One Bite At A Time

This is the message board in my kitchen. I like to change the message from time to time to reflect things we need to think about, post messages to congratulate members of our family, encourage each other, or just inspire someone to do their best.

Lately, I've had quite a lot of GOOD in my life -- good news, good happenings, positive outcomes. I've told you some of it already. I'm so thankful for all of it.

Lately, though, I've also had a lot of NOT-SO-GOOD. In July alone, one of our dogs nearly died and required expensive emergency vet care, the master bathroom shower leaked into the living room ceiling and caused a catastrophic failure of the drywall, resulting in a huge 3' square wet hole in my living room ceiling and the total destruction of my master bathroom, and the air handler for our upstairs heat pump backed up and began leaking into the ceiling of the master bedroom. You can imagine how that went.

The work that I do as my 'day job' has slowly crept up to a level that is overwhelming. I've gotten many parts of it under control, but for a while there, I was seriously stressed and managing WAY too many teeny tiny details. Add to that the kids being home, and getting enough time during working hours to handle everything is nearly impossible. Thankfully, my boss is awesome and trusts me to get the work done.

My middle daughter was having a hard time grasping some of the finer points of appropriate school behavior.

Somehow, I hurt my foot enough that walking is painfully difficult.

We have to choose contractors for the bathroom remodel. I have to pick out tile and cabinetry and paint and accessories for a project I wasn't planning on doing.

It's all been a lot (too much!) to handle.

BUT.

In all of this, just when I thought the Universe was all about handing me a big bucket of crap, I realized I was also getting handed a bucket of good stuff, too.

People starting coming out of the woodwork with recommendations for tile guys, and drywall people, and plumbers.

The sales guy at the tile place helped me narrow down my choices and choose a selection of really pretty and complementary tile for our teeny master bathroom.

We found out we might be getting a decent refund from a previous homeowner's policy we weren't supposed to be paying on.

I got a raise at work!

Wren had a great day at school yesterday.

My foot pain (that I thought might be a stress fracture) is actually plantar fasciitis. Soft tissue injury, difficult to heal, but not as bad as a fracture.

I got some copper pieces ready for etching.

And my husband brought me flowers on Monday.

So, when I take everything together, there really has been a LOT of good along with the not-so-good. Staying positive is a good thing, and it helps. I'm so grateful for the support of friends and family, including my virtual 'tribe' -- you guys! Sometimes, it's true. When you have a LOT on your plate, you just have to remember to deal with one thing at a time so it all doesn't overwhelm you. Eat that elephant one forkful at a time!

AND, to bring some focus back on art and jewelry, here's my Bead Table Wednesday contribution...

I've moved things to my sewing space to try to keep my kitchen island from becoming a beady, coppery wasteland of in-process projects.

I hope you all have a terrific Wednesday!

AAARGH!

Please tell me it hasn't been over a week since I posted last! *sigh*

I've been caught up in the whirlwind of getting ready for Arts Around the Lake on Sunday, and prepping to go up to northern VA for ArtBliss. I knew it would be a challenge to jam both events into the same weekend, but it is necessary. One of my goals this year was to take more metals and jewelry classes (Melissa Manley! OMG! I am taking her class!), and also to get into better and bigger shows. Funny how both goals seemed to converge on the last weekend of September this year!

To be honest, I have made a few new things, but I haven't photographed them. Really, I feel like I don;t have time to fiddle with pictures, and if the items don't sell this weekend, I'll take the photos and put stuff up on Etsy. I know I promised to add this necklace to my Etsy shop a while back, and it hasn't made it there yet, mostly because I needed it for inventory for the show. The one thing I did do, however, was set up my display in the yard as a test run for working out the arrangement of things. I also wanted to use it to see how much inventory I needed to cover my available space, and see if there were any 'holes' that needed filling. Here's a quick-and-dirty look at the booth overall:
It's a 10x10 shade, with two of the collapsible banquet tables. I only have the two tables, and I usually set them up this way, putting myself either behind, or off to the side. I don't own the side walls for this tent, and I wish I did, because now I can't find them in white (it's a Quest brand shade from Dick's Sporting Goods), so I use white bedsheets instead. The biggest problem with that is the fact that they blow all over and billow like sails. I have to weight them with clamps. I also don't have enough to cover more than one side. It'll have to do for now, though.

One thing I am really thrilled about is my new earring card racks. I found a couple of tall slatted shelves at a yard sale a while back, and my husband cut them in half widthwise for me, and hinged them together so they stand up. My large earring cards fit perfectly on them! I made some sandbags to weight the bottom in case of wind. You can sort of see the top of the stands in back of the table. When I took the picture, I hadn't figured out how I was going to make them work, so there's no picture of them yet.

Don't worry, I promise pictures of my totally put together and dressed-up display after Sunday's show.

I'd promised myself I wasn't going to get stressed out about this show, about prepping for it or about being in it, OR about it being the same weekend as ArtBliss. I want to do both, I CAN do both, and it will all work out fine. Yesterday, however, I found myself descending into the depths of craziness, and it colored my whole day, leaving me exhausted by the end of it.

My torch and tank setup decided that yesterday was THE day to go all nasty on me and cover my glass and beads with a layer of grey, sooty crap. Over everything I made. And on my 'make list' was a set of pink beads made with CiM's Gelly's Sty, a color I typically don't have trouble with at all. Here you can see (the horror!) the difference:

On the left are the original beads, made with Gelly's Sty a few months ago. On the right....the nastiness of yesterday. Same batch of glass, too. Yuck.

I've decided that I don't have time and energy to mess with it right now. I am going to disconnect the torch and hang the hose up for a couple of days and re-evaluate. I have beads to make into more work for the show, so that's not an issue, really. I had planned to make some sets to offer at ArtBliss, but I may have to bag that.

And if you've stayed with me all the way down to here in the post....wow! :)

At any rate, i ended up making a bunch of earrings yesterday and getting them put on cards and into my inventory box was a huge relief. I wish I could say the transition from Plan A (beadmaking session) to Plan B (making earrings) was a smooth and seamless one, without gnashing of teeth and railing against the injustice of it all, but at least I got something done. Right?

So. I am totally TOTALLY looking forward to seeing some of you at ArtBliss this Friday night! Safe travels, if you're traveling, and see you there!