Sweet peas and frog prince

The nicest thing about the intense heat  of late summer is that it makes you appreciate the coolness   of the early morning.  I pulled a mountain of pea vines that were spent and sat on the porch in my nightie and picked peas that I had missed...a lot of them....  and now the chickens will get the vines.  A most pleasant way to start the day as it will get to 95 degrees today.

If you notice that black thing on my left arm and thought it looked like a splint, it is indeed just that.  Friday morning I took a nasty fall on cement and bunged up my right leg and badly sprained my left wrist.  One-armed yoga for a while.


This week is going to be devoted to finishing two time consuming projects.  One will be finishing the new Etsy site and that will involve a LOT of photographing the necklaces and a LOT of time consuming photo editing and then there is all the description and detail work that Etsy requires.  This is the last piece I wanted to finish before I uploaded everything.

I loved doing frog princes on buttons and wanted to do at least one on a necklace.  I had originally thought green beads but have settled on gold and lots of it.. So about six necklaces, three  sets of earrings  and an odd pendant will evolve into a final listing.

Every so often I encounter a problem and start looking through the internet files.  As much chain as I want to use  will be bulky at the back of the neck so was looking for alternatives.  The most common are multiple lengths combined toward the back as in this necklace.


Another common solution  is the number of lengths stay the same but just the beads get smaller such as in this beautiful piece.



But I'm always cheering for the person that does something entirely out of the box...

Delicate subject? Ask Google!

We are in our hot weather season with temperatures now in the high 90s every day.  One day recently I went out to work when it was cool and got carried away and by the time I came in I was dripping with sweat and had a nasty heat rash where the elastic band on my bra chaffed my skin.

With ointments, powders etc. it took days to clear up. and it was painful to wear a bra and painful not to wear a bra...  Before I went out again in the heat today I was wondering if applying my deodorant in that area would help.  It is not exactly the subject I would want to bring up over lunch with the ladies but I could ask Google.. In fact all I entered was "deodorant under boobs"

And apparently this has occurred to enough women that Google had a lot to say on the subject and YES it is a good idea... except one site said to use a natural  antiperspirant that was aluminum free.  Other women recommended "Baby Wipes", Vicks, and even "Listerine".  One recommended drying this area thoroughly after showering by using a hair dryer.

There was even a website  "Ten places to apply deodorant besides your armpits"  Of course I had to check this out as try as I might I couldn't imagine 10.   The most surprising was behind your knees which I gather is a problem area for cyclists.  So the next time you have a delicate issue, consult Google!!!!!

Hummer and Eagle

Put the final touches on two more necklaces this weekend and two more in the works.  My goal is to open the new Etsy shop by the first of August.

I have been doing all the prep work on the site and am at the point that I can start loading images and writing descriptions, doing more photos etc.

I really need some photos of somebody tall with an elegant long neck wearing these pieces.. I am checking women out in the grocery store as I shop... "hmmmmm ... yeah she would be great." Where's Audrey Hepburn when you need her?

After years of working on 1" buttons, it feels like I'm painting on a wall with a whole 2" disc.








I've also been checking out other sites and notice that most which have necklaces they all look alike-  just different colors.  I'm hoping that each piece I do has its own personality. That's my goal anyway.

Even though I do check out You-tube tutorials on techniques, I learn more just by taking things apart and looking closely how it was assembled.

And the most fun thing is that I'm using up YEARS of stash.  I am constantly finding more things as I am searching through stuff.  A good example is years ago I fell in love with a blue stone Buddha and used in on a necklace.  I wanted some particular tiny metal bells for the bottom of it... 4 of them.  But to get four I had to buy 50 and now I'm going to find a way to use them...redemption at last.

Most years I wait too long to gather lavender but this year I'm right on target and spend most of the morning yesterday  in the heat cutting.

I let it soak up a goodly amount of water then I will bundle it and hang it in the barn to dry.  I love having it for hostess gifts through the winter.  Will cut more today..

The house smells divine.

You know its a winner when....

When you get ready to go to bed and your DH is still raving about the dinner...you know its a winner!!!!  As promised earlier this week I picked squash blossoms for dinner and stuffed them with a ricotta/parmesan/shrimp mix and then dipped them in batter and deep fried them... To accompany this I picked fresh pea pods and sautéed them with red peppers and pines nuts... The recipe specifically
called for male blossoms but I was a couple short and filled in with female blossoms...

It's about the end of blossom time so I had better quick make the other recipe...squash blossoms stuffed with fresh corn, sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese and fried of course.

Also I'm happy to share that I'm not so old that I don't remember and learn from some of life's harder lessons. This pendant needs to be sanded flat on the back so I can mount it on a piece of filigree.  The pendant piece is about 1 1/2" by 3" and years ago I had something similar in size that I wanted to sand on one side.  My plan then was to hold the piece to be sanded in my left hand and hold the belt sander in my right hand... Not a good plan.  The sander was heavy and I lost control of it. The belt sander chewed up one of the fingers on my left hand.  After
surgery and some skin grafting they were able to save the finger...  With that memory in mind I have a new plan.... I wired a  handle on the pendant and will mount the sander in a vise...  UPDATE: Well it is back to the drawing board with this piece.  I did the planned safety measures and came back from the barn  with all my fingers intact but I couldn't get the pendant flat enough to look right on the filigree... Rethinking!!!

Thanks for all the positive comments and I will keep writing as long as I can and I love  knowing someone is reading.  Been restless with all the changes that are out of my control  and feel I need to take some positive action to be in control...not sure what.  Maybe I need to get a  body part pierced besides my ears   or even better .... a tattoo of Morris on my chest....  a Morris might be painful...maybe something smaller like a bee on my arm..

If you have followed the blog at all you know how I love proverbs and sayings that I can use and it always seems one come along when I need it most and today is no exception.  This appeared on Facebook this morning. and I'm going to print it and put it on the fridge. "You either get bitter or you get better!"

To blog or not to blog...

All winter and spring I struggled with the changes in my life caused by my vision problems and often didn't post for weeks as without stitching did I really have anything worth saying?  I've given up stitching, bridge, driving, painting buttons among other things.  Thank heavens for my giant computer screen.  I do check the stats and people do still read the blog but I did see a drop when I didn't write about crazy quilting  anymore...




I have been blogging for over ten years and occasionally have thought about stopping at different times like when I approached 1000 posts or 1500 posts and now am approaching 2000 posts which might be a good time to quit.  Even better sometime within the year I will reach 1,000,000 views... maybe that should be the stopping point.

But from the very beginning I included  posts about my personal everyday life and even have a category called "Gerry's Journal"  and it has become just that and I would miss the writing of it. Not all have been happy posts...there were  posts about being robbed, hit by lightening, riding my bike off the mountain, and a cougar killing my sheep... But many more happy posts also,,, the suffragette quilt going to Houston,  Morris's vacation and the joys of my family, garden and kitchen.  I have even shared the difficulties of having a husband, who even at 84, is a chick magnet.

 Four years ago I did a recap of the blog at 1500 posts and now I am at post #1903 and think I'll  continue to blog as long as I can see the computer screen and hope that even though it is now about jewelry, gardening, cooking, etc. and  there will be friends who still tune in as my life is going in all new directions....
..

 The only discouraging thing is how Blogger handles (or doesn't handle) comments.  Some used to come to my gmail and were easy to answer.  Others I couldn't  answer unless I made Hotmail my primary mail and that didn't work either.  But since I can't fix it I guess it is what it is.

All these photoshopped versions of me are from various posts from over the years.