gross, but also kind of fascinating

Oh my goodness. What a crazy week. Here are the highlights:

Monday: I did end up cleaning house all day.

Tuesday: I worked on earrings all day.

Wednesday: Took Melissa out for lunch to celebrate her birthday since I'd missed it while I was in May. Afterward, we walked through some of the 2nd Street stores. I was so amazed at my first visit to Eliza Page. What a beautiful jewelry store! We also found an Art-O-Mat at the back of a super neat store called Mercury. Art-O-Mats make me so happy. I got Melissa a token for her birthday and she got some really cool bottle cap art.

Thursday: Dropped off jewelry at Parts & Labour. That night I went to the Babes in Biz meeting and had a good time catching up with friends. I enjoyed talking jewelry with Lisa C and Marisa! Also, during the day I got a wholesale order. Hooray!

Friday: I had a massage in the morning which was so awesome! I had to go to the doctor in the afternoon because my ear had been clogged up all week and was starting to hurt. They irrigated it (I know, gross, but also kind of fascinating) and it feels much better now. It is nice to be able to hear again. Damn allergies! It had me feeling a little confused and dizzy the rest of the afternoon. That water rushing through your ear throws off your equilibrium. Friday night we went to see the opening of an exhibit at the Texas museum with our friends Lisa, Dixie and Clint. It was really fun and I found stuff to be inspired by. I put some pics on Flickr. We had a nice dinner afterward at Vivo's and I really enjoyed the good conversation. And to top off the nice evening, I came home to another wholesale order. Two in one week - whoa!

Over the weekend I ran family errands and played some serious Mom taxi. Forest was hanging out with some friends who spent the night on Friday and they kept wanting a ride here and there all day Friday and Saturday. I think I understand how it works now - you have to drive your kid around so much that when it comes time for them to have their own license you are like glad to let them go in their own car! Maybe? We'll see how I feel about it in six months, right? But, man these kids are resourceful! They managed to get on the bus and have an adventure downtown. They call it a quest. My kid is really growing up. He said it was the most fun weekend ever. His friends said "your parents are cool."

Man, it was just kind of a crazy week and it was hard to fit in all the work I needed to get done. I had a serious talk with myself on Saturday and realized that I really have to start being more organized during the week! I know I always say that. But, I have some small projects I am trying to do within my business to move it forward and I really can't let myself get sidetracked by other projects. I already have such limited amount of time to devote to my business projects that if I piled anything on top, they would surely just fade into the background. I feel bad about letting a friend down this week but sometimes things happen so fast and you feel pressured to make a commitment before you've even had a chance to think about what it will mean for you. I had to make a decision based on what is right for me. Anyway, I have apologized and now I just have to move on from it.

Oh! And one exciting thing is that I got use the design area of my office over the weekend - I had set up my storage area so that there would be space in front for laying out ideas. Sometimes when I am going through my supplies looking for something I will just see two things together and come up with new ideas from it. I wanted to lay my office out in such a way that I would have a place to put these ideas out so that I can walk by them several times to see if they still seem like a good idea a few days later. So, I am really excited to make that happen!

Okay, I am going to go swimming with my family today and tonight I am meeting up with Sarah for yoga. I am going to relax and meditate on a very productive week coming up. Tuesday I start back up with jewelry classes. Yay!

Fun Weekend

It was a very fun weekend! A friend came by with a box of vintage jewelry for me to take a look at on Friday. It was all great stuff so I just made a deal for the whole box. Can't wait to start making stuff with it. That night James had heard about this group called Strings Attached playing the White Album at a church downtown so we went to that on Friday night. The music was amazing and it was a great opportunity to hear Austin musicians that I might never have heard of otherwise. We looked a bunch of them up on Saturday and hope to get out to see more local music.

On Saturday I was finally able to sleep in for the first time in ages! I slept until 11. Oh glory! Lately I can't sleep past 9 on the weekends. Forest and I went shopping for clothes for him in the afternoon. When he asked for some new clothes I was like, how much money are you asking to spend so he came up with an amount and when we went to the store, he pretty much stayed within that budget and got a lot of clothes. We were trying to be aware of where the clothes were made. I recently watched that walmart documentary and don't want to buy anything made in China anymore. I know there are bad conditions in other places but you have to start somewhere with being a better consumer. So, there was this one pair of pants I was thinking of buying for myself but when we looked at the label they were made in China so Forest was like "are you going to be a superhero?" and I decided to put them back. He gave me a high-five. But, here is the super great news! The pants were a size 16. I haven't gotten my ass into that size in many years so I was thinking of buying them for myself just as a little reward. It's cool though, just knowing I have lost down a few sizes is reward enough.

Saturday night Adam and Victoria came over to hang out. I got food from Marakesh downtown and we had a good time drinking wine and talking about how old we are getting.

Sunday I worked on updating my website and making a line sheet for my jewelry. I chauffeured Forest and his girlfriend on their date in the afternoon. They went to Kerbey Lane for lunch and then to a movie. I goofed off at the local bead shop while they were eating and found some fun little beads for earrings.

This morning I had coffee with Kristin and now I am looking at what to do next. Do I go to the gym, clean my house or just blow all that off and make jewelry? Decisions, decisions.

recycling computers & funny kid

Yesterday we loaded up all the stray computers James has taken in and took them to Whole Foods because a company called EWS (E-waste Solutions) was there recycling old electronics. It took three carloads! He had the shed in the back yard full of them. Yay, these computers won't go in the landfill and contaminate ground water! The guy there told us that one cell phone can contaminate 40,000 gallons of drinking water. Crazy!

Then we went to Curra's for margaritas and mole enchiladas. Yum. Our drunken conversation(on my end at least - man you can't eat like a bird all day and then expect not to get drunk from one margarita on an empty stomach!) produced the idea that I should consider going back to school to get a graduate degree in design. Okay, I am considering it in the back of my mind. Far far back. School is not far enough in the past for me to be okay with going back yet. It was hard for me!

Then I organized my work desk. I am taking a picture for posterity because it will be a huge mess within a week. Bet me.

I got my issue of Bust and my ad looks great even if this picture does not! I am so excited!! Melissa did such a good job!

In conclusion, my kid is funny. Look what he made on his computer. Where does he get his fantastic sense of humor?

Studio Progress, if you can call it that.

I worked really hard today to get my office organized. I really need to get back to work on my little business so I had to get it back to some kind of working order. The storage table is makeshift until I can find something I like and the bookcase still needs to be finished but it is good enough for now!

It's possible I have too much junk. I have been trying to throw stuff out but even just the stuff I need around is hard to organize. It doesn't come easy for me folks. I have to say though that all this cleaning is making me look around at all the crap I keep in my kitchen and don't use. When am I ever going to use brandy glasses? I feel another Spring Cleaning coming on. G'night!

I am home!

Mom got a good report at her doctor on Monday so I stayed just a couple of extra days to make sure she was alright. I came home Wednesday night. I was pretty tired from the previous 10 days so I spent the next two days being a vegetable and reconnecting with my family. Saw Victoria for coffee on Thursday. Had a massage on Friday morning. Friday night James, Forest and I all went out for sushi at the neighborhood sushi joint. Saturday James and I went grocery shopping and also looked around for a new table for my office. No luck. There were some cool old doors at the Habitat Restore. I considered making one of those into a table but I am going to keep using the foldout for now and hold out for the perfect table. After that we all went outside and jumped on the trampoline. Then, James and I went to see MI3 - a pretty exciting movie. Today we had my mother-in-law over for a mother's day lunch and then we all went to see Poseiden. It has been a big weekend for action movies in my house.

Tomorrow I will get back to the gym. I did get to work out with my brother a few times at the high school weight room but overall I didn't really get enough exercise over the last two weeks. The good news is that I kept my weight down at 192 so I will be picking up where I left off. I will also be starting back up with the trainer this week. Hooray!

I really appreciate all the nice emails and comments regarding my mom. I feel really fortunate to have such amazing and caring friends.

Now I am going to try to whip this junky office into shape!

Oh, and here is something kind of creepy. Here is a one-of-a-kind necklace I made about a year ago:


And here is something I saw in a magazine last week:

I'm just sayin! It's weird.

My mom's surgery

We got up on Monday morning at 4 a.m. to go to Abilene where my mom had her surgery. She was in surgery for three hours. I waited in the lobby with my dad, and an aunt and uncle who had come to be supportive. After surgery, she was in a recovery room for one and a half hours before we could see her. We camped out at her room waiting. She was so sick from the anesthesia and pain medicine for the entire rest of the day. She had trouble talking and saying what she meant. She got sick a lot. I had to keep putting cool wet wash cloths on her head. I spent Monday night at my aunt and uncle's house and my dad stayed in the room with her. They put an oxygen measuring machine on her which would beep every time her oxygen would get down below a certain point which kept her from sleeping. When I got there Tuesday morning, she was afraid to take anymore prescription pain medication because it had made her so sick. Imagine being in so much pain and being nauseous - the worst. She said the pain felt like the worst menstrual cramps she had ever had. So, she just tried to take Tylenol and the pain came back really hard. They finally figured out to give her anti-nausea medicine 10 minutes before giving her the pain medicine. That seemed to help a lot but she still couldn't hold any food down for the rest of that day. She was much more coherent though than the day before. I stayed in the room with her that night sleeping in a reclining chair. They let her come home on Wednesday. The ride home was extremely uncomfortable for her. The doctor is making her keep a catheter in until next week. So, now she is home. She has a bed in the living room and is not supposed to do any lifting, driving or strenuous activities for a few weeks. My job is to watch over her and get her whatever she needs and to make her comfortable. The hardest part of my job is to keep her from doing anything that might hurt her. My mom is a go-getter. She always thinks she can just do whatever she wants to. She is a very strong woman and not used to having to ask anyone to do anything for her. This morning I walked around the corner to find her with a brush in hand scrubbing around the base of the sink in the bathroom. Crazy! She just likes to be busy and taking care of what needs to be done and I supposed that is a very hard habit to break. She just saw that that area needed to be cleaned and thought "I will just do that real quick."

I am so tired! I have not been getting very much sleep and I am constantly running to get her something or make sure she doesn't try to shove a table over or move a plant. I am also just a little emotionally exhausted from watching her go through this process. I love my mother so much and I really admire what a strong person she is. It is also neat to see how my dad wants to take care of her and comfort her. One night in the hospital while she was walking around the room with my dad's help I looked over and saw him just holding her while she rested standing up and I thought, "that is real love."

Today she had a very good day. The pain level has dropped some but she still needs to take a little pain medicine. We walked around outside and looked at all her flowers and I moved pots around for her. She mostly rested today - and tried to clean the bathroom floor.

One very cool experience I had over the last few days was staying the night with my aunt and uncle. They have a little farm outside of Abilene where they have horses and goats. He had a goat that had lost her baby but still had a full sack of milk. The baby had been killed by a coyote. My uncle had a friend who had a goat who had stopped feeding her babies so they were having to be bottlefed. My uncle had an idea to "graft" one of the babies onto the mother to nurse. We picked up the baby goat on the way home. The next part is amazing and a little gory. My uncle skinned the dead baby goat and put the skin on the back of the baby goat we had just picked and put him in a pen with the mother. The mother goat smelled her own baby's scent on this other baby goat and they bonded. Isn't that neat? My uncle is a retired ag teacher so he know so much about animals. I really enjoyed spending time with him and my aunt. They are the ones who went to Africa last summer. They are such neat people.

I am not sure how much longer I will be here. I just really want to make sure my mom is okay before I go home. Sooner or later she is going to get sick of me bossing her around and send me packing!

PS: In case you look at my flickr account and wonder what the hell I am doing messing with that bird's nest, here is the story. My dad had to cut down a dead tree and the bird's nest fell out of it. They saved the nest for me to see.