Bummed Out

I have a genetic predisposition for having high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high trigylcerides, etc. Over the past few years I've gained about 40 pounds, which contributes to these problems. I started going to Jazzercise about a year ago and I really love it, but I have realized that not only do I have to have regular exercise, but I also have to watch what I eat in order to lose weight and change all these factors. I have been really watching what I've been eating for the past 6 weeks and as of this morning I have lose 6 pounds since my 6 week checkup.

Six weeks ago when I went for my yearly exam, my blood pressure was higher than I would like for it to be even taking my bp medication. This morning it was higher than ever, but I had not taken my bp med because of the fasting. I guess I'm going to have to really watch the sodium intake more than I have for the past 6 weeks. My triglycerides have gone down because I've practically cut out refined sugar altogether, but I guess I'm going to have to cut it out totally because that number is still not where we need for it to be. My total cholesterol had come down and so had the LDL's and other things and they are closer to where they need to be, except for the triglycerides. The lipid nurse was going to put me on an additional medication called triglide or something like that to lower my triglycerides. She said that one of the side effects was it might cause me to have an upset stomach. I told her I have enough trouble with that already and I really didn't want to take it if I didn't have to. She said that I could get omega-3 fish oil caplets and take those. I went to Walmart and bought some, but they are HUGE. I don't know if I can take pills that huge or not. And then there is the fishy aftertaste or oder issue. Will that make me queasy too? So much to think about. I'm obsessing, I know. I did some research and found that flaxseed and/or walnuts added to salads, baked potatoes, etc. will give me enough omega-3's from my food, so I wonder now if I can get enough omega-3's from food without have to take the horse pills?

I guess I'm just really bummed out because I feel like I've been trying and there doesn't seem to be the improvement I had hoped for. I guess I haven't been trying hard enough, so now it's time to get down to the nitty gritty and really get serious.

On a lighter note, last week Eddie and I went to the quilt show in Nashville. Well, I did. Eddie spent about 6 hours in the pool and hot tub at the hotel while I was at the quilt show. I really enjoyed it. I learned alot and came away with some good information. I took a class from Linda Pool and learned how to do dimensional quilting. We made this pretty Victorian Lady.


I don't feel like I got her hair quite right, but overall I'm happy with her. It was fun to learn something new.

I also bought a kit and made this scarecrow wall hanging.




I haven't quilted it yet, but now my attention has turned to crocheting. I've been working on a couple of shawls that I will post pictures of later.

The World Can Wait

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately at work. Just so many people needing help, having questions. I work in an academic library and am responsible for hiring, training and supervising about 7 student workers in addition to all of my other work. I'm still amazed at the number of people who can't comprehend the simplest tasks. It's tiring and draining. I told a friend the other day that I felt like I was being picked to death by buzzards. Anyway that, along with so many different projects going with on with deadlines demanding more and more of my time, has left me feeling burned out. I'm pretty sure I can attribute part of it to the fact that we haven't had a real vacation in about 5 years. I mean the kind where we can go somewhere for a week, like the beach, and just relax. We haven't taken these because we've always been able to go to Spring Creek Retreat. But a couple that we usually go with have decided that they don't want to go anymore. They said it's too much packing and getting ready for just a couple of days. I think the reason is that one of the people in the relationship probably got stuck with doing everything with no help from the other person. Because my cousin works for the company, we only have to pay for the cleaning fee for the weekend, which is not bad compared to the normal rate. But if we get enough people to go we can divide the cleaning fee up and it's really cheap. But if we don't get enough people to go, then it's more. My cousin doesn't seem to want to go unless we have at least 8 people to go. It's getting harder and harder to find 8 people who will commit. Most people are wishy washy about it. At any rate, we had planned to go this past Spring and actually booked it for 2 different weekends. The problem is that if a paying guest wants it we have to let them have it and that's what happened both times. We were bumped. So, we haven't been able to go this year. I'm feeling it.

Between the work situation and not having a vacation, I remembered a Hallmark ecard that my friend sent to me awhile back when I was sick. It has a wonderful message. I love it.

Comfy jammies,
cozy bed
Big soft pillow
for your head
Worry NOT
The world can wait.
Take your time,
Recuperate.

Sometimes I think we all need to just say The World Can Wait and take a sick day from work. We need to take time for ourselves.

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss dies

I'm saddened to hear about Kathleen Woodiwiss' death and I can't believe that I'm just now hearing about it. I guess it's not one of those newsworthy items that would be plastered all over the TV and newspapers like Lindsey Lohen or Paris Hilton, or whatever their names are.

The passing of Kathleen Woodiwiss is the end of an era. I have such fond memories of when I was younger and started reading her books. I had just started working at my first job which was in a public library. One of my coworkers got me started reading Kathleen Woodiwiss. The first book I read was The Flame and The Flower. I went on to read the next few and have read almost everything that she's written. I think her first books were alot better than her later ones, but I'm so happy to have wet my feet on romance novels beginning with hers. So, as far as I'm concerned, there has been no one else who could hold a candle to her. Now I'm going to have to go hunt up my old copies and reread them. I was reading a forum and realized that several readers wrote that they have reread her books numerous times. When I read the books, the covers looked like one of the ones above. I haven't read the earlier ones since the mid-70's, so I guess I'm due.

Batik Wall Hanging

Saturday I went to get my hair cut and on the way back I stopped at a new quilt store that just opened up. I was browsing around and found some batik fabrics already cut into 5" squares. That attracted my attention and knowing how I hate cutting out fabric (I want to get to the fun part right away), I bought them. I love batiks and since these were already cut out I knew I would figure out something to do with them. It was just too good to pass up. There were 100 5" squares in the pack.

Yesterday after breakfast I got them out and started looking at them thinking about what I could do with them. Then I figured maybe I could make a 25 squares wall hanging, so I arranged them into 5 squares across, 5 squares down and I realized that it would make a nice size wall hanging. Not too large, not too small. After I arranged them in a pleasing way, I decided that it would take no time to sew them together, so I did that. Then I started thinking about borders and found some fabric for the borders that I thought would look nice. I managed to get this all done in about 2 hours time. Then I put it together in a quilt "sandwich", which is quilt top on top, batting in the middle and muslin backing on the back. I actually managed to get the quilt top quilted yesterday afternoon. Now I'm working on quilting the black border.

I showed it to Eddie and told him that I was thinking about either selling it or giving it to someone for Christmas. He said, "No, you're not. We're keeping it. we can hang it in the dining room." That made me very happy.

Dollmaking Class

Last night I went to a beginner's dollmaking class that was held at a new store in our mall. I have made cloth dolls before, but I still learned alot from this class. I learned how to sew yarn hair on and how to stuff really tightly. I also learned that for making primitive rag dolls you don't have to be that particular about the dress, apron, etc. I also learned how to sew the face on a doll rather than draw it on. This little doll is the result of my efforts in class. I would like to make some more of these. My only frustration was that the teacher kept telling me to stuff really tightly. I forgot to sew a small seam across the top of the legs until I had already stuffed it, so my doll doesn't want to sit down and I have to display her standing up. I can see what I did wrong and what I can correct on the next one. I got lots of good tips for cloth dollmaking and I was very pleased.

The teacher had already cut out and sewn the basic pieces, so all I had to do was turn them right side out and stuff them. Then do some hand sewing for the other things like sewing the arms on, sewing the hair on, etc. I also managed to get a copy of the pattern, which I'm happy about. I can make some more of these little dolls. She came out really cute. Now all I have to do is come up with a name for her.

Feather and Fan Scarf

I found a really pretty scarf pattern last week. It's called the Feather and Fan Scarf. I'm using Caron Simply Soft yarn for mine and size 8 knitting needles. I love the white and blue together, but I think my next one will be a solid color because I hate weaving in all those ends from changing colors. I can't believe how elegant this scarf looks when the pattern is so easy. It looks like really laborious work, but it's not. It's only 4 rows that are repeated until the scarf is a long as you want or you run out of yarn.



Knitting on this scarf has really helped to take my mind off of things. I had my annual doctor's appointment last week with my cardiologist. My blood pressure was up and I was really frustrated with myself because I have not been watching my diet like I should. I tend to use food as a comfort thing or a way to deal with stressful things. The doctor told me not to eat anything with added salt, that means no pretzels, potato chips, and he named off a whole list of things that I can't even remember because he rattled them off so fast. I thought that just because I had been going to Jazzercise and not cooking with salt and not adding extra salt at the table that I was watching my sodium intake. I thought that some of the things I was eating were ok to eat, but I guess I was wrong. Or maybe I had just never thought about the sodium content in the foods I was eating. Sodium is in everything. And lots of it. In fat free foods they add extra sodium to replace the flavor that was taken out with the fat. In some cases one dinner has about half the sodium you should have all day. So that means no more Lean Cuisines for me or any other low fat dinners like that for lunch. In some ways I think it's harder to eat a low sodium diet than it is to give up sugar. Sugar is pretty straightforward, but not so with sodium. That's another thing. I have to give up refined sugar because of my high triglyceride level. It's hard, but so far I haven't had anything sweet since last Thursday after my doctor's appointment. He doesn't want me to drink diet drinks either because of the artificial sweeteners in them. Well, I can't give up everything. It was pretty depressing at first, but I'm beginning to get used to it. I just have to be really careful what I eat from now on and I'm learning to read food labels more. My cardiologist is very matter of fact about these things. In his mind, it's very simple what you have to do, so do it. No excuses, no whining, etc. It was after that that I realized that I have to do it.

The other thing is that I have an appointment with a different periodontist next week. After the depressing appointment I had with one last year, I just couldn't deal with it. I put it off as long as possible. It turns out that I have periodontal disease and the periodontist from last year wanted to do major surgery and peel back my gums and clean deep down inside. I recoiled in horror at the description of such a thing. I was in her office for 3 hours. I was really overwhelmed after that and depressed for several days. So, my coping mechanism was to forget about it, put it on the back burner and not think about it right then. Well, now it's almost a year later and now I'm going to have to face it and figure something out. I would love to just call them up and cancel that appointment, but the front tooth that is affected right now is not loose, but it's looser than the other ones. Even now I don't know if it can be saved. I hope so. If it can I guess I'll do whatever needs to be done to save it. It wouldn't be so bad if the problem were not in the very front of my mouth. I have to work with the public for another 8 years at least before I can retire and I refuse to do it with one tooth missing in the front. The thing that bothers me is that I'm so afraid that I'm going to get sick after the anesthesia, especially if they put me to sleep and I'm not ging to have something like that done without being out of it to some degree. I don't want to know anything about it until it's all over with. I just have a pattern of getting sick after anesthesia. Well, maybe I shoudl just get overit and have it done. I have even done some research on the Internet and one person bought a Water Pic in lieu of having the surgery. He said the periodontists don't tell you that after you have the deep cleaning (gums peeled back, etc.) that your gums recede and never go back to where they were before. I don't know about that. It's just all so overwhelming. I'm going to go and at least see what the new periodontist says my options are.

Surprising Find

I haven't been working very much on crafty things lately. I can't seem to get settled down to anything. Feeling restless, I guess. I'm sort of that way about books too. It seems that I start something and can't get into it. That goes for books and crafts.

Yesterday Eddie and I went to my cousin's house to help him hang some curtain rods and curtains. It went alot faster than we thought and we were finished in about 2 hours. Afterwards, my cousin was ready for a nap and Eddie wanted to watch TV, so I decided that I would go shopping for awhile.

The first store I went to was T.J. Maxx and I found a couple of watercolor books that were about $3.99 each, which is an excellent price. I'm sure they were more than $15.00 each at one time. After that, I went to a new store called World Market. I've never seen it before and we don't have anything like it on our side of town. I went inside and it reminded me a whole lot of a store we used to have called World Bazaar and one we have now called Pier 1 Imports. World Market had alot of neat stuff. I just spent some time browsing around and eventually came upon a display of eclectic jewelry, handbags, and scarves, and other things like that. Then I discovered hanging down on a bottom rack some of these beautiful oriental print handbags, makeup bags and some smaller bags.


The handbags had been originally priced at $29.99 and they were on sale. When I got to the checkout, this purse rang up for around $11.84 or something like that. Less than $12.00. I was thrilled. I knew it was on sale, but I never expected a discount that large. I could never buy the fabric and make anything nearly this nice for that price. I never thought I would find anything like this and I've never seen anything like it anyplace else in any of our stores in our city. I love Japanese and Chinese oriental type fabrics. Ever since I saw the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" and saw all those beautiful kimonos, I've been enamored of these types of prints. I even made a small kimono wallhanging recently.


I have some more fabrics to make a larger one later on when I can get in the mood. They are not really oriental fabrics, but they have Asian themes and will make a pretty kimono wallhanging.


Finding this kind of thing like this purse doesn't happen to me very often. Usually I will see someone with something really unique and cute and if they tell me where they got it, it's usually either a gift or they bought it several months ago. But, even if it was a recent purchase, I will go look for something similar they are usually all out, and of course you know they won't be getting any more.

I think I'm going back tomorrow.

More Tatting

I've been tatting alot lately. Mostly self-taught by following Barbara Foster's book. It's been fun and I've learned alot, but I'm sure there is much more that I don't know. For now, I'm happy tatting simple bookmarks and motifs. Here is a picture of what I've done so far.


I'm also excited about a new shop that's opened up in our shopping mall. It's called Folkheart. We don't have anything like it near us and I'm thrilled that it's opened up. I have to go in there at least once a week, if not more. I even had a thought that I might be able to pick up some extra hours by working a few hours on the weekend. I know I would enjoy it very much. I'm just not sure that I want to give up any days on the weekend right now, even though we could certainly use the extra money. I'll have to think about it. Of course, this is assuming that they need extra help, which more than likely they probably don't. But, if I have to work someplace this would be the type of place I would enjoy.

Here are just a few pictures of the inside of the store.

Tatting

I've been wanting to learn tatting for awhile now, but was afraid because it looked really complicated. I bought a couple of inexpensive shuttles and some thread and tried, but failed because I just couldn't get the hang of using a shuttle. Then I discovered needle tatting. I had heard that needle tatting was easier to learn and do than shuttle tatting.

There is a new store that opened up in the mall that has lots of handmade stuff and classes to learn how to do some of it. I found out that there is a needle tatting class. I talked to the teacher and told her I would think about it. I was still afraid to try it, even with a needle. The shop had a needle size 5-0 and some size 10 thread. I looked some stuff up on the Internet and found this really helpful site with clear instructions and diagrams. I worked up my nerve and went to the shop and bought the needle and some thread. I printed off the instructions and went home and tried it. I had a few setbacks at first, but I was determined to learn how to tat or know the reason why I couldn't. I discovered that there is also a book that is very helpful in learning tatting with some pictures and instructions. In fact, the same lady who has this web site is the same one who wrote the book. The book is titled Learn Needle Tatting Step-By-Step by Barbara Foster. It's on her web site. I paid $13.00 for my copy at the shop. Anyway, once I got the hang of the double stitch, which is the only stitch you have to learn in tatting, I decided to try the bookmark that is in the book and this is what I produced.


I went on to make a second bookmark using a peach colored variegated thread (DMC Pearl Cotton no. 5) and a medallion in white using DMC no. 5. I tried to take pictures of both projects so I could post them here, but my rechargeable batteries in my digital camera died. I put some regular batteries in and they lasted maybe a day and I didn't even take that many pictures. My camera must really pull on the battery power. I just hope it's the batteries and not my camera.

Anyway, I was really happy with what I made. It's not perfect, but I'm actually amazed that I was able to make it considering how insecure I felt before I started. Now I want to make some bookmarks for gifts and also some round wreath or medallions to put on some Christmas cards to send this year. There are examples of those in the book too.

When I get my camera battery issue straightened out I will post pictures of the other bookmark and wreath that I made.

Goodies

I always love finding treasures. I was in Hobby Lobby this week and they were having a sale on all of their yard art and things like that. I was browsing down the aisles and I found this cute box that I just love.


I bought it with the intention of putting my embroidery thread in it so that it would all be in one place. When I got home I realized that I have all of my embroidery thread and other embroidery items in a hatbox that I had bought awhile back. Now, I don't know what in the world to put in this pretty little blue box, but I couldn't pass it up, so I'm sure I'll think of something creative.

I also got in the mood to make a small music box with a hand crank. I found a cute little box for $1 at A.C. Moore and I found the music box mechanism at a local museum. It's called a Hurdy Gurdy music box. The picture of the music box from the outside came out well, but or some reason, the inside photo I took came out a little blurry, but you get the idea. I stained it with some Minwax and I think it came out fairly well. I still want to put a shiny finish on it.

Singer Featherweight 221 Sewing Machine

This morning I was looking at the current issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and saw an ad for some refurbished Singer Featherweight Sewing machines. It took me down memory lane when I remembered my mom's white Singer Featherweight machine. It looks just like the one in this picture. My mom bought it back in the 1960's and used it to sew everything. I also used it when I was in junior high school taking home ec classes and first learning to sew. It's the only sewing machine she ever had and she still has it and sews on it to this day. She's had to have it worked on 4 or 5 times, but after about 47 years, I guess that's pretty good.

I just love the machine and I told my mom that it was an antique and no matter what she did, to not get rid of it because I want it. I don't think she realized the value of it until I told her. It's just a working, functional machine for her. I'm so glad she has it. I'm sure we never expected it to be so valuable.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

I've been recovering for the past two weeks from some kind of food poisoning. I don't know for sure where I got it, but I have a pretty good idea. I think it was from a local BBQ stand. Anyway, it was miserable. I've never had anything like it before and I hope I never do again. I've been really careful since then what I put in my mouth. I don't want to overload my stomach, so I've been eating fairly bland foods and just sort of grazing all day rather than eating large amounts at 3 meals. I'm still paranoid and afraid I'll get sick again.

After that ordeal I didn't feel like doing anything. It was a whole week before I began to get my enthusiasm back for crafty projects. I was watching TV over the weekend and happened to land on a quilt show called Sewing With Nancy on my local PBS station. I only caught the end of the program, but it was about binding quilts and all the different ways you can do it. This episode featured instructions from her book and CD, The Quilter's Edge (which I ordered by the way). I saw a really pretty Prairie Point technique that I want to try sometime, but the one that I was really interested in was how to bind a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. There are all kinds of different ways to do it, but I was interested in her technique. It's hard to describe here but, hopefully, when I'm finished it will be obvious how I did it and I'll describe more at that time. I remembered a Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern that I had started last winter with the idea that I would make a queen size bed quilt. I really enjoyed the hand piecing, but knowing myself and how I tend to put projects down after awhile, I put it back in favor of another project. I guess I always knew in the back of my mind that I would never be able to finish a bed size quilt. Anyway, after seeing this episode of Sewing With Nancy, I decided to dig it back out and make a wall hanging out of it.


I really love this pattern and I enjoy sewing it. It's a bit tedious and cumbersome at times. You have to sew one side of the hexagon and then pivot to get the next one. It's not too bad at first, but when the quilt top starts to get larger, you have to man handle the thing, so to speak, to get it pivoted the way you want. I guess I like it because I can sit in the same room with Eddie and watch TV with him or talk to him. It's not only that, but I realize that more and more I like projects that I can do by hand, such as embroidery, hand sewing, quilting, etc. It's just nice and relaxing.

Dishcloths and Quilts

I've been working on several different things off and on lately. I don't seem to be attached to one thing. All along I've been working on knitting and crocheting dishcloths. I decided that since I had such a demand for them last year that I would start early and get several made ahead of time. Last year right before Christmas, while I was sick with the flu, I had a request for 12 at one time from someone who wanted to give some as Christmas gifts. I had run out previously and didn't feel like making more. Of course, I could have just told the person that I felt like death warmed over and wouldn't be able to do it, but I didn't really want to do that. I did manage to make 6 for the person, but I really felt like I shortchanged them. So, this year, hopefully, I'll be prepared for that or any other requests that might come up. I have many more than what is shown in this picture. I just couldn't fit them all in this basket.


I've been intrigued lately by landscape quilts and decided that I would try to make one. I borrowed a book from our library on making landscape quilts and last night I cut out some pieces and arranged this. I'm not quite sure if it really looks like a landscape quilt or if it's just pieces of fabric lying on top of each other. Maybe I've been looking at it too long. Today I'm going to decide how I want to sew it together.


I brought my digital camera with me this morning to take a picture of a quilted wall hanging that I made that I have hanging outside my office door.


Since I'm doing show and tell, I thought I would post this picture of a pineapple quilt that I made a couple of years ago for a friend. This is a technique that I learned at the American Quilter's Society quilt show in Nashville a couple of years ago. It's a workshop that I took with Donna Poster. It's her Foldy Stuff technique. This technique is really fun. The hardest part is getting all the fabric pieces cut out and preparing the muslin using her pattern, but once that's done, that's when the fun starts. I have already cut out enough pieces to make a two color wall hanging. I'm not sure when I'll get around to making it, but hopefully after Mother's Day things will settle down some and I can work on it.


And here's another one that I have hanging in my sewing room.

Beaded Book Thongs

I've been making beaded jewelry lately, like earrings and bracelets and I even made a couple of keyrings, but the thing I have found to be the most fun and quick to make are beaded bookmarks, or book thongs. I saw them for the first time in Books-A-Million one day at the checkout desk. I was so tempted to by one because they were so pretty, but then I realized that I have all kinds of beads, spacers, and other materials and that there is no reason in the world why I can't make them. I did an image search in Google and on Etsy and other places to get some ideas, went and bought some cord and got busy. So busy, in fact, that I made all of these. I showed them to some friends and said here is something else that I made that no one will want to buy. Pity party, pity party. One of my friends said that he works for a Christian organization and that if I would make some with religious or Christian charms he could sell them for me to them who might want them to give as gifts or to use themselves. It's a good idea, but I haven't been able to find a good source for nice religious charms. Not expensive ones because I can't afford that, but something that is nice and well made and at a price that I can afford. I need to keep my material cost low so that I can charge a reasonable price to buyers. I have so many of the book thongs now that I will never use them all, so I'm considering either putting them on my Etsy store or selling them some other way.

Groundhog Day

Ok, the scrolling problem was easily fixed by using the Mozilla Firefox browser. Well, now that everything seems to be working in my new version of Blogger as long as I use Mozilla Firefox browser, I think I'm going to try to post a picture of a groundhog we saw in our yard evening before last. I didn't take this picture, but it couldn't have been more accurate. This little fellow looks just like the one we saw.


I don't know if Mr. Groundhog saw his shadow, but he sure was munching on some clover and looked to be enjoying it immensely.

New Blogger Problems

This is a test post because when I change to the new version of Blogger I kept having problems logging in. Then I saw on the Help page that someone suggested using the Firefox browser. So, that's what I did and it worked! Now I'm going to try to post this and see if it works. The only problem is that I can't scroll down or page down, so I'm going to have to figure that out.

More Jewelry

I put some more jewelry in my Etsy shop. I really enjoyed making these cluster pieces. It was fun and I really like it. I can see me making many more of this type of thing.

Making Jewelry

I have been making lots of jewelry the last few weeks and I decided to list some of it in my Etsy shop. I thought I had my act together and had all my photos for everything I wanted to list, but realized I didn't have all my photos like I thought. I went ahead and put up a few things, but there is more to come later, hopefully, tomorrow.

I love making things and I don't know if anything will sell, but if it does then that's good too.

Jewelry

For the entire month of March I've been making earrings. I made all these fun earrings using a kit that a friend of mine gave to me for my birthday.



I even found some cool animal print glass beads and designed these earrings, which I love.



I seem to be infatuated with beads right now and it's has just been so much fun making the earrings. I have so many more that I couldn't possibly post pictures of them all here. Last weekend I went to all of the craft stores in my area, Hobby Lobby, Michaels, A.C. Moore and every time I went I found things I didn't see before. I even made an attempt to make some stretchy bracelets and they came out pretty well.







Now I'm ready to try some more challenging things. I really want to try to make a culster bracelet. Something similar to this picture I found on the Internet.



I would want more beads on mine, but not overwhelming. I have seen some of the pictures of cluster bracelets on the Internet and, to be honest, some of them are just overkill. There are so many beads on them that you can't really appreciate the beauty of the bracelet. The one above is actually very simple and elegant, but I might try to put a single pearl bead in between the darker ones.

I guess I must be obsessing with beads and jewelrymaking right now. It's just fun. Now I'm going to have to figure out a way to sell them. I'm probably going to put a few of them in an Etsy store. If I don't sell any there, I'll probably set up a display in the art gallery in Knoxville where my paintings are. I love making things, it's just in my nature to do that, and if I can sell some things in the process then it's even better. If not, well, then I'll just have an ample supply of Christmas gifts this year.

The Best Gifts

I've been in an earring making frenzy for the past week. I don't know what got me started except that I saw a great earring display at our campus bookstore. One of the employees there had a really nice display of her handcrafted earrings and bracelets for sale. I had made some earrings a couple of years ago and then just never got back to it. I had also made some bracelets, only to discover later that they drag on my keyboard and I can't wear them to work. But, low and behold, she also had some stretchy bracelets that she had made. I looked at those and thought that maybe I could take my bracelets apart that I had made and make stretchy ones out of them. Then they wouldn't drag on my keyboard and I could wear them.

As I was looking at the display I thought to myself that I can make the earrings and the bracelets too. I can set up a display in the art gallery in Knoxville where some of my paintings are. She had hers set up in a really eclectic display, which I really love, so I've been thinking about how I can set my up in a similar way.

I'm not a frou frou person. I don't wear alot of makeup or jewelry or flashy clothes. Just some foundation and powder and mascara and that's about it. I do love jewelry even though I don't wear that much of it either. Until about a year ago I never wore necklaces, but I always wore earrings for my pierced ears. I had tons of necklaces that people have given me over the years and I decided to start wearing them. For Christmas about 5 years ago Eddie bought me a beautiful diamond ring that I wear every day. I love it and it means so much to me because it was his idea to buy it for me and not mine. Those are the best gifts.