weak kneed without chocolate

i have an itch. 

i can't scratch it until the family goes to bed. 

with my daughter as the other household night owl, 

i feel like i may never get to handle my itch. 

the itch has more than one side to it.

i want some chocolate. 

not only do i want chocolate, but i want something sweet. 

i also want something yummy to hit the spot. 

what i want is a peanut butter candy. 

now what made me settle on a peanut butter candy?

i want something a little bit like butterfingers. 

just better. 

i am watching tv while hanging on the computer. 

BIG MISTAKE.

i really should know better. 

there is an ad on the air these days for some dishwashing soap
that features some blogger lady. 

i of course am always trying to get over my disdain for yet another talented blogger. 

always bloggers seem to be so much better at it than i am. 

sadly, it might not be tremendously hard to exceed that level.

(i am not being paid to sell the soap, so i am keeping mum on its brand.)

(that info is irrelevant anyways to this anyways. )

her blog is called 

"NOT WITHOUT SALT"

http://notwithoutsalt.com/

so, she has a blog..

so, she has a dear looking little blond bob...

so, she is adorable...

so, she writes about food....

and so,  i am more than just a little jealous. 

i gave her blog a quick, derisive and fear filled look-see. 

it was just to prove i can match her interests food item for food item.

i just read the first few sentences of her blog. 

and now, i am 

hooked. 

totally hooked. 

hooked, lined and sinkered.

 before i made it to the bottom of the first page, 

i was double clicking around her site like a lovesick puppy.
whimpering, wetting newspaper on the floor, and running in circles kind of lovesick puppy.  

i will be making that 

butterscotch + PEANUT BUTTER+ chocolate candy that she made into bars. 

i want it badly.  

how could i possibly NOT??? 

good thing though...

i have solid unbreakable rules for working with sugar.
 that's what this recipe calls for. 

1. no sugar cooking/candy making before the kitchen is cleaned up completely

2. no working with sugar while the kids are awake or around.

distractions and hot molten sugar do not work. 

i will make it tomorrow

or later this week, once i feel really good again. 

i must say it looks so good and seductive. 

http://notwithoutsalt.com/2011/07/11/homemade-butter-finger-candy/

also, i am also sure i want to try to make the coffee cake recipe on her site

 that  uses chocolate nibs. 

her description of it suggests that i may swoon. 

which would be ok,
 but my knees are hurting still from my recent resumption 

of playing tennis
 and having leftover ague from the flu this week. 

it could be seriously dangerous to my way of living as a couch potato. 

/http://notwithoutsalt.com/2011/12/20/cocoa-nib-coffee-cake/

i think you can tell how addictive i find everything these days. 

and i really do find so much tremendously addictive. 

maybe i should be making a top ten list of my current addictions? 

ugh. could i stop at ten? 

i can hope can't i?

well, i am growing weak kneed not having any chocolate confections in the house.

it may be a good time to do a few tasks
 before i completely fall asleep. 

i am very tired after several nights of insomnia. 

i want to try my best to grab hold of a good night's sleep sometime soon. 

at least before i grow another addiction or two. 

xo.

w.

home again, home again...

PHEWSH!!!

my husband and littlest daughter came home from the hockey tourney tonight. 

they have been away from home for a few days, 

simply to watch her team win the first game 

and toss in the towel on the next three. 

she is the goalie as i may have mentioned. 

and for years leading up to this, she was the Only goaltender for all of her teams. 

she is really good at it too. 

this year, another girl joined the team as a fellow goalie. 

it allowed my child to finally take a sick day. 

or do her homework. 

or spend less time in the 'crease'. 

if there are more than one goalie, they are required to enjoy equal time playing. 

my little hardcore bete, is a good player. 

her additional teammate is not quite as adept. 

so if tess keeps the goal clear of scoring for her half, 

and is followed up with the other girl playing and letting goals in, 

they still lose the games.

it puts a crimp in the mood around here. 

anyways, they won 1  lost 3 and came home. 

safely and soundly. as i like them to be.

for me, that is the best real outcome. 

it doesn't always go that way. 

yet another story for another day. 

now all mixed together, 

the three kids sat on the sofa... all plugged in to their varied computer/tablet devices. 

it was quite a nice treat. 

the boy got to hang with his sis whom he would rather die than admit he adores. 

the older sis got to draw funny pics on her computer

{at least that is what i think she is doing most of the time}

and my husband went to bed. 

the dog ran in lines back and forth with his holiday gift of a stuffed lobster toy from Target. 

i exhaled a little and then started on my pinterest additions for the night. 

i keep running over things i made a couple of years ago. 

it is making me cuckoo. 

i would dearly love to figure out how to find some of my old pics that folks have cribbed.

it would be nice to see what works and is valuable to the world at large. 

i suppose i want to know where i've been so i can move on to a fresh future. 

here is one that i ran across and squealed when i saw it. 

it is not my photo, but is in fact a necklace i made. 

imagine that!

and again i found this little pic on pinterest... 

one of my flowery sets 

that i had sold on etsy.

geez louise. 

so i put my name into the search bar on pinterest and found a few other things... 

so curious. 

and

and

farmstand glory too... necklace

i feel a little like alice in wonderland. 

all my chickens are coming home to roost. 

and i like it a lot. 

tonight i am going to strike out for a decent rest. 

and perhaps feel like a human tomorrow. 

my fingers are crossed for luck in this matter. 

so for now, good night little chickies. 

xow.

discipline

on the subject of discipline. 

i have said it before and i will say it again. 

the only way to get any discipline in life is to just do it. 

i know this is true, cause i heard Oprah say it. 

and yeah, it is the one and only Oprah. 

so it has to be true. 

i am in the middle of the who knows and can count that high a number... 

night that is rolling over into day. 

no sleep. 

i am almost ready to do something about this. 

unfortunately, this is when i get a lot of really great ideas. 

for jewelry. for living with problems. for recipes. 

well for a myriad of things i am interested in. 

i have come to the conclusion, that i am more of a dreamer than a doer. 

i have friends that also have 3 kids and do so, so very much more on a daily basis. 

i am uncertain how it all gets done. 

i guess, they too adhere to that adage... 

JUST DO IT. 

i should too. 

after all, it isnt about the nike athletes now is it?

and my favorite temple has always been the one erected to the goddess 

Athena Nike. 

a sweet, petite lovely temple... and delicately perched on the acropolis. 

a view of the city of Athens below. 

simple ionic glory. 

ok, so i digress a little. 

fresh goals resulting from this sleepless ague i am indulging. 

1. i will clear off the green table next to the chair in which i do most of my work.

the purpose is to switch its location to my other side. 

this is no small task. 

our house is sweet and petite on its own bungalow style merits. 

all 932 square feet of it. 

this move will allow me to free up the space in front of the living room radiator. 

i have only seen my husband cry when his children were born.

this may create similar joy in his heart. 

with this ginormous move, i can remove the beautiful, but space-wasting cabinet 

that resides in the same spot as i want for my table. 

it is a really pretty mahogany two-tiered piece, 

originally intended for sheet music or record album storage. 

i use it for books, but it is not really very helpful and clutters up extra easily.

it is time to relocate it. 

2. as the game of  living room tetrus begins, 

i will have a chance to do two things. 

one is to repurpose the shaker stool from my grandmother's studio. 

it came from her home in Larchmont, NY. 

i have been enjoying waaaay too many dreams about that house this entire year. 

i have NO idea why, but to me, it is quite possibly 

the most perfect house. 

i spent many vacations in it with my grandparents... and really just loved it. 

the time with them and their home were gifts. 

part B of this Shaker stool episode is that i can paint it turquoise. 

i seem to be experiencing a lot of weird and unexpected  

images on pinterest and anywhere else i love looking at. 

they share my dear and abiding love of turquoise. 

i think that somehow, my grandmother might approve of this notion to refurbish

a small token from her life. 

especially since her son and nephew saw ways to separate our family 

items from my part of the family. 

i think of this episode in sharing as a major failure and will cover it more completely 

in a later posting. 

my family as said before has some stronghold on the issue of being crazy.
(do i mean stranglehold?)

3. after these two notions are worked on, 

i will have no further reason to ignor the development of actual work space. 

my studio still is not usable for all practical purposes. 

the mr. has agreed to let his drill press move to my studio. 

since i started to do some shows this year, i have had no space to shoehorn 

one more thing into the studio. 

yet i must. 

so the area i had hallmarked for sewing,

will become the new home for the drill press. 

this will allow hubby to reclaim his table and benchspace for his own carpentry events. 

he claimed this area of the basement before we moved here, 

added several businesses and children

and twenty years of accumulated crap. 

it is not neat nor is it organized. 

my interjection of flowers and parts has simply been making him  testy. 

i do not need that. 

no one does. 

so i am planning on relocating and throwing stuff out.

 my own stuff. 

do not cry for me argentina.... it is overdue. and i need to make it more livable 

everywhere in the house. 

4. the sofa is a mess. 

we bought it with a really pretty red floral pattern to go in our living room. 

its fabric has shredded. 

it is not even all that comfy anymore. 

but if it looked better , it would be more pleasant. 

i have a plan for this too. 

i may do the frame with either bleached and whitened canvas dropcloths

or some pale linen fabric, yet to be sourced. 

the cushions should be recovered with some very pretty cotton fabric. 

i inherited a partial roll of this from an old friend who was emptying her basement. 

she was moving and thought i might like the yardage. 

it is white with loads of green floral stuff on it. 

looking like barkcloth and with old fashioned elements on it,

i would say she knows me really all too well. 

so that is an ongoing plan. 

5. i am considering the manufacture of quiche for dinner tomorrow. 

i have a lot of ham left over from xmas dinner. 

and the youngest widget is kind of in love with quiche suddenly. 

after about a quarter of a century, i can love it again myself. 

i worked in a restaurant in harvard sq. for 3 years. 

we served quiche and salad every day. 

several kinds of quiche too. 

and we were not the only resto with quiche on its menu. 

its ubiquity was notorious. 

i may be able to handle it now... since time has softened its memory. 

and the fact that i ate a lot of it. 

my hips have that memory in spades. 

well i am just getting tired now, and will try to snooze on again. 

as my daughter, the other night owl said earlier tonight...

"shes working on it."

i will try to take a cue from her on this topic. 

so good night number two. 

xow. 


ps. i typed this entire thing with the lights out and my glasses off... so there are errors.
 i can't find them to fix them now.
 please give me the benefit of the doubt when you have read this...
if you would be so kind. 

pinteresting?

PINTEREST 

currently has my interest. 

really there ought to be more stuff that is valuable on my plate, 

but my regular and worthy place to get inspired closed this year.

i still curse the managers (aka fools) at Borders Bookstores.

what were they thinking? 

there are loads of people wandering around at whole foods, nodding in sympathy at one another. 

it is like a takeoff from the movie "The Sting". 

we all recognize each other and put our forefingers to our nose sides in that acknowledgement. 

not that we ever made voluntary eye contact when we were reading 

in the Border's Cafe or anything.

now i need to fight traffic, 

driving miles to get to the next nearest super-sized bookstore.

yep, as into computer life and surfing the internet as i am,

i am a huge magazine addict. 

i need photos ... pretty, styled and dreamy photos. 

the stories that go with them. 

the words of folks that have found them. 

the stories of the people that created the staging or the lifestyles that the pics are taken of. 

i need the feel of turning pages. 

i need stylists.

and yeah, i need to get out of the house. 

ok, i can get the best magazines that i fawn over delivered directly to my house. 

they call those subscriptions. 

i have a couple... but i limit my ingestion of them. 

eventually i become more addicted to keeping them intact. 

more so, than i am to clearing out the space they take up. 

let's face it. 

i am a lot smarter (in my head) when i have oxygen getting to my brain. 

too many stored mags seem to use up the space that could be used for regenerative O2.

my twofer experience is getting out of the house to a bookstore.

i prefer those with a massive collection of soft silky seductive house decorating content. 

that and an interesting craft section.
i often can't find a good chunk of time to do that two part coffee swilling and page turning.
i need to plan my time out better.
that is not an easy task.
i put out fires for a living.
{mostly, this is known as independent work and motherhood.}

a quick way i can merge some thankless task and my own desires is to grocery shop.
i get out in the world,
change up my environment or comfort/aggravation zone,
 replenish the foraging needs of in-house locusts,
{2 teens +1 twentysomething + the mr.}
and voila,
the magazine racks in the checkout aisles. 

sometimes, i pick a longer check-out line purposely.

this is done just so i have a smidge of time so i can page the glossy 

country-house-living-style-home-magazines. 

it serves to whet my taste for a real good set down at a bookstore.

 i am full on, house-potted for hours each week.
our automotive stylings and crapmobiles cause us to share the one working car a lot. 

with this part of my regular lifestyle,

which is fine for the most part, 

i like to get out and drool over magazines. 

(and hardcover books too).
sometimes, i get a little testier than i like if i have been at home for too long. 

now i am splitting my home incarceration periods with pinterest. 

it is a very, very clever thing. 

i have a nifty collection of things that i look through daily.
i enjoy putting  more on my pinterest boards
and of course i screw up all of the categorizing of those pics.  

heaven knows, i haven't a clue as to what any of it is good for.
 i do get to put other folks' photos into a nice virtual filing cabinet
so i can drool over them at another time.

equally, i find myself 

 just a little more inspired to remove some of the dust dinosaurs 

or spare puppy dog hair tumbleweeds.

as a real tribute to this i may even move some of my furniture around. 

baby steps... 

this is a nice table i enjoyed seeing here:

http://eclecticrevisited.com/2011/12/14/a-little-more-holiday-decorating/living-room-decorating-ideas-christmas-decor-holiday/

here are a few other things that i am wishing to be part of my own lifestyle. 

i guess i could clean up my house and make it more pinterest-worthy. 

seriously, i also wish i could take any of these photos. 

for now of course i will have to spend time ogling them on blogs
 and pinning them to my boards. 

i need a full body-sized infusion of talent, opportunity and vision to take these photos. 

some honing of time management skills would do me a world of good too.

basically, i need more time to get stuff done. 

in starting some of this fantasy living,
 i would love to stop feeling so overwhelmed about where to start from. 

perhaps if i really set my mind to it all in very small pieces,
 i can start living more of the life in the pics.

at the very least try to start that ball rolling. 

limit the(obsessive) time on pinterest...
and start cleaning a little; 

throw stuff out and categorize other stuff to store more efficiently. 

goals.
need fresh goals.
 and to be disciplined enough to stick to them
 for more than the time alloted to a gnat's attention span.

also, need go to sleep soon.
that makes it all happen.
well that and some oxygen. 

xoxo. w.

white on white...

my dog is the only dog i can imagine

 that everyone in the family begs to have come sit on the sofa with them. 

he is a funny critter as all pets are to their owners. 

greatly beloved as he is, 

there is also a very gentle side to the beast. 

i can leave a necklace on the arm of a chair overnight

 having it remain in the exact same place

even if he has curled up for a night's rest or a puppynap. 

he can tiptoe around delicately placed things in a way one might not expect...

from a 73 pound pet. 

wish i could say the same about my own ham-fisted abilities

or those of my kids. 

even with his unruly long hair, things do not get moved often. 

there is the occasional tail wagging and exuberance 

that can catch poorly placed findings with his tail, but i think that is my fault.

he was napping this morning and he looked so sweet with my newest floral necklace. 

i did the ridiculous doting pet owner gratuitous photograph. 

sorry for the sap...

it is the season for it's running.

the necklace needs some rhinestones to be set into the centers of the flowers. 

loads of pearls from the sixties made with glass and plastic bases.

oh how miriam haskell must be rolling in her grave with this application of glass pearls. 

such clever, graceful and elegant uses of similar materials,

 made her work known the world over.

oh well, that is the task of a trendsetter. 

in deference to the non wintry weather outside,

 here is an example of some wintry whites. 

{and other very pale tones}. 

so back i go to my other white necklace... 

many strandings of pearls, 

layers of those glass based goodies 

and a few mother of pearl additions. 

something for a very elegant friend of mine. 

i hope she will enjoy it .

i missed the photo op today, since the days are uber-short ...

and i have been sleeping late. 

{this flu and nyquil are holding me hostage,}

{yet i am happily beholden to the joy of sleep and recovery}

happy days and dreams of white, 

new beginnings 

and simple 

life palettes.

xo.

W.

20/20 holiday hindsight

everyone has had some holiday experience. 

my own was a little different than it usually is, since i had the flu. 

other than that, it was special as heck. 

i can say that cause there was little that passed as drama. 

PHEW!

we always seem to have some drama happening. it is a waste of time, you know?

my eldest and i had spent a couple of days before the big X-MAS day 

on a mom-daughter date. 

we went to the artist's supply store in town.

 i went crazy and spent major dollars on some supplies for my own nefarious interests

considering the time of year perhaps it was a little tacky.

usually, i don't spend money frivolously on stuff like this 

or on myself other than to further my jewelry based interests.

it just seemed impossible to ignore the itch this time. 

it came about because i was

reading some of my fave bloggers and traipsed with rapt attention paid to 

that of pam garrison. 

her blog is found here... and is well worth reading. 

 http://pamgarrison.typepad.com/

Pam is a modern day journal artist, painter, textile artist 

and she does loads of other creative stuff. 

her interests are not always concurrent with mine, 

 however i do really enjoy what she does with her marker collection. 

{and other materials as well.}

currently, my favorite elements of her wide range of talents

 translate into some unexpected embroidery patterns. 

she is selling the imprinted fabric patterns for embroidering, note cards and

 posters of sayings that have a certain cache and style once she made them hers. 

i can't believe how much i dig them. 

surely you would too if you were addicted to embroidering as well.  

 when i practiced architecture many years ago, i had tons of markers. 

they really exuded a horrid smell when they were used. 

i think in a fit of common sense, i threw them out. 

i had been holding onto them for at least a decade ... allowing them to dry out and be useless... 

{forgive me mother earth, for adding them to the trash piles on the planet.}

i never had time in between the years i used them daily 

and the purge, to replace them. 

after the years of child rearing and careful purchase and use of non-toxic markers,  

i spent a while chasing down the vastly improved,joyously-colored palette of copic markers. 

their gorgeous colors, the indefinitely refillable marker containers, 

and the non-stinky application potential are all wonderful. 

i don't know when or why the interest has resurfaced, 

but i want to draw again!!!!

this could be short-lived, but still... i am loving every minute of it!

oh yeah, and the markers make it all so fantastic.

just plain and simple, they do everything that i want them to. 

one of the reasons i went whole hog on them,

 is that both my daughter

(a digital art major at her college)

and other cool artists that  i admire,  draw with them. 

i can't believe it, but my daughter is allowing me to post some of her drawings, 

i will boast loudly about how cool they all are...albeit maybe a little creepy.

she is a comic book fan and her drawing retains a lot of influences which are a blending of 

a "mad men" drawing style and comic book bad guys. 

in other words, her characters seem to be evolving as her own style.  

she has been drawing with copic markers, with photoshop

 and/or with pen, paintbrushes and ink.

here are a few examples:

anyways, 

i am all kinds of interested in old studies again. 

as for the other inmates in the post holiday torpor, 

my son has been working on his freshman first semester bucket list. 

so many things on that list. 

i do not want to out him as to what they are...

but when did teaching his little sister how to play "water-pong" top the list?

she is sure that by the time she reaches college, 

she will be pretty good at beer pong. 

oh what a mother's dream that is. 

(imagine the sarcasm font for that last sentence please)

the pair of them have taken over the kitchen table and have been turning my beloved table 

diagonally to play water pong on. 

also they darlings have been playing both

rap and country-western music while playing this game. 

i figure if i let them just work this stuff out of their system,

 they will be back to a more conservative middle ground as we enter our nursing home years. 

my fingers are crossed. 

so other than drawing, 

beer /water-pong, 

holiday shopping, 

and other flu made experiences...

the holiday went off without much of a hitch ...

finally. 

~~~

also, i am working on a pair of white necklaces. 

when i finish and the light returns, 

i will post photos. 

~~~

i belong to a group on facebook that is made up of other artists. 

it is very supportive and great for sharing info... about all the stuff needed to be done

for the joy of making and selling artistic  creations. 

apparently someone suggested trying it out and 55 artists shared that they wanted to participate. 

this is what i sent out...

i will take fresh pics in the daylight of the beautiful bowl that i received from my secret santa. 

sorry for the delay. 

anyways, it was a really nice holiday.

we enjoyed a ham with brussel sprouts and roasted herbed potatoes. 

i think considering how crummy we all were feeling, 

it was one of those miraculous meals. 

everyone here is still enjoying leftovers and cookies made before i went sub-rosa with a myriad of crummy symptoms. 

oh yeah, and luckily, i am not suffering any weird side effects from taking some ibuprofen 

with the water glass my son had been using for storing his beta fish in. 

totally gross. 

til normalcy returns, and all. 

happy holidays to everyone. 

xoxo. w.

what's in a name?

many who know me, know i am ferocious about my family. 

seriously, who isn't?

i have a lot of parts to my family...

we put the dysfunction in 

screwed up. 

every family has holiday stress and weird uncles and other cockamamie stuff to contend with. 

why should i be any exception?

the discussion and opening up of my feelings about these people are not nearly as raw

as they once were. 

thank the stars above. 

it used to hobble me. 

now i feel a little rotten that i can't muster much of any reaction to these folks. 

the stories would curl hair. 

if i was to say, i feel that i paid for my old therapist to

 install a hot tub in her back yard... you ought to believe me. 

i was going at least once a week, but more like three times a week to unscrew my head. 

i think it was on backwards for years. 

whatever...

one of the most consistent things about my relationship with my father is that he cannot manage to get my name right. 

no matter how much i work with him on it. 

his inference is constantly issued every time we go through this. 

i have been trying for years to instruct him on this issue. 

i know it is the least of all things to be upset about...

but the irony is simply gobsmacking.

when i married, i kept my maiden name. 

i have never nor will i ever change my name. 

it is something i was given as a gift on my first day of life. 

so many things have changed since, i have come to love that i will only have one name.

i plan to keep this all of my life. 

my husband is just fine with my decision. 

he was fine with it when we met and chose to marry...

now many, many years later,

{28}

he is completely ok with my choice still. 

for unknown reasons, my father keeps impressively ignoring that i have made this choice. 

he ought be flattered,

but he chooses a completely different tack to take. 

he addresses things to me with the wrong name. 

it is a homophone for my husband's family name. 

neither is it consistent, nor is it spelled correctly. 

so every decade or so, when he feels death is imminent, 

he sends me a card. 

or a package. 

none ever addressed correctly. 

it is how i know it is from him... every damn time. 

each one of his ridiculous attempts includes some kind of card. 

they even actually say HALLMARK.

i don't think if you read this blog regularly, 

you will think that i am a mean and miserable person. 

truly, i have a sense of humor most days;

i love my children impossibly, no matter what;

my dog is my bestie;

my husband and i bicker and commit acts of marital warfare upon one another 

regularly enough, but we still love each other dearly

{see postings on peanut butter if you are forgetful of these moments};

i have a rich and lovely extended family i enjoy enormously that i see throughout the year;

my mom is a wealth of crazy that has no equal, but i love her and my stepfather too;

and of course, 

my friends figure deeply and fully in my life. 

i am nothing without all these relationships. 

and if you did not know it, 

i am profoundly appreciative of all of them, no matter how much i grouse. 

i just want to say that my father has made a lifelong career of buying the wrong card on every damn occasion he chose to buy one with me in mind. 

one decade, he sent me birthday cards that started with:

"dear son"

then crossed through that to tell me how much he loved me. 

i went nutsy on that one, but in my defense i was in my twenties then. 

then the most insulting was the one addressed to 

"dear son-in-law"

also crossed out to become:

"dear daughter -in-law".

ok, perhaps i am being petty here. 

but still, 

since he stopped drinking he still can't get the things right. 

i am unsure of how much latitude to offer to him... 

he seems so particularly stubborn and unwilling to take a hint. 

sigh. 

loud audible sigh. 

no longer the heartfelt sobbing of having such a dipshit for a dad. 

i am well out of my twenties. 

i kept giving him chances to shape up. 

none of them took. 

so i got a package from the UPS man who travels in my neighborhood today. 

the package was not embellished with a return address. 

it was very light and sported an improbable address. 

so close, but so far. 

my husband's family name is Griffin. 

it was sent to Wendy Gryphon. 

seriously. 

 the hallmark who sends the very best card within the box,

was a Big-Ass 

CHRISTMAS 

CARD. 

it is a ridiculous sticking point, 

but we are JEWS. 

non celebrating ones, but nevertheless, jewish all the same. 

he crossed out the CHRISTMAS... 

to be particularly specific that it was meant as a birthday card. 

as far as i know, 

CHRISTMAS  falls on each year without fail on

DECEMBER 25th. 

if i want to go just a tad further, for the 55 years i have been celebrating my birthdays, 

they have all fallen on 

JULY 29th. 

in addition to all the love he sent my way...

a birthday gift was enclosed. 

remember i am not mean spirited, i just am reporting here....

that he sent a sweet little oval pendant. 

i have no idea what it is composed of... 

however i think it has a sparkly setting with clear stones of some kind, 

and a pretty deep blue center. 

 as you readers must know, 

i tend to work in huge sized, overwhelmingly proportioned things

of a floral and vintage nature. 

i am not unappreciative of this gesture,

 but since we share the same month for our birthdays, 

i think he knows our birthstone in common is ruby. 

this may actually be sapphire, which is lovely and i have never had one ever in my life. 

still i remain a little confused. 

so many little details... and i am not being bitchy, i am just totally confused. 

the constant state of mixed messages. 

if i add them all up, 

he is saying that he doesn't know me very well. 

ultimately, this is the only real message that holds a correct interpretation. 

i just wonder why he doesn't say what he really means? 

every time i get sucked into a conversation, something goes terribly awry. 

it is out of self preservation that i keep a few arms' lengths from this crazy man. 

he is tough on a good day. 

those are quite rare in fact. 

and i have been hurt a lot. 

i also have learned to appreciate what a good husband and father my husband is from all these 

escapades my father has put me through. 

someday, when i feel very very maudlin, i may share a few. 

then again, i might not.

all i can say is that it is a miracle i have a modestly well adjusted life 

with my own sarcastic, smart, funny, pretty/handsome family. 

there really is never a day that i don't tell them how much i love them

or try to show them that i appreciate them.

even if they are prone to dragging their celery stalks through a fresh jar of peanut butter. 

~~~~~~

i posted about a necklace i made this week for a really swell guy. 

i messed up the date for him to share it with his love gal. 

they went their own ways to celebrate the holidays with their families in different locations. 

this upcoming week,

 i feel fortunate to enable them to share a special gifting of one of my necklaces. 

it is gonna be totally swell, since they have both seen it and are both tickled. 

i love it so much, i might try to make one a bit like it for me too.

usually, i am not so self congratulatory, at least i think that i am not.

but the unusual design constraints of the fab boyfriend and my interpretation of them, 

came to a conclusion that is not my norm. 

and i absolutely love it. 

happy christmas eve !!!

to all of you everywhere that may or may not celebrate. 

personally, 

it is beginning to look a lot like the end of another FESTIVUS for the rest of us here. 

and thank you for a kick butt year. 

i owe you all so much. 

LOVE, 

WENDY

scale, night, day, necklace... altogether now

it is past 2 in the morning. 

this is not a weird time to be writing for me, as you may already know. 

if it is anything, it is early. 

somehow, i wound up a couple of summers ago,
 getting my days and nights all turned upside down. 

it was not what i wanted to happen.

you know the saying about "sleeping like a baby"?

it is all too familiar to me these days.
the kind of sleep that babies entertain for a while that drives their parents insane?
where they sleep during days and
need attention when their folks are just too tired to deal with anything anymore?
well that is my natural rhythm.
my tennis teacher, used to call it eastern wendy time.
sorry world. i just have a hard time harnessing normal, acceptable schedules.
i have tried to for decades and it just is a struggle.

i really do try to make it work.
household harmony is a delightful thing. 

i have had to make sure that i awakened in a timely enough manner
 before the kids needed to be picked up from school,

which was a bit of an adjustment. 

i managed though.

not having days to do all of my errands can be troubling sometimes, 

since i genuinely dislike driving around town late at night.

 it is not the most cost effective way to buy groceries from the convenience food aisles at CVS. 

the only reason i ever like to do that is if we night owls are jones-ing
 for something to snack on,
need some medications to be picked up

and it is really late. 

sometimes i tag on my banking needs onto the trip, since the atm is next door to the pharmacy
thus, making it an efficiently run sortie.

if i am truly organized, i can also take advantage of the automatic post office machine
for my never ending shipping needs. 

that is another 24/7 kind of errand. 

the exception is on national holidays.
 i work on these days often enough, and tend to forget that the lobby doors will be locked
eliminating my access to the automated machine.

so here i am with my topsy turvy time and biofeedback doing

 day to night and night to day 

loops of wackiness. 

my eldest daughter also suffers from this diurnal affliction as well. 

she is as fully grown as i am going to get her to be. 

i think she has stopped growing... vertically. 

now i find her in the kitchen, 

a tad embarrassed that she felt she should ask a personal question.

she is home for the holidays and
is used to living her life freely as a second year college student who has her own apartment
and her own kitchen in which she can do what she likes and whenever that is,
without any repercussions.

when she was a baby, 11 months old, she would be awake at this time. 

  very happily doing baby things. 

now she is cooking black beans and garbanzos. 

that was her question... could she make herself a pot of beans
or would it be weird?

uh, the answer is... neither is a problem, just make enough for tomorrow... 

so we can have them for dinner. 

(my mr. eats a lot of beans and all the time too.

 they are his cure for one of his post-cardiac-event dietary ills.

we need as many edible solutions as are possible to his fresh dietary requirements.)

so there is my 5'-2" 

daughter in my tiny kitchen at 2:30 am making rice and beans. 

not wanting to be left out of the excitement that is happening, 

the boy likes to stay up late. 

he is not really of this biorhythm naturally.
his is completely artificial.

i know he is struggling to stay awake, but it is not without rewards. 

he gets to sniff out where the candy has been hidden in the house. 

he gets to watch net-flix movies that only i enjoy along with him. 

tonight, our selections were a james bond movie

(one with pierce brosnan... golden eye, which was awful. 

and

the other was the expendibles.

 this too had almost nothing to recommend it, 

unless of course you sold ear plugs for all the bombs and guns going off. )

so the boy was taking stock of the beans cooking in the kitchen and 

his need to go to sleep. 

sleep would win out eventually, but only by a hair. 

he has been sick since he came home from college with a very chesty cold. 

his need to fiddle with my phone, my computer stuff, the entire sofa, 

the entire bathroom, the kitchen... 

and any other place where he could share the love of the rhinovirus 

has been unsquashable. 

the boy has been so very generous with his visiting virus,
that he gave it freely shared it with  his little sister. 

so for a trifecta,

 the bean cooking girl of 20,

the overtired and still kinda sick boy of 18 who is the largest of us all, 

the extra sick 14 year old widget that can't sleep

 and feels school will be in her future tomorro, although i feel it is not prudent... 

are all in the kitchen. 

and at 2:30 in the morning

eating. snuffling. self-medicating. communing with one another. etc..
the dog is there for comic relief,
in dire hope that something really tasty will fall from the pot to the floor,
and just because, he too thinks it is exciting with us all in there.
a special 10 foot x 12 foot room.

in this very room

 that held them individually and in combinations,
forever ago,

as infants taking their first baths in its deep, cast iron, perfectly colored green sink,

as babies eating blueberries, watermelon and noodles in their high chairs,

 as toddlers hiding in only half-built cabinets,
(remember, the carpenter's family has no cabinets... 17 yrs later... still no doors)

as young tweens, eating many of the meals cooked here, 

as early athletes sharing stories about that last game or practice, 

as adolescents, spreading out homework to be done, 

as artists, industrial designers, inventors, and many other intelligent creators living life...

this room is now stretching at the edges to contain them and all their crazy. 

they are to my practiced eyes,

just plainly HUGE. 

no longer the little critters of the land. 

each has their own larger than life,
full-figured personality to squeeze into a size 4 space. 

it is no longer the land where night is dark;

day is filled with natural light;

and the children are tiny beings that need some nurturing. 

i am unsure of where i fit in all this.
i go with the shut up and drive or cook .... let them talk to each other.
learn by osmosis... let the natural order of things work.

i do know where my husband is though.
sensibly,  he is tucked into bed a mere 10 feet away
where he is happily sawing wood. 

~~~~~~~

in other news, 

i made a custom necklace over the past few days.

its construction manifesto is as follows:

1. to be constructed as a jumping off point from two necklaces. 

2. to intermix silver and gold chains

3. to swag and string beads and chains creating a mixed bibelot

4. to dangle chains as irregular accenting fringes

5. to add a few accent  blossoms to match the impossibly bubble intendee's personality

in black, white, patina, greens, yellow, teal 

6. to have the masse cascade downwards as if to graze the waistline.

7. to entertain a few drops of pearls

here is one prototypical necklace: 

peacock feathers

the second prototype:

Joyce's necklace

so of course, this is what i came out with...

i may have missed the boat completely, but i love the results. 

when the sunshine returns to my night, in my topsy turvy world, 

i will attempt to rephotograph this piece. 

this pic may be too dark for its own good. 

night night folks...

xow.

to-do is getting done

it just got cold out. 

my kids all seem to want footwear for their holiday gifts. 

one would think that they live in the outer reaches of antarctica. 

 they are now surprisingly practical and longing for toasty toes.

so i celebrate with my trusty computer

and a well worn piece of plastic with raised alpha-numeric symbols. 

lots of things will come to my house for free this week if i have my way. 

some of this is through the generosity of some of my customers. 

if i have not made how i feel extra clear, 

then let me out and out thank you for such a heartfelt and stunning year. 

so many changes happened 

only after i dipped my toes into the waters of doing shows regularly

and 

taking on a wonderful representative to sell my things. 

i thank heavens for these changes, but have been kicking and screaming all the way. 

it is perhaps better known to those out around me, 

how little i enjoy changing. 

yet it has been essential. 

this mantra has been running through my head nearly constantly for many months:

"two kids in college. two kids in college. OM"

this year has been amazing in general. 

loads of growth. 

and of course as mentioned, 

internally kicking and screaming as i went. 

this week has allowed me to sleep in, 

to make several personally rewarding jewelry pieces

 for lovely women and the men that love them.

a lot of unexpected things came together. 

and the to-do list is getting shorter. 

now if i could only keep up with the KP duties that are in play. 

all of my family is home and under our roof. 

the 5 pounds of potatoes i peeled for dinner tonight were tucked away 

along with the whole chicken roasted to yummy perfection, 

as well as 

pounds of brussel sprouts. 

{yep, they are as odd as i am... loving the petite choux as i do.}

it is good to keep the locusts fed and happy, 

and moving down that remarkably long to-do list.

it is all quite good. 

thank you everyone!

oh and the most recent necklace in progress needs daylight to make its entrance 

in the proper fashion that it deserves. 

manana,,,,  i mean later this morning. 

now it is time  for the snorring to begin. 

and the day to end.

nighters folks

xoxo.w.