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Friday, November 30, 2007

 

Okay, probably just a quick entry.

 

Here's a pearl necklace listed on eBay (ending soon, actually)… CLICKABLE PHOTOS

 

 

And a bunch of earrings (some of which are already sold)…

 

 

Aside from my U.S. shipments today, I also mailed to Canada, Germany and Brazil.  How fun!

 

Well, I looked at my listings today and see that it's time to post new stuff.  I have a handful of items ready to be photographed, but I should be able to make more stuff tonight and tomorrow too.  I wonder what I'm in the mood to create.

 

Oh, Sharon Peters posted some funny YouTube links in Lampwork Etc today.  I jotted them down and added a couple other ones, but don't recall which are which…

 

Make sure your volume is on for these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqiw-Kqtlr0&feature=bz302

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=964uCtgsDoE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYuX1rFOMvM&feature=bz303

 

And I LOVELOVELOVE Ocicats!  J  I'll never have any, of course, because I take in everyone else's strays.  Ha!

 

Well, I'd better get going now.  Sharks are on at 7:30.  TTYL!

 

 

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

 

Wow, so much time has passed and so many thoughts were thunk.  I don't know where to begin!

 

Family

Had a nice (but short) visit with family out past Sacramento, but had to rush back for a 4-day tournament.  Both teams (Monica's and Gabe's) lost every game they played (4 each), but the kids still had fun.  Found a couple of really nice pictures of Gabe (on the ice) that I'd like to eventually get.  We'll see.  Still saving for overdue mortgage, overdue PG&E, phone, and property taxes.  And I'm told both cars need new tires.  Ha!  Time to send my book proposal in.  J

 

House

Grabbed a book quickly as I headed off to watch hockey practice last night.  Feng Shui.  Got me all excited to continue my journey toward streamlining my house and life.  The book actually had a section that pertains directly to one of my big problems… stuff I want to get rid of but is still too good to just throw in the garbage.  So what do I do with it?  I keep it and store it in a stack for "things to eventually sell or consign".  Ugh!  That just makes more clutter!  So I am putting all that stuff in boxes and having GoodWill do a pick-up.  My time is probably worth more money than I'd get from listing too many things on eBay and/or going to a consignment shop, etc. anyway.

 

Cleaning progress: Computer files are included.  I made a new folder called "2008".  I am moving over and properly naming anything that is keep-worthy.  Everything else is getting deleted.  Yay!

 

I'm also getting rid of paperwork from my office desk.

 

So, in deleting files I feel I really don't NEED, I see that I not only have a lot of files that I am deleting but that it also means I spent time CREATING these files that I don't really need.  If I stop wasting my time with unnecessary tasks (even if they ARE fun), I will have more time for necessary tasks.

 

Musing

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860): The 19th-century German philosopher is renowned for his pessimistic view of life as defined by needless suffering and the primacy of human desire over the intellect. But he saw the possibility for salvation from this miserable existence through ascetic living, an appreciation of art, and charity for fellow man ("loving kindness", in his words). The two enemies of human happiness are "pain and boredom", he wrote. The symptom of unhappiness is the pursuit of wealth, he believed.

 

Jewelry

Here are the latest additions to my listings (clickable, as always):

     

 

Whoops!  Time to go.  I'll show more tomorrow!  TTYL

 

 

Friday, November 16, 2007

 

Family

Oh man!  I made a schedule to try to find time to go visit grandma, but between hockey, work, school, and the kids' custody with their dad… there's not one single free day.  Eek!

 

Speaking of hockey, I didn't tell you how it went for Mon's girls' team at the Colorado tournament.  They lost the first game, then won the next two, and tied the fourth.  Unbelievably, this wasn't good enough to get them into the finals.  The top two seeds must have each won at least 3 of their 4 games.  But Mon did have a blast.  She said she had a fantastic time.  I'm so glad.  BTW, we both really like her new stick bag.  Thanks Laura B!

 

 

Thursday, November 15, 2007

 

Oh look… a whole week... and then some.  Ick!

 

But there WERE some great days in there.  I'm just sorry I wasn't able to get to the blog any sooner.

 

This week (or weekend), I will go on the roof or somewhere thereabouts and try to block off other options of where the rain is getting into the house.  The living room is still leaking… BADLY.  L

 

Food Conversation

At this VERY moment, I'm eating a heavenly salad.  Man, it makes me want to make some salads at home.  I don't live in a household of big salad eaters, but oh well.  It's not always about everyone else (well, it really is, but I can pretend once in awhile that it's all about me).  This one seems relatively simple.  Let me try to analyze it: Lettuce cut up into pretty small pieces.  Looks like a Romaine.  A sparsity (is that a word?) of even smaller pieces of chicken.  A nice oriental dressing, and then a sprinkling of crunchy noodles and sesame seeds on top.  Voila!

 

That's do-able.

 

Y'know, one thing that I really liked about the Paleo way of eating is the simplicity of the meals.  The foods weren't over-processed… actually, they weren't processed at all.  I'm a believer in the benefit of eating foods in as close to their natural state as possible.  It's a tough feat, at times, though… in this day and age… and with our current lifestyles (and the predilection of others in the household).  But I think one of the keys (if not THE key) is preparation… or preparation and planning.  I think if I could have certain staples prepared and on-hand, too, that would help.  Like have several "lots" of cooked beef, so I can whip up a variety of things for the family without too much time involved (tacos, nachos, enchiladas, chili, etc).

 

Jewelry

Last Saturday, Alex and I went to BABE (Bay Area Bead Extravaganza, bead show).  And then I went again (albeit briefly) on Sunday with Laura B.  Got some cool stuff, met some cool people, saw some amazing things, coveted a bit, and enjoyed the company of my friends.

 

Here's a bracelet (currently on eBay) that I made with Lampwork beads AND hand-hammered chain that I bought at the show (photo is clickable):

 

And anyone familiar with the going rate of sterling silver these days will understand the price tag I had to put on this baby.  Ugh!

 

I also listed these two (again, clickable photos):

 

 

 

I have two necklaces and a pair of earrings to list, but I'm a little short of time at the moment.  Maybe tonight.

 

Mon has started wire-wrapping.  She's still working with copper (mostly because I ran out of Sterling and have to wait until tomorrow when my order comes in), but that's okay as she's honing her skills.

 

Neat Stuff Pointed Out to Me By Other Internet People

 

Totally awesome mural! (çclick there)

This mural was unveiled last week at the Cochrane Ranche House. Each tile is 1 foot square, is it's own individual picture and each is by a different artist. All of them together form this huge mural. You can click on each of the tiles to see them in detail. Check out the horse's eye.

 

Lazy Cat (çclick there)

Not Lazy Cats (çclick there)

Hilarious Cats on Treadmills

 

In the News

I tell ya, I can't fathom a 7.7 earthquake.  And yet, there was just one in Chile last night.  Killed 2 people, injured 150.  I'm not happy about those killed or injured, but holy cow... that seems so fortunate considering the magnitude of the quake.

 

Yesterday I heard that more Veterans committed suicide in 2005 than all U.S. Soldiers had been killed in the Iraq war since 2001.  That is so sad.  According to CBS, in 2005 alone 120 of those who served in the military took their own lives every week (at least 6,256 total suicides) - more than double the suicide rate for those who haven't served.  While veterans are 11 percent of the general population, they now make up an estimated 25 percent of the homeless.

 

And just so you don't think all news is bad news, here is some good news in the news:  An Albuquerque hospital and several of its surgeons donated life-saving surgery to a Kosovo toddler. Now, the 2-year-old and her mom are heading home.

 

Hey, here's one that's serendipitous (because I purchased from them a few months ago): Poor Ugandan women who were living on the streets begging for food, have now turned their lives around after joining BeadForLife, a small Colorado-based nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating poverty through handcrafts.

 

In a beautiful story, an unnamed 'friend' gives $100 million to the struggling old industrial city of Erie, Pennsylvania, to be divided among its 46 charities including the food bank, a women's center, and a group for the blind, and its universities. "What a godsend for some of these agencies," says a resident.

 

A surfer in California was under attack from a great white shark when "a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around him, until he could get to shore.

 

The producers of MythBusters said they plan to present Julian Shaw with merchandise in a "hero pack" to honor his good deed." The 14-year-old punk rocker used what he had learned from the TV series MythBusters to save a 54-year-old from a freight train (link).

 

Okay, off to do other things now.  Will try to talk more soon!

 

 

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

 

My family thinks I'm kidding when I say that making dinner is the bane of my existence.  Okay, maybe it's a SLIGHT exaggeration.  It's still quite the PITA.

 

It's not even the fact that I work a full-time office job, take two kids to two different schools, pick up two kids from two different schools, take said kids to hockey about 8 times a week in various forms, have to do the grocery shopping, the pan scrubbing AND the cooking of these dinners…. But it's the THINKING that slays me.

 

Look at it like this:

 

Here are all the choices in the world of items to make for dinner…

 

 

 

 

 

 


Beautiful!

 

Except that's not how my family eats or how I can make dinner.

 

So… let's whittle away at the ideal dinner plan a little bit.

 

First, we have to factor in that my budget is limited. That removes some of our choices.

 

 

 

 

 


Then we consider my cooking time is limited.  More choices gone.

 

 

 

 

 


Now we have: Monica doesn't like meat, Mike doesn't like gravy or vegetables, Gabe doesn't like cheese, etc.  More choices gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 


I am overweight and very concerned about not eating foods that are non-nutritious.  This cuts the options further.

 

 

 

 

 


By the time I have found something that is relatively inexpensive, doesn't take hours to cook, fits everyone's individual taste peculiatrities, and isn't overly unhealthy… OMG!  What is left?!?!

 

I tell ya!  I'm so sick of our staples: spaghetti, chili, hamburgers, chicken teriyaki… ugh!

 

What am I to do?  Just make what I want and let the chips fall where they may?  Okay, so I make enchiladas… Gabe won't eat them.  I'm supposed to let a 15-year old boy miss dinner?  Or I make Shepherd's Pie.  Mike won't eat that.  So he either goes without dinner that night or spends money (which we can ill afford) going to get something he "can" eat.  

 

Maybe instead of "meals", I can just stock the fridge with individual foods from the main food groups and just let everyone fend for themselves for the most part.  I can cook chicken, beef, or fish and they can pick and choose what they want to accompany it.  Let's see, if I did that, it might look something like this:

 

Protein

Vegie

Fruit

Dairy

Bread

Sweet

Misc

Monday

Chicken

Beans/Rice

Carrots

Celery

Squash

Apples

Banana

Cheddar

Milk

Tortilla

Popsicles

Corn Chips

Tuesday

Beef

Hot Dogs

Carrots

Celery

Squash

Apples

Banana

Yogurt

Cheddar

Buns

Popsicles

 

Wednesday

Salami

Chicken

Carrots

Celery

Lettuce

Apples

Oranges

Smoothie

Mozzarella

Bread Bowls

Popsicles

 

Thursday

Sausage

Kidney Beans

Eggs

Lettuce/Salad

Bell Pepper

Apples

Oranges

Feta

Milk

Eggs

Sliced Bread

Popsicles

Popcorn

Friday

Chicken

Fish

Broccoli

Jicama

Apples

Oranges

Smoothie

Cheddar

Crackers

Popsicles

Popcorn

Saturday

Fish

Bean/Rice Salad

Tomato

Corn

Apples

Grapes

Yogurt

Cream Cheese

Bagels

Popsicles

Popcorn

Sunday

Turkey

Eggs

Tomato

Cucumber

Apples

Grapes

Feta

Milk

Eggs

Rolls

Popsicles