-22.5° this morning, sigh. I am so tired of the cold. On the bright side, I saw a 29° (above zero!!!) in the extended forecast.

The chimney guy came yesterday and looked at the chimney. He said there was minimal damage, but he’s going to write up an estimate on getting it relined and if I have the money this summer, I may do that. He also said we could get flexible rods at the hardware store in Princeton so we can clean the flue from the bottom instead of going up on the roof, so Christian is running up there today. He said the chimney was almost clogged, and because our stove is so old, it’s not airtight and that makes for more creosote buildup. But I refuse to replace it. This is the stove that my Mom’s family used to heat their house when she was a kid. It’s a lovely wood-grained brown enamel, and it is just so toasty warm.

I got another bunch of test glasses from Double Helix yesterday, so I’m off to see what I can get them to do. I sure wish they would make another batch of Dark Aurae. It is my most favorite glass, but it’s an odd lot, so they may never make another batch. :( These are a couple of beads made with Dark Aurae. Getting the green is a hit-or-miss, it just depends on the oxygen-propane proportions and how long I flash it. There’s no telling how it will turn out, which makes it more fun.

I sell my beads on Etsy and ArtFire. When ArtFire first started up, I signed up for it. It wasn’t the fact that it’s cheaper to sell on ArtFire, it was because of the direction Etsy was taking. In 2008, even when shown evidence of fraud, they chose to ignore it. There was such an outpouring of indignation and people closing their shops, they finally had to pay attention to it.

Then there wwere the $2.99 Chinese ‘sterling silver-cored’ beads, in the Handmade section. Handmade, sure, in a ‘family’ factory. Sterling silver? More like white copper.

Then there was the article on the Etsy blog from Temple St. Clair about how coral should be banned from jewelry, disregarding the fact that there are coral beds that are sustainably harvested throughout the world. Temple St. Clair is a big name jewelry designer. Not a jewelry maker who makes her own jewelry to sell on Etsy, but a jewelry designer whose lines sell at places like Saks and Target. Why was she even on the Etsy blog?!

Then there’s the rape card debacle. A seller by the name of ‘youstupidb****’ (you fill in the letters, I refuse to type it out) opened a shop, selling cards showing a line drawing of a woman crouching in a shower with the words ‘congratulations, you got bad touched.’ There were other cards congratulating people on having a Downs baby, and having AIDS. This was Administration’s response to complaints, “I understand that some items on the site may be upsetting. The themes of this shop could be considered controversial, and I can see how they touch very personally. Etsy hosts a diverse global community with a very broad range of sensibilities, as well as a wide variety of artistic expression. Etsy does not control the content provided by members, and we do not pre-screen content before it is posted on the site. You may find some things to be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or deceptive.” The story finally got picked up by CNN, and Etsy removed the listings.

Etsy has every right to allow repugnant things like the cards to be sold. But I question my place in an organization like that, whose standards seem to be at lowest level of decency just because people have the right to say what they want.

I saw a new bird today!! A red-bellied woodpecker. According to my bird book, they’re supposed to move south for the winter. Silly bird! What’s he doing here?

6 a.m., Suka jumped up on the bed and stuck his cold nose in my face, 6:30 Lukas got up to go to the bathroom. Luckily he didn’t step in the pile of puppy poo by his door. While he was in there I put the dogs out and mopped up the puppy pee in the foyer. Got the puppy poo cleaned up and Lukas back into bed, took a shower, went back into my bedroom and grabbed the drying rack (I hang rugs on it to dry instead of running them through the dryer) before it fell on the floor (Peaches the cat was up on the top rung, straddling it, and jumped off when I came into the room). Sat down on the bed and kept Suka from jumping onto my lap. Got dressed and started the coffee and the wood stove. Put Suka and Pip outside because they were chasing each other up and down the hallway. Let them back in. Got my coffee and went to my studio, filled the ferrets’ food and water containers, kept Suka from grabbing Chunk’s tail, go closed Lukas’ bedroom door that the cat got open, played with Suka to distract him from the ferrets. Sat down to have some coffee.

And how is your day going?

ETA: And my day continues swimmingly. The cat kept on trying to open Lukas’ door, so he never did get back to sleep, so I got him up to give him a shower, and the shower drain was clogged. Tried plunging it, got a sliver in my hand from the plunger, so had to resort to the snake. Then we had a chimney fire! Luckily, my nephews are up, and after I threw a chimney fire extinguisher into the stove, they went down in the basement and up in the attic to check on things. So tomorrow I get to call a chimney guy to come inspect it and make sure the flue didn’t get damaged. :( That’s going to be a few hundred dollars. If I didn’t like burning wood so much, I wouldn’t burn wood. End of story, I hope.

Winter is getting really old here. It’s -3° and this is what it looked like a couple of days ago. Yuck!

 So to counter all of that white, here’s a lovely holiday cactus that’s blooming,

 Luscious, warm colors....

 Suka is growing so fast! He’s still so darned cute, and now he has one ear that wants to stand up.

I finished up figuring out inventory tonight. Jeepers, there’s got to be an easier way to do this! 5 hours!

I took photos of beads to get listed, but nothing really exciting. I’m not sure I like the red dots on this one, although the Galaxy plunges came out nice.

This is TerraNova 2.1, a really nice glass if you heat, cool, heat and cool it just right.

I like this one, with just a hint of purple in it.

LOL, Pip is sleeping on the chair behind me, and she’s snoring. Goofy dog.

Did you know that, when it’s -14°, if you blow on a glass door to defrost a hole so you can watch the dogs when you let them out, it forms huge crystals?

Yes, I know, it looks pretty, but, sigh, I am so ready for spring. And I think the cats are too. Do you think they can get any closer?

A year ago yesterday, David collapsed for the first time. He came to while we were on the phone to 911. He said he tripped and fell, and refused to have the ambulance come. I was so angry with him because I was so scared, and I thought it was because he’d been drinking. I spent the next 2 1/2 weeks trying to get him to go to the doctor. I knew something was wrong, just from his behavior. He said and did things that were just irrational. By the 22nd, he finally consented to let me call the doctor and make an appointment for him. He collapsed on the 24th, and until the 26th, it was only the machines that kept him alive.

I don’t miss the constant tension of the past few years. It’s not easy living with an alcoholic, which is what David became after having his job replaced by a computer. But I do miss my old friend, the one who years and years ago, I told of my fears of things going so well that they couldn’t last. I was right, they didn’t. I don’t know how people who don’t have faith in the Bible’s promises of a resurrection handle things like this. I have a hard enough time, and I know, as sure as I know the sun is coming up tomorrow, that there will be a resurrection on this earth, and it’s my hope that I’ll be there to greet David and Mom, and tell them, ‘I told you so.’

The AGLF is having a fun sale starting today.

“Special Sales Event - Random Bag of Glass - One Day Only!

The Artisan and Glassworker Legal Fund is announcing a major sales event, the "Random Bag of Glass" sale!

For your $5.00, you'll get a package containing random glass goodies from the members of the AGLF as a thank you for your purchase.

But there's much more...random buyers will receive their thank you gift plus a little something extra. That surprise something extra might be a bead roller, silver leaf, mesh, raw glass, a tool, a Creation Station, or a set of Kim Neely's color archives.”

Oh yuck! -10°. Well, to look on the bright side, this is the coldest week of the year, and from here on, it’s going to start warming up. And at least it’s not -40°.

The last day of 2010, and I’ll repeat the sentiments of last year, “Good riddance to 2009. It was a year of pain, emotional and physical.”

It’s been so dreary, between snowstorms and rain. I’m tired of winter.

It was kind of pretty the other day, with lots of hoarfrost.

A pretty Christmas cactus,

and this is an amaryllis plant.



Suka is driving us all crazy. He’s like a toddler at this point, lots and lots of energy, and wants to play. I sure wish I could bottle some of that energy. I could use some.

Oh my, Suka is trying to sleep under my desk, and he’s ripping some awfully stinking gaseous emissions. Wow! Next time I go to the grocery store, I’ll have to look for some fennel seed.

Suka is growing!! Here he is our 2nd day,

And here he is now.

Still playing with the ferrets,

And all tuckered out,

I am going to kill some cats pretty soon. They’re chewing all of the stems off of my orchids!!!!

The little divas,

Puppy photos tonight. Chunk attacking from above

from below

Suka and BB playing tug of war with a plastic bag

and Suka all tuckered out

My orchids are starting to bloom!

Some beads to show off. I really like this one (just wish I remembered what glasses I used),



I love the colors in this one. Tomorrow morning I have to try to make some big hole beads with this coloring.

I’ve been reminded that I need to get photos posted. My sister must be bored. :)

Muddy brown goldfinches, just waiting for spring to brighten up,

Suka stole the ferrets’ snow box, and Buddy is trying to figure out what to do about it.

Christian said it won’t be much longer before he won’t be able to do this, because Suka is growing so fast.

I’ve been feeling the need to get back into drawing/painting, and this is my newest effort. This was a gorgeous Friesian horse down at the Horse Expo. I’d love to have one of these beauties.

1 more day to get past the shortest day of the year, and 20 more until the days start to warm up.

Lots and lots of photos tonight!
Puppy photos,



Chunk and Suka photos.

Suka has figured out how to keep Chunk from biting him, he just flops down on him.

I bought a record player that hooks up to my computer so I can get some old records digitized. Here’s one that’s really old, it’s an Edison record from the 1920s,

This record is almost 1/4” thick!

The songs on it are A Sturdy Norseman
and Norway, My Norway and Little Mountain Maid

BRRRR! -13° this a.m. 7/26 days (7 days until the days get longer, 26 until they get warmer).

More cactus photos. The second one is one I just bought at Walmart. I was amazed at all of the blossom buds on it.


And of course, Suka photos,