Back To the Salt Mines

I'm not sure where the saying "Back to the salt mines" comes from. My mother said it often, so I guess I picked it up from her. Maybe it was a European saying that she grew up hearing? It's an odd thing to say when it just means that you're returning to the daily grind once again, but today is Monday and I'm back to my personal salt mines.

Why would anyone want to return to this? Here's a photo from 1893 in a salt
mine from the Library of Congress archives. 

The rock show yesterday was great fun. The weather was warm and sunny - jacket comfortable - so DH spent a lot of time (and some serious money) with the outdoor vendors. I spent my funds there too, as well as some that he lent to me. We met up with Chickie and Chickie Mama for a little bit while working through the interior vendor spaces, but the outdoors called our names once again and back out we went for another group of stones. DH found some real beauties. My search had a different focus because I use stone in much smaller projects, but I found some lovely smaller pieces that were perfect.

Here's a nice photo of a variety of Jaspers from around the world. I've seen
most of these at one time or another. I adore Jaspers, even though my state
is more famous for its Agates. 

After returning home and watching his football game, we began cutting down some very large sheets of wood into the widths and lengths he needed for his latest project. This entailed a lot more work than we had originally thought - requiring a total reset of his fancy saw. Pulling it away from the wall to adjust it required a major clean, so we were working on this project for more than three hours between six cuts on the wood and cleaning that portion of the garage before returning the equipment back to position. It really needed it, but what a job!

Our pile of sawdust wasn't this huge, but it was still quite a large pile that
we cleaned up. We use sawdust for traction in the winter as well as in
my jewelry work, so we didn't throw all of it away, but we boxed up
what we'll keep and tossed the rest. Good mulch! 

The Bead Shops Hop is over - our numbers were down, but we had a chance to meet some new customers and we had a good time, so I guess it was a win. It will be nice to award the door prizes and get my cabinet display back to normal. Time to return my focus to my holiday cards. Oh happy me!

Have a great Monday! I'm off to the pool.