A visitor to Ohio

Guess who finally made it to Ohio...Cutie Potato! She has been traveling all over the world and has made it here to Columbus just in time to go to MM&M with me. If you'd like to see the other places she's visited, please check out her blog here. Here is her picture with her new BFF Daisy. At first Cutie Potato was a little intimidated by the sparkle farkle around here, but she's doing much better.

I'm still working on my piece for the Artbeads.com challenge. You know as long as I've done bead embroidery, I've never made one of those big collars. So, that is my challenge. I like it so far. Sorry about this awful picture. I'm going to have to get Chris to take it as my hands shake too much to get a nice clear shot, but then I'm not done yet! It needs more embellishment. I did find the perfect backing for it. Don't laugh, but I bought this jumper at the thrift store which was 100 ultra seude in a nice rust color. It is about two-three yards of pristine fabric for only...wait for it...$7.40. I got it on Wednesday discount day. I think the rust will match well.



I'm going to MM&M in Shelbyville Ohio this weekend. Then a busy first of November. Fiona is going to see Dr. Miller & have her glucose checked. She's doing so much better & her fur is coming in red! She hasn't been red since she was 3 years old. I think it is the high protein diet she's on. Well, gotta run. I still have to pack, work tonight, and them pick up my riders for the big trip tomorrow.

For Andrew

I don't know Andrew Thornton very well, but I've been reading his blog for the past two months getting to know him and appreciate the beautiful soul he has & the art that comes from that soul. Andrew is facing lots of medical bills and the community of artist out here on the internet are helping by auctioning off piece of art to help Andrew. I have found over the years that no one has a bigger heart than an artist and the out pour of generous help for a fellow traveler is amazing. I want to add my voice.



I am offering any proceeds from the sell of one of my beaded beanie babies that was featured in the article I wrote for Doll Crafter and Costuming called Trash to Treasure. I found a bag of those mini beanie babies that were given out in fast food children's meals at the thrift store. Inside that bag were tiny little faces looking at me some of them still in their original plastic packaging. They were bound for the trash can, so I bought them all and decided to take my skills at bead embroidery and turn them into something that could be treasured. I would like to offer to the highest bidder my little beaded cat I named Snowball. She is covered with beads and has three crystals on her forehead as I just couldn't cover up that adorable face. I'm going to take bids through my e-mail until October 26. Please e-mail me at scotdog@wideopenwest.com with bids. I'll let the winner know on the 27th before I leave for Kentucky. All money made from this auction will go to Andrew. So please dig deep & help another artist.

October...where are you going?

I can't believe here it is the second half of October. What has happen...did someone wind up the clock too fast & everything is double time? I've lost track of weeks & weeks. Someone find them & send them back to me. I do have an announcement. I have a winner for the Pocket Monster give away. Congrats to Rachel Crisman of Dalai Mama. Now how did I pick her you wonder. Did I write numbers and pick one out of a hat? Did I use some sophisticated number picker? Nope...we were at Costco getting gas when I asked Chris to pick a number from one to twenty-one. Instantly he said 17. Within minutes the gas pump also clicked out $17 dollar of gas. So it was meant to be. Rachel wants a red one with pointy ears....I'm going to have to jump into that basket & wade my way through the monsters to find that one. They have been whispering amongst themselves as they heard that Cutie Potato is coming to visit real soon & are planning something. You know how those monsters are.

I was down for a week with stinking Vertigo again! Two weekends ago, Barbara came to teach our club Boudica. She stayed with me. I let her sleep in my bedroom when I "camped" out in the some day to be guest room. I must have slept wrong or blew my nose wrong or ate something wrong or just was wrong as I woke up two Saturday with that awful feeling in my head. Thank goodness I had drugs and it was a pretty mild case...until Monday when it go BAD! I felt like I had a tight cap around my head & the world was spinning. I had to call off sick & take some Phenergen. Chris said he thought I was dead as I slept for 16 straight hours. It lingered until yesterday but everyone at work enjoyed my staggering around...but hey! I did work!

I have been missing my Muse recently. I think after I finished Mother's Love, I've been in a limbo wondering what big project will come my way. I've been sewing a lot (ie, the Pocket Monsters and some pin cushions which are too horrible to picture) but I needed a big project to make my Muse wake up. Then Artbeads.com came up with a new challenge. Here is the write up about the new challenge:


"Artbeads is proud to announce our first ever ‘What Inspires You?’ jewelry contest! The theme of Artbeads.com’s first beading contest is to let beading artists share their inspiration with others. There are two categories, necklaces and other beaded designs for this contest. Voting will be open to the public to determine the top 3 winners in each category. A picture of the inspiration and design will allow the voters to see how each entry is represented.

The Grand Prize Winner in the Necklace and Beading contests will each receive a $500 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate, the 2nd Place winners will each receive a $250 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate and the 3rd Place winners will each receive a $100 Artbeads.com Gift Certificate.

This is a fun event to share with your blog readers, family, friends and fellow beaders. This is a contest of originality, design, and vision. All entries MUST be an original design. At least 50% of the beads and components in a submitted entry must be purchased from Artbeads.com. Participants must upload one picture of their design and one of picture of their inspiration, such as you see below in the banners. This contest is open to beaders worldwide, aged 18 and older.

I have provided two images and the HTML code below that you may use in your blog if you like. One is for the Necklace Beading Contest and the other for the general Beaded Contest entries."

SOoooooo...instantly I decided I needed to do this. At the same time Duchess sent me an e-mail asking if I'd like to blog for beads again...duh! So I sent her a list and got these...oooooo




DB0507
GCRD-OAM
TBRD8-514F
TBRD11-2110
TBRD8-2110
FPSMAME-GDR4




I began to bead, and bead and bead. Everything just started to click. I do have more pictures to share later, but I have to retake them because they are all fuzzy and even though I'm over most of my Vertigo, I can't look at fuzzy pictures or cars racing around on television. So here's a beginning. I've worked three days so far. I'm hoping to finish this by next week.


I had to eventually make myself stop beading & come upstairs to enter the "real" world. There waiting for me was Fiona. Here are a couple pictures of my miracle girl. She is doing so well with her new diet and insulin injections. I was so close to losing my girl, but with Dr. Miller and the techs at Worthingon Woods Vet Hospital, Fiona is happy & gaining her weight back. She'll be blind with those cataracts, but she's alive & letting me love her one more day.


I'll have more later. I have lots to share, but need to check on that Pork roast I smell cooking.
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Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the cab/seed beads/fire polish above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Pocket MOnsters give away

October is tomorrow & I just can't wait. My favorite month of the year because I love the Fall weather, I love pumpkins, and I love Halloween! When I was growing up in Los Angeles, we'd spend weeks trying to figure out what we were going to wear to go trick or treating. Now this was back in the days when kids went out and night (yes! when it was DARK!) without parental supervision with pillow cases crawling the neighborhoods begging for candy. In LA, begger's night was always on Halloween the 31st. It was shocking when we moved to Ohio & found out it was Oct. 30th & you could only be out for 4 hours. How could you get enough candy to last until Christmas? I remember one year so vividly as Halloween was on a Sunday, so our town let kids go out BOTH the 30th & the 31st! We made out like bandits. My Mom let us cross the 4 lane road separating our neighborhood with the other & there was virgin candy beggin' ground. I think we had candy until Easter that year. And I'm not talking about tiny little pieces of hard candy...I'm talking about bars of chocolate and bags of popcorn balls! We were so bloated. I remember coming home with our loot (what we didn't eat on the run) & pouring it all out on sheets my Mom had in the front room. There's she's sort through it all taking her cut (Heath bars, and Pay Days) as she did help us with out costumes. So I do have fun memories of Halloween. What's yours?



To celebrate the day before October, I'm showing you a new treat I've been working on. My bead Muse has been in a slump lately, but I've been practicing sewing away. I call these Pocket Monsters. It all started when I ripped the pocket off a shirt & looked at it & decided it would be perfect for something. Then a glance at my scrap bag & and ideas! Delivery of Pocket MOnsters! I've got a big basket of a dozen so far. They are so fun to make that I can't help myself. Would you like one???? Leave me a comment with your e-mail by October 15th. & I'll pick out one lucky follower to get one of these scary scary monsters by Halloween.



Chris is busy working on our vacation pictures still. He is almost done. Here's another picture of the coast of Kauaii. I want to go back! I can see that my tan is slowly going away. Boy don't I miss the Sun.

give aways & vacation

I just got this message from Ray over that Lark Crafts. Two fabulous give away items. One is a free download of the Helixa Necklace project from Sarah McConnell's One Big Beautiful Bead (I must download this now!) and then a chance to win one of the fabulous books that Lark makes (the non-Jewelry Lark Jewelry & Beading 500 series books, including the beaded objects, metal vessels, knives, glass beads, Judaica, enameled objects, and polymer clay entries in the 500 series). I love the Lark books. They are so well put together & the perfect books to go through when you are having a slump like me & need to jump kick the Muse. Which ones do I want? Well, of course the 500 beaded objects (can you believe I don't have that?) and I thought that metal vessel books look intriguing. The book giveaways are only for US residents & will be open until this coming Monday Oct. 4th. So hurry over to Lark Craft for a chance to get one of these books.



And Chris has been working on his thousands of pictures from Kauai vacation this month. This one is from the end of the road looking out North at the Napali Coast. And if you think real hard, yes you have seen this place before. Remember Jurassic Park??? Well that was filmed in Kauai & this is the place where the helicopters flew for the first glimpse of the island. Isn't it a beautiful place? While Chris was taking photos, I just sat & watched the clouds come up over the peaks and roll down into the valley. Then my attention was grabbed by the ferns and other plants growing around. This is truly a magical place. I'll post more once he sends them over to my computer. He is also working on taking these photos and making them into a book as a memento of our vacation. Costco will do this for a pretty reasonable price.

Excuse me-I have to rant!

I rarely use my blog to rant about something, but yesterday my dander just got all into a ruff. About what you might ask? My answer is about fast food or in particular-McDonald's. Yesterday on the way home from Costco during rush hour, we decided to just pop into the drive through & grab a quick bite to take home as we were both too tired to even think about cooking. I was surprised at how fast the line was moving as it was whip/whip/whip...done! I think it was only about two minutes from placing the order to driving away with a bag. BUT! as soon as we got out into traffic, Chris decided to open the bag & take a small bite of a few french fries...they were stone cold ! COLD! I'd say it was only 30 seconds after we pulled away from the drive through. The traffic was too backed up to let me go back & complain (which I have numerous times) so we decided to just head home which was only 5 minute drive. Chris only ate about 4 or 5 cold fries during that time. We get home, open the bag & funny but the medium order which was mine was almost full, but his large order was only 1/2 full...and we didn't eat that many! So needless to say, the medium order of fries had more french fries than the large. Another complaint I've had before! Then the sandwiches themselves which were also cold as ice, were soggy and tasteless. That's it! I'm through with fast food as my rant includes other fast food establishments like Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, and especially Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are all banned from now on...forever. I've had enough of bad cold food which is advertised on television as hot & fresh, or fun and tasty, or value and nutritious!

I know fast food it bad for me, but I use to love it so much. I remember my Dad driving all the way to San Bernadino from El Monte for us to get McDonalds burgers and fries. And I would make a trip to Burger King once a week in college to treat myself. Wendy's was a special place we'd go to get a hot fresh burger, but all that is long long long gone. Now fast food establishments as so concerned about time that they've forgotten about taste! And from my above rant you can see they don't even serve food hot anymore. Wendy's talk about hot & fresh, but their french fries are always limp and cold & I do say that hamburger has shrunk every year. Burger King puts more salt on any of the foods just to disguise the taste of inferior meat. And KFC is just bad! It taste like the grease is weeks old & you have to scrap the grease off the inside of your mouth with each bite. Taco Bell...well, though tolerable, it too is now on my banned list because of tastelessness!

Time, time, timing. That is all this is about. Fast to the maximum! Feed the masses fast! Time, time, time! I don't care if I can get in & out of the drive through in less than 2 minutes...I care if the $10 I spent isn't wasted & all the food gets fed to the dogs because it is cold. Has this world got so time oriented that everyone has forgotten that to take a few extra minutes and serve something that is hot or even warm is more important. I guess not as I've noticed this trend for the last couple of years in all fast food. And don't let me even start on service if you walk in! I told Chris that from now on instead of FAST food, we'll go to someplace like Steak & Shake which for a couple extra dollars you get hot food & service above and beyond. Or just go ahead and go to someplace like Applebees which will treat you like a human being once there instead of a "timed" number. Or if I'm really in a hurry...I'll bring my own snacks & wait until I get home.

Okay, I've ranted...and I mean it when I say Fast food is now banned for me. I'm done throwing away my money on poor prepared, tasteless, and cold FAST food. Enough!

Another Kauai moment

Isn't this a lovely shot? It is a morning Sunrise in Kauai. We'd wake up every single morning before dawn (probably because we were still on East Coast Time). I'd make some Kona coffee & we'd both sit outside on the lanai & watch as the skies would turn pink & mauve. Chris got a brand new Sony camera that takes panorama pictures. On this morning, while I was getting ready for a early morning excursion, he walked down to the beach on the resort property and got this beautiful morning picture. Every morning was a surprise in explosive colors and got our blood humming and wanting us to get out and explore.

Along with the colorful Sunrise each morning, we were also awaken by the crowing of the many roosters all over the island. They were every where! Chickens on the beach, chickens along the side of the road, chickens at the top of the mountains. When we took a boat ride up the Napoli coast, Captain Bernard asked if we'd all take at least 10 home with us. So we were wondering what was it with the chickens. Was it some Hawaiian thing we didn't understand? Nope, here is the answer. Hurricane Iniki hit the south of the island on September 11th, 1992:

Hurricane Iniki made landfall on the south-central portion of Kauaʻi island, bringing its dangerous inner core to the entire island.^[1] Upon making landfall the hurricane produced storm tides of 4.5–6 feet (1.4–1.8 m), with some portions of the coastlines having high water marks of up to 18 feet (5.5 m). In addition, strong waves of up to 35 feet (10.5 m) in height crashed along the southern coastline for several hours, causing a debris line of more than 800 feet (250 m) inland. Because it moved quickly through the island, there were no reports of significant rainfall.^[3]

Hurricane Iniki making landfall on Kauaʻi

Hurricane Iniki's making landfall during daylight hours, combined with the popularity of camcorders, led many Kauaʻi residents to record much of the damage as it was occurring. The footage was later used to create an hour-long video documentary.^[5]

Wind damage to trees from Iniki

Hurricane Iniki's high winds caused extensive damage in Kauaʻi. 1,421 houses were completely destroyed, and 63 were lost from the storm surge and wave action. 5,152 homes were severely damaged, while 7,178 received minor damage.^[1] On the south coast, hotels and condominiums received severe damage as well. A few were restored quickly, though some took several years to be rebuilt. One hotel—the Coco Palms Resort famous for Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii—never reopened after the hurricane.^[6] Destroyed housing across the island left more than 7,000 people homeless after the storm's passage.^[7]

Sidewalk and tree damage from Iniki

Iniki's Category 4 winds also downed 26.5% of the island's transmission poles, 37% of its distribution poles, and 35% of its 800 mile (1300 km) distribution wire system. The entire island lacked electricity and television service for an extended period of time.^[7] Electric companies restored only 20% of the island's power service within four weeks of Iniki, while other areas were without power for up to three months. Also affected by the storm was the agricultural sector.^[1] Though much of the sugar cane was already harvested,^[7] what was left was severely damaged. The winds destroyed tender tropical plants like bananas and papayas and uprooted or damaged fruit and nut trees.^[1]

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Because of Iniki, chicken coops all over the island were knocked down & the chickens had not been recaptured. Therefore, they went out and populated the whole island with wild chickens. So chickens abound every where & you could hear the roaster all the time screaming out. We'd read about people complaining that they couldn't sleep because of these roosters, but didn't bother us as we were up before they were. I guess this once it was helpful to still be on Ohio time. But they were interesting to watch as I'd never see wild chickens before. Some were very aggressive if you even walked near them. They did know how to keep out of the way of cars! Or maybe drivers were just afraid of them!