About this blog

The original intention of this blog was to help promote my handcrafted jewelry and beading supplies. However, I believe I lead an interesting life (which Dave gets a lot of credit for), so you will often find ramblings about things other than beads and jewelry! Hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy living it!!!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A Word about Friendship

I received the following text message from my sister-in-law regarding friendship and it gave me such a giggle that I just have to share it:

"Friendship is like peeing in your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its true warmth. Thanks for being the pee in my pants!"

Monday, April 20, 2009

Where did the Weekend Go?

I can't believe this last weekend went by so fast! I had so many things on my to do list and wasn't able to get one of them crossed off. It wasn't for lack of trying, it was just that so many other things came up. Needless to say, Dave and I accomplished alot, just not the things I had planned.

We did manage to get the motorcycles out for a long ride on Sunday morning. The weather was so nice. We decided to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. There happens to be one about 20 miles from the house...but that's not the one we went to. We rode to the one about 90 miles away! We took the scenic route there and I actually saw two bald eagles sitting atop an electrical pole. On the way home, we took I-95 to make the trip a little quicker.

I'm just amazed sometimes at how quickly the time passes. I often find myself on Mondays wishing for the weekend to get here as quickly as possible, and then I realize, I'm wishing my life away! I really need to stop doing that! Seems like we were just celebrating New Year's and now it's almost May!

Friday, April 10, 2009

I've Created an Etsy Treasury

I have created my second Etsy Treasury. In this one, I have featured some fellow Etsians and jewelry artists who are also followers of my blog. Some might think it unusual that I am promoting other jewelry artists, but I think of it as good karma...what comes around goes around! You can check out the treasury by clicking the following link:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=51670

For those of you I have featured in the treasury, I would love to know if you see any increase in traffic and/or sales!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

I Joined Flickr

I joined Flickr last night. It was relatively easy. The only think I don't like is that I can't rearrange the photos as they appear in the photostream. The help says you can adjust the upload date, but I have only been able to find where to edit the date taken. Well, it's a start! I have noticed many jewelry artists, and artists in general are posting photos there. It will be interesting to see if the traffic on my other sites increases. I haven't joined any groups yet, but will look to do that soon, but probably not tonight. I have to file my taxes!!!

You can check out my photos at www.flickr.com/photos/shellysstuffjewelry

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Quick Post

Just a quick post for now as I it seems like I have a hundred different things going on! But that's a good think...keeping my hands busy keeps me from putting food in my mouth (I tend to eat out of boredom or lack of anything better to do)!

I accomplished the goals I had set for myself Thursday so I was happy for that. And Dara was happy I finally finished her bracelet! I am 9 days into forming my exercise habit and things are going well. I've worked out on 7 of those 9 days so that's something else I'm happy about.

Yesterday was busy!!! The local preserve, Grassy Waters Preserve held it's annual native plant and tree sale. The soil/dirt in our yard isn't the best (the builders never give you the good stuff when they build a house) and it seems we sometimes have a hard time growing anything but weeds! We decided trying some native plants might give us the help we need as the native stuff will be a little more tolerant of the sandy soil. The sale itself was a lot of fun because of the way they do it. The plants and trees are donated, so there is a limited supply, and the prices are pretty good. The sale started at 9:00am, and you could only browse prior to that. Well, at 9:00am, they yell "go" and everyone runs out and grabs what they can. Dave and I had pretty much decided what we wanted. He ran over and grabbed the trees (two royal palms, a red maple and a gumbo limbo) and I grabbed the plants (I couldn't even tell you the names but they all attract butterflies) and some grasses (dwarf faxahatchee...very, very low maintenance).

After that we headed to the airport to pick up a friend's car. They charge way too much in the airport lot, so we picked up the car and brought it back to the house, and will drop it back off in the lot the day she comes back in. Then to Harbor Freight Tools...Dave loves that place and I'm starting to grow fond of it myself. Dave picked up some small stuff, and I found a dapping/doming set which I can't wait to start experimenting with later today. All the pieces are really oily, so I have some clean up to do first. We picked up some lunch and went to Home Depot for a few other things. Once we got home, we moved on to planting most of the stuff we bought. Actually, Dave mowed the lawn and I started digging the holes. I was able to get all of the plants in, one of the red oleanders we picked up at Home Depot and 3 of the grasses. Then Dave saved me and dug the holes for the other 2 grasses. We had previously had some "fill dirt" brought in after the house was built to help with the slope around the house pad (in the area I live in there is a county code that requires your house to be built high enough above street level so that if it rained for 30 days and 30 nights the house wouldn't flood!) Needless to say a few of the loads we had brought in were horrible...like there was cement in them. Anyway, that's what we were digging through yesterday to try to get some of the stuff planted. I'm definitely feeling it in my upper body this morning.

And here I've started to ramble again when this was supposed to be a quick post. I'm off to tackle the hundred other things going on!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Goals for Tonight

My goals for tonight when I get home from work are:

  1. 30 minutes of cardio (I was way too tired to get up early enough to squeeze it in this morning)
  2. Finish Dara's bracelet
  3. Take pictures of the bead strands I sorted through last night and post the listings on Etsy

These were actually my goals for last night, too but I didn't get very far. Dave and I had to run an errand after work and when we got home I remembered it was UFC Fight Night. We very rarely miss a UFC or WEC event. I love mixed martial arts! If MMA had been this popular 10 years ago and there were more gyms around, I would definitely be a fighter (Dave, too!). Some people think it's kind of barbaric, but I'm so amazed by what the body can withstand! In any case, I was glad to see Cole Miller and Tyson Griffin win their fights. The UFC did a nice tribute to Charles "Mask" Lewis, the co-founder of Tapout, who died recently in a car accident. This guy is an inspiration. Anyone who owns a small business, or has a dream should check out the website and read his story.