Knock, Knock?

Hellooo? Yes, I'm still alive....just not very good at keeping up with a blog apparently. I'll try a short synopsis of life since early July....

Another knee surgery to try and fix the previous replacement. Didn't work. The only thing it accomplished was putting a dent in my bank account and giving me the chance to meet some nice therapists who did their best with me.

A show in Columbus in September...again a rain disaster further disappointing because someone stole a cuff bracelet from me that was a favorite. Sigh.

Let's see...October brought my 65th birthday which should not have pleased me except that I am now on MEDICARE! Yippee!!! No more $1000. insurance payments every month. Along those lines, I made the rounds of all the doctors whose titles end in oncologist and got good marks from all. One year down.

During these last few months I've been beading like crazy to prepare for the two Winterfair shows - Cincinnati and Columbus. It paid off because both shows were fantastic saleswise. Should keep the wolf away from the door for awhile...lol. It was also a good time to see friends and clients again that stop by my booth to visit.

So this past week I gave a Christmas party on Friday night and went to one on Saturday night. Sunday night was a Christmas concert at the airbase with the Air Force Band of Flight. They have it at the AF Museum in a hanger filled with very large planes. Today I'm giving my mom her Christmas present..a luncheon for her and her friends and former neighbors. Average age is probably 85. Wonder what would happen if I gave them all champagne? Geriatric Twister?

My son and daughter-in-law, Jeff and Eun Ae, finally got their restaurant open in Sierra Vista, AZ. Took as much time as having a baby and Jeff says it made him just as nervous on opening night. Andrea is waiting tables and Matthew is bussing them and Jeff is hosting after work so it's a family affair. Reviews have been good on food and decor.

And this brings you up to date so I want to leave you with this piece a friend sent me today...I hope you like it, too, and pass it on.

This was written by a Renaissance monk, architect and poet.

Written on Christmas Eve, 1513

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there.

The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too,
be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

Fra Giovanni

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Friday Before Fourth

Wow.......can't believe I haven't written anything since late May! The two shows I did were polar opposites. Hathaway Brown in Cleveland was a weather disaster...thunderstorms and wind, few people, few sales. Toledo was warm but sunny and lots of nice people in attendance. I couldn't believe the final sales total! Did sell a couple of pieces I was very fond of, especially the owl necklace shown here on the blog, but they went to good homes.

Also went to the Bead & Button Show with friends and spent time again with Wayne Robbins, Nanette Grainger (Scorpio) and Shirley Cook (JumpingJackGlass), all great lampworkers whose pieces I use. An after-the-show dinner in our room with Judy Mountain and Wayne turned into a late night laughfest that left my sides aching. I tried to be good this year and show some restraint in purchases. Friend Jann was my "conscience". Jann is fired.

Yesterday a lampworker was recommended and I fell in love with her work...Lydia from LampworkTreasures. Her pieces remind me of Russian Fabrege` eggs and I've already ordered some. Can't wait to get my paws on them!

Having a small 'family' picnic tomorrow so today is a cooking day...something I love to do so looking forward to it.

Three weeks from today I'll be having my knee-replacement replaced. Gee...I can hardly wait..sigh. I've been telling everyone that if I live to be 70, everything I own will be replaced, repaired or removed and I can start all over.

Is It Friday Yet?

Have been off the computer for awhile, fighting an eye infection...sigh. Beading like crazy, though, getting ready for the two shows in June. The Craft Fair at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights (June 19-20) and The Crosby Park Festival of the Arts in Toledo (June 27-28). Trying to make up for the time I'll lose while visiting Arizona next week and then going to the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee the following week.

In between all that I have to have a 6-month mammogram and have an appt. with the surgeon about redoing my right knee in July....geez. One of these days I will get around to beading my cane..lol.

No Title Tuesday

Had a great weekend with "beady" friends. Started out with a trip to Columbus for a fiber and art doll show. Jann drove and we met Jennifer there. Now I have a big tub full of beautiful wool colors (like I need to start a whole new obsession!). The exhibit of art dolls was exciting for me since I feel a strong pull to start making a few. The three of us drew a lot of attention with our jewelry we wore. I had on the Emerging Frog, Jann wore her new Cheetah amulet bag and Jennifer was wearing a couple of her amazing peyote cuffs.
We had a nice lunch and Jann and I headed back here for a 'late into the night' needle felting adventure with Lauren and Zoe, from Cincinnati. Zoe has some experience with it so she got us started. Things were going smoothly until Jann and I tried making little chickens and everyone ended up laughing so hard it hurt...of course I think the wine we had been drinking contributed to it, too. Mine turned into a 'polka-dot pullet' and Jann's became more of a 'Chicken McNugget". I think the cats are going to benefit the most with all the new 'reject/cat toys' we came up with.

Rainy Tuesday....

So much for the 'summer' weather we've been having....back to normal today. Got the acceptance for the Hathaway Brown Show in Shaker Heights in June. It's the week before the Toledo Crosby Park show so I need to be shaking my tail feathers (sorry, Sugar) especially since I'm going to Arizona late in May and the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee the first week of June. I need a "bead fairy" to help...lol.

I am worried about how the shows will go this year...it's painful to think of all the stress on the artists I know (me included). I read a discussion recently that really hurt my feelings. It was a criticism of artists complaining about this being 'hard times'. The implication was that we should have had "REAL JOBS" to begin with...sigh. Most artists I know work incredibly long hours..nevermind that we can't get unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, decent health care costs, etc. Can't think of any of us who will get a small business "stimulus package".

Yes, I chose to make my way as an artist and have never regretted it, despite the 'feast and famine' aspect. After finding out I had the cancers, I spent quite a few middle of the night hours reflecting on my life. I decided that if it turned out badly, I still felt I was fortunate to have been able to work at something I truly loved, hopefully leaving the world a tiny bit nicer with what I created over the years. Art has given me the chance to go wonderful places and meet some great people. Yes, I would be pissed if it ended sooner than expected, but all in all, it's been a good run so far.

Didn't expect to be so philosophical this morning!

The Divine Miz Sugar.......

Since you can't see him too well in the full photo, here he is alone. Lampworked bead is by Wayne Robbins.

Post of "Emerging Frog" necklace that I finally got around to photographing.

Milde Monday

I have spent the last FIVE days putting beads away and "organizing" (LOL!!!!) my storage for them. Have a bad habit of amassing trays and trays of leftovers from finished projects. There are some beads that I must really, really like since I find there are multiple tubes or strands of the same bead. (senior moments at the bead shows? who me? Naaah......)

Did take a break yesterday to send out my first newsletter...not as easy as I had thought it would be. For those who got it..be patient, I hope to improve.

Radiation treatments ended last Tuesday...huzzah!! Now I just have to see one or the other of the doctors every 3 months forever. I liked the staff in the radiation/oncology dept. but hope to never see them again...lol.

Started a new cuff bracelet this morning but have to put it aside to take Sugar to the Bird Farm for her monthly beak and claw trim. She enjoys that about as much as I like going to the dentist. Found a small piece of cheese on the counter that I forgot to give her last night...granted it was a bit dried out but she's so crazy about cheese I thought it wouldn't matter. She took it, looked at it, looked at me and threw it out of her cage. Sort of like the time I gave her some Jello.

More Milde than Wilde Sunday

I seem to be having one of those mornings when I can't get away from wandering around the internet. Yesterday I bought an issue of Art Doll Quarterly at the bookstore and once again feel drawn to start exploring this media. Just what I need, another creative adventure...sigh. Beaded doll? Needle felted doll? Polymer clay doll? Geez....how do you decide? So I've been going from site to site and drooling over all the examples of dollmaking.

Sugar appears to have new neighbors in the little crabapple tree outside her window. The robins moved in first but the male apparently got tired of banging his head against his own reflection in the window and they moved on. Now it appears that we have little sparrows busily adding new "stuff" to the old nest from last year. Sugar is not amused.

Hopefully a Not So Wilde Thursday

So far this morning I've been to the hospital for 7: a.m. treatment, grocery shopping at WalMart to kill time until I could get to the post office at 8:30 and find out what will happen to all the bills I sent out yesterday without !@@##%#@ stamps on them....sigh. I asked the technician if radiation affected my brain and she said "Nope..not anywhere around it..sorry"...LOL. A senior moment perhaps?

I don't intend to stick my nose out the door for the rest of this dreary looking day.
Best intentions are to work on "organizing" my beads...ROFL, yeah.....right.

Have been accepted into the Crosby Park show in Toledo in June...a favorite show of mine...and have applied for ODC's Hathaway Brown show, also in June. Since I always go to Milwaukee for the Bead & Button Show, that makes for a full month, especially since I'll be spending the last week in May in Arizona. (Maybe I'd better be beading instead of organizing)

Fairly Wilde Friday

Went to the Gem Street USA show in Cincinnati this afternoon with beading friends...and, as usual, spent too much money. We first had lunch at the Carillon Park where I was surprised to run into an old friend...Mark, the Mad Russian, who was in town from Chicago. Just shows that you always have to behave wherever you go because someone who knows you will find out. I was once having lunch in Seoul, South Korea and there were only two other Americans in the restaurant. Turns out they lived 30 miles from me and knew one of my aunts.

At the gem show I found some beautiful cabochons at S&S Lapidary, was happy to see Paula from Louisiana who was helping at S&S and met another vendor that I hope to become friends with...she has birdies, too.

An Early Wilde Wednesday

Had my first radiation treatment this morning at 7: freakin' a.m.! My cockatoo, Sugar, was grumpy because I woke her up so early. Every day for 7 weeks and then I can sleep in again...sigh. I should be glowing in the dark by then but it sure beats the alternative!

My oldest son, Jeff and his wife, Eun Ae, are opening a restaurant in Sierra Vista, AZ soon and I have to work on their sign design today...something I haven't done in a long time. I expect to get appetizers for life in exchange for this.

Tonight two friends are coming over to spend a few hours of beading and gossiping and chocolates.

I had a call today from a man who bought paintings from me over 25 years ago when I was still exhibiting in mall shows. Very good for the ego to know he tracked me down after all this time.

Not So Wilde Sunday

My computer is repaired and so quiet now I can't believe it's running! Four friends spent the weekend here and we worked on various bead or polymer clay projects, drank wine, ate jambalaya and cheesecake and generally spoiled the pets with all the attention.

The radiation treatments start on Wednesday at 7:00 in the freakin' morning! for the next 7 weeks. I can now say that I have tattoos.....even if only 5 little "dots".
Hopefully it won't lead me to having more picturesque ones done later on.

Now that the Charleston, SC show is over I have time to try some new things I've had on hold for awhile. And to come up with ways to survive this #$%@#!!%# economy.

Wilde Wednesday

I'm starting my first blog just as my computer fan is giving it's last gasp so I will no doubt be gone for a few days while it's being repaired.

In the meantime I wanted to post a pic of the newest cuff....When I decided to make it on "hair-on" cowhide I was stumped as to where to find it but then had an "AHA!" moment and looked on Ebay.

Sure enough a company offered scrap pieces and I bought, expecting to receive small 'scrap' pieces.

What I got were very large pieces in many colors so now I can make a full-size patchwork cow if I want. Maybe bead the horns?

Sugar, my cockatoo, is coming back home today from "birdie camp" where she stayed while I was in Charleston, SC doing the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition. This is a beautiful high-end show where I used to exhibit my oil paintings of big-game wildlife and it was my first time back as a jewelry designer. So great to see Charleston again, reunite with old friends and have wonderful seafood every day.....mmmmmm.