Peace

The dishes are washed.
Father's Day lunch has been pre-made. (Crockpot beans, Shredded chicken with chili verde cilantro sauce)
The laundry is started.
The towels are folded.
I exercised for 40 minutes.
The house is clean.
The a/c is on.
The balcony door is wide open.
The fresh, summer night air is rushing through. (with a/c) <-- I love this combo!
My feet are freshly manicured.
The fireworks are lighting up the sky from the stadium across the street.

Hermione just got Professor Lockhart to sign a note of permission to check out Moste Potente Potions from the Restricted Section of the library and now Harry, Hermione and Ron are on their way to the library! Shh!

It's quiet, peaceful Virgo time!

Mother & Daughter

Mom's House

I had a day free today so I decided to visit my mom and keep her company. We had a day of scrapbooking and jewelry making. The dogs kept us company and Mike worked on his barbecue hut outside by the pool.

My mom had a Vegas theme going on for her scrapbook. She is holding up the page she was working on which is a pic of me playing the slots in Vegas, and my sister standing by a sign that says No One Under 21 Allowed. I'm holding up the wire wrapped aqua bubble bracelet pictured close up, below. I didn't have my clasps with me, so I have to add that tonight to make it a full bracelet.

The item on the top of my mat is like the lotus pendants pictured yesterday, except I've made this lotus a ring. My intention was to use a crystal in the middle like the pendants but the encasement ended up being too small so I had to resort to a green, squarish glass bead. What do you think? The other item is a new chain I learned how to make from a magazine using jump rings. It's pretty simple, but then I ran out of jump rings so I'll have to finish that tonight too.

I'm glad I got out to see my mom and catch up on some familiar conversation and enjoy the comforts of home. I think we all need that from time to time, and I got a few projects in too! It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Lotus Pendants

This is my latest craze. As you know I'm in love with the Swarovski Crystal! This design is based off the creations in the book Creating Crystal Jewelry with Swarovski by Laura McCabe. I also took a class on it. Aside from the Pagoda Rings, these Lotus Pendants are my favorite creation thus far. Well, I really like the bracelets too. But these pendants sparkle like nobody's business. They are made with Swarovski crystal rivollis (the center piece) and I've encased them in a beaded peyote stitch. I then added swarovski crystal bicones around the center, created a bale and draped from a 14k Gold Plated Elegance chain.

Next is a design I learned and remembered from reading a book at Barnes N' Noble. I came home and made these really cute bracelets.

I've taken the turquoise and Adventurine beads and wired them with black seed beads. I really love the effect! They remind me of lady bugs or some other type of cute bug. Here is one with Swarovski Crystal Bicones added. They are the same colored crystals used in the blue lotus pendant in the first picture.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

These are my new books. I'm 10 all over again! I love this series!!

I picked up Diary of Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules recently and read it in a day, then I was hooked. Jeff Kinney writes from the voice of the Wimpy Kid, Greg and his daily troubles of being a middle child, getting picked on, chores, Boy Scouts, friends and school. In Rodrick Rules, Greg gets picked on by his older brother. When I picked this book up, I didn't realize it was the 2nd book and that there are actually 4 in all. After I read Rodrick Rules, I went to Barnes & Noble and read the first book in one sitting. That's why it's not in my pile. I also saw my ex-boss there in full office attire, ditching work! Ha!

Dayne bought me Wreck This Journal, for my creative destruction. Have you seen these before? Each page is filled with an instruction on how to wreck the book. One page is dedicated to coffee stains, spills or coffee mug circle stamps. One page suggests putting a label on the back and sending it to yourself in the mail. Here are some examples of journal wreckage. I really can't wait to get started on this book! Maybe I'll sew it up. Or bling it out. Or bedazzle it.

After we spent a few hours at Barnes & Noble we went to Borders and I bought Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw and Do It Yourself Book, which is an interractive journal based on the wimpy kid's diary. You can pick your favorite movies, put your own pictures in and collect your own autographs, wimpy style. I'm in love with this too!!

I'm so happy with my new books. I'll be out of comish starting this coming Wednesday. I'll be using my "sick" days at work and if I'm feeling okay maybe I will get started on these fun books.

Please check out the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I highly recommend them and they get 5 stars on Amazon. Pretty wimpy! (wimpy meaning good)

Operation Craft Room April-June 2009 Complete

Mission Complete!

I finally tackled the beast that is my craft room today. It took about 6 or 7 hours and only 2 months to get started. This is what it looked like before: A damn shame.

The first shelf is still a little messy 'cause I didn't really get to that yet, but everything else is lookin' nice and you can see the floor. You can walk across without the risk of breaking your neck. Always a good thing.

My jewelries:

A portion of my wall:

June Begins

My month of June is jam packed with grads, dads, showers and surgery. Oh boy! More details later. So today is the first of my engagements. This morning my cousin had her wedding shower. I was pissed I actually remembered to bring the good camera but forgot the memory card, so I had to use my cell phone and we didn't get a pic together. I made her a silver toggle necklace with aqua Swarovski crystals. I'm so glad she really liked it and started wearing it right away. Here she is opening presents. She was really happy. There's my adoptive grammy sitting on the left. Megan got all sorts of presents from kitchenware to lingerie. One gift didn't have a card on it and the little bag was filled with sexy edible lotions. Megan's cheeks got a little warm since grammy was sitting right there, so she gave a general "thank you" to the guests and we all wondered who gave her that gift and it seemed no one wanted to claim it! After we played games, opened presents and brunched and the guests were piling out, grammy announced she had bought the sexy gift!

On the way home me, my sister and my mom noticed some dog show going on in front of the Bass Pro Shop so we decided to stop. I'm such a dog lover! The show was put on by Splash Dogs and they were showing off their jumping, swimming and fetching skills. This dog always jumped the highest.

This poodle lookin' dog was part of the mix too.

This Golden Retriever was a good swimmer.


I hope to get some video soon of my own dog Bella doing the same tricks. In the last 2 weeks she has become quite the swimmer, jumper and fetcher. Stay tuned!

Sugee thanks TechCrunch

A Public Service Announcement and Cautionary Word of Caution for Bloggers!

If you're a blogger that cares about your blog, go claim it on Amazon. Now before someone steals it.

Amazon now allows all (or most all) blogs to be published, and available as subscriptions in the Kindle store. This is great news, however there is a loophole. Anyone can claim your blog as his or her own and that is info enough to act now.

Here's the link to the original article on theTechCrunch blog.