Monday, February 14, 2005

Making progress...

I know this is not about crafting, per se-- but it's what's been going on in my life. I figure I have to get through the thinking process of this mess if I'm going to be able to do any crafting at all. So here goes: (if you don't have this problem, just come back to read what's happening next time -- I promise it won't be about cleaning house! :-)).

Joel, my husband of 35+ years, has been working in Dallas TX (we live in Raleigh, NC so we have been about 20 hours apart for all but about 6 weeks since July!). This happened in July of 2004, because the money from our savings just "ran out" after Joel had been out of work for almost a year, (give or take a few small contracts that he had -- he teaches Java programming).

It's been rough. He's lonely-- I'm lonely. He's bored, and I'm anything BUT bored-- in fact, lately, I rarely get to do any where near as much crafting or working on my business as I'd like to.

Well! Yesterday (Saturday) Joel came home for a week- just in time for Valentine's Day, mind you :-D! In preparation for his coming home, I got the house cleaned for the first time since he left at the beginning of January. It feels sooo nice to be able to find things again-- I'm not totally sure how it got so out of hand, but I definitely hope to keep it from ever becoming like that again.

Tomorrow, I am going to tidy up the house from the weekend's activities to try to keep it nice and not have to dig out again like I did this last few weeks. (One big problem for me was that I put all the Christmas stuff into my son's old room, and kept telling myself I should go through it and get rid of the stuff that is just taking up space. Finally, I just put it all in the closet, and then somehow, I could think so much easier! Now why didn't I think of that earlier???? Amazing how it just kept nagging at my mind to get it out of the way, and when I finally did, I was free to think of what else needed to be done.

Anyway, after I do the tidying, I am going to work on my jewelry. I will post what I get done. Wish me luck ;-)

Friday, February 4, 2005

This was one of THOSE days...

Today was just "not my day". I was supposed to go help serve a meal at a soup kitchen, and I voluteeered to bring dessert. I planned to make a recipe called "Chocolate Brownie Mousse Trifle". -- It's sooo, soo good. However, my oven had other plans, it seems, because something is wrong with the thermostat, I think.

I say this because I baked the first of the two brownie batches that go into it, and set it on top of the stove to cool, and made the next batch. I got distracted and forgot to notice the time so the last one over cooked by about 10 minutes. Not a problem-- that one was fine. So I went to crumble up the first one while the second was cooling. The first wasn't cooked. So I stuck it back into the oven. For some reason, it just WOULD not finish cooking. So I went on to the other components of the dish. I made the mousse, no problem. I went to make the whipped cream. I couldn't get it to whip. I eventually gave up and just took the individual parts and we had brownies with mousse on top, and the canned whipped cream on top of that. It wasn't bad, but it was no where near what I had thought it would be.


So, needless to say, none of the crafts or jewelry making I'd hoped to do were accomplished. Ah well, there's always tomorrow!

Thursday, February 3, 2005


Brianna (oldest grandaughter) and I in August, 2001.  Posted by Hello

Starting out...and learning as I go!

Hi! I'm so glad you stopped by to read my blog :-). I know nothing about writing a blog-- so this is sort of a "learn as you go" experience-- just as my business of selling my jewelry and crafts has been!

First, to tell you a bit about myself:

I am Peggy, a mom of 5 wonderful sons, and a grandmother to 2 equally wonderful grandaughters. I've been married 35+ years to the same great guy. All that being said, now I can talk about the stuff I like to talk about the most: crafts and making things.

I've always loved to make things since I was small. When my kids were little, I made a lot of toys for them, (many of them were not the best quality things around-- but they were cheaper than the stuff in the stores :-)!) Finally, when they were bigger, and suddenly there was more time in the day, I went back to school and got a degree in

Art Education. I ended up deciding I didn't want to get a job in a school district because although I love children, I didn't like huge numbers of them all at once! So I got a job as activity director in a retirement home-- and it was the best of all jobs for me. While I worked there, I started making jewelry for "birthday gifts" for the residents monthly birthday parties. When I finally quit that job for health reasons, I eventually went on and started my own business selling my jewelry online.

So-- I would love to hear from you-- if you just like crafts, if you are a person who is in business for yourself, who have had a business such as this, or would like to. Maybe we can all "learn as we go".