Catching Up

So, again, it's been a long time since I posted and there's been a lot going on. First we had a bad storm that they're now calling "Superstorm Sandy". You all know how horrible it was in the north east, so I won't complain too much about the snow that we got. It was too early and that's my only complaint. I got about 4 inches here on the east side of the county, but the west side got a lot, with high drifts. The wind was scary and I prepared for a power outage, but that didn't happen.

Here's a delightful "small world" story for you. Last June I met fellow jewelry artist Donna Whiteside at the PMC Conference in Cincinnati and after the conference we Facebook "friended" each other. Earlier this week she posted that she was camping near Boone, NC. I posted that she was near me and to contact me if she wanted a list of fun things to do. Then another friend of Donna's, Jeanne, piped up and we discovered that Jeanne has known my friend Brenda (who also lives here) for 30 years. So this morning  Brenda and I met Donna and her wife, Linda for coffee and talked to Jeanne on the phone. How cool is that? Wasn't there a movie, Six Degrees of Seperation, that said that everyone is just six steps away from knowing every other person in the world?

Linda, Donna, Me and Brenda

I finished teaching my last class this week. It was bittersweet, but I know I made the right decision to stop teaching, at least through the University. I have a group of women coming in January for private lessons here in my studio and a couple of the students from this last class said they might be interested in individual instruction. That's the way to go for me if I want to make any money at it.

Since I had to fire student work every week I actually got quite a bit of my own work done. I made four more pendants in my flower series, three with glass and one with an opal. I don't know why I love making these little suckers, but I do.

And a few others, to boot. Upper left has a pink sapphire, which didn't turn out so great in the picture. Upper right has a blue topaz. Lower left has a black onyx bullet and I think this would look good on a man. Lower right has a lab ruby and my mixed texture.

I didn't post much about the election here, or on Facebook, because it's all so exhausting to me and I'm horrified by our country's lack of control over campaigns. But, I will say that I am over the moon that we are keeping Barack Obama for four more years. It's great to have a smart, kind and compassionate man running the country.

I have a trunk show coming up in a few weeks, so those of you in Charlotte be on the lookout for details on that. I think that over the next few days I'm going to be on this computer a lot. I need to edit photos and get the ole Etsy Shop ramped up for the holidays. I've decided to sign up to take gift cards and for the direct pay option. We'll see if that helps sales.

I hope y'all are having a great day and I'll try not to be away so long again.