker, the postman (always my sister since she was the youngest and nobody else wanted the task), a daycare and other odds and ends. I ALWAYS had BB's Beauty and would do people's hair and Classic Maids where I would come to organize and clean your business. *I recently drove past a business the other day actually called Classic Maids and about shat myself when I saw it! - That was my company first! ;) * So it's in my blood I suppose.

I wonder why some people are this way and others are not. I'm SO glad I am this way though! I can't imagine living in a chaotic, disorganized way. I just wish I could organize my thoughts as I organize the tangible things in life.....

Patting Myself on the Back

ok, i'm going to let a little cat out of the bag...a cat covered in lots and lots of jewelry :) my 'creative industry' i have mentioned before is my jewelry making addiction. i've always done something here and there. i look back at pictures from when i was much much younger and see myself wearing a necklace i made out of seed beads when i was a wee tike or wearing a bracelet i weaved on a loom - it is then that i realize that i've been destined to make jewelry. when i entered college, i lived with a dear old friend of mine in the female dorms and we started creating pieces together. we made a little movie area and began frequenting the bead shops in the town we were studying and BAM! a little jewelry business began in the dorms which, i must say, is a great place to sell jewelry :) sorority girls love a new necklace to wear to the upcoming frat party :) we would hang out necklaces on the corkboard meant to hang mementos of home and put signs in the elevator to encourage the ladies to come by and buy...and they did! our sales list from that year is pretty funny: hemp $5, beaded $10 and so on. i think our most expensive sale at that time was a $12 necklace. we thought we were millionaires. time moved on and we each continued to create pieces for gifts, for ourselves and for sales here and there all the while feeding off of each other's excitement for creating and learning new tricks. after college we each moved back to our hometown at separate times and began a life without college; one filled with 8-5 shifts, rent, bills, partying and many newfound responsibilities. it was within those first few years back home that we got the idea of setting up our stuff at the local flea market to see if we could make a sell! we got together with a couple of other friends who made their own brand of goods and did that very thing. sold a little bit but caught the fire of putting our goods in a public forum. we were hooked on another thing. the original two toughed it out and forever stuck through it all and created more goods, created a name - SheezKrafty -, created a logo, sought out shows and began filling some of our weekends with shows and sales. we gained confidence in ourselves and our creations and suddenly turned around and realized that we had been at the jewelry gig for ten years!!! our quality is wonderful, our imagination amazes me sometimes and our fire to do what we do have never gone away. people love what we do but most importanly, WE love what we do. this past summer, we acquired a tax id number and became an organized money making machine in the eyes of government.

fast foward. last saturday i did a show in a nearby town and it was great! sales were great, the booth looked great and had lots of people come through. it was probably my favorite show so far. wednesday night i checked our jewelry email which i don't check everyday (but totally should) and we had received and email from www.oklatravelnet.com who wants to showcase us as local jewelry artists for their christmas show! they would film and interview us and the segment would air from 3-4 minutes. we screamed and danced around a bit and then settled ourselves to reply to her email. we've yet to hear back but are hopeful that she hasn't found another jewelry artisian to do the piece. if she has, that's fine, we are just grateful to be recognized in such a manner! it makes me so proud of all of the work we have done for so many years and it shows me that it is really starting to pay off :)