3/21/09

Well, yesterday it was snowing when I got up, but today the snow is all gone, thank goodness. I am so glad spring is here. Yesterday I saw the first sandhill cranes fly over. They are one of my favorite birds. I love listening to them. I've had a flock of 30-40 Redpolls and a couple of white-breasted nuthatches visiting my feeders, and I heard my first Cardinal the other day. Yes, I do love spring.

I purchased a wide variety of Reichenbach glass a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday did some color tests. There are some VERY nice colors, so today I'm going to do some experimenting.





Aw, man! I just saw a mosquito in my window. Jeepers, I didn't want spring to come THAT fast!

3/19/09

I am SOOOOO frustrated! It started last night, bead release breaking while putting on glass, flame fluctuating all over the place and constantly having to adjust it, dropping things, glass dripping over in the wrong place, dots wandering all over the place, dogs whining to get out, dogs barking to get in. If it were warmer outside I'd go for a walk, but it's too DAMNED cold!

3/16/09

Sweet luscious 62 sunshiny degrees, warm and balmy, the Canadian geese are flying back, I can hear them down by the river, and I heard a cardinal singing. Oh my, what a joy spring is.

3/12/09

Long night, between freezing (-14° outside, 43° in my bedroom) and hot flashes, and little doggy toenails stabbing me in the back.

I sure wish I could sleep like Pip. She literally can pass out in 5 minutes, and sleeps like a log. It was so cold last night she burrowed under my blankets and stretched out right next to my back, and you know how dogs run and twitch in their sleep? You get the picture. So through the night I'm trying to push this snoring little lump away from me, and gradually she just slides right back next to me.

3/11/09

It is so danged cold! -5° with a wicked NW wind. I am so tired of being cold. Next year we're going south (God willing and the creek don't rise) and I DON'T CARE if it goes on the credit card!

Small consolation, I have hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and amaryllis blooming.

3/10/09

You know, life just sometimes sucks. Lukas had a seizure this afternoon. He's not sick or anything, just up and had a seizure.

Called the neurologist, and they're upping his medication. Well, at least we didn't have to call the ambulance and have him taken to the hospital. Just finished paying off the hospital from the last time, and still paying for the ambulance.

2/23/09

I'm a happy camper!! It's 22° above zero (after being -8° this morning). And Christian did the shopping today, bought me a new broom (doesn't take much to please me) and a foam mattress pad for my bed (hopefully it'll help me sleep a little bit better), and he went to the library. I had a couple of Kathy Reichs books and a Bones DVD in. AND my order of Double Helix glass came. They have a new color out, Aurae. It's a pinkish goldish metallic glass. I'm going to go make some beads!!

2/13/09

Well, I have my work cut out for me. I upgraded iLife, so my goal is to get my website back up and running. I've got my big printer going again, so I'm going to work on getting several prints of each of my drawings printed out, and I need to work on getting prints of my aceo's printed out. They'll be the hardest because of the color. Color correcting is such a huge pain in the rear.

Also on my list is to set up my website with Mom's photos. I've got 50+ years of photos to get scanned, and with Flickr's 200 picture limit, I just don't think that's going to work :) Since my web host provides 200GB of memory, that SHOULD be enough for the photos.
Here's one I did last night, me with my brothers and sister and cousins and my grandmother.

2/11/09

I should have known that it was going to be a bad day when I dropped a bead when I was taking it out of the kiln. Strike #1.

Strike #2, looking out and seeing Frankie (the cat) grab a chickadee and run away with it. Good thing spring is coming, so I can get the hose hooked back up and spray the cats when they hang around the bird feeder.

Strike #3, working on a bead that WAS turning out half ways decent, and the fluorescent bulb by my face sizzled, breaks and starts smoking. I'm sitting there stunned, thinking 'mercury poisoning!' Probably could have eaten sushi for the rest of my life and gotten less mercury (not that I like eating raw meat anyway).

So that was it for me. I toddled on off to bed to curl up with a bag of potato chips and the rest of the Kathy Reichs book that I'm reading.

2/9/09

It's raining. Even though it's something you really don't want to happen in the beginning of February in Minnesota, and it's gloomy and dreary outside, I like it. I like the sound of the raindrops. It tells me spring is on the way.

I cleaned up a load of beads earlier. I've been struggling to find some imspiration. Maybe looking at these will do it.

2/8/09

It's been a week now since I got the call that my Mom had died. The tears still come, but along with it comes a sense of relief for her. After working in a nursing home for 20 years, it was the last place she wanted to end up at. For her, the next thing she knows will be the resurrection, young and healthy with no more pain and suffering, with Dad and her parents, sisters and brother, and her baby boy being resurrected too, and the energy and time to do all the things she wanted to do, travel, gardening, art, and maybe I can even teach her how to lampwork a bead. I miss her terribly.

1/31/09

Just when you though it couldn't get any worse... It gets better!!! It's 43.5°!!! Wahoooo!! Yippeeeee!! Oh, spring is on the way!

1/30/09

Sheesh! It's -15.7°! WHEN is it going to warm up?!?

1/23/09

Good reason not to get into a fight with hubby: every time I do the next day I develop a canker sore.

Sure felt good getting stuff off my mind, though, instead of just stewing about it. Now I can let it go, and he can do whatever.

1/18/09

OK, I've got spring fever. My favorite wish books: Totally Tomatoes, J.L. Hudson, Burgess, Pinetree, and I haven't even opened Johnny's yet. I started some more seeds last night, and this morning made a couple dozen newspaper pots and cut bleach bottle plastic into plant tags.

I'M READY FOR SPRING! GOING BAREFOOT! DIGGING IN THE DIRT!!! Oh, paradise!

Fang was feeling especially deprived and frustrated after escaping my studio and being captured and returned. Here's a photo of her in my yucca plant, trying to see if she can jump anyplace from it, with Whiskers sitting on the floor waiting to see what she's going to do.

1/16/09

-29° at 6:15 a.m.

I am so tired of this. If the weather goes like the weathermen predict, it'll be in the 30s by next week. YIPPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

1/13/09

BRRRRR!! It's -22.9°, 6:30 a.m. I'm watching the news, and the weatherman just said that December was our 7th coldest on record, and January will be down there too. We just have to get through the rest of this week, and by Saturday there will be a warm front moving in.

Yesterday I saw something I've never seen before this time of the year, a flock of about 20 robins. Those poor birds!

And here's another one of Scott. Ahhhh, a boy and his dog...

1/11/09

The boys are up working on the snowthrower. It's not working again. I'm just about ready to pull out the credit card and go buy a new one. Now's the time to get it if I'm going to do it; they're marked down to $1179, and if I use the Sears credit card it's another 5% off. It's a lot of money, but having the driveway plowed out for $75 a shot gets expensive too.

Some cute photos, one of Honey and Whiskers having a face-off, and Whiskers trying to pretend he's not beating up Bandit, the ferret. Bad kitty!




And here's Mark, working hard:

1/9/08

Here is a frustrated ferret:

Under my plant table I have a large rubbermaid box with dirt in it for the ferrets to dig in. Well, Fang was using the box to get up between the table and the windowsill to get up on the table, where she proceeded to dig up my plants. So I put a board up so she couldn't do that. She spent quite a while trying to get beyond that board before she finally gave up and then tried climbing my plant to see if she couldn't jump to it. She is a persistent girl!

1/5/09

What's that jingle, 'How low can you go?'

At 5:30 am it was -9.5°. Two hours later it's -13.2°. BRRRRRRRR. I'm ready to go back to bed with my electric mattress heater turn on high!