Hi, Everyone:
I'm participating in an annual event called "One World, One Heart" (OWOH) which promotes friendship across the borders. Bloggers from all around the world participate in this event. This is the second year I am participating. This year, I am giving away 2 pieces of my handmade jewelry as a part of this event. If you would like to be entered for the giveaway, please leave a comment under the this post.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Pet Peeves
OK, here I am going to vent a little on some of my worst pet peeves. This may not be my most popular post. I apologize. I've wanted to say these things for a long time. Here goes...
First and foremost, -- those individuals who pee on the toilet seat of the handicapped stall. Come on, now, people! Does it not make sense that if any stall should be kept clean, it should be the handicapped stall? If you MUST pee on the seat, could you not at least clean it off properly so that if a handicapped person comes along who cannot do that for themselves, it will be clean? I so often want to put a sign: If you must pee on seats, wait till another stall is open before you do it!
The next pet peeve I feel compelled to ventilate about is sanctimonious emails. Who writes these things? I think, like people who must pee on toilet seats of the handicapped, there must be a special place in Heaven for those who feel they must tell you how wonderful they are. Like the "McDonald's story", for instance where the lady smells the body odor of two homeless men and goes and feeds them. - it's not that it's not a beautiful story. But aren't we called to not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Or the one about the guy who bought shoes for the little boy to give his mother. It's nice to know that someone does these things. I just feel vaguely uncomfortable with the idea that Jane Doe is telling you that SHE is the wonderful person that did it. It's different if the story is told in third person. "I saw young Mike from across the street do something SO nice I have to tell you about it." However, these stories are inevitably told in the first person. For every email of this sort that I have received, I know so many more truly good people that do these sort of things on a daily basis. The problem is, that I know that they do it for the reason that they are called to minister to this person, to set things right for whatever time possible. But, they don't tell the tale -- they just DO it. I can't think that any of them would be wasting their time telling the world how great they are. They would do things such as the emails describe, but by the time the story is told, they have long been on to the next person in need. Or am I the only one that this bothers? Am I hard hearted that none of these stories bring the requisite tears to my eyes?
Which brings me to the next thing on my list. How many people out there believe all the pictures of funny signs, pet cuteness, etc that you get in your inbox? I hope I am not the only one that believes that most cameras just aren't so handy when Rover decides to snuggle the baby deer before he scares the crap out of poor Bambi and it runs off to Mommy Deer. (I know, Mommy Deer was no longer amongst the living in the Disney story, but this is a photo shopped Bambi anyway so it's OK to bring Mommy Deer into it.). I love my computer, and the Internet, for all the dear friends it has brought me. But some times, it occurs to me that the Internet has provided an avenue for a lot of bad things too -- such as many kinds of email deception, not to mention far worse things such as internet scams, pornography, and internet stalkers. Scary isn't it? Sorry, this was going to be my chance to vent on some pet peeves.
OK, I feel better now. Thanks for letting me ventilate. Have a great day now, ya hear??
The next pet peeve I feel compelled to ventilate about is sanctimonious emails. Who writes these things? I think, like people who must pee on toilet seats of the handicapped, there must be a special place in Heaven for those who feel they must tell you how wonderful they are. Like the "McDonald's story", for instance where the lady smells the body odor of two homeless men and goes and feeds them. - it's not that it's not a beautiful story. But aren't we called to not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Or the one about the guy who bought shoes for the little boy to give his mother. It's nice to know that someone does these things. I just feel vaguely uncomfortable with the idea that Jane Doe is telling you that SHE is the wonderful person that did it. It's different if the story is told in third person. "I saw young Mike from across the street do something SO nice I have to tell you about it." However, these stories are inevitably told in the first person. For every email of this sort that I have received, I know so many more truly good people that do these sort of things on a daily basis. The problem is, that I know that they do it for the reason that they are called to minister to this person, to set things right for whatever time possible. But, they don't tell the tale -- they just DO it. I can't think that any of them would be wasting their time telling the world how great they are. They would do things such as the emails describe, but by the time the story is told, they have long been on to the next person in need. Or am I the only one that this bothers? Am I hard hearted that none of these stories bring the requisite tears to my eyes?
OK, I feel better now. Thanks for letting me ventilate. Have a great day now, ya hear??
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Facing Reality -- and learning to cope with a diagnosis of Diabetes
14 months ago, I learned that I have diabetes. I have spent the last year alternately trying like mad to get it under control and pretending that I can eat like I didn't "really" have this disease. Today, I went to a diabetes management class, and I am hopeful that I will "get it together" and be able to say that I am a lot healthier in 14 months from now.
I find it very scary to have diabetes-- both parents had it and both really died from complications from it, my mother at only 60 years old. She was legally blind by the time she died, and could no longer do any of the things she really loved to do- sewing, crafts, even reading was not possible for her anymore. I am going to be 60 years old in six months. I am petrified... I expect that I will reach the age of 61 and feel a lot better, but this next year just feels like I am following in Mom's footsteps (once I was diagnosed with Diabetes last year that is.) So my challenge is: to keep my blood sugars under control, and to lose weight. My goal is for there to be a whole lot less of me by next fall. Watch this space for updates!
I find it very scary to have diabetes-- both parents had it and both really died from complications from it, my mother at only 60 years old. She was legally blind by the time she died, and could no longer do any of the things she really loved to do- sewing, crafts, even reading was not possible for her anymore. I am going to be 60 years old in six months. I am petrified... I expect that I will reach the age of 61 and feel a lot better, but this next year just feels like I am following in Mom's footsteps (once I was diagnosed with Diabetes last year that is.) So my challenge is: to keep my blood sugars under control, and to lose weight. My goal is for there to be a whole lot less of me by next fall. Watch this space for updates!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Working Off The Fall Blahs....
Am I the only one that feels sad in the fall? I love fall in that it's so beautiful-- but a lot of times I feel badly that a) I am soon not going to be able to get into the garden to work, and b) another year will soon be coming to a close.
So now here I am making myself feel better by trying to create jewelry and other things. Last week it rained all week which didn't help- but the rain is over as of today anyway so tomorrow I may go out work in the garden! (I WAS glad to see the rain, because my garden is parched for it, but I'm glad it's over for the time being :-).
So here are the things I've been working on of late:
I just took a class to learn how to paper piece a quilt block... that was fun and I really learned a lot. I also just have completed several pieces of jewelry for a friend.
There were earrings and a bracelet with the set but I changed them after the picture was taken. I will make some that are similar and post them again. One of the other sets was also black, but instead of the low key milky round beads and the teal freshwater pearls, this had red coral round beads and turquoise chips, and grey pearls to go with it. The third set was of poppy jasper chips, separated by gold seed beads amd accented by peach aventurine and tiger eye beads. I didn't get pictures of those sets, unfortunately.
So I'm getting things done I guess - today I made a card for a friend- I'd made a pin to go on over the weekend -- hope she likes it. I will take a photo of the card with the pin I made and post it after she gets it, in case she might see it and mess up my surprise :-).
So now here I am making myself feel better by trying to create jewelry and other things. Last week it rained all week which didn't help- but the rain is over as of today anyway so tomorrow I may go out work in the garden! (I WAS glad to see the rain, because my garden is parched for it, but I'm glad it's over for the time being :-).
So here are the things I've been working on of late:
I just took a class to learn how to paper piece a quilt block... that was fun and I really learned a lot. I also just have completed several pieces of jewelry for a friend.
Here is a picture of one of the three sets--
Here is a close up of the beads which were quite pretty.
There were earrings and a bracelet with the set but I changed them after the picture was taken. I will make some that are similar and post them again. One of the other sets was also black, but instead of the low key milky round beads and the teal freshwater pearls, this had red coral round beads and turquoise chips, and grey pearls to go with it. The third set was of poppy jasper chips, separated by gold seed beads amd accented by peach aventurine and tiger eye beads. I didn't get pictures of those sets, unfortunately.
So I'm getting things done I guess - today I made a card for a friend- I'd made a pin to go on over the weekend -- hope she likes it. I will take a photo of the card with the pin I made and post it after she gets it, in case she might see it and mess up my surprise :-).
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Jewelry Gallery Slide Show
Here are some of the jewelry pieces I've made through the years, showing the very first pieces I did (when I had no clue what I was doing!) to the later pieces that I'm pretty happy with. Some along the way were experiments-- and didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped lol. But overall, there was progress....
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Previously completed artsy stuff-- first collaged box
It seems I always do things and forget to post them because I am so busy DOING them that I forget to share them. So I decided tonight to post things I have finished some time ago.
The first one that came to mind was a box I made for the grandson of a friend. He was interested in bugs, Egyptology, and tigers. So I found pictures in magazines to decoupage on the box using these motifs.
I found a picture of an archeological dig near a pyramid. Then I added a picture of a tiger that appeared to be looking down to my collection of pictures. I put the tiger on the box so that it looked as if he was peering down into the dig site. A giant moth hovered nearby.
That completed the top of the box. I wanted the sides to be all different. I painted stripes on the sides, that started out looking like the stripes on an Egyptian Pharoah's mantle,
I found a page of stickers of ants at the craft store. The ants crawled up and down the stripes like the rooms in an anthill, and as the box was turned,
the stripes became more and more like the stripes on a tiger's fur.
On the front, I put small cut outs of a bee hive and a few bees flying to it.
For the inside of the box, I found a picture of the bug collection of a famous ornithologist from the 19th century. That was glued in, with a plain black bottom of the interior of the box.
The bottom of the outside of the box was a large picture of a tiger that I found a lovely picture of a giant moth. It resembled a Commodore's hat from the English Navy of old. (My friend and her grandson were British so that was particularly nice for this box.)
The first one that came to mind was a box I made for the grandson of a friend. He was interested in bugs, Egyptology, and tigers. So I found pictures in magazines to decoupage on the box using these motifs.
I found a picture of an archeological dig near a pyramid. Then I added a picture of a tiger that appeared to be looking down to my collection of pictures. I put the tiger on the box so that it looked as if he was peering down into the dig site. A giant moth hovered nearby.
That completed the top of the box. I wanted the sides to be all different. I painted stripes on the sides, that started out looking like the stripes on an Egyptian Pharoah's mantle,
I found a page of stickers of ants at the craft store. The ants crawled up and down the stripes like the rooms in an anthill, and as the box was turned,
the stripes became more and more like the stripes on a tiger's fur.
On the front, I put small cut outs of a bee hive and a few bees flying to it.
For the inside of the box, I found a picture of the bug collection of a famous ornithologist from the 19th century. That was glued in, with a plain black bottom of the interior of the box.
The bottom of the outside of the box was a large picture of a tiger that I found a lovely picture of a giant moth. It resembled a Commodore's hat from the English Navy of old. (My friend and her grandson were British so that was particularly nice for this box.)
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Places I have been...
Places I have been...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Another Twist In The Road.... Like-- Cross Country?
Well, I WAS doing great getting "My Personal Assistant" going-- but then, Joel lost his contract job in South Carolina (that was good news, believe me!) Then, in his search for the next job, he found one-- but it was 2500 miles away-- in San Jose California.... so I had to decide if I would let him commute from so far away or go with him. I went with him. We left North Carolina December 26th, and got here to San Jose January 1st, stopping for two days to see our son, daughter in law and grandchildren in Los Angeles along the way.
Several people have asked if I am going to start a new "My Personal Assistant" and no, I am not. First of all, Joel has just agreed to work at this job for a year, and he does not want to retire in California. Second of all, I decided I am going to be the roving Grandma. So-- that is what I am going to do. I will post pictures, I promise!
Several people have asked if I am going to start a new "My Personal Assistant" and no, I am not. First of all, Joel has just agreed to work at this job for a year, and he does not want to retire in California. Second of all, I decided I am going to be the roving Grandma. So-- that is what I am going to do. I will post pictures, I promise!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
My new company-- My Personal Assistant!
It's been a long time since I've written in this blog, but my excuse is: I've been a busy gal!! Here's what's been going on this year alone:
In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"
In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.
In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!
In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!
In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.
I have a full schedule, with several great clients. I love what I am doing!
In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"
In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.
In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!
In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!
In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.
I have a full schedule, with several great clients. I love what I am doing!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Craftin' Life
It's been a long time since I've written in this blog, but my excuse is: I've been a busy gal. Here's what's been going on this year alone:
In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"
In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.
In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!
In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!
In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.
I have several great clients- in fact, my schedule is quite full. I love what I'm doing!
In January, 2007, I started a small business as a "Concierge". I help seniors and disabled people with tasks that help delay having to move to an assisted living facility. I say "If it's not illegal or immoral, and you need help with it, I'm there!"
In February, I became involved with a group called "MOMS-I.N.C." (Moms Improving Nutrition For Children). The goal of this group is to get schools to eliminate sugar and trans fat from school lunches. I am the webmaster of the MOMS-I.N.C. website.
In March, I started a craft group in my home that is a great source of inspiration, skills transfer for all our members, as well as so much fun in terms of getting together with some great people!
In May I was the North Carolina Delegate for The Daughters Of The British Empire, in Long Beach, California. It was soooo much fun!
In August, I joined a "Business Networking International" group close by in Cary, North Carolina. What a great group of people!
In September, a friend took me to a "Cary Leads Group" which is another group whose purpose is to help small businesses with business referrals.
I have several great clients- in fact, my schedule is quite full. I love what I'm doing!
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 ;-)
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!
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
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".
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".
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