Rambling

Not much to show you from this past week, but on Thursday I got together with my jewelry pal Cheryl who does silversmithing. I want to get better at bezel-setting sea glass. The photo is the pendant I worked on with her.

Today I cut back the mint that was taking over my baby rhododendron, so I boiled it down with some sugar and water to make simple syrup for iced tea. I'm not a big fan of bourbon, otherwise I would have muddled the mint and made a julep. I may just make one anyway because I have SO MUCH MINT.

Sometimes I wish I had started blogging sooner just to look back and see what I used to do with my time before I had my own business. When we moved to Delaware I stayed home to work on our new old house and chase the puppy around. I found myself poring over decorating magazines and watching HGTV for half the day. Now that the house is pretty much how we want it and I have the jewelry biz, I hardly ever watch TV or read during the day. Laundry gets done when I run out of underwear. I am a piler, so even though it looks messy I know where everything is. I learned this from my mother. One time we cleaned up all the piles in her sewing room and put curtains over the storage shelves to hide the clutter, and almost immediately she said it squelched her creativity (or something) when she couldn't see everything. My studio is like that so I just close the door.

Steve and I got new cell phones because he needs one for the new job (starts tomorrow) and I am tired of running my battery down because the buttons get pushed in my purse. Turns out new flashy flip fones are free anyway, so I don't know why I put this off so long. Lord & Taylor is going out of business at our mall, so I spent the afternoon bargain hunting -- another thing I used to do and doesn't interest me anymore. My idea of shopping is to take half a day and go to Ross; by the time I leave the fitting room attendant is tired of seeing me. Then I don't go back for 6 months. Another thing I used to do is look for deals at the flea market. We don't have room for any more furniture, so I don't let myself go anymore unless I'm personal shopping for someone else. One new furniture addition, though, is a card catalog from the local library (they've gone digital). I'm going to teach some classes there this summer, so they let me have it for free. I understand these things are hard to find on eBay and shipping is problematic, so that makes this find so much sweeter. I love all the different drawers. Last week I labeled each drawer with a color family and organized my bead strands. As messy as I am, I do enjoy a good clean-up day.