Things I think while thinking.

A seed bead artist with no needles is like a surgeon with no hands.

A surgeon with no hands is like an angel without wings.

An angel without wings is like a person who hasn't died yet.

A person who hasn't died yet is like me.

Barely.

I can't say the thought, or even the desire, hasn't occurred to me over the last few days.   I stood in the shower this morning thankful that I could be vertical long enough to take one, because y'all....Pee You.  I couldn't smell a jalapeno right now if you shoved one up my nose, but I could smell the stench of sick all over myself.  Afterward I spritzed on a tiny bit of cologne and I'm assuming it smells nothing like Eau De Barfume.  You're welcome, housemates.

There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, and when I get to it I am going to eat a cheeseburger french fry pizza topped off with a lasagna BLT because mama is hungry, yo.

~~

I made myself some beads last week for my Halloween escapades this year~  Glow in the dark glass with a wicked WOW factor.  If I wasn't feverish (and ignorant about my camera) (and too feverish to read up about my camera)  I'd show ya the Dark Side.  For now I'll just show you the raw side, and then I'm going back to bed.

~~

PS.  Thank you for the lists in comments yesterday.   Y'all're stellar.

Happy Places

1.  Jammies.
2.  Sleep.
3.  Sundae Cones.
4.  Chelsea kisses.
5.  Puffs Plus with Aloe.


Please share yours, k?  I need a reminder that there is life outside of dying, which is exactly how this sick feels.

~~

Denial.

1.  SoA is not committing an unforgivable sin this season by confirming itself to be exactly the kind of stereotypical show that I had originally assumed and expected it would be.

2.  I am not at all sick.  In fact, the fever that I do not have does not exist.

3.  Election years are fun.

4.  Santa exists.

5.  My fat jeans aren't tight.

~~

Del Sol Nuggets

Del Sol Rounds

Studiojuls.com

~~

Sunday Beads

Bohemian Rhapsody

Shades of Fall

Rip Tide

Studiojuls.com

~~

Bead Bowl Clean Out Specials

Colorwheel Brights

Arabesque

~~

New Sets

Black and White Sampler

Magic Carpet Ride

Safari Glam

Studiojuls.com

That Google~ he sure is funny.

~~

If anyone needs me I'll just be over here gettin' my EMO on 

while hating everything and glaring at nothing.

~~

Got Christmas?

It'll be here

 Kuh Wick!

Sets newly listed at

Studiojuls

~~

PS.
I'm fighting the sick

so I hope you covered your mouth

when you came in.

~~

New Sets in the shop!

www.studiojuls.com

Brain Spillage.

It's been a while since I've written random, and while I've made several mental notes of the crazy to write about those mental notes didn't involve ink or paper or apparently my memory so I guess those stories win at hide and seek.  

So.  Walmart.  K?

Laundry Soap, toothpaste, cat litter, blah blah blah, ink cartridge, bubble wrap, printer paper, yadda yadda...all the stuff you have to buy if you are self employed and would rather not smell like the totally vegan hipsters that travel with Phish and line the entrance to a concert selling all natural this's and thats.

('m an on again off again vegetarian hippy who loves Widespread Panic as much as the next hemp wearing dread having on again off again vegetarian hippy...except without the hemp...or the dreads....so my aim here is not to offend...but please, for the love of noses everywhere, make the exception and slap on some chemically enhanced deoderant.   Please.)

Anyway.  Walmart.  Stuff you have to have that isn't fun to buy.  I had a cart full of it.  One of my housemates was with me and reminded me that we needed ice trays which is why I found this really cool thing that other lampworkers have talked about for storing stringers but I've never thought to look for because who goes to walmart specifically for ice trays other than my housemate?

I present you with a vision of  happy worth way more than $4.99.

~~

Politics.

In the last couple of weeks I've had to Unsubscribe to news feeds from a few people on Facebook.  Not because I don't agree with their opinions, but because either 1) their candidate is all they post about all day every day and a girl should never see so many photos or Romney or Obama that they start showing up during her unwaking hours because ew  or 2) Saying "one love" at the beginning of a post in which one then harangues the other half of the population as mindless idiots probably (does) sort of (totally) offend the other half of the population.  It makes me feel a little bit bitchy to unsubscribe, but I then do respect one's right say what he/she wants to say on his/her own wall almost as much as I respect my right to not have to read it.

~~

Little Debbie's Nutty Bars.

I bought a box of 6 three days ago gave one away and have one left and I'm not going to punctuate this sentence with the commas it actually requires because I'm in denial and I think it is going to rain today which is a good thing because I most certainly do not need to be bikini clad and floating in the pool with a belly that now impossibly sticks out so much further than my boobs that when I look in the mirror I'm asking my own reflection when the baby is due.  Basically LDNbars are the Debbil.

~~

I finished up a custom order yesterday.

Today I think I'll waddle on over

to my other creative nook 

and play with some seed beads.

Then maybe tomorrow

I'll join a gym.

~~

Newbies

Tempest

$20

Jungle Love

$22

Winter Blues

$24

Ruby Raku

$14

Raku Petals

$14

www.studiojuls.com

~~

Here are a few from

another custom order for RCBD.

Pretty, except for that whole

waiting to be cleaned part.

~~

I went to Walmart and spent $200 this morning, but I'm not going to whine because...

It's Friday.  Which means I have to go float in that pool I told you about.  Well not that I have to.  But I'm going to.  Because it's Friday.  And well, I can't seem to write beyond choppy non sentence sentences.  Let's blame Friday for that one, too.  K?

Snowy Mountain Sky

Plum Surprise

Crown Jewels

Lagoon

www.studiojuls.com

~~

Thanks for being part of it.

Y'all rock.

Happy Shiny Feelgood Pretties!

Carribbean Sea Nuggets

Wild Orchid Nuggets

Rainforest Nuggets

Pacific Blue Nuggets

Coral Surprise Nuggets

Purplicious Nuggets

10 sparkle beads

in a set. 

$20

www.studiojuls.com 

Refining fires have exits, you know.

I belong to an online glass forum which for the sake of the positive aspects and people who also belong to it will remain nameless in this post.    For the most part it is an excellent community, and this story is about a specific incident.

I am pretty private about my faith.  Not that anyone who knows me doesn't know I'm Christian~ I just don't happen to be frequently vocal without invitation for reasons which extend back to my childhood and would probably bore your socks off.   And yet...

A couple of years ago I posted on the forum on Easter morning.  I was feeling overwhelmingly grateful and full of the spirit and simply felt led to share it.  To celebrate the life of Christ and the gift of salvation made possible through His death.....but mostly the joy of knowing He loves us all, every single one, no matter what or who or where or when.

About 5 seconds after I clicked "post" that train derailed and went straight to Hell, y'all.   I'm talking downright nasty.  Rude.  Insulting.  Judgmental.    I kind of sat there stunned before closing the window and walking away permanently.  I learned later that it turned into SIXTEEN pages of ugly.  Sixteen pages in which I was drug through the mud (and defended), other people were drug through the mud (and defended), and the very idea of faith in a higher being of any kind of was drug through the mud (and defended).

Except for the gallery sections I ceased visiting that forum that very day.

A couple of weeks ago a fellow lampworker approached me on FB and asked if I would be interested in taking over one of her regular clients.  She has some medical issues paired with too many wholesale customers and just felt the need to let one go.  I agreed to do the huge looming order with a right now deadline, but I was really curious what made her think of me...a virtual stranger...when there are so many talented lampworkers out there...some of which she must know much better online or even in person.

When she told me it was because of my post that Easter morning 2+ years ago I was stunned.  And then I thought over the last 2 years and how much I struggled and how hard it all was and how now I am in such a better place but it took losing (letting go of) my house (and all the things I though I was supposed to have and do) and coming to terms with loss and fear and letting them go too...and what I was left with is the realization that it was all, every little stumble, just another step on the path to God's plan for my life.  And right now I am sitting here typing this with goosebumps because if you've experienced it you know why and if you haven't let me know so I can put you on my forever prayer list because everyone should know how incredible this feeling is.

And that's the story of how I started working with Rachel's Cure by Design....an organization I can totally get behind wholeheartedly in body and spirit.  Yay, God!

So my first huge custom order in a few years was huge and when the hugeness was completed I was so hugely excited and exhausted that I wrapped that baby in a huge box and shipped it with a hugeness WITHOUT TAKING PICTURES OF THE 1186 FINISHED BEADS that I made within 8 days.

I know.  I'm kicking my own butt.  But I did take a progress pic one night along with a pic of my midnight torch table complete with an old VHS/TV set I moved within view to entertain me on an all night torchfest.

and then I died or maybe just slept for 42 hours of the following 36.

~~

Follow your callings 

wherever they lead,

however hard they are,

because you never know

what's waiting for you

down the line.

Especially with God on your side.

~~