Snipping snipping snipping goes the scissors man

After work yesterday morning I dashed down the street to the library to return some overdue books. When I came out of the library I noticed that one of my back tires was very flat and, indeed, had a tear on the side. All of my plans for the day went out the window as I headed to the tire place to get some replacements. I knew the damage was going to be bad; after all, my car is sort of a sports car (well, I guess it is a sports car) and those tires always cost more. So, $342 and two (yes, only two) tires later, I didn't feel like doing much other than going home.

A brief stop at the grocery store led to this dinner last night: Beef and bean tacos in whole wheat soft tortillas with cheese, tomatoes, green onions and salsa. Refried beans and cheesy rice on the side, all washed down with a peachy sauvignon blanc. Oh, and a toffee almond chocolate bar for dessert.

All eaten whilst watching the happy return of Life on Mars on BBC America. I would give you a link here except that the flash-heavy BBC America site gives my poor little clamshell agita.

And where's the sense in recompense when recompense don't make no sense at all

Today I came home from work. lazed around a bit and then added highlights to my hair. Then I went back to doing nothing. Just the way I like it. What with flashes and other lighting it's hard to get a decent picture of highlights, but I tried.



Well, the highlights are there; just too subtle to see in that picture.

Dinner tonight was a bit of an experiment, in a French vein. I tossed romaine lettuce with a dressing made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, shallots and Dijon mustard. I heaped the salads with cubed potatoes and leftover roast pork fried crispy. And on top of the whole shebang, fried eggs with runny yolks. Seriously, it is a rather traditional French thing to put a fried egg on top of a salad. At any rate, it was quite good.

But I can't help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling if I just turn and run

Wow. I was having a serious bad day when I wrote that last entry. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I reacted so strongly to the causative events. Thank goodness things seemed much better by the next day and have remained so. Some day work will settle into being completely routine. It's not there yet, but surely it will happen, right? Does routine ever exist in retail? I have no idea.

So in the last week I struggled very much with the idea of making jewelry for Ziezo. In general I haven't felt very inspired these last several weeks. The pressure of making something cool enough for that store on top of the stress I felt over not having any good ideas topped out about mid-week. I wasn't feeling my most confident and I pretty much let my fear of being criticized make the decision that perhaps this wasn't the best time for me to try for a consignment deal at there. I didn't feel great about the decision (I don't enjoy being so thin-skinned), but there was a certain amount of relief.

Pair that with going to the Rock and Roll Craft Show VIP party (thanks, Dana, for making me your date for the evening!) on Friday night and whatever creative genes I have are hanging their little DNA heads low. I opted to not participate in RnRCS this year because I just didn't, again, feel inspired to crank out that much stuff. Was that a mistake? Last year I was a top 5 seller and this year walking around and looking at all the great stuff and not seeing any of my things made me feel a little regretful and kind of sad. Ah well, I never dwell long on regrets as it's a useless waste of energy, so I'm getting over it. I really can't imagine when I would have had time to do enough for the show anyway.

Today I woke up with energy to do some cleaning and rearranging. We traded the huge futon in the living room with the mid-century sectional piece upstairs and I'm so happy we did it. I cleaned up the upstairs sitting room, finally took all my craft show junk out of the front foyer (suddenly our downstairs has basically gained a room), AND, most importantly, put up our silver Christmas tree. We haven't bothered with a tree the last couple of years and I really missed it, I guess. Oh and I did the laundry and dyed my hair brown. Not bad for a day.

I've decided to start chronicling what I cook. Tonight for dinner: Roasted pork "country ribs" slathered in steak marinade. Roasted sweet potato chunks with olive oil and parmesan cheese. Green beans with a sauce of butter, shallots, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar.

Only love can bring the rain that falls like tears from on high

How do you blow off a day that divebombed into shitty, shake off a pariah label, and start over fresh the next day? Seriously, how?

I so miss the days of never having to leave my house or interact with other humans.

I fought the law and the law won

Many weeks ago I got a speeding ticket in U City on my way to work at the store whose name we will not mention. Because I didn't want any points on my license or for our insurance to go up (again - I got a highway speeding ticket a few months prior), we did the lawyer thing and got the ticket knocked down to some sort of parking violation. It still cost plenty, paying the lawyer fees and the still not inconsiderable fine. I thought everything was fine and dandy and taken care of. So the other night I'm driving home from work at 10:45p and I call home to check in. Steve announces, haltingly, that something must have happened to the check he sent because there is now a warrant out for my arrest for unpaid fines in U City. OK, I know these things are commonplace, but I have never had a warrant out for my arrest and it's kind of unnerving. Today we have to go to the U City court clerk and pay it in person. Of course, since it's "late" we have to pay more. Whole lot of old bullshit and the last thing I want to spend what little free time I have these days.

What if I fell to the floor, couldn't take all this anymore

Here's what I started with around noon today. I thought I'd pull out most everything I have and hope for some inspiration.



It looks more contained in the photo; it felt kind of chaotic, but then my work areas usually are. I'm not a particularly tidy worker. I'm always organized in my own way, I guess. Anyway, five and a half hours later I had made these four necklaces.



I'm pretty happy with them. I wish I could have worked faster and got more done, but alas, I was a slowpoke today.

What I discovered today is that I clearly favor a certain color palate without even realizing it. I most always mix my own clay colors and that was no exception the other day. What I was sort of surprised to learn is that I had beads to match already. Makes me feel a little predictable, but I suppose that's not the issue. More so that I have a color point of view, I guess. I do know I love rich golds and reds and especially blue-greens and turquoises paired with browns.

Anyway, whether these are Ziezo material or not, I do not know.

And this is not our fate

Well, I painted 'em and I like them (well, most of them anyway). But I probably should have left some of them plain. Or not. Success will depend on the necklace portion, I'm guess.

You and I we've been through that

Yesterday afternoon I worked on some new pendants, this time using the gin-transfer image transfer method (yes, you actually use gin) with some images, mostly clipped from vintage children's books. I think I'm going to try to add some color with paint, but I'm not sure I can pull it off. As with the previous pendants, I intend for the necklace part to be beaded in some way. Who knows what I'm going to end up with.






(At least two of the photos aren't terrible.)