Reconfiguring

Every year we do a purge in the club jewelry store. It has limited space, but we keep producing jewelry, more than we can sell. Our rules give us two years from submission date in the store to appeal to customers. After that, our jewelry comes home to us.

 It's a process. First, we go into the drawer that holds a card for each item in the store. When a sale happens, the card gets pulled out, matched with the tags on the jewelry, and goes to our treasurer so we can get paid our 80%. The other 20% is how our club makes money, going towards new equipment, repairs, and all the other expenses our club incurs.

Our expenses didn't go away when covid closed our club doors completely for most of a year, and kept people out of our jewelry store for much longer, both officially and unofficially. Our club treasury dropped nearly $7 grand during that time. We're fighting our way back, but it's slow.  In a move to be more fair to our members, we adjusted the two year limit to "two years of time when the store was open." In effect, it gave everybody an extra 18 months. But now it has caught up with us, and I sent out the notice last week that by the end of February, everything with a date of 2018 needed to be pulled by the owners.

We start with a rule that there have to be two people in the store during the process. The second one is to be sure nothing goes into pockets, or is incorrectly matched to cards. Each of us, one member at a time, pulls out cards with the old dates and starts hunting. Then each card with its item on top gets spread out on the counter top, hopefully all matching up perfectly. Our second person initials each card that is properly paired.

The first time you do this, you find out in a hurry that you can't really remember that far back. If your only description is "necklace, copper," you'll never find it because you made 10 that year and many since. It's time to hunt. You find out that some of your designs are distinctive, some others similar to what 3 other people made, and every tag needs to be checked. It's much easier when you had a distinctive style for a while, the dates fall in your time frame, and you can just go pull them and match up to the cards later.

While making that mental note to put down better descriptions on future submissions, you also discover that there are cards left over that do not match anything you can locate in the store. Not even after two days of searching. Occasionally one of those cards says "duplicate". What this really mostly means is the original card was misfiled, the item sold, but a new card needed to be made up so you could get paid. Meanwhile the original was found and sent to the treasurer but nobody pulled out the duplicate card. Is it getting complicated yet? Having a card but missing the item may also mean that the person making the sale had no clue what they were doing beyond pulling off the tags - or at least you hope so - and never got them matched to a card. So the store got paid. You didn't. Another somebody came along, looked at the tags, wondered why they were there, but left them sit on the counter. And on and on, until somebody else decided that having been there for two weeks now, they must be trash and tossed them out. Any of these possibilities results in your having a card which doesn't match a piece of jewelry. 

But you struggle on, looking for all the jewelry you can find that needs to come home with you. Many are simply embarrassing. You were a beginner, or at least less skilled than you are now. Or they were overpriced, since we all set our own prices on our wares and you were also embarrassingly a beginner at pricing. Or the design was just totally out there and you were the only person on the planet who actually liked it, for however brief a time. There are some, however, that were well executed but just not exactly how people wanted them.

For example, what doesn't look good in a necklace might look much better in a bracelet. Or a bracelet/necklace/earring looks better in a different length. Or with a better stone. Or a slightly different technique. Or a better color of stone or beads. Or what was done in copper would have sold in sterling. All these things can be reconfigured (significantly!) and resubmitted for another two years' crack in the store.

So after two days searching stuff out in the store, I looked it over to see what could be reconfigured. In a mixed metals phase, I connected brown metallic beads into a silver colored chain. The concept was popular then and popular now, but not so much the brown beads. It has been cut apart, new links with beads on them made, and those put back in the chain. But this time they are a lovely blue-green crystal. Another chain now has small square blue kyanite beads, about the color of lightly faded denim but shiny, and the links are more frequent, extending the length of the chain. I had two necklaces with agates in links, just in front with empty links going to the back, which didn't sell. I reconnected the agates by using double jump rings to hold them together rather than hooking them straight to each other, all into a single chain. A similar necklace using tiger eye rectangles had just enough of those to be converted into a bracelet, now with the beads all around. Tiger eye is starting to sell in the store again.

One total disaster was a highly-beaded wire phase I was into back when. Of about 30 items, I think 2 sold. Looking back at them, I decided they were totally tacky. A polite friend says "funky" as a compliment, but that didn't make them sell any faster. While they weren't completely past their sell-by date, I went around and pulled every last one of them. Then I spent a day sorting by colors, cutting them all apart, saving the seed beads for somebody else's ideas, possibly workshop teaching where quality in first efforts doesn't matter, and packaged them up in those tiny plastic ziploc bags more commonly seen on TV for drug buys.

 I did wonder when I stocked up on those bags whether that put me under some agency's microscope for being a suspect dealer. Just let them try to get high on those things! More likely choke! Or maybe they'd get swallowed, turn into some exotic coprolite a future archeologist pulls out of a dump site and wonders about for the rest of his/her life!

Anyway, each item was a color combo blend, and those got sorted out into purple, blue/green, red/white/blue, gold/orange/amber. red/pink. I'm keeping the purples. The rest are getting donated to the club. All the wire was cheap silver colored, and 983 bits went out in the trash. (Approximately.) I'm pretty sure several bits landed on the floor, just like the beads my feet keep finding. (Wanna see and old lady dance?)

Then there's a copper cuff. I cut the piece, rounded the corners, ground them smooth, ran it though the roller mill against a form that made patterned impressions in the copper. Once that was done, I used the torch to "paint" the copper, as it changes into many different colors depending on how much heat hits any particular spot. If I didn't like the colors, in it went to the "pickle pot" to come back to pink fresh copper, and again with the torch. I believe that took four tries before I got the right combination of orange, red and blue patches to satisfy me. The trick then was to immediately spray it with a clear spray so it wouldn't oxidize any further and just become brown. Those colors are still there. A real beauty!

Unfortunately, before I started that lengthy project back when, I chose a very flimsy sheet of copper that couldn't hold its shape to stay on a wrist properly. That gauge of copper sheeting was much more suited to being in earrings, where weight is everything! 

AHAH! 

So guess what I'm going to be working on this week? We have stamps for cutting forms out of metal sheets in several shapes, each with several sizes. We also have a tool with a part you twist to drill a small hole into metal so it can be strung from a wire, preferably a jump ring fastened to an ear wire in this case. As a bracelet it didn't sell for $7  in the store. As earrings, each of the several pairs I'm  planning, barring disasters, should each sell for about double that. I just need to find the time among all the month-end, month-start duties I'll have as well.

Yes, I Always Go There

These days, I really do go there when I hear any of what have become the key words. Cough. Cold. Stroke. Gasping for breath. Chest pains. Headaches. Unwell. Dragging. And many more. Where do I go? Thinking the person  I'm listening to or hearing about has covid, or worse, delayed effects of it, sometimes known as long covid. We're also starting now to hear about sequela, worth another whole post but google it. They're comparing it to post 1918 flue effects, mostly forgotten or long ignored.

Two examples. First, a woman I'm fairly close to in the club, a fellow officer, stayed home with her husband for several days due to "a cold." No, they didn't test to see if they had covid. Both are fully vaxxed and boostered, but we've learned that omicron doesn't really care. It is extremely unlikely they will get seriously ill or die, but.... She masks in the club all the time, like I do, but even if one tests negative, we know that this variant can penetrate cloth and doesn't really get caught on tests well, since you're contagious before you are symptomatic. Now I'm sure colds are also circulating, but she casually mentioned the other day that she'd been having chest pains and is now seeing a cardiologist for the first time in her life. We  know microclots invade and do all kind of damage to a variety of organs including the heart. So I personally won't be reassured until I hear that the result of her CAT scan from yesterday afternoon gives her a clean bill of health. 

Assuming it does. Really hoping it does!

The second person is an extended family member. Her husband couldn't rouse her yesterday morning, and had the knowledge to perform what's called a chest rub for two minutes. (If you've seen lots of medical and first responder type TV shows, you've likely seen somebody try to rouse someone by grinding a knuckle into their breast bone. The pain often brings them around unless more intensive care is needed.)

When she did rouse, she was gasping for breath. He called 911 and an ambulance rushed her to the hospital, full lights and sirens going. Several hours later an update provided terms like possible stroke, cardiac cath lab, bradycardia rates between 32 and 49 bpm, blood pressure around 70 over 30, migraines for several days, especially when she stands up. This time, yes, I know they both are antivaxxers and both have had covid and - uhh - "recovered". The only good ray of hope is that she mumbled what he believes is, "I love you," to her husband in the hospital. And yes, you damn well better believe my thoughts went to covid after-effects.

These days my mind goes there with any possible symptom. A person calls the club to say they are staying home because they "just don't feel well, nothing major" and thinks it's a good idea, even though they had scheduled some obligation for that day, and I thank them for their thoughtfulness before wishing them a speedy recovery from whatever. Somebody coughs and I want to suddenly be 50 feet away from them, even if it's just an allergy. I cough myself a bit every morning until my allergy pill kicks in despite being a 24 hour dose, so I know not to worry about everybody else' cough. But still. We can have a dozen people in the club at any given time now that members are starting to return to indoor group activities and borders are reopened. Less than a third will be masked. Arizona, doncha know. And we're only starting again to hear news of hospitals becoming overcrowded here in the county.

No, I'm not so much scared for myself. I go grocery shopping in person, and am doing more other shopping in stores rather than ordering online to save costs. My new responsibilities keep me going to the club nearly every day now, though for all the activities I stay masked. Now that pharmacies have M95 masks getting sent to them I plan to go ask for my 3. But I worry for the people I know and care about. Most of them do get vaxxed, but not all. Some have had covid, especially the new omicron and even after getting their shots. I do personally know a couple of people who've died from it, back in the early days when treatments weren't well known. I'm not personally aware of anybody who couldn't get into a hospital for an accident or something else non-covid related, due to overcrowding, and died from that, but the facts are well known. "Normal" surgeries are postponed right and left, including a very minor outpatient one my doc has recommended.

I will remain angry at all those who buy into the conspiracies, refuse to get vaccinated, and both spread the virus and clog our medical system to the point of breaking. Even if I love you, I'll be angry. I'll be angry at the selfishness that puts your momentary inconvenience above the health, even the lives of people around you. If you die from it, I'll miss you but still be angry at all the grief and harm you've caused others, racking up hospital bills, helping burn out your medical caregivers, possibly leaving behind partners andorphans, keeping our economy from full recovery, and perpetuating the craziness that keep this pandemic going and going and going....

*     *     *     *

Since starting this, and getting busy for a couple days before coming back to it, a person who cancelled her club duties has returned, confirming her extended family had the same symptoms and two had positive tests. A retired nurse, she believes all contracted covid.

The extended family member has been sent home from the hospital with no further details of her condition given.

Another club member cancelled her duties for a couple days now with worsening symptoms like all the others. I thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

Bidet Conversion

Back when the pandemic first started and you couldn't find toilet paper anywhere, a friend of mine mentioned she'd installed a bidet conversion kit in her house. After thinking that over for a while - months, in fact - I asked if she minded showing and explaining it to me. At that point I had never seen one, had only my imagination to explain how they might work, and had never considered one for myself. The few books I'd read that might have mentioned one simply assumed, I guess, that either everybody was already so informed or was hopelessly primitive. Or worse.

My friend welcomed showing me how hers was installed, though no actual demonstration was included on its use, just an explanation, along with the comment installation only took her 15 minutes. TP eventually returned to the shelves, and the thought of getting one or two bidets  for the home simply sat in the far nether regions of my brain. There were other things to spend my money on, and TP is again/still plentiful.

Christmas this year brought with it a nice gift card to Target. I was as yet unwilling to go to the store and just browse, looking around for something to buy, between pre- and post- holiday shopping crowds and a new covid variant we didn't seem to be covered for despite being vaxxed and boostered. Target does, however, have a great online presence, and while I was pretty sure it didn't have any kind of plumbing department in store, I thought I'd check that out. In fact, online they had so many choices for bidet conversions with all varieties of features and prices that I set it aside until later when Steve and I together could make a choice. Once things settled down, he agreed that a bidet was an interesting idea, and that I should pick what I thought best for him to look at, which turned out to be the Genie Bidet Accessory. We both agreed Rich could install them once they got here. He's the obvious choice: free for us, indebted to us for some practical work, with sound knees and plenty of practical experience in all kinds of areas.

One is installed. It came with a website listing on the box for the installation video (much better idea than tiny-print multi-language multi-folded piece of paper!) so watching that came first. Water is supplied by putting a splitter on the existing water supply hose to the tank, down at floor level. When installation got bogged down at that point briefly, I reminded Rich we were OK with him shutting house water off outside for a few minutes, since the bathroom valve wasn't quite doing its job and he needed a few towels for the floor. But he wasn't going to ask, oh no. Little bit of stubborn streak there, battling against 60 psi water pressure in the house, enough to keep our freezer icemaker from politely filling the cubes rather than spraying water all over the ice compartment and freezing everything to a solid block!

Yeah, we'd learned that lesson first season - uh, week - down here.

 The 15 minute job became 3 hours. His story -and he's sticking to it - was he needed to "make" a couple bumpers for the front of the toilet seat so it would sit level once the new attachment went in between the seat back and toilet rim. He claims that putting the second bidet in will just take those actual 15 minutes since he made 4 bumpers, two for each, and knows how to do it. So far he hasn't found those 15 minutes. Now aside for emergencies, we just use the one bathroom. We all seem to like it.

There's a short learning curve involved in using it. Once ready to turn it on, simply reach the right hand down and find a knob next to the toilet at seat level and rotate it toward you for the "feminine" spray, and away for the "bum" spray. I don't always line up exactly where the spray hits, but a little wiggling makes it right.  Rich's comment was to always be seated before started to turn it on. He said it with enough emphasis that I suspect he gave it a try while standing in front of it, once installed, to see if the water was flowing right. I also suspect very strongly that it was working perfectly!

One advantage is it needs no extra floor space, so no big bathroom remodel needed to put it in. We have used a teensy bit of TP since it got installed, in my case just because I haven't broken the habit yet. Rich wants a supply of small washcloths handy but I find that just sitting for half a minute once the water is off lets me pretty well just drip dry, no wiping required. I'm delighted with the new feeling of cleanliness, including having less-dirty laundry for the hamper. I also don't miss the irritation that TP seems to make unavoidable, no matter the brand or variety of softness. The strongly diminished quantity of TP used not only aids the environment, it also makes me believe that I can put off repairing that broken sewer tile near the sidewalk (our part of the pipe, our cost to repair) for a significant while longer, now with nearly nothing going through to clog it. The lower TP use should be even better if one has a septic system.

While you can buy these with their own mini water heaters, my friend who originally showed me one never got hers that way, and insists most of the world that uses them (other than high buck hotels) doesn't heat their bidet water. Using a heater not only adds cost, one must have an electric outlet near the toilet, seldom a great idea under any circumstances with electrocution possibilities. Unless you're using the bidet just after a shower, doing dishes or laundry, or some other major water usage, the water that contacts you should be at room temperature. In cold winter climates, I can see where it might be startling on occasion, just like I suspect it might in the opposite way in an AZ summer, especially here where our pipes run through the attic to split hot/cold next to the water heater. But as my friend put it, if the rest of the world can do it, so can we. 

Our family rating? Best X-mas present ever!!!!!

Notes From A(nother) Garage Sale

Last weekend Rich held another one. As it turns out, our only allowed one for the year, per the HOA!  Now the remainders are again cluttering up our world, awaiting their removal either to a: another friend's site where they can be offered again, b: the back of my car for multiple trips to local thrift stores, or c: a dumpster. If a and b fail within a certain time frame, c is mandatory. There will be grumbling, but tough!

The sale had its moments. I decided to offer some snuff bottles that I realized I'd stored in a display cabinet for, apparently, hiding away for a decade. They're not the inside painted ones I treasure, and keep in their boxes in totes to prevent sun damage to their colors. They're also not the ones I collected as examples of various stones.  While nice enough,these were not what I treasure. So I put 8 of them out, thinking either our customers would look at them and yawn, or would go, "Wow! Chinese art! Gimmee gimmee!" At $20 a pop, they would both indicate value and still be bargains for the enthusiastic Chinese art collector.

Along came a pair of women who informed us they were from Jackson Hole. Not Jackson, but Jackson Hole. Emphatically. Despite other Jackson locals we've met who insist the opposite. They were down here, having left their husbands back home plowing the latest snowfall. And, incidentally, they were here bargain shopping. One of them spotted the bottles, made an offer for the lot which I accepted, and we all were happy. Except...  The woman who hadn't purchased the lot had her eye on a particular cloisonne bottle which had two cast metal dragon handles. I just suggested she bring it up with her friend. Hopefully, still her friend.

When Steve came back from his next stint minding the sale, he informed me that another fellow, conveniently across the street and two houses up, had also been interested and wondered if there were any more. Next morning I put the rest of the ignored bottles out, same price range, and then went and knocked on the right door and informed him that more were there if he were interested. He promised to come by later. What he meant by that, it turned out, was he was going to drive by later without stopping on his way elsewhere.  Oh well. At least he waved from his car. I can spend that on....

There were books offered for sale too, and one couple who had been doing very serious browsing and some actual buying caught my attention. He picked up a thick book on the slightly higher priced table ($2 vs. $.25) and took it over to where she was looking at something. What I heard him say, was "Look at this book, it'll look great in our library, won't it?"  Opening it to a random page, he explained to her, "Look at all these words!"

Uh, OK, sure. Books have lots and lots of words. Glad you get excited by them. I'll happily take your money, fella, whatever your reason. I glanced over at the open page and noted that indeed, it did hold lots of them. The ones at the beginning left margin in each paragraph were printed in bold type.  Ah ha! It must have been some kind of dictionary, likely a two language translation / dictionary. So, not a complete rube after all. At least not this way. But still....

Look at all the words, Honey!

Empty Shelves? Oh My!

Supply chain supply chain, supply chain. Other than winter weather swooping across the continent, it's about all the news has to offer, it seems. Be afwaid, be vewy vewy afwaid! There might be a wascally wabbit somewhere out there.

We've gotten just a tad spoiled, admit it folks. We can go into any store we choose and find fully stocked shelves with so much stuff we can't possible register it all, much less make the most intelligent decisions about which items to take home with us. The assumption is that always, always we will take home with us the exact things we came to get, probably even more. It's what lists are for, so we won't forget them, since that's been the only impediment to our full satisfaction.

So now there are spaces on some of the shelves, so what? We're not starving. Not the "right" bread? Get another kind, or some other thing to make our sandwiches from. Only 5 brands of bacon instead of 17? Awwwwww, golly gee. Wrong brand/flavor of yogurt? Ice cream? Soup? Just look a bit farther along the shelf. Or even switch to cheese and chili this week.

I found on one recent trip that a couple sections in the toilet paper section were empty. It's not like the beginning of the pandemic when everybody tried to stock up with a 6 month supply and none was in the stores, period. No, a particular brand that day was low on a particular variety so two different size packages were out. You could still take home enough ass-wipe to clog your sewer system for a month. With 15 people flushing the toilets all day.

The only thing I wanted that had no real substitute was during a trip to Michael's. I'd gotten a gift card for X-mas, and since I pass it on the way to the credit union that's a "sister" to my credit union in Minnesota that still handles my finances while I spend them, I decided to stop in for some wire. I have a project in mind and need to practice "proof of concept" without spending a whole lot of money. This means I need 20 gauge copper wire, and the club didn't happen to have open supply room hours at that exact time. 

I also needed silver-colored french earring wires, the kind that aren't sterling, for when I'm trying other things out and am not interested in the expensive .925 stuff. The supply room only sells actual sterling in anything that's  silver color, not anything substituting for it. That way you know if it came from our supply room it's .925. Before selling what you make from it, you can with confidence label it as such (for 35 cent's per tag, plus a sterling jump ring to attach it with. ) I don't always do that with gifts, but will indicate whether it's sterling or just silver filled or coated or colored.

The right kind of ear wires I found with no problem. That section is fully stocked, but many neighboring shelves were bare or mostly so. The copper wire they had was way too high a gauge, aka 26 and 28, and much too flimsy for the project, since it involves combining beads on wires with torches for making head pins and for soldering. The beads will be glass - sometimes painted - and I have to be sure they don't melt if they are close to where their wire gets heated, which means applying a kind of clay to keep the copper from shooting the heat down the full length (2") of the wire. If it does, either I switch to jewelry glue, highly frowned on by the club, or find some other solution. But the wire has to be 20g, small enough to go through pretty much all glass beads, and sturdy enough to support them. Providing the design works, that is, so back at proof-of-concept stage.

As I was paying for only my ear wires, the clerk of course asked if I found everything OK. Nope. I explained, following with with my own question: did he know when they might be getting more in? Therein lies a tale. They do get deliveries twice a week, though I forget now which days he said they come in. Trouble is, they never know until their stock is unloaded from the truck just what they will get. Last delivery was still Christmas stuff.  You know, in mid January.  Even a sale won't be much help with that. But hey, I should stop back in every now and then and look for the wire I need. One of these days the right  ship from China (most likely) will dock, unload the right container box, which will get loaded on a truck with a driver and travel through good weather until the Michael's store by the credit union will have 20g copper wire again. Uff da! I get tired just thinking of all the links in that supply chain.

I thanked him for the information, not bothering to explain that either I'll hit the club during supply room hours or go online. Either will provide me with what I need in reasonable speed, and meantime I can while away hours of not-being-able-to-sleep time with revising my concept and trying to anticipate problems and solutions, not to mention color schemes for the beads needed.

Ever try to tie a bow with wire and get it to look like it's tied ribbon? Or get it to tie tightly around several loose wires tightly enough to hold them in place for, well, hopefully years? All the rest of the concept is simple, easy peasy. But my soldering skills are rudimentary, even though I've just had two workshops that have improved them - just not quite for the kind of project that's demanding that I figure it out RIGHT NOW. (Amazing how demanding those nebulous ideas can be until the problems are all solved.) Both were basically "here's another thing these new skills can let you do" workshops,  and that's how I learned about the clay stopping the heat, since the soldering must be done while the bead is on the wire less than an inch away. Even then, the wire must after torching be put in a "pickle pot" to clear away the icky left from torching, and then put in a vibrator to polish and harden the wires. Now if all you have is wires, that's just fine. Add fancy glass beads, and this time I do mean fancy, selling with a price per bead rather than per strand, so I have to worry about heat and any knocking around or chemicals that might either break off a tiny piece or etch off paint. So... Thinking still required. Then practice for proof of all the concept parts and the order of assembly. Then hopefully make something saleable.

Whew!

I'll find that wire elsewhere this time. The empty shelf issue is nothing compared to figuring out how to make my end project properly. And that's the kind of thing which is helping keep life interesting through all this pandemic and politics and empty shelves and aging and fighting with a different computer system and... and... and.

When A Little Knowledge Brings Respect

It started last fall with a garage sale. Now, I tend to avoid those, have for many years. There has seldom been the budget, and even more rarely the willingness to walk around with my bad knees and feet. But the feet are better so long as I wear proper arch supports, and the knees have been replaced. So the pain is gone. Strength still leaves something to be desired at times, but that excuse for avoiding sales is gone too. So mostly I just avoided other folks' junk. I already have plenty.

That particular weekend there were two sales, advertised throughout the club. Two widows of members, also club members themselves, were strongly downsizing their huge stashes of jewelry making supplies. This meant tools, wire, findings, beads, stones, etc. So I went to both sales. Spent money at both. And once home, started poring over in much more detail what all I'd just brought home.

There were surprises. I'd done some selective buying, ruling out things I had no interest in nor need for. But in both cases I'd gotten more than I knew. The bigger item was a storage case, something like a tackle box though it would never be used at such. Once the lid flipped up, it revealed a deep storage area holding several spools of colored wires. Nearly all were in my favorite colors to use, red, blue and green. Much room was left so I spent a morning going through my wires and adjusting just what was in that space.

With the lid up the front wall came forward and down, revealing four pull-out divided boxes full - mostly - of beads. There were bunches I had/have absolutely no interest in. There were odd shapes that don't appeal, some which don't fit ways I know how to mount with wires that show enough of my own work that they qualify to be sold in the club store - strict rules there - and colors and patterns that I personally consider ugly. Some of those were selected out for donating to the club for others to choose from at our regular raffles, since I know others like stuff I don't, and have different markets for what they sell that accept things which don't fit in club rules. 

Some were simply unsuitable, like seed beads so tiny that they slipped between compartments under the dividers and can't be seen for handling well by my aging eyes. Tossed! Some were broken. Tossed! Many were partly assembled in fittings or made of materials that again don't meet club (thus mine) standards, like plastic "pearls". Tossed! Once stuff went away, again like in the compartment for the wires up top, new stuff came in, just differently organized. Or in some cases, finally organized. 

Then I spent a couple months working with them. Some things went out as presents, others got submitted to the club for sale, still others got assembled into small units for later assembly into complete pieces, and a few went to the club to aid in teaching workshops.

Finally, hiatus. Most everything just sat because, well, holidays, and getting ready for a new club job with all that entailed. And just plain because of running out of steam. But that doesn't last long, once I'm back in the groove. So I started looking for new projects and ways to use supplies on hand, partly as a way to keep me off Etsy and spending money on some exquisite glass flower beads for sale there. (Not entirely successful, that. I have a shipment from Russia in a few weeks.)

In the process of looking around, I remembered a particular kind of bead I'd dismissed earlier. They are rectangular, very flat, and very busy. No two match. When I'd first gone through, several had been broken. I was satisfied with cleaning out that compartment and ignoring them. The thing is I'm used to working with rounded beads, and my skills mostly work only on those. Sure, I could just string them, but that's not what we do in the club. "Just assembly" doesn't cut it there. But as my mind returned to them, an idea popped into my head for a combination stringing and wire wrapping of them. I started hunting for where I'd put them.

My idea was first to match as well as possible the beads by twos, to make into earrings. Several stood out on that score, so now three pairs of beads were separated from the rest. I figure the highly mismatched ones can be combined with the stringing/wrap into a bracelet where eclectic can be a bonus. And "matching" earrings might be a selling-point plus. In the process of sorting the beads, however, the details started standing out. Their flat surface showed lots of tiny flowers of all different sorts, colors, and shapes, swimming in a field of colored glass, crowded together so tightly it was difficult to imagine how the glass that held them together could actually invade the spaces to do its job.

Hmmm. Artistry at work here. 

Not just that, but under the beads was a tag with a shop name and an interesting price. Those beads initially cost the person selling me the case of supplies more I paid for the whole case! And that's just the ones left unbroken. So I decided to start a Google search.

I had no name, just knew they were glass and had flowers in them. I went back into Etsy first and perused their beads, thinking I'd seen and rejected something like them earlier. I found some poor imitations, beads with very few flowers or other designs embedded in them. But now I had a name: millefiori. "Thousand flowers" in Italian, some were claimed to be Murano. Definitely some respect due there! Back to Google, I wandered through all kinds of examples, finding nothing quite as elaborate as what I had, but also gaining an appreciation for how they are made, with tiny glass rods of various designs and shapes surrounded in glass and then sliced into individual beads. How exactly they get a center hole going them, or a great polish, or when in the process, wasn't described. I've had a class on glass fusion, and nobody in our club has or teaches those kind of skills. We just cut, layer, pop in the kiln, and take whatever comes out. Period.

I think the prices of those earrings just went up! And I'm definitely only working on them with sterling.

Scraping Windows - Again.

It hasn't happened for several years now. I haven't needed to know where my window scraper was hiding in the car, much less whether I still had my old one, not since moving down to Arizona. 

They say it's not just the heat, but that it's a dry heat. Well, winters here are pretty much the same with lack of humidity making a big difference. It has on very rare occasions dipped below freezing. We've even had a night or two here and there where we had to mind the house water pipes, now that they've been rerouted to the outside of the house after that slab leak our first winter here. Sure, the pipes have foam and tape around them, but the summer sun and heat do a job on those so they need to be regularly checked at minimum. Still, we get the cold on rare occasions.

But we very rarely also get any humidity at the same time. It takes something other than desert dry air to frost car windows. Two nights ago we had a valley-wide freeze warning. No frost accompanied it. Last night, there was no freeze warning, with temperatures anticipated to dip to 33. That's above, for those of you like my brother's family who just had -35 the other night in northern Minnesota. 

With that forecast I was surprised to come out of the house this morning on my way to the club shortly before 9 to find all the windows on the car frosted over. Apparently we had humidity also. Most likely it was emerging from the ground, due to recent rains. Nothing was falling overnight. Skies were even clear enough to even see part of Pleiades overhead! This in the sky I often refer to as giving us a great view of about 14 stars each night.

Since it was my turn to unlock the club's door, I was pretty much in a hurry. Lucky for me, strange as that may seem, it had rained several times over a few days earlier. The first rain after several months to fall was the one that brought all the dust, cleaning it from the air and depositing it everywhere. Car windows are where it shows, all spotted and speckled once they dry. I had to go into the hatch under the floor where a jack and spare tire never got placed and pull out the scraper after that rain to squeegee the windows back to a state of offering visibility before they dried to white spots. I was in a hurry to open the club that day too, and the scraper never made it back into the spare tire well. That not only saved me time then, but again this morning, since we carry a case of water bottles back there which has to be hauled out and returned for any access under the hatch floor. This time the scraper was where I tossed it, on the floor of the back seat.

I actually had the impulse to head back in the house, grab my camera, and shoot some photos of not only the frost patterns, but the fact of them as well. But since I was running late and was the one with the key today, I allowed myself a half second of remorse and scraped away. Who knows? It may happen again down here some day, where I can get a shot of frost patterns in the foreground with palms and saguaros in the background.

Really! Maybe someday. Not that I'm asking....