It's Been A While...

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the radio silence of late....life got busy and blogging kind of took a backseat for a while.

Last week, we took our kids to Disney World for the week, which was awesome. Exhausting, but awesome. My son (3) and my middle daughter (5) did not know they were going on this trip (my 13yo daughter did), so it was a fun surprise for them. Of course, we had hoped for a more enthusiastic reaction than we got when we told them where we were going, but we did drag them out of bed at 4am for our flight, so I guess you can't expect too much energy by 10am.

Cinderella's Castle was absolutely breathtaking at night, all lit for Christmas. It was fantastic. The kids had a great time, and I loved seeing them see all my favorite things for the first time. My older daughter and I got in our 'missions' -- to ride Space Mountain and The Haunted Mansion each at least once. My son seemed to enjoy rides that were outside, but it was hard to capture him smiling. Disney World is a lot of noise and sights and commotion, and I think he was overwhelmed by it all. We don't visit amusement parks and ride on rides as a general rule, so this was his first experience with anything like this. It was beautiful to see him smile SO much on the Flying Dumbo and Aladdin's Magic Carpet rides, though.

I'm already planning our next trip, in three years. I love love LOVE the Disney Parks, especially the Magic Kingdom.

Let's see.....what else....

Still training at the museum. Still loving it. I did my first couple of practice gallery talks already, scored well on them, and had a ton of fun. Last session, we were shown how to use the library at the museum (dangerous for me!), and I am so excited to get in there and do some research for my upcoming three-object "tour" in December.

I'm done with shows for the season. Yay! Now to make a ton of inventory for a huge local spring show that I am applying to.

My kiln has not yet made an appearance. Boo! Some parts were back-ordered, so I hope to get it later this week.

In case you didn't see this on Facebook, I scored BIG at an estate sale a few weeks ago. The estate was apparently the home of a hobby jewelry maker who managed to own materials for just about every craft or art I like. There were shelves of jewelry books -- most brand-new -- and at $5 each, I was pulling them off the shelf in handfuls. I got a Pepe jump ring winder for about $45, sheet metal, wire (gold filled, sterling, brass, and copper), hand tools, a texture hammer (for $8), and a bunch of other stuff. Someone was definitely looking out for me, because most of what I got were tools and things I have had on my wish list for a long time. It was insane how little I ended up paying for a lot of this, and the only conclusion I can draw is that I was meant to have it. I am sure the previous owner of this equipment would be happy to know that it went to a jewelry artisan and metalsmith.

Now if only I could carve out some time to play with everything...that would be fantastic.

Oh, and because I don't do *enough*, I'm also trying to teach myself to crochet so I can make this scarf. How insanely cool is that!? I love that scarf, and I want one. So I will (hopefully) make one, before the weather turns warm again.

My tea is hot, and my to-do list is sizeable, so I guess I should get going. See you real soon! ;)