Change of Plans

Here is Alex at Memorial Stadium where we went to pick up his race packet. He might as well get a t-shirt out of it, right?

Remember a while back when I enthusiastically wrote about the half marathon I planned on running in April at my college campus? Well, I wasn't able to run it. My knee was bothering me - my Cortisone shot had worn off, and I couldn't get another one until after the date of the race. I was bummed for sure, but my son had started track and he decided to run it. Even better! I could go to my old campus in Bloomington, Indiana, and cheer him on! And I wouldn't even have to break a sweat.

So I signed him up and we planned our trip. Just me and him. But two days before we were to leave he learned that because he's on his high school track team, he would be ineligible to run in the race. There are rules about student athletes competing in races outside of school. So now we both were bummed. He would have done really well, too, because he'd been running 10-12 miles every day for track.

But we weren't deterred - we went anyway. We stayed for one night instead of two, but it was plenty of time for me to show him around my old campus and check out the race course. We had so much fun. The last time I had been to IU was when Alex was a toddler. Now he's a freshman in high school. Things definitely changed, but they also remained very much the same and so familiar.

This is Alex in front of the Sample Gates that lead to the heart of the campus, an obligatory photo spot. The race course went through the gates (see the sign in the back?).

And here are me and Alex about 12 years ago in front of the Sample Gates. He was much less fussy during his second visit (thank goodness).

This is a shot of the Von Lee, a movie theater when I was a student. It seems to have transformed into a noodles & company restaurant.

Right before we left I remembered to take Alex back to Bryan Park, a spot we had visited back when he was 2 because, well, he was 2 and we needed a park. When we got there, I took a quick picture of Alex on this dinosaur. Maybe we got a few strange looks from parents of toddlers at the park, but we didn't care.

Here's Alex at our last visit. His obsession with dinosaurs was just beginning, and I remember we thought we'd hit the jackpot when we saw this cement dino at the park.

We ate dinner at the Trojan Horse and breakfast at the Village Deli. And in between we walked all over campus. We visited my old dorm (totally updated!), Assembly Hall and Ernie Pyle Hall, where I studied journalism and worked for the school paper. I practically lived in that building. It felt good to go back and have a look around.

Before we left, I remembered that the Bloomington Handmade Market was the same weekend (quite a good coincidence), so we ventured on over there and walked around. The place was packed, and there were a lot of Etsy sellers and just so many talented artists. It was really wonderful. When we got to the table of Melissa Bryant of mywireempire, a print caught our eye:

Obviously, we had to have it. It was perfect. Gee, I wonder why . . .

And now the print hangs in our hall/kids' bathroom. It looks great!

Melissa Bryant makes amazing prints, and she's doing an animal a-z series. You can see more of her work at mywireempire.

On our way home, Alex took a few pictures of the wind turbines in Northwest Indiana. We had never seen them up close before, and boy are they huge! There is a long stretch of them and it feels like you will never pass them all. When we got home and I looked up mywireempire on Etsy to see Melissa's other prints, I found this one:

One of those cool coincidences, don't you think? Her print is called tiny paper cranes, and I just love it.

It was such a fun trip, and so nice to have the time alone with my boy.

I think I wore him out.

No Murrini Monday

That's right, I'm not going to do a Murrini Monday today because my pictures are so bad! I have some awesome murrini to show off, too, but my blurry photographs wouldn't do it justice. Once I get my photo issues cleared up, I will have a super-deluxe Murrini Monday.

In other news, I'm breaking up with ArtFire. I'm just not getting the attention I crave. I wanted this new relationship to work out, but I'm just not feeling it. Sure, there was the occasional bit of excitement. You know how it is in the beginning. But soon it began to fade. I was putting so much into the relationship, but I wasn't getting enough back. Call me needy, I can take it. I will keep the fire burning over at Etsy. ArtFire, I hope we can still be friends, just on a different level.

My ArtFire shop is currently open, but will likely close by the end of the month or whatever my last payment covered. So stop by for some deals, like the owls above.

Thanks, and Happy Monday!

Blurry Photos - Blame the Cat

That's right, I'm putting all the blame for my recent batch of blurry bead photographs on my cat, Bert. No, he didn't just jump on the table where I was taking pictures and shake things up, causing the photos to blur. It's not quite that simple. This cute little kitty bit through the cord on our camera remote. The camera remote allows me to take pictures of my beads without touching the camera and therefore moving it, thus keeping the camera steady and the pictures crystal clear. The remote is attached to the camera by a nice, thick cord, so no hands need to be on the camera when I take a bead picture.

So the other day my husband went to set up the camera and found the cord had been bitten right through. We knew right away it was Bert. He's done this sort of thing before.

These are the mini blinds in my daughters' room. He not only bit the cord completely off so we can't pull them open, but he has chewed through other spots of the cord, causing this pretty picture. He has bitten off the ends of pretty much every pull cord to all of our mini blinds. Now when we open them we have to hook the little stump of a cord over the top of the window frame so he doesn't chew off more.

But the fun doesn't stop at camera remotes and mini blinds - oh no! There's more! He has also bitten the cords on several pairs of ear buds. We all keep our iPods in drawers now to keep them protected from Bert. The problem for me is that I can't remember where exactly I hid my iPod. :(

Just the other day I took off a rubber cord necklace and put it on my dresser. Within seconds, Bert was on my dresser and with one swift bite he had severed the rubber cord in half. I couldn't have stopped him if I tried, he was so fast.

Does anyone else have this issue? Any remedies? Should I sleep with a squirt gun and be ready to shoot at a moment's pounce and bite? We've never had a cord-biting kitty before and he is driving us mad.

Of course, we love him to pieces. Pun intended.

Coupon Codes

I'm finally making use of the coupon code options in my Etsy and ArtFire shops. I did a coupon code a while back on Etsy, but only one buyer took advantage. So when I realized my Etsyversary (3 years selling on Etsy!) was last Saturday, I decided to celebrate with 20% off orders in my Etsy shop as well as my ArtFire shop.

For Etsy, use coupon code 3YEARS at checkout. The Etsy coupon expires tonight - April 27. These three Big Hole Beads are in my Etsy shop, in the Pandora section.

Mini Turtles in my Esty shop.

For ArtFire, use coupon code APRILSHOWERS (it has not stopped raining here in days!). The ArtFire coupon code is good through Friday, April 29. Gino the giraffe (above), is hanging out in my ArtFire shop.

Pinky the owl is also in my ArtFire shop, just waiting for a home. Who who will use the coupon code and snatch her up?

Happy Wednesday, and stay dry!

Happy Birthday Chunky!

Yesterday was our dog Chunky's 9th birthday. It was also National Pot Day, but we celebrated our dog instead. We had a cake that I under baked, so it was more like brownies with icing. Chunky got a rawhide bone.

I tried to take a picture of him with the bone, but every time I got close enough he'd take off down the hall. He must have thought I was after his rawhide. He was very possessive of it. So I got an action shot of him running back toward me (notice I didn't put the economy-sized toilet paper in the closet yet).

My husband got this shot of him and his bone. I guess he trusts him more than me.

Chunky did take a second to look up at our daughter when she tried to get in a picture. But then it was back to the bone. He gnawed on it until it was gone.

I think he had a good birthday.

Murrini Monday

I took a couple weeks off from Murrini Mondays, and also from blogging. It wasn't on purpose, it just happened. So let's not waste any more time - let's see some murrini!

I'm having a lot of fun putting murrini on the tops of turtle shells. This one is a really cool piece from lori and kim that I think has silver in it - I love it how it spreads out over the shell. I did not put clear over this murrini.

These mini turtles remind me of candy, like Lori's Candy Jacks beads. I topped each of these murrini slices with clear for a magnifying effect.

Plummi the elephant has found a perfect slice of murrini and she is not letting go. Not even for a peanut.

This murrini works well as decoration on a mushroom.

Dinosaurs like murrini, too! This one is sporting a gorgeous sunny slice to match his sunny personality.

All of the murrini in this week's edition of Murrini Monday is from lori and kim.

Happy Murrini Monday!

Dinosaur Roar

Recently made dinosaurs

When my son was little (he's 14 now), he was obsessed with dinosaurs. He could not get enough. We had countless dinosaur books, and his favorites were the ones that were fact-based. He liked me to quiz him on the different kinds of dinosaurs. Pachycephalosaurus and parasaurolophus were common words coming out his toddler mouth. I had never paid a whole lot of attention to dinosaurs, so I was learning along with him. His enthusiasm was contagious and his preschool teachers were quite impressed (and probably a little annoyed by his obsession with the dinosaur bin). He had a huge collection of dinosaurs and he named each and every one (names like Clammy, California Jim Johnson, Salty and Beanie). He kept track of their names and their species - Salty was a Saltasaurus, Clammy was a Euoplocephalus (yes, I had to look up how to spell them).

When I first started making animal beads, I made a few dinosaurs. I still have this one that stands guard under my computer:

I really liked this dino when I made it, and I was disappointed when it didn't sell. But now when I look at where I put the bead hole, well, it's pretty obvious why he's still here.

So now I've been giving dinos another shot, and I'm happy we still have my son's all-time favorite book The Big Book of Dinosaurs. It really helped me get some of the details down.

I know there will be lots more dinos coming out of my kiln, evolving and changing as I go. They're really fun to make.