Pond Pleasures

I have been keeping busy the last couple of weeks since I wrote last. I got the house cleaned up before Wayne's folks got here for their visit. Most of it just needed doing but there is so much I would rather be doing than cleaning.

Wayne's folks came on a Friday and left the next Wednesday morning. We had a great visit. Everyone got to catch up. We went for several walks, saw some of the first ospreys for the year, and enjoyed plenty of good food and wine. Marti and I took some time for creating. I taught her to make collage and then we played at embellishing them. I need to finish a few of them up and then see about getting them onto cards but that will have to wait for a bit.

I will be updating my BJP blog finally getting my finished February page onto it. I finished the page on the 2nd of March so it was only a little behind. I haven't started March's page yet but it will have to wait until I get my Pond necklace done.

I updated the BJP part of my Artistic Kreations and Passions website as well as the Works in Progress section. I also added the new photos for my Web Gallery.

On the creative front the Pond necklace is still coming along nicely. I have all (I think) of the pieces made and now it is a matter of connecting it all together. I started on that Saturday and it is working the way I thought it would. The shape will change a bit as all of the pieces are attached together but I am very happy with the process so far. It is always pretty exciting when something comes together as you expect it to.

Wayne is taking his Transition Assistance Program this week so lots of information to help prepare him for leaving the Navy and joining the civilian world. At this point we haven't decided for sure where we want to live so there are lots of opportunities and places we could go. My hope is it will have at least one good bead store nearby. (Got to keep my priorities straight.)

Flowers Come to Life

I took about 2 weeks off from walking due to being sick and bad weather but started again on Monday. I walked 15 miles this week, not sure if I will walk tomorrow or not.

I spent this week working on my February BJP page. I should be able to finish it today or tomorrow depending on how fast the next bit goes. Then it is time to get back to my Pond piece for a bit. I am really excited how my BJP page is turning out. I am adding a post to my blog on it today and after I get it finished and more photos taken I will update it again. I included some of my "Treasures" to the piece and will add a few to next months page as well. Read about my "Treasures" on my BJP blog.

The photos are of my 3-D Iris that will be going on my Pond piece. I used some of my many Iris photos as inspiration and after an initial trial attempt that didn't quite work, I reworked my "pattern" a bit and ended up with this. I used wired along the edges of the petals for shaping and the brown in the upper photos is the electrical tape that I used to wrap around the all of the wires. A bit of peyote and a green seed bead mix and I had a stem.

The Iris petals are made with RAW (right angle weave) using seed beads and 3mm crystals. I love the challenge of trying to figure out how to do something once I decide I want something. I have learned a lot of new things by saying this is what I want to have now how do I make that happen. After I finish my Feb. BJP in the next day or so I will see about getting back to work on my pond piece and see what I can get started.

Wayne's folks are coming for a visit next weekend and I also need to spend some time getting the house in order. Need to do some cleaning and organizing that need to be done anyway. I also have a request for Gumbo so I need to get out my recipe and do some shopping. Can't blame them for that request, although our gumbo varies some every time we (I) make it, with out a doubt it is some of the best I have had except when we visited New Orleans.

Wayne has been busy doing car maintenance, he will be doing more this weekend. He also wants to get the Integra some stuff so that he can take it onto a race track. The man is a complete car nut. His hobbies are more expensive than mine I will have to say. He can't give me too hard a time for buying beads when he is going to be spending more on parts for his car and track time isn't exactly cheap either but it makes him happy and that is what life is all about, finding things that make you happy.

A Visit to the Pond

I was looking at what I had accomplished this year with beading and realized that most of my energy had gone into my Bead Journal Project pieces and I hadn't worked on any other larger pieces that might be appropriate for the Bead Dreams contest this year. I do like the challenge of making pieces for the contests and it is a thrill to get into them. This year Bead Dreams has added a category for Crystal Jewelry and since I am probably not going to enter Swarovski's Design contest this year and I have lots of Crystals since I enjoy lots of bling I thought I would see what I could come up with for that.

After some brain storming sessions with Wayne and a lot of trying to figure out how in the world to do some of it the Pond Necklace was born. Still very much in the idea and design mode I still have things I need to figure out how to do. These photos are just showing some of the very basic idea. All of the water will be made of crystal circles and there will be lily pads and flowers. I am also working on making an Iris out of seed beads and crystals.

The piece needs to be finished, photographed and entered by April 4th which means that I need to get my act in gear and get going on it. It will be a challenge to keep my BJP pages mostly on track and get this project finished. I think that my cards and journals for the pages will be late but hopefully I can keep the pages mostly on time.

Wayne is mostly better health wise and has spent most of this weekend 3+days out in the garage working on all kinds of things on the car. I get called out once in a while to help by stepping on the brakes or whatever else he needs. I so could not do all of this car stuff myself.

I have managed to catch the ickiness Wayne had but so far it is not near as bad as his was. It is slowing me down but hasn't completely laid me to waste like it did to him.

Life is a Layer Cake

Here is a hint of what I have been doing creatively lately. It is funny, as far as I feel behind in everything else I have kept up on my BJP pages and have February well in hand. Now, if I could just catch up on the rest of life.

I spent time taking photos of my November - January pages and got them organized on the computer. I updated my "Artistic Kreations and Passions" website, updated the photo albums in the Bead Journal Project section of my website and updated the my Web Gallery that you can access through my website (It has most of the photos I have taken of my BJP pages and is a cool way to look at them.)

I need to take the time to update my BJP blog and will try to start getting the last few months written up in the next few days but we will see.

Wayne has managed to get the Flu and is home today. He is all feverish and feeling pretty bad so we are both hoping I will manage not to catch it. Usually if he catches something I will since his immune system is stronger than mine.

I am slowly trying to figure out a routine that works for me. With Wayne home it changes things up. So far I have managed to get back into walking, the route I take is just over 5 miles and takes around 1 1/2 hours to do. The plan is 4-5 times a week. Since I started working on getting healthier in August (6 months ago) I have lost 15 lbs. I can't say I can really tell the difference and I still don't think exercise makes me feel any more energetic but I am sure it is making me healthier.

With Wayne home we are starting to talk about what is next for us. He officially retires from the Navy on 01 January, 2009. Terminal leave etc, should take us into October so hopefully next fall will see us starting our post-military life. We have spent time taking about what some our options are and trying to figure out some of our priorities. We really don't have a place we definitely want to end up. I am sure it will be a lot of figuring things out and researching to be able to compare different options based on taxes, recreational opportunities, and long term cost of living etc, etc, etc..

I still have plenty of catching up to do but part of that is house work and organizing so it will happen when I get to it, other things are slowly getting marked off on my to-do list.

Playing Catch-up

It has been a very long time since I have updated my blog and I have been keeping pretty darned busy the whole time. Now I am spending time playing catch-up, I am so far behind on life and all of the things that "need" to be done.
I spent two weeks over Thanksgiving with Wayne's folks. It was wonderful to see them and we drove up to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with Wayne's brother Doug and family. Also included in the 2 weeks were a trip to Bernheim Forest where Marti had some of her art quilts in a show, going to her stitchery group and getting to share my BJP pages, meeting one of her friends who beads and time spent working on my November BJP page. I hadn't started it when I got there but managed to finish it before I left. I borrowed a few goodies to help with the page and got some good advice and feedback. It is fun having another artist around to bounce ideas off of. I think we are going to try to work on some collaborative pieces once things settle down a little bit and I catch up.
It seems that every time I go to Iowa for very long in December they have lots of bad weather. OK it is December in Iowa, what am I expecting? I managed to sneak into Iowa between and ice storm and some snow. Still not sure how I managed to time it so well but got lucky. wintry weather not withstanding we managed to be on the go a fair amount. Mom and I did lots of Christmas shopping, made 4 trips to visit my Grandmother (at 104 I try to see her anytime I get near home), went to see the Rockettes' Christmas show in Des Moines, saw 2 other musical programs, picked up (and return) my sister Betsy and David for Christmas with them, a trip to Lincoln, NE to switch out dining room tables with Aunt Barb and Uncle Rog, and have 4 Christmas celebrations (I still had one to go here with Wayne.) We managed to pull all of this off around the weather which included an unusual amount of fog (some that last all day long). While the fog made for some beautiful scenery full of everything covered in hoarfrost (see photo above) it made driving especially after dark unwise. I had a great time at home with my family and managed to get my December BJP page finished and a start on my January page.
The beginning of January was a bit crazy. I left Iowa on Jan 2nd and got home late that night and had a couple of days to get the house straightened up, pick up and go through 6 weeks of mail, pick up boxes of stuff that I had shipped from Iowa as well as boxes Wayne had shipped from Iraq, and get groceries. On Jan 5th I headed back up to the airport and was there for the Welcome home, Wow! Definitely the biggest welcome I had been there for, Baltimore has a large group of volunteers that come to welcome the troops back from Iraq and Afghanistan and it was pretty darned crazy. It would have been more fun if I hadn't come down with a cold the day before and felt a bit tense with end of deployment nerves, I just wanted to go home.
The month of January has been happy and busy, having Wayne home has been wonderful and after a week at home with a couple of days of him going in to work to do some paperwork, we took a week to go up to visit DC. We got lots of exercise walking around DC. We visited the zoo, spent a day walking around the Mall visiting monuments and memorials, visited several museums, went to a couple of free shows at the Kennedy Art center as well as a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra and visited the National Cathedral. Wayne even let me go to a bead store. We had good food lots of fun things to do and just enjoyed being together.
Since then we have both been busy trying to catch up on life. I still have paperwork that I need to do, I am behind on my January BJP page and my blogs are seriously behind. I think that it will take awhile for me to catch up on all of the things that I am behind on or just need doing.

Wayne needs to find a temporary Navy job since his squadron is getting decommissioned this summer. After that it is time to concentrate on what he wants to do after the Navy. We have bought him 2 suits as well as shirts, ties etc so that he will be ready once he gets to the interview stage. First it is time to figure out how to convert a Navy onto a resume. I have no idea where we will end up next but hopefully this time next year he will be working for someone and we will be settled in a new place. We could end up staying here or end up somewhere totally different. Should be a very interesting year.

Falling Off the Face of the Earth

I know it has been a while, the month of November is half over and not a single post from me. After getting my journals for the last 3 month of my Bead Journal Project I have been busy trying to get work done on Christmas cards and getting ready for my extensive travels this holiday season. The photos are close-ups of some of the collages that are getting cut up to make cards. I ended up making 17 collages and once they were cut up I am going to end up with over 300 cards. I have put some of them onto their cards and have mailed them off so that I can finish them when I get to my folks. I have some that are Christmasy and others that are not. I will need to buy more blank cards later since I didn't have enough for this many collages. If you would like to see more photos of the collages go to my website (Artistic Kreations and Passions) and check out the new collage section.

Besides trying to get my Christmas cards to a state that they were ready to go with me to be finished later I had to figure out what all I needed for clothes, my Bead Journal Project, and other beading projects as well as getting a good start on my Christmas shopping. Since I am going to be away form home for 6 weeks it is pretty challenging to try to make sure that everything is done. Luckily Colleen will keep an eye on the house and if I forgot anything important she could do it for me. I mailed off boxes to both sets of parents since I will be spending time with both. I will also get to see other family and Wayne's mom Marti has promised to take me to meet several of her friends from her stitchery group that are beaders.

I leave very early on Monday and still have things to do but part of that was getting my website updated and writing to my blogs. Cleaning is in there somewhere as well. I am putting my November page on My BJP Blog. If you go to the BJP part of my website and check out the photo albums for the next 1/2 of the year you can see what the pages are going to look like. I have them all printed up and they are ready for beading. If anyone needs to get ahold of me please e-mail me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Getting ready for a trip

Well I did it, all of the cards and journals for the August- October pages of my Bead Journal Project are finished. The picture is of my first 5 journals side by side. I like the fuzzy hair like quality of the strings for the tags. If you would like to see more photos of these go to my BJP Blog.

I my November photos printed and my page ready to go but don't think that I will start it for the time being. In less than 3 weeks I will be leaving for a long trip to spend time with my family and I can work on that while I am traveling. I need to get the house organized and cleaned, paperwork finished, packing done, bead work ready to go and Christmas cards much more ready to go. I will be shipping stuff to both my In-Laws and my Folks so I have clothes to wear and things to do. I need to have all of the stuff I need for my next 3 projects and any other projects I want to work on ready to go.

It has finally gotten more fall like here and we even had some much needed rain. I have been sleeping restlessly and had some headaches so I haven't been as productive or as focused as I would have liked. I have only been on the treadmill 1 in the last 2 1/2 weeks but now that it is nicer outside I have gone for several long (1 1/4- 1 3/4 hr) walks from home. I have been going in the gym for pilates since I am not to the point where I could do that on my own yet. I am down 10 lbs since I started the exercise and changes to my diet. It is slow going but it is going.

Wayne is doing well and it is actually cooling down there as well. He aced his PRT (physical readiness test). He has lost around 20+ lbs and I really don't think he need to lose near that much. I am sure that some of that will come back once he is no longer working out quite so much and actually drinking and eating his more regular diet. He has been cleaning his office and dealing with an influx of mice as the weather turns cooler.

No phone call from Swarovski today so I am guessing I didn't make it as a finalist. I think it would be nice if they at least e-mailed everyone so you knew for sure. I guess no trip to Tuscon this year. Note: Got and e-mail Oct 31 and did not make it as a finalist.