Friday, April 29, 2005


This is my favorite of all the stuff I created for the show. I started with a gorgeous set of lampwork beads from LuNa Beads in shades of blue and lavender and added Bali silver, Swarovski crystals and faceted candy lavender "jade." I say "jade" in quotation marks because it was sold to me as white jade that has been irradiated to produce the lavender color, but I suspect that it may actually be quartz. The large, milky crystals are Czech glass with an "opalite" finish. The clasp is a sterling silver "S" clasp set with a genuine amethyst. Happy weekend, everyone! Posted by Hello

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Calamity Jane...

...or maybe it should be Kalamity Kelly? Naw, that just sounds stupid, but seriously, I'm starting to feel that way. Let's see...first show, aborted vacation, funeral, extended family "issues", stomach flu (Ryan and I...how come DH NEVER gets sick???!!!) and a broken toe...all in less than 1 month. ARRGGH! Freakin' ENOUGH already! To whoever is having fun playing with my life - I OFFICIALLY GIVE UP! You win. You can let me off the ground now and go torture someone else! Seriously. Oh and don't let the toddler's projectile vomit hit you in the ass on your way out! Sheesh!

**WARNING*** this particular blog entry contains some gross stuff.

Oh and to the people who keep asking me (regarding childrearing) "don't you want to have more?" Shut up. Really. The week that the kid threw up all over me repeatedly AND had a lake of diarrhea in his crib is NOT the time to be asking me this question even jokingly. And this doesn't even begin to cover the fact that I'm turning 40 in less than two months - the eggs are gettin' old, folks, so quit buggin' me already!

Whew! I feel better for having gotten all that off my chest, don't you? Well, if not, hey, there are PLENTY of other blogs to go read and I'm sure that quite a good number of them manage to avoid the mention of diarrhea, too. Probably a good idea to go check those out.

In other news...before the dreaded flu of death struck (is that what they mean by "a plague on your house?" or wait...it's "pox" isn't it? "a pox on your house" well, whatever the disease du jour, we've had it) where was I? Oh yeah, before the plague hit, I managed to get the majority of the scanning done on the new items. Yay for me! I've got one more round of scanning and uploading to get done (hopefully by Monday) and then everything should be ready for your shopping pleasure. And don't worry - all these items were nowhere near the "plagued" part of the house (plus I Lysol'd pretty much everything that I could reach that would stand still - and even the birds were getting nervous seeing me with a can in each hand) I'll send an announcement when it's time for the shopping frenzy to begin.

Next on the agenda is to find another couple of show venues to tackle before the end of the year. There's a somewhat promising one for 4th of July, but you have to man your booth from 12-9 PM and that would mean missing celebrating and fireworks with my family and I'm not sure I want to do that (unless of course they have Plague v2.0 in which case I'll be more than happy to be as far away as possible).

I'll send an announcement when all the new stuff is up so pay attention out there! Take care all!

KJ

Thursday, April 21, 2005


Well, no time for a full entry today (Ryan has the stomach flu - lucky us!), but here's a picture of a new bracelet. Lampwork beads, Bali silver and Swarovski crystals. Posted by Hello

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Library Reduction

Amazon.com: Books: The Adept (Adept)

Okay, so, time for me to admit that my personal "library" has gotten totally out of control. Our small house just can't contain all of these books so, sadly, I must give up my dream of hanging onto all of them until one day I have a room entirely devoted to housing my collection. I had this pipe dream of a room with deep, plush carpeting, a comfy armchair recliner, a good light and all four walls having floor-to-ceiling bookshelves (except for the one spot for the fireplace). Most people would probably add a cat or two to this dream but since I'm deathly allergic to them, my dream-library is a pet-free zone. Actually, thanks to a dream-lock on the dream-door, it's also a husband, child and phone free zone as well :-) This is a REALLY BIG room, too, so there are probably some free-standing shelf units in the middle of the room as well and interesting cases of valuable knick knacks from all of my world travels, oh, and as long as I'm at it, I might as well throw in one or two of those sliding ladder thingies for reaching the books on the top shelves...except how will those work on the carpet? Hmm...well, it is a dream after all so just shut up and go with it ;-)

Anyway, the point is, unless I suddenly win the lotto, this dream ain't gonna happen sooooo....since we'll be having a neighborhood garage sale in two weeks, I've got to go through and cull out what books I can before then. Sob! Any leftovers will go to the local library.

As I'm culling, I'm finding time to re-read some of my special favorites that I'll be keeping and that includes "The Adept" series by Katherine Kurtz. I love her "Deryni" series as well (actually, just about anything by Ms. Kurtz is on my list of "cannot get rid of unless I'm dead" books).

In "The Adept" series, Sir Adam Sinclair is both a psychiatrist and a consultant to the Scottish police on matters of the occult (and, turns out, he has more than his fair share of occult powers as well). I know the occult dectective has been done a lot recently ("Angel", "Buffy", etc.) but this series has a lot more in common w/ Sherlock Holmes while still maintaining a good, fast pace and interesting action. Ms. Kurtz provides a lot of detail on Scottish history and I really enjoy the way she weaves knowledge of famous battles, castles, etc. in through the book.

She owns and is restoring Holybrooke Hall in Ireland and if you'd like to read more of her adventures, here's a link to her own website:

http://www.deryni.net/derynihome.html

It's not quite as up to date as one might hope, but it does have some interesting information and a list of all of her works.

I get so jealous reading about the house she's working on. I was so born in the wrong age and on the wrong continent...I really, really lust after having a castle complete with ghosts LOL! I bet if I had one, it'd have room for a library! Oooh...and secret passages, too. I need me a coupla those along with a hidden treasure room (and treasure to put in it LOL!)

Aah well...a girl can dream.

Take care all!

KJ

Tuesday, April 19, 2005


And today's picture (because I'm too lazy to write a complete blog entry) is of some earrings I made out of lampwork hummingbirds by Ginger Sanders w/ some Bali vermeil spacers and Czech crystals. Ginger works w/ Pyrex glass and a technique called "fuming" to get the vibrant colors. I just love her work and will be bringing more of it into my jewelry - hummingbirds, flowers, leaves, dolphins and more! Posted by Hello

Monday, April 18, 2005


I promised a picture today so here it is...lavender freshwater pearls w/ Swarovski crystal and the cutest little Bali silver flower-shaped bead caps. Posted by Hello

Same ol', same ol'

Well, things are finally starting to get back to normal around here after the last three CRAZY weeks! No shows, no trips, no unexpected accidents or deaths, etc. Warning...I'll probly be sad about my grandmother's death for a while and when I'm sad, it tends to translate into dark (and kinda inappropriate) attempts at humor so iffen that bugs ya...well, check back in a few weeks/months. Otherwise, read on ;-)

Took Ryan to the swimming pool at the club on Saturday morning. "The club" btw refers to the neighborhood association clubhouse in my parents' neighborhood. But since that's the same neighborhood I grew up in and there was only one clubhouse at the time...well, we just call it "the club." And I guess I got spoiled because I thought all planned neighborhoods w/ associations had recreational clubhouses (what are association fees for after all?) but apparently I was wrong as we pay TWO different association fees (neighborhood and city) and live in one of the most planned (and desirable) communities around and WE DON'T HAVE SQUAT! It really bugs me. I basically spent half my life at that clubhouse between swim team practice, Girl Scout meetings, tennis lessons, and just basically hanging out over there on summer afternoons. It was local (easy walking distance) so it was one of the few places that my friends and I could just take off and go to w/o needing a ride or parental supervision. I'm glad my parents still live there so I can use their membershipt to take Ryan...otherwise, there wouldn't be anyplace except a little inflatable pool in our driveway to take him :-(

Anyway...back to my story of Saturday. We couldn't go in the kiddie/wading pool because out of all 3 pools...that's the one they don't heat. BRRR! It was FREEZING! So, we ended up over at the adult pool (which I'm sure the other adults just loved) but there were several parents over there with little ones because it was the only one that was warm enough to entice the kidlets into it and no one seemed to be complaining so I figured we'd go until we got kicked out. Ryan of course didn't want to even play on the steps at first...then he saw somebody do a cannonball into the deep end and decided THAT's where he wanted to play. So, I ended up standing on the edge of the deep end, holding him by the wrists and dunking him in up to his waist (and before anyone freaks out...he was wearing a flotation vest so even if he'd somehow managed to squirm out of the deathgrip I had on his arms, he'd've been fine until I could get to him). We did that for about 30 minutes which turned out to be all my back could take so my dad came and took over and dunked him for another 20 minutes. He loved it. Gonna have to look into some actual swimming lessons real soon, I guess.

I got some of the new merchandise (which I REFUSE to call "show leftovers" LOL) scanned and I've been working on adding them to the website, but I probably won't do an upload until I have everything done. There are just too many links back and forth between matching items and other complications that have to all be completed before I upload anything or visitors are going to get really frustrated, really quickly. So, more scanning on the horizon for me tonight...that's if I get dinner done quickly enough as DH informed me this morning that he'd like an occasional home-cooked meal if I thought I could fit it into my busy schedule (see aforementioned list of bead shows, vacations and death) sometime before he divorces me LOL! So, time to pull out my old stand-by of porkchops & orange rice. This was one of my favorites when I was growing up and I just LOVE that it's so easy to make. We're talking 6 ingredients (and that's only if you count salt and pepper separately), 15 minutes of prep time and then shove it in the oven and walk away to do something else for the next hour while it cooks. Plus, I love that you get main course and side dish all-in-one. Cut up some fruit or dump some salad out of a bag (yeah, we eat bagged salad, so what...wanna make somethin' of it? LOL!) et voila! Bon appetit! Or as I like to say: "Stand back, Rachael Ray!"

The only sad thing is that I really do enjoy cooking (and I think I'm not half bad at it as long as I have a recipe to follow) but I just don't ever have the time to really do it justice. I just don't feel like getting into a big production when I get home from work in the evening (and that's assuming that I actually HAVE all the ingredients on hand and don't have to go to the store) because you know there's all the prep work, then the actual eating, then the cleaning up of the kid/kid's area (which depending on his mood can be a MAJOR undertaking) and then all the dishes and general clean up to be done. And then it's time to go to bed and I hate that feeling of not having accomplished anything except work, cook, clean, sleep, get up and go back to work. Sigh..every working mother's complaint, I suppose.

I'd tell you what I did on Sunday, but it turned out to be absolutely NADA! I didn't feel too great and I took some medicine which knocked me on my butt for the rest of the day. I kept thinking about trying to get up, but it seemed like too much effort. Maybe the last 3 weeks finally caught up with me or something (or maybe it was the 37,000 loads of laundry I had to do?) Anyway, it was a wasted day - dang, I hate when that happens!

I guess that's about it for now, although I'll try to add a new picture later today. Until I get all the website changes done, that's the best I can do so bear with me.

Take care all!

KJ

Friday, April 15, 2005


Oh and just 'cause it's Friday and I feel like it...here's another of the new designs... Posted by Hello

Finally had a chance to start scanning new stuff last night. I think it's going to take forever to get it all done and uploaded to the website, but here's a pair of David Christensen furnace glass earrings to tide you over in the meantime. As usual, the colors are much more vibrant and pretty in real life. What IS it about my scanner and the color lime? GRR! Posted by Hello

Thursday, April 14, 2005

I'm BACK!

Returned from the funeral in New Mexico yesterday. The trip went smoothly (okay, it snowed one day, but other than that...)and the service was sad, but moving and beautiful. My grandmother was a devout Christian and had kept extensive records of her favorite scriptures and hymns so we were able to incorporate all of those into the service. Thank you to everyone who sent their condolences - I really appreciated all the support.

Silver Parrot is open for business again (I put all orders temporarily on hold via our shopping cart while I was out of town) but I wanted to thank everyone for their patience while we dealt with this family emergency.

I will say it was nice to visit Santa Fe again. I spent a lot of time there growing up as we visited my grandparents several times a year every year until I was in my late 20's! It really is such a terrific town with so much rich history to it - if you ever have a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. Of course, it made it extra special to have my mother taking us around and pointing out interesting tidbits of information. Since she grew up there, she has a unique perspective on the place. We had a brief chance to go by my grandparents' house, too. It was hard to see the changes that the new owners are making to what used to be their home (especially since my grandfather was the one who originally designed and built it). They've made major additions to both the front and the back so it really looks different.

I'm still hoping to start putting the new merchandise left over from the show up on the site, but probably won't get a chance to start scanning until MAYBE this evening (probably more like the weekend).

Take care everyone!

KJ

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Bad News...

Just an FYI...

Silver Parrot Designs will be temporarily closed and I will be going no-mail as of today due to a death in the family. My grandmother passed away this morning - she was in her late 80's and had Parkinson's so I know she has gone to a better place where she's no longer suffering, but I loved her dearly and she will be very missed.

I'm not sure yet when the funeral will be, but she lived in New Mexico and will be buried in Santa Fe next to my grandfather so I expect we'll be taking off to go there some time soon.

Take care everyone and I'll announce when the store re-opens. In the meantime, if you'd like to see pictures of the recent show, feel free to visit the site and click on the blue star on the home page for pictures.

Take care all and be sure to hug your loved ones tonight or give 'em a call if they aren't in hugging distance!

KJ

Booth Pictures from the Ladera Ranch Spring Festival

Ladera Ranch Show

Well, here they are...the pictures from my first (and hopefully not last) show! Thanks to DH and Laura for all their help and support and super thanks to Jenie for making the "drive from hell" to show up and support me!

KJ