Just a Lil' Sumthin'

I woke up early this morning at 6:30 am to the sound of the alarm clock and my husband dragging his body up out of bed. He checked his phone messages and discovered that he didn't have to be into work until a couple of hours later than his usual time. He is a Navy Submariner and usually gets up at the crack of dawn. Sometimes he gets up at 5:30 am to go PT, only to return home briefly to shower and change and then back to work he goes. So I was grateful and pleasantly surprised when he told me I could go back to sleep, that he would take the kids to school for me. Ahhhhh! I slunk back under the covers and only stirred slightly to the sound of a clunking music case thumping down the stairs. My son is learning how to play the trombone and the case is almost as big as him.
I let my mind return to sleepy distraction and dozed off again. I finally got up at around 10:30 am. I felt so refreshed. It's the most undisturbed sleep that I can remember having in a long time. The dozy day carried on with a bit of TV and a cyber-trip to my email box, myspace and YouTube. Nothing eventful there. Hubby returned home early at lunch time and didn't have to return back to work. We went outside on the patio and chatted about this and that. It was nice.
Then my girlfriend Amber arrived with good news. She had become involved with an organization called "GLAD". It deals with training dogs in search and rescue. They also work with children and literacy and such. She said they may be interested in some dog beads if I made them. I was tickled. I have never made doggie shaped beads so I was excited at the challenge. Amber jetted off to her next obstacle of the day. I secretly covet her ambition although the thought of keeping up with her makes me tired. I really can't keep up at her pace.
I felt old for 2.3 seconds as she briskly flip-flopped her way back to her place but distracted myself with the thought of a new doggie bead challenge.
I quickly tromped up the stairs with towel and clothes for a quick shower as Mike took off in my car to pick up Josie from school. I squeaky cleaned and was ready for my bead challenge.
Clearing my work station, which is in a perpetual state of disarray, I fired up my kiln and donned my cool diddy safety classes. The torch puffed into action and I shook my jar of bead release with such ferver that my upper arm skin flapped with joy.
First mandrel, in the flame....pffffffffff pop! The bead release cracked. Not good. It has to have full coverage over the wire mandrel or the glass will stick. I discarded the mandrel, the lil' wire thingy to wrap the molten glass to, to the side of my work station. Second mandrel......dip...in the flame....pffffffffff pop! Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Third mandrel......pfffffff pop! Expletive!
Fervant arm flapping again.....dip....pffffffffffffffff...ahhhh that's better!
I grabbed a white glass rod, noting it was one of the "cheap" whites and wasn't as rich a tint as it probably should have been. I slowly melted the glass in the flame, began to wrap it around the mandrel when I noticed it was scorching. Grrrrrrrrr! Another...the same. At this point I'm getting really irritated. I swap the rod out for better white and start again. All is going quite well. I form a blob around the mandrel, let it gather and smooth in the hot blue flame. Heating more from the rod I drag a bit on the bottom of the bead and smear it to form the upper part of a doggie leg. Gooooood.....gooooood. I continue to form all the doggie except the face and tail. RING RING!
The one thing you do not want is distractions when your behind the torch. You need both hands for turning the delicate glass in the flame and holding the glass rod. It's a two-hand job really. The phone ringing is an unwelcome sound. I had to answer it. The specific ring told me that it was Mike calling. How unusual. Mike knows I'm beading.
"Hello Honey, what's going on? I'm BEHIND THE TORCH."
"Oh I'm sorry Honey....Does Josie have her Science Club tonight?"
"Um...I don't know. It'd be her first one. Oh crap! I don't know. Let me try to look on that paper."
I give my "almost puppy bead" a quick bath in blue flame and rush over to the fridge to look for the paper that has the Science Club dates on it. No paper. Crap!
"Um Um....crap! I can't find it baby. I'm sorry....um...(looking around)...I can't..."
"It's ok, I'll run up front to the office and find out".
"Ok sorry Honey. Bye".
He returns the goodbyes and I rush out to the torch, praying to God that the bead didn't get too cool and crack. Temperature changes in the glass can cause cracks in the bead quite quickly and pieces have a tendency to fly off and land in ones cleavage when this occurs. Do you know how hard it is to retrieve a tiny piece of orange hot glass from ones cleavage? Any amount of time it takes is TOO LONG! Bad scene...SO....I was not eager to have one of said pieces of almost puppy bead lodge itself in my boobies. Luckily, it made it on one piece and my bazooms remained untoasted. I finished the puppy bead, giving it a black tail and front paw and spot around it's eye like the doggie on the Little Rascals. I continued on and made a doggie bead that was black with pointy puppy ears and a long fluffy tail curled under it's body as it lay resting.
I put my treasures in the annealing kiln and went outside to smoke a cigarette. The kids got home and I started a casserole.
Amber returned to touch base with me. I was to accompany her to Jax to get an MRI. She's been having some fainting spells quite a lot lately and has gone in for some testing. I can't really say here what is going on but it's my understanding that she will be just fine. Another girlfriend of ours, Tiffanie came with us. I chatted with Tiffany and crunched down Doritos and slurped on a Diet Coke. It was a nice quiet evening, cool and slightly breezy. The sound of tree frogs and bugs decorated the evening. Amber exited the MRI office and hobbled out to the parking lot. The MRI office was actually a semi truck trailer. We could hear the whirring sound from our seats in a nearby gazebo. Poor lil doped up Amber was escorted under the gazebo to wind down and smoke a ciggy with us. They had given her something to calm her as she is clausterphobic. MRI machines are like long tubes that swallow up dainty lil Navy wives. MRI machines are known for collapsing on the less vigilant observer....apparently. LOL! Anyway, the poor clausterphobic thing finished her ciggy, waddled over to the car, slithered finally into the back seat and Tiffanie drove us home. We made a stop at Taco Bell to eat some very unruly tacos with very round tomato pieces that liked to eject themselves from my taco and into very dark crevices in Amber's car. Last seen, Amber was consuming a little bowl of icecream and praying to God that she doesn't have nightmares tonight about chomping, devouring, evil MRI machines. And now I am pecking away at my computer after a very nice and eventful day. Thank you for reading today's episode of Up Sheep's Creek. Apparently the creek flows down to Jacksonville. God bless.

Bloggie Bloggerson

Another Sunday is clocked by and it's now almost bedtime for the kiddies. I'm sitting here with friends after feeding them a lovely meal of Kogel hot dogs (ummy) and beans with bacon and veggies. We are all relaxing and computer working.
The family and I went to church this morning and watched a couple of baptisms. It was so moving. I teared up a few times. I love watching baptisms. You get to hear some pretty amazing testimonies. I then drove down towards Jacksonville to look for a place I could buy fabric. I want to make a beaded tapestry type hanging banner for my wall. I think I'm gonna attempt to make a personalized family chrest. Something with dolphin fish and christian theme. I have a beading loom that is sitting and waiting for me to work on. I'm going to teach Josie how to sew seed beads on her lil piece of fabric swatch. She can make pretties.

The kids are now getting ready for bed and the whining and interrupting with silliness is reaching a highpoint so I need to wrap it up here. I'll be back later. God bless folks.

Friday with Mike

Hello all-
I wanted to shoot out a quick blog. I am going to lunch with the Hubster. We have had such a nice morning together. We went to the gym to do our tandem elipticals and are later going to get new stickers for my car to get on base. We shall then go to "Dick's Wings" where I shall enjoy a chicken sandwich and Mike shall enjoy something infernally hot. He is never truly content unless his mouth is ablaze and sweat is pouring down his forehead. Ahhh me... I will be back to post something interesting and uplifting later this evening. Love to all!
Sandy

First Post

Hello...
A little about myself. I'm sure my short bio on the front page is obvious enough so I won't bore you with repetitive info. I did want to mention my deep love for making beads. Called "lampwork", it's basically melting glass around a narrow metal rod using a propane torch. These to the left are a short sampling of my earliest beads. I have much more now. I am grooving on the transparents lately. I think I want to hone my encased flower skills though. The encased flowers are so pretty. I recently made some bug beads and fall leaves shaped beads. Too fun. I love making my beads, reading, seeing new places, going to the pool (too many nawnee jellyfish around here for frequent beach visits...although no one I know has ever been stung. Paranoia)....watching GOOD movies (if I see one more lewd early twenties movie I'll spit twice and die)...flowers, my birds outside (hummingbirds and cardinals love me), my birds inside (3 parakeets) and hanging out and talking with my sweet lil patio pals. Daily I see my friends. They are also Navy Wives and are wonderful. I have one friend "casualty". My girlfriend Arika had to move far away and I miss her terribly. I am hoping we can connect again before Hubster retires. I'm pretty laid back and sometimes a bit silly but my Hubster loves me that way. He's a good compliment for me. He can be serious with everyone else but let's me see his fun silly side. He got me flowers twice this past week. A few days back he got me lovely HUGE daisies and today He bought me dark peach roses and small purple white and green iris's. I am also very artistic. I stop short of calling myself an "artist" but I do love painting, drawing, pen and ink, beadwork (lampwork, bead artwork etc...) , stuff... LOL. I also have an account with YouTube.com and MySpace.com. Both accounts my nickname is Sheepinarowboat. I post family updates and bead and bird videos and the like. Well I guess that's it for now. I'll post again soon. GOD BLESS!