Saturday - A Day of Recovery

I love the Holiday season for many reasons, and dislike it for as many. My reasons for dislike center around the long hours that I work, the hectic deadlines of getting gifts ready on time and shipped for others who have purchased items from me, and the family obligations when often I would rather crawl underneath a rock and escape to some solitude. The reasons for loving the Holiday season center around a celebration of the continuation of the progression of the year, the traditional foods that we prepare and eat at this time of the year, and the joy of watching someone that I love opening the perfect gift for them. Right now, looking at my bathroom scale, the dislike is outweighing the love by about 5 pounds. OOOK!

I had been doing really well at starting to lose this extra weight that I have been wanting to lose. Then my Honey Baked Spiral Cut Ham arrived, and my traditional Chex Mix was made, and the holiday cookies were purchased, and my "diet" or at least my "controlled eating" went to heck in a handbasket. I know I'll lose the weight again - it's just a setback that happened so quickly - within five days. So, my goal is to finish eating all of these wonderful things as quickly as possible (only one more week until New Year's and a new start to the calendrical year) and then I can get back on track.

At least the food doesn't affect my creativity - LOL. I won't be able to enamel this coming Wednesday because of time constraints for my end of the year requirements at the shop, but I am already looking forward to my first enamel day of January. I also got this wonderful new mini from Dark Sword Miniatures to paint - I need to get her cleaned, primed, and ready to go. I already know the color scheme that I want for her. So creativity goes on, despite other more mundane issues. Enjoy your weekend, take an hour to cut out a snowflake or color in a new coloring book.

Back to Real Life

Well, Christmas is over, the gifts are opened and Ooohed and AHHHed over, and the food and cookies have been eaten (with WAY too much food still waiting for it's turn). I finally got a chance to catch up on some sleep which was VERY appreciated. And I promise that I will take some photographs of what I made for my DH quite soon and show all of you how they turned out.

I had a wonderful day. It was pleasant to sleep in, wonderful to open gifts from friends and family, and generally I have items now that will keep me involved for the next year - books and DVDs. I'm already nose-deep in my first volume of the History of Middle Earth, so I'm very happy indeed.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas if that is the holiday that you celebrate. If your holiday is still on-going or upcoming, I wish you peace, love, and the joy of family on your own special day of giving. Mitakuye Oyasin (a Lakota blessing meaning "we are all related").

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Today is Christmas Eve. My list of errands is longer than my arm . I need to get a few last-minute gifts, hopefully I can combine a few of the stops so that I won't have to wait in too many lines for too long. I also have to do the last assembly on DH's major gift. I woke up praying to the Muse that my hands will be guided in this final part to the project so that all will go together well without ruining any of the parts I've worked on so far for so long. I have packages to mail, a few last Holiday cards to send, and I have to be back at the shop between 2pm and 3pm for our annual gift exchange. We usually give VerLaine a cash bonus - I'm honestly very unsure about whether we can afford that this year :-(

But, come 3pm and after we lock the doors to the shop, then I can relax because there is nothing more that I can do for this holiday. We'll go to TGIFriday's and celebrate the end of the holiday season with our friends out there. Then we'll go home, enjoy cheese and eggnog and Chex mix and Honey-Baked Ham and we'll have a lovely night and enjoy the opportunity to sleep in tomorrow morning for the first time since the beginning of November. I wish all of you reading my blog and sharing in my life a very happy holiday. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, keep the spirit of sharing and loving in your heart during this season and throughout the year.

One More Day - AACCKK!!!!

My Holiday cards are almost ready to mail - just less than 12 to go for personal messages and they will be sealed, stamped and mailed. My packages for Sharon, Poo and Maja will be mailed on Wednesday (they would have been mailed today but I forgot their addresses and my Palm at the shop overnight so I don't have the address sheet that I wanted to bring home with me after all - silly me!). At the last minute, we have decided to do an after-Christmas sale, so that's one more thing that I need to get going on. If we're not too busy at the shop today, I can probably get addresses entered into the Email database during the day. And I did find and purchase the single gift I am getting for my DH after a delightful dinner with Michelle (thanks for a fun evening, girlfriend!!) last evening. I'm hanging onto the receipt - this one may end up being returned or exchanged.



So, in my own stumbling way, I guess I'm slowly getting there. But not entirely. Wednesday will be EXTREMELY hectic. I need to get the gift card for my Father-in-law, pick up the Honey Baked Ham (mmmmmmmm - yummy!!), finish and wrap DH's medallion gifts, get the certificates that I am giving him all assembled and packed, and still be at the store no later than 2:30 so that we can do our own gift exchange before we close for Christmas. Just too much to do, but I'll be able to sleep in on Christmas morning. That will be a Christmas gift that I relish receiving :-))

Photography and Gifts

I've been trying to be very good about keeping a photographic record of each item that I make before shipping it out. Last night I spent several hours photographing the holiday gifts that I have made as well as "Kinetic", the earrings that I was having such a hard time with earlier this Fall. I'm not going to share the holiday gifts until later this week - don't want to spoil the surprises if the recipients read my blog. But here's what Kinetic turned out like.



The top stones are pear-shaped peridot CZ's, set in copper. There are two small tube-set orange garnets at the top of the peridot. Then there is a shield-shaped piece of bronze clay that swings freely below the peridot which has a small, tube-set peridot piece at the "V"'s internal base. These were quite a challenge for me - a very hard thing to make. It was my first bearing bezel and then I added the bronz clay pieces, which I am finding hates solder. But I'm happy with the end result. I don't think it's at a level of expertise that I would consider putting up for sale, and I would have to charge WAY too much for the pair because of all the time it took to make them. So these are mine. It could be worse :-) Good Yule to everyone!