IT'S BEEN A BUSY MONTH

HB has been in the hospital twice since I blogged last.  His disease affects his lungs and he has difficulty breathing.  In case anyone is interested his disease is antiphospholipid syndrome.  It's a clotting disorder.  His blood clots too easily.  While it's not uncommon to carry the marker for the disease only 4-5% of the population in the world actually has the disease.  I wonder if I've blogged about this before?  It's night and I'm too lazy to go through all my posts, so if I have, just skim on past this.  Anyhow, he's been feeling kind of punk so we've been spending lots of time at Dr's offices etc.  He has home oxygen and is hooked up to an oxygen concentrator during the day with this 50 foot tube he drags behind.  One of us is going to trip over it and do some serious damage to ourselves.  One thing is certain...it's never dull at our house.
We did go to a wedding in Indianapolis last weekend.  It was family and I made Hank take it easy.  We went to Nordstrom's while we were there.  Well actually I went to Nordstrom's while Hank and his brother, who is a pulmonologist sat in the mall.  My sister in law went to some other stores.  OMG I love Nordstroms.  In 15 min. I bought perfume, a pair of shoes and a cool top.  Everything I saw I loved!  Their shoe department was gigantic....and the shoes were AWESOME !!!!!!!!
Here's a picture  Cute huh?  It's canvas.  I love shoes and purses, way too much :)  Okay enough rambling.  I just wanted you to know I am still around.  Hope everyone is having a great summer.

AGING

This week I read an article in the paper.  I can't even remember what it was about, probably because midway through I received shocking information.  I am elderly...that's right, me, a person who still listens to country music, loves make up and clothes, has her hair highlighted, and thinks of herself as middle aged is ELDERLY.  I do remember that the article referred to an elderly 68 year old man who had been in an accident.  I am 68 and I have never, not once thought of myself as elderly, but obviously other people do.  I wonder what makes people decide when we are elderly?  Is it our age, or the way we look or dress?  What age group considers 68 year old people elderly?  Are they teenagers, thirty somethings?  I remember when I was young I thought my grandmothers were old and they were in their sixties, but they kind of acted old.  They dressed matronly, they were kind of serious, but their lives were a lot harder than mine is.
I'm not loving this getting older thing, but it is what it is. I try really hard to stay up with things...thanks to my kids who keep me technically informed.  I can accept the fact that I'm getting older, I'll be 70 in 2 years.......but journalists and everyone else, don't rub it in. Okay?  You can say I'm aging, you can say my age, just don't be calling me elderly. It  makes me kind of cranky.

LITTLE PROGRESS ON SOME THINGS

Well, I haven't started the quilt yet, even though my intentions were good.  I did, however, clean my studio.  Wow was that a job!  When you are a beadmaker there is just a certain amount of mess involved.  Little pieces of glass pop off the rods as you are heating them.  The kiln wash that you put on the mandrels to keep the glass from sticking to them seems to flake off everywhere.  Then there is the whole frit thing.  Frits are ground up pieces of glass that are about the size of coarse salt.  It is used to decorate the beads. Beads are often rolled in frit and then it is melted into the glass.  When you pour frit out into a small container to be used  on your workbench it seems to want to go everywhere.  It spills, it overflows, and never stays where you put it. Same with the enamels, which require careful use because they are a powdered form of glass, and very bad for the lungs.  You need to wear a respirator when working with enamels.  That makes you feel awkward in the first place,  Then the enamels tend to stay in clumps,. so when you pour them, they all decide to come out of the jar at once.
I will be the first to admit that I'm not a neat beadmaker, but I do clean off my workbench every night when I am done for the day.  However the stuff on the floor is left to accumulate...and it does.  So I spent a good 5 days cleaning everything up.  This included my jewelry making table where hundreds of seed beads waited to be returned to their original containers.  I nixed that idea and introduced them to the waste basket.  Sometimes I am just ruthless :).....maybe lazy would be a better term.   I did get some beads made this week and right now these beads are on ebay.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.  I'm on Prednisone again so I'm hoping to get all my dresser drawers and closets cleaned out this week!.......and a slew of beads made!

NEW THINGS

I have some new things on Etsy     http://www.etsy.com/shop/kybeadmaker   in case anyone is interested,  Here are a couple of pics:

And because I don't think I have enough projects going I decided to make a quilt out of these fabrics....aren't they yummy?

Sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day.....sigh.

I THINK I'M ADDICTED.....

to my computer.  I had eye surgery this month, actually twice this month.  I guess I should start at the beginning.  I had cataract surgery last year.  Afterwards both eyelids began to droop.  It's called ptosis for those of you who want to know.  As time went on I could hardly see, especially at night.  So my doctor told me he could lift my eyelids and here's the best part...Medicare would pay for it!!  There were several "worst parts" that went along with the surgery though.  First, he did my eyes one at a time, two weeks a part. The second thing is that he does it under a local anesthetic......which means shots in your eyelids and eyebrows....yikes!!!  The reason for this is the doc wants you to be able to open your eyes so he can see how your eyelid looks as he is shaping it.  Once he got my lid the way he wanted it he did give me some anesthetic.  The first part was just mildly painful and my eyes are more open now, so I think it was worth it.

The only way I have been able to entertain myself is on my computer.  I can't make beads because my vision is blurry in the most recently done eye...a flame and no depth perception is a dangerous thing!  So I know everything about every Hollywood starlet who's name I don't even recognize.  I know what to do if your iPhone will not get out of headphone mode. I have seen most of Europe from Google Earth.  I have looked at paint chips for my living room walls, I know which beaches have the best sand, and which city has the most expensive houses.  I am bored to tears!  Tomorrow I get my stitches out and hopefully begin a normal life.  I look forward to spending a meaningful day with my torch !!

A LONG LONG TIME

Today Honey Bunny and I have been married 43 years.....now that's a lot of years! We've had good times and bad, but we've enjoyed the hell out of those good days and plowed through the gray ones, ......and here we are, still hanging on.  I guess we're gonna make it :)

DERBY WEEKEND

If you live in or around Louisville, Ky then you understand about the Derby.  It is THE weekend of the year.  HB and I went to  the Oaks (on Friday) and the Derby (on Saturday) about 10 years ago.  It's one of those things that everyone should do once in their life, but for me once was enough.  Now if you have fantastic seats and an ideal view of the track you might be inclined to go again, but our seats were not so great and our view of the track was pretty poor.  If it hadn't been for the TV screen, we would have been clueless as to where the horses were on the track.  However, it was a fun weekend because we were with good friends and our daughter and her husband, the mint juleps flowed freely, and we had some winners.
This year our son and his wife decided to go to the Oaks and the Derby and we offered to be nighttime babysitters for the grandkids.  They stayed at their house during the day with a sitter and we picked them up about 6pm to spend the night with us.  I promised them we would make cupcakes the first night........ O.M.G.  Three little ones, a box of cake mix, two cans of frosting, some cupcake liners and sprinkles...that's all it took to completely destroy my kitchen in exactly 57 minutes...but boy did they have fun!! Honestly I just let them do what they wanted.  I did end up spending about 5 min. picking egg shell out of the mix, since the littlest one insisted on cracking one of the eggs.  Getting the cake mixture into the cupcake tins was another adventure since for some, eye-hand control is not yet highly developed.  I might be talking about the one who put the egg, shell and all, into the batter :)
After the cupcakes were done and cooled I put one knife in the chocolate and one knife in the vanilla frosting and turned my back for a nano second.  In that time a fight ensued and the knives had been switched at least three times.  If there had been no label on the front of the cans I would not have known which frosting was which.  Finally we got the cupcakes frosted, in a kind of marbleized color. Then came the very worst part...... the addition of the sprinkles!  Who knew?  These children did not just shake on a few decorative sprinkles, they took the tops off of all the bottles and added layers of sprinkles! Below are some pictures of our adventure.  It probably took me as long to clean up the kitchen as it did to make the cupcakes, but I hope in their young minds we created some good memories.  I have some great memories of my grandmothers and I tell my grandchildren about things I did with them.  I hope someday they will tell their children about me.

A DISCOVERY

Okay, I found out what I need to be productive and bring my bead fairy back......very large doses of Prednisone.  I have been sick over a week now with bronchitis and it made my asthma kick in so the Dr. put me on Pred.  I think I've discussed my love/hate relationship with Prednisone before, so you'll have to forgive me if I repeat myself, I am old you know.  Anyhow, this time I am on Pred  60mg for 5 days.  O.M.G. I am a wizard!!  None of my joints hurt.  I can zip around the house like a well oiled machine.  I require little sleep  and I have ENERGY!!  It is heaven on earth, but also sad because it will be over so soon.

Meantime I am cleaning out closets and drawers and making beads.  My daughter, Sara, lives at a community called Day Spring and we are having our annual fund raiser in May.  It's a Ball and this year has a Kentucky Derby theme.  I am selling my beads in jewelry form at the event to raise money.  Here's a picture of a necklace I made yesterday for the Ball.  Now I have to go make some more beads while the Pred is still working :) If you are so inclined to support things online you might want to read about Day Spring.  Here is the link. http://www.dayspringky.org/  You can buy a ticket for the 15,000 raffle for just $10.00 and your chances of winning are a lot better than the lottery....just sayin'   Look for the second ticket down on the right-hand side of the opening page, click it, pay by credit card and you are IN to WIN...sorry, got carried away....I tell you, it's the Prednisone.  I can't help myself.  I am wired!....but if you do buy a ticket let me know, so when the winner is announced I will know if it's one of my people that won.  Now wouldn't that be cool???

A BORING LIFE

I'm not complaining about it, but really who wants to read about it?  I go to bed, get up, run errands, cook meals, go to the grocery, bank etc, watch grandchildren, try to make beads......repeat, rinse.  Looking back I think our lives go through cycles.  There are times of intense activity, when you don't have time to gather your wits, and then times of quiet  when your life settles into a comfortable routine.  One thing I've learned though, just when you start to feel normal with either life style something big comes along and pulls that rug out from under you, so I've kind of been waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I love the time with the grandchildren, but seriously, I forgot how busy they are! I've been fighting bronchitis all week so my energy level is low to begin with, but one smile from those little faces and I feel well again.  All in all life is good!

CATCHING UP

Well, the bead show was pretty much a bust, which was kind of sad.  There are 8 of us who have been doing this show for 6-8 years now and over time we've seen our sales go down.  We all do different things and it used to be a great show for us, but the popularity of making lampwork beads increased.  Now we have imported beads, mostly from China, not annealed, and cheap.  To the uneducated public those beads seem like a great deal and the true beadmaker's beads languish at the side.  Some of the beads I make take 1 1/2 hours to complete before they go into the kiln.  Beads like this one.  It has flowers on both sides.  It's a long slow process, one I love doing, but not for $25.00.  So, now I ponder where I go from here.  I do have my beads in a gallery and they do well there, but the owner has some illness in her family and is closing at least part time.  For now I will just think about it.