say thank you wendy...

not to gloss over the thanksgiving experience...

but it is in an inconvenient spot for me this year. 

as i was freaking out about all that there is to do,

my mr. suggested that we buy ready made dinner stuff. 

his rationale was that it couldn't possibly be too hard
to get a turkey breast to throw into the oven.

i may well have been a chicken in another life. 

i have a fondness for many of their images and  their tasty dishes. 

i have also noted that i am a wicked grinder.
maybe i have a crop to grind with?

i grind on about anything until some resolution can be achieved. 

this time,,, 

with the fact that i have no time and loads of things to do, 

my grindings resulted in the memory of a service that stop and shop provides. 

if you order a turkey dinner, they will put one together for you. 

it being the day before... i thought i must have missed this shot. 

still, i tried. 

and they were unfortunately out of the meals for four, six and eight. 

they did have one left for 2 people. 

i asked if they had more of the twosies and was able to order 3 of those. 

MAY I  SAY...FANFLIPPINGTASTIC!!!

now i have dinner all ready except for green looking stuff, yams and chips. 

they included:

turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and acorn squash.

apple and pumpkin pies too. 

OH GOODIE GUMDROPs!!!

this was all done in one hour and for $75.oo

completely done and lots less than than i usually spend on fixing food folks grouse about.

i am so happy i have recouped my day. 

time saved, money saved, sanity saved.

i feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders. 

a rarity in my life. 

so after dinner tonight, 

there will be fresh crops of 

 earrings

brooches

necklaces

bracelets 

and 

barrettes too. 

i am getting happier by the minute. 

just thought i might share that. 

to keep the joy of being me moving along... 

all three of my kids are home. 

on top of that, the stove has been fixed and my daughter got her braces off today. 

all sorts of joyous things. 

wahoo. 

new ballerina necklaces too. 

 i realize that i showed these yesterdays updated blog, but it is worth repeating. 

'cause that is how happy i am right now. 

now off to check on the chicken in the oven with loads of herbs and crusty crispy skin, 

rosemary baked potatoes

and sweet potatoes for tomorrow's festivities. 

have a swell holiday everyone. 

xoxo. 

w.

pre-holiday countdown

this is gonna be short and to the point. 

i am exhausted. 

i spent 3 hrs. driving around today and i haven't got that much time to fritter away. 

i know, i whine a lot. 

however, it is that whole turkey infused gluttony extravaganza in two days... 

what makes this insane for me, 

is that i have NO OVEN...

its thermal coupler breaks each year and has chosen to do it for this week with psychic timing. 

no one here even likes turkey...

which was fine with me. i hate fussing over the cooking and storing of the carcass. 

 so i wanted to make a rolled pork roast filled with apricots and rosemary

with the usual delish sides.

also i have a two day show that starts friday. 

two of my college kids are going to be home for this long weekend. 

one is planning on getting her braces off.

 {i went through this with my other child for 3 yrs. and know it will not happen this time. 

sorry sweetie... dr. S likes to get your hopes up for 6 months. and dash them until you can take no more}

i only owe about $2500. on that little endeavor. 

i am the only one who knows how to cook in this house. 

you can't turn around here without finding a cookbook or a magazine with a recipe in it. 

one would think some day, some one might be interested in learning a little about this. 

that day just is not here yet. 

so i am feeling as i expected,

totally frazzled. 

and you know, the more than  normal every day load of crazy that i usually tote around? 

the one that  comes with a full range of insanity of moods

and hot flashing? 

well these lead to 

CRAZY HAIR.

you know, the look that is attributed to Albert Einstein or Reverend Al Sharpton?

all kinds of scraggly in a non- aural halo. 

sticking out forever and ending badly?

ugh. 

i own it. 

so sad. 

i met with my rep last week feeling so good and fully informed and having laughed and drunk herbal tea... keeping my moods etc. in mind?

well i had on a 3 inch ring of crazy hair. 

in some kind of kindred thought and ironic universal cosmic alignment, 

i found some copper plated steel barrettes last week when i went spelunking through jewelry findings

at my favorite haunt. 

on a total hunch and excitement driven whim, 

i got a bunch of these, just a gross. 

i like things in sets of 12.  

i should really be asleep.

 i am whipped and need some reserve energy for this weekend to be survived. 

however, i made a midnight sortie to the basement and my dear friend the drill press. 

i made a few experimental holes in several of my barrettes. 

then i riveted some of my hand colored flower components to the three samples that i prepped. 

in a word...

DAY-em!!

they worked out really well.

and i am keeping my girl-fro in check with one of the samples right now. 

also i made a new little necklace out of some fun vintage paper laminated luan plywood 

laser cut-outs. 

they feature old ballerina images and some vintage lucite beads and chains. 

i will photograph them tomorrow when light returns and i am semi-vertical.

i am totally stoked about these two new things in my jewelry line

... the big shew is on friday and saturday 

at the providence civic center.

i can't wait.

and yeah, the local urban coupon company selected my necklace pic to grace their
advertisement!
howly ship batman!!!

by the way... 

greater lucidity, may return 

although a partnering of sanity may not.

3 kids in house and husband too. 

not one is  credible as a helper. 

they already all have plans for the weekend

 and not one of them has asked if they could help me at all.

if i make money, 

i am going to buy an ipad.

there i said it. 

my needs are coming first for the very first time in ever so long. 

it is a working tool for my life and i have been working hard for a while now. 

anyways...

night night 

xow.

what to wear to a wedding?

i am a card carrying and fee paying seller on ETSY.com.

there, i said it. 

i just don't get to many of my tasks there in time.

it is a huge site and one that may well have saved my life at some point. 

as habits go, our family tries to do things that can encompass our many and widely flung interests. 

otherwise how would a jewelry obsessed woman coexist with an equally interested comic book officianado, an carpenter, and a quirky 14 year old jock ?

before "BORDERS" closed this year,

 we would all pile into the car and go out for an evening of quiet fun. 

our idea of a good time was to claim the squishy chairs, 

order a cup of tea, hot chocolate or coffee 

and sit in their cafe reading until someone started whining, 

we got hungry for dinner 

or 

someone had a game to go to.

it was leisurely and replenishing to my creative needs. 

also extremely cost sensitive. 

during one of these sorties, 

i ran across a magazine that featured an artist that made my jaw drop and my pores sweat. 

i found out that this woman sold the things she made on a site called etsy. 

her jewelry was not inexpensive nor was it made from cheap materials. 

she wound rubies, vintage refitted jewelry and all sorts of things together with style. 

it was style that made my mouth water with a kind of lust not felt for a long time. 

i went home from that bookstore visit to open my own  etsy store. 

i posted some charm bracelets and to my delight 2 sold the very next day!!

i had NO idea of my beginner's luck. 

i was really grateful as well as motivated to make more things and load my store asap. 

the sales that were going to make me rich were very slow in coming, 

but i was getting some interesting feedback. 

someone suggested that they were interested in only enamel flowers. 

and i had quite a few of these. 

i could get more too. 

wishing in retrospect, that i had all of the ones available at the time, sigh,

 i would have made a small fortune. 

it was an interesting enough project, so i started a second store to sell only components. 

things went along for quite a while, busily enough...

but folks who bought my enamel flowers were making nice jewelry. 

i became jealous. 

there i said it. 

not the best of my sensibilities, but an honest one. 

so i started to push my jewelry in the first store. 

many things have happened since this commitment was made, 

but i truly started to follow my heart.

it was a leap of faith so to speak. 

it took a lot of lean days and manipulated wire to get to a steady place with it all. 

still, lacking was the immediate interactions with customers. 

the ones where in face to face situations, you get a lot of info out of one look. 

determined, i kept at things. 

fighting the copyists and just trying to stay true to my own sensibilities. 

one of the things not easily seen was the audience that my  on-line sales were reaching. 

still to this day, i have no idea who is looking and at what. 

so i follow what makes me happy to make when i have the time and materials to do so. 

i made a crazy bib of pearly goodness for speculative sale in 2008. 

it sold to one of the best friends of one of my dear friends. 

it was for a gift from one unknown bff to another. 

these two women had been interwoven since graduate school together and they remain as close as ever. 

so  i had made a necklace that i knew, my friend would not like.

her bff was sure she would. 

it was about the pearls. 

boy i was wrong. 

these two women both loved the necklace. and for ever so many reasons, 

i did too. 

i was thrilled to be a part of their triangle of adoration. 

just recently, another woman requested a reprisal of this neckie. 

and i thought it would eat up time i had no reason to fritter now. 

but its composition and elegance with a heaping side of eccentric, 

made it one of my new all time favorites. 

it just flowed together. 

sometimes that happens, 

sometimes it doesn't. 

happily, this time it really did come together easily and with a mote of self congratulations...

quite beautifully. 

i know no one is supposed to wear white to any wedding. 

not upstaging the bride is a good goal to try to achieve. 

however this new commission was intended to be worn to an upcoming event. 

i think it is quirky and interesting enough to be a gracious guest at the wedding. 

my hats off to the lady who asked me to make this for her. 

her vision and expectations should not do anything to upset her bride. 

and she ought to look most excellent in this confection. 

wishing her and "binney II"

the greatest luck on their journey to witness fresh nuptuals. 

xoxo. 

W.

cameos and pearls

not everyone has a sweet friend who is a genuine bona fide Swede. 

i do. and i am pretty lucky for that.

on top of her long list of talents is her appreciation of my work. 

it makes my heart swell each time she compliments it 

and even more so when she requests something fresh. 

her husband asked me to help make her long-standing desire for a special necklace come true. 

she asked me to make her a necklace featuring her stash of cameos. 

they are both old and new pieces. 

the focal of the group is a juicy piece that was her grandmother's. 

i did not want to alter that if at all possible. 

so here is a congregation of her collected cameos,

a few little things i had, 

and some vintage glass pearls. 

also, i added some pieces of mother of pearl and some flattened disk mother of pearl beads. 

to these i added some free floating cameos. 

it is completely asymmetric.

i am uncertain if this will fit her delicate neck,

or

form into a nice free-standing sculpture, 

or 

suit her taste. 

it remains unseen by the woman who requested it. 

and i remain a nervous nellie.

i added a very pretty oval marcasite and MOP brooch. 

the mother of pearl nearly glows with its own power pack.

the ability of light to break through its opacity is simply spectacular. 

i am sure that this alone is magical. 

the glitter created by the marcasites' glitter and the ruby colored stones that surround the vintage shell make this sing for me.

a masse of glass based pearls from the heyday of Miriam Haskell

also add a little something. 

it has a softened lustre and an inherent glow.

my fear is that it will not stand up to the radiance of Pernilla herself. 

must bring it to her to see if it is what she wanted. 

oh how much fun it is to be so completely neurotic. 

i am off to dog park out and deliver to the nearly birthday girl. 

wishing you all as much luck as i am hoping to have. 

xoxo. 

w.


U*P*D*A*T*E
i brought the necklace over to the lovely miss P and it was well received. 
i am just a worrier. 
here she is in a necklace that looks like it was made for her. 
oh wait, it was.

family motto

at this time of the year, there are all sorts of things to be doing. 

of course, being me, i am going to subscribe to the family business. 

our family has made a lifetime work study through the generations out of 

worrying.

i recognize that many folks fret. 

but they are amateurs by our standards. 

our family motto is:
" when in doubt, just worry more".

the legacy was brought to us by my grandfather Poppy. 

rumor had it that he had a flourishing business as a wool broker. 

he spent years and years traveling throughout New England 

to do his job. 

at some point in time, he opted to retire. 

everyone said that he did this in order to take up his hobby full time. 

that of course was the worrying. 

i have a lot of his crazy strand of dna in me. 

of that i am certain. 

i am currently mothering two college students long distance. 

one might think out of sight, out of mind. 

i wish that were the case. 

 now that they are not in the house, the widget aka 3rd kid is taking up the slack. 

she needs the space that all 3 took up together. 

and i am sure things on that front are only going to get more intense. 

example of my worrisome personality. 

my son plays ice hockey... and has done so for about a decade or so. 

he was at a practice one night when he was in middle school. 

he came home with a banged up thumb. 

it was spring break. 

i figured that in spite of my husband saying he had just sprained the thumb,

i would take him for an x-ray the next day. 

since the children's hospital near us would undoubtedly be full of kids with the flu 

and all i needed was an x-ray, 

we went to the more geriatric hospital in town. 

the issues in that waiting room were sure to be less mucous and virus filled.
{spring break, too many kids around}

i was right.
we chatted amiably with an older woman with no original gizzards left, 

while we waited. 

the boy got his picture taken. 

they docs in the e.r. said they were sure as my husband that there was no break. 

wrong. 

there was a break and it required a specialist to look at it. 

i then went with the boy to the orthopedist to have his thumb examined by a more clever doc. 

i sat in that waiting room for 2 hrs. for an appointment no less. 

i got really pissed. 

the doc looked at my son's films on his computer, 

showed him all that he was talking about with a cursor, 

and i got a little sick.

the break was there and needed surgical repair since it was in a growth plate. 

without the surgery,
 he would not have thumbs that were the same length or enjoyed full rotation and natural movement. 

everything went off without a hitch. 

surgery check. 

recovery check.

physical therapy check. 

there was a pin inserted to hold the whole mass in place during the surgery. 

it would move with the thumb when my son moved it around.
this too nauseated me.

of course he took this opportunity to show it to girls. 

quel pick up line. 

and its removal was equally disgusting.

the clever doc pulled a run of the mill toolbox from under the patients seating. 

out from that he pulled a regular pair of pliers. 

with these, he grasped the looped end of the pin and pulled it out. 

nope, i did not faint. 

i really wanted to. 

still do. 

and now the boy has two delightfully matching thumbs
 that he uses for comedic emphasis and whatever else he chooses to employ them for.

mostly i might add to continue to make me worry. 

and he is very good at that. 

so i worry. 

i know, it is part and parcel of the mom thing. 

but i have always been this way. 

it is exhausting. 

now i worry about

 money

deadlines

how to do things

how not to do things

what did i say that might have been inappropriate. 

and every other damn thing.

most folks like the holidays. 

i am unsure if i actually do. 

i like the rituals and celebrations;

the glamour and the glitz. 

i wish i could enjoy everything more... naturally. 

instead i make my own little panacea. 

i live in a flower decorated world. 

one of my own construction. 

perhaps things might be less worrisome, if i lived in a white house draped in bouganvillea?

surrounded by roses and daisies? 

and with a pool of pale blue waters outside....

surely that would rock?

and i could bring my own flowered madness to a happy state. 

i am dreaming now... 

and pushing worry to the side. 

here is a fresh crop of blossoms from my world. 

here's hoping that they brighten your world as much as they do mine. 

i really am happy, i just grind a lot on life's issues.

its part of the narcissistic gig, you know?

these are earrings in progress, using jet black rhinestones 

and emulating black eyed susans. 

also essential to my garden dream life. 

xoxo. 

w.

getting ready for holidays

i feel like an anti-christ. 

(hopefully in a humorous neil gaiman kind of way).

so many of the bloggers that i read, 

are featuring the joyous outpouring of their talents 

and readying themselves for the holiday season. 

i am just all out whipped already. 

the holiday season is just around the corner and i am really NOT ready.

as a matter of fact, i feel a little bit like i haven't even started yet. 

it has been 'mentioned' here almost daily, that i am filling some orders for wholesale customers.  

they are nice and sorta small orders, so i think that they are easy. 

it is like rain. 

one or two drops is nothing. 

you get a teensy bit wet, but it is no biggie. 

add a whole lot of drops together and you get a puddle to jump in. 

add more and suddenly you need a sump pump for your basement. 

not that i have that many things to do, 

but it has recently been brought to my attention

 that i may have a small streak of perfectionism in my system. 

if i felt that i achieved some measure of accomplishment, 

that would surely feel fantastic. 

unfortunately, i am not feeling that level of success. 

what i am feeling is a little burned out. 

i suspect that a good vacation,

 one that is experienced out of my normal location, would be heavenly. 

the last official vacation mr. and i took, was in 1990.

i know this as it was the week i became pregnant with my first daughter. 

it has been a while ... and it is showing ... 

the grey in my hair is looking a little more 

like a page out of the  bride of frankenstein's style book these days. 

and yet, 

I LOVE my WORK!!!

the overwhelming run of making charm bracelets all week, 

is taking its toll on my hands. 

after all, making one bracelet is like making 28 pairs of earrings. 

if that were what was in my inventory cut sheet, i would be swimming in the suckers. 

and i may yet. 

anyways, there have been 

3 emerald, 

3 ruby, 

2 plum, 

1 amethyst

and a couple of onyx 

bracelets created. 

it feels fantastic to be able to say that, but it is hard to measure properly in terms of hand cream 

and inventory on hand. 

i am in the process of paying $50  each week for a machine. 

it is to help me make these charms sorta easier. 

at least easier on my hands. 

it will be paid for soon enough, and i will persevere. 

i suspect it will be very influential in the way that i create fresh designs. 

cause you all know how very very much i like an abundance of anything. 

and everything. 

i have ideas about clusters of beautiful things all together as necklaces and bracelets. 

i can't wait to get to them. 

the last time i bought a machine, i rocked my own world. 

it would be simplistic to say it helped me make things easier. 

so let's just say i really do love this machine. 

 it has allowed me to create tons of much more mechanically elegant and structurally sound things. 

the fact that they are also quite pretty and unique to my vision, 

well that is a huge bonus. 

so the new machine will simplify life greatly. 

and i can't wait to move it into my uber-cluttered space. 

if i can back up a little, there was an article posted on facebook by one of my friends. 

it features a thirty-something aged woman

 who went to a very well respected school where she learned about interior design. 

in the post-graduation world she now is in, 

jobs are now a little more elusive than they ought to be. 

her response was to spend time and $400.00

to create a beautiful

weather tight

elegant

treehouse. 

she built it herself and is planning to use it as a painting studio this fall and winter. 

during her summers, she intends to sleep in it. 

the thing about this is, the story was published in the new york times. 

if she is still unemployed after the buzz she attains from the article, i would be shocked. 

she stayed within the building permit and zoning constrictions of 

brooklyn, new york. 

and she stayed within budget. 

i feel envious of her obvious talents. 

and her ability to be flexible in the face of deterrents everywhere. 

so i am hopeful that i can get my mr. to consider a tree house for a retirement annex. 

by the time we are unable to retire, 

i at least would like to be painting. 

or something. 

in my own glassy treehouse. 

yesterday, i wrote about a few irons i had in the fire. 

one is the development of a necklace for a gorgeous woman who is a chef in Indonesia. 

she sent me a sketch of some of her ideas. 

which are her intellectual property. 

i would dearly love to make this in another colorway... all neon and vibrant. 

however, in deference to her design, 

i promised not to sell any other pieces made by her directives. 

the one she has requested is in its own 

vocabulary. 

black, copper and brass. 

now i am stopping mid-construction, to get her approval. 

this convenience of the internet  is also one that creates some difficulties. 

impatience is one for me. 

i fully expect to get an instant reaction to my work so far. 

even if the chef has a restaurant to run. 

sheesh. 

so here is izzy's necklace in progress:

all kinds of gorgeous and full of potential. 

well it seems a good time to break out of this and hit the flower making machine in the basement. 

i need a few pairs of earrings like yesterday. 

see you soon. 

xow.

four by fourteen...

my daughter has a fluid set of friends. 

at their core is a sweet bunch of them that started out at the same nursery school. 

now that they are all in high school, 

{GULPIMUS MAXIMUS!!!}

 they have reconnected and reconfigured. 

tonight i have 3 of them and my daughter in the house. 

two of them are bff's from middle school 

and the other two are another pair of bff's from another middle school. 

the end of this is that the two pairs have configured into a foursome. 

and now they are all enjoying each other and laughing it up

as well as suffering the pangs and exhilarations of freshman year at high school. 

three play sports and it is kind of sweet how they go to one another's games. 

they all went to homecoming together too. 

i am sure that it is more stressful for them than i think, but they seem to be taking it all in stride. 

now i think i would be tossing my cookies, if i were them,  since i made so much food. 

we had stovetop lasagna. 

and salad

and saltines as a pre-emptive snack. 

then there was chocolate cake 

{perhaps ice cream too...}.

there was a chick flick rented... 

and popcorn to go with that. 

tomorrow morning we have 

bagels and cream cheese, 

pancakes, 

toast and nutella, 

fruit, 

milk, 

and whatever else they may like. 

all i know is that i am feeding them and they have to supply the balance of the entertainment. 

my dog is insane. 

the joy of girls is making him giddy 

and he really wants to be in the middle of it all. 

i never did this for my other two. 

they just did not have the raucous friends that loved sleepovers. 

nor did we have as much space with them in the house. 

it is really great that this is happening now.

 i love the kids being in the house. 

more than their being out of it. 

this is the best way to have it happen right now. 

as soon as i think they are all tucked in to their respective beds/sleeping bags, 

i will adjourn to the basement to work on making some flowery compositions. 

there is a custom piece that i am working on. 

one of my most delightful customers, has requested that i create a necklace for her. 

it is already designed. 

she has an extremely clear vision of what it ought to look like. 

and i agree. 

it will kick ass. 

all black and copper and brass in flowers and beads. 

a choker with a draped cravate 

that J.Lo could have worn with her magically taped on plunging neck-lined dress. 

you know the one that made everyone gasp at its audaciousness 

as well as its perfection on her.

also my gorgeous friend Pernilla is coming by the slop house tomorrow

 to set a fresh piece into motion.

it is her birthday this week. 

her absolutely lovely husband is gifting her with a fresh necklace. 

she can wear absolutely anything too. 

gorgeous. to the NTH degree. 

her dream necklace is one made all with cameos. 

i am sure that i will probably make her swedish granny turn over somewhere, 

as i will be working her vintage personal cameo in as a focal element. 

this promises to be luxe beyond luxe. 

and finally i have a pearly draper to construct. 

a lovely woman needs her own birthday piece that will mirror this oldie but goodie.

she found it in my sold inventory. 

i have no idea why, but pearls really resonate with me. 

i suspect that it is from my 7sisters college experience 

and my need to reinvent the simple single strand of pearls. 

doesn't matter.

they are classics and any twist is just fine by me. 

also i am into these bracelets to a silly degree. 

i have made 8 of them. 

they are for orders and samples. 

and i still haven't gotten to the other colors. 

i want a bejeweled, bedecked, be-gemstoned color collection. 

perhaps if i can keep at it, the onyx one will come together tonight. 

photos in the morning either way. 

so i bid you nightly sweet thoughts. 

xoxo. 

w. 

physics, einstein and jewel-toned bracelets

a few days have passed since i last tried to write something about my world. 

i guess the short answer is that i've been just too damn busy to get to this nicely. 

not that i always get to things well or describe them aptly,
but i like to try. 

so i have had a lot of random thoughts. 

i wanted to watch some junk tv last week.

by this i mean i wanted to watch 

"Doc Martin". 

lest you think i am a total beavis and butthead fan,
 i would like for you to know my choice was on PBS. 

it is also a lot easier to wrestle the clickers from my husbands paws
 if there is a PBS show on the docket to be seen. 

he balked on this episode.
it was funny as a choice cause he looks forward to the curmudgeonly doc.
{identification with the character i assume?} 

when you are awake as many hours as i am and if you are tv addicted...
you are bound to see a lot of shows. 

and yes, i knew i had already seen the upcoming episode.

it is within my purview to give the mr. a hard time about this
... since he thinks he works hard and the clicker is his. 

not even close. 

i like to let him think this is true. 

between us,
just know i let him pursue this line of thought,
so i get control when i really want it.

so back to what he wanted to watch...

UGH. 

it was a "NOVA" episode. 

it was one from this season,
 where some physicist narrator reports on what is

'SPACE'

(escaping name issue with familiar swiss cheesy brain)

I took physics in college, not in high school. 

it was part of the essential list of courses deemed important to my major. 

so i took the course referred to as:

"physics for poets".

now i should tell you,
i might just as well have had a face mask and body cloak all through high school. 

my parents were shall we say a little strict?
{i have nothing but respect for the women who live under the guidelines of the Taliban...}

they also had expectations based on my homebody personality. 

if i wanted to have a social life,
 they were to know absolutely NOTHING about it. 

so i had a secret life. 

 when i finally got to college, i spent a significant amount of time at a specific fraternity. 

they had a party and a keg or two every wednesday night. 

reflect on the memories of the movie 

"animal house".

it was written about a certain frat house at the male college nearby my alma mater. 

i tell you this, as a precursor and line up of all of my issues with physics. 

my class met at 8:30 on thursday mornings. 

needless to say, it was a more challenging course than i might have liked ...

and yet i was able to learn some stuff.
in spite of the repercussions of boys, a kick ass jukebox and some beer the night before. 

i also took math courses. 

i did it so that my own brand of a homeland security team could not comment on my academic life. 

my mom was an english professor with an american lit specialty.

she also taught college professors how to teach writing to students. 

her feeling was that my writing was all sorts of bad. 

then my step-father rounded out the team as a high school drop-out. 

he had been in business for himself pretty much since he was 16. 

he had a very successful boat business and later went on to start a second business 

as a small craft manufacturer. 

the idea of butting heads with these two was overwhelmingly god awful. 

my strategy was to then take up science and math. 

i knew they did not have any skills at a higher level that could be used to criticize my performances. 

so math and biology and chemistry and physics became my language. 

hangovers be damned. 

when i took math, i started with 3 semesters of calculus. 

it made little sense until that 3rd chapter. 

and then it happened. 

something actually resonated with me. 

i understood something and how it may apply to what i was doing other than hiding out intellectually. 

there was that beautiful graphing of a saddle point. 

i have NO idea now what it referred to. 

since this time in my life i have become increasingly and admittedly more stupid. 

ok, perhaps more artistic which is really in my true nature.
{the stupid is related to both having children +currently feeling the memory loss related to menopause.}

regardless, somehow some of the math and the science lessons started to itch 

in a different part of my brain recently. 

ironically, i found myself thinking about it all the night before the big clicker wars. 

while the mr. was clutching his clickers and dozing off,

i was following the show. 

the beginning gambit discussed led quickly into albert einstein's theory of relativity. 

wow. 

fucking 

wow. 

i actually understood the baby bird regurgitations being expressed. 

{ of course that moment of flash has passed, as you must remember, i grow stupider with every passing moment of menopause and age. }

so i asked my mr. why if he likes this stuff so much

{ all the stuff he forces us to watch in the hope for greater personal growth. }

also i wanted to know why he didn't even try to take physics when he went to college. 

he said the initial math was too hard
and he just walked out of the back of the classroom almost as quickly as he had entered it. 

i know how stubborn he is. 

i know how stubborn i am. 

one might think he would have gotten something out of it. 

what happened was, i did. 

never thought anything about it before. 

the info has been inappropriately located in my brain someplace. 

it should have been in his. 

oh well. 

it is good to learn all the time. 

this time i gained some insight into the mr.'s expectations and experiences. 

{none of his lack of academia is a reflection on his smarts. he just was the 4th of 9 pregnancies.
not easy to get any attention in that environment. particularly with his especially crappy family.}

in the interest of solving the mysteries of why i watch these things 

and precisely how interesting i find them, 

i have a tray of jewelry constantly in use. 

this time i was working on a series of charm bracelets. 

these are for the holidays,

both for  

shows and wholesale orders.

my work amuses and delights me. 

this is very good thing to have happen. 

i do still think about space in terms of the meaning that physicists enjoy and pursue.

also i enjoy it in the manner that i can collect disparate things to recompose into other formations. 

now i feel it is a question of relocating stuff to fresh combinations and leaving the space around them slightly altered for that effort.
{see i was listening pbs.}

this week yielded some charm bracelets. 

they featured both flowers and beads as charms. 

most of my wholesale customers are just tweaking and sweating a little
thinking of what value a flower might have 

at this time of the year. 

well, i know that the flowers have a purpose, they really do. 

and i am smitten with my most jewel-toned collection of bracelets.
i know it is maybe a tad smug on my part, but then again... you know how much i love my flowers.
and colors.
and shapes.
and textures.
and story telling.
  

they are nearing monochromatic over-indulgence on my part... 

but then that is my prerogative. 

i am taking advantage of that too. 

here are a few of them
i may have pushed good taste and all, but i named them for gemstones,
since we are in the high days of the holiday season.
if you can't fantasize about wearing the crown jewels now, then when can you?

amethyst copper rose

ruby copper rose

plum copper rose

emerald copper rose

perhaps on my next entry, i will show you the sapphire, topaz, diamond and onyx variations rolling around in my head...

just like sugar plum fairies. 

time to reclaim my work tray and some fresh jewels. 

xoxo. w