Busy times...

4/14/10

Are you ready for an obnoxiously long post? Alrighty then. You've been warned.

With stand-in child Luke last Saturday, in the throes of packing

Kevin (my brother) and Lori moved on Monday. They stopped by our house on their way to Hanksville to get our old microwave and to say goodbyyyyyyeeeeee

Note the ominous looking clouds...

Hattie and Madelyn playing princesses. Not that you care, but Madelyn is styling a Pink Floyd t-shirt (one of Mark's favorite bands). "Come on you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!"

Everybody had to give baby Luke one last squeeze. We're going to miss little Goldilocks!

Madelyn was none too happy about them leaving. In fact, she was furious.

Shortly after they drove away...

(As you can see, she got over her disappointment quickly.) Mother Nature sent a blizzard, rain and high winds for them to drive in. Similar to the 30 year storms we drove through both when we moved TO and FROM Albuquerque. What a special parting gift!

This storm was rather costly for us. Since Mark has an iPhone, the only network it works with is AT&T, which we detest. We get spotty coverage here at the house, and when it snowed on Tuesday neither of our phones worked at all here for a good 12 hours. Of course Mark was (is) on call and needed to be reached by the on-call service and the hospital, so he had to leave and go sit at his brother's house all evening in case someone was trying to call him. It was so retarded.

Luckily, after some brainstorming, he went out and got a magicJack internet phone thingy and was able to come home and set it up. So now we have another phone number, but we'll just use it for when Mark's on call as a backup. Why is it still snowing anyway?!? It's the middle of freaking April!!!

Anyhoo, I have just emerged from making another batch of jewelry. We're all quite glad that I'm done (although I already have a few more projects lined up....).

I hadn't even been planning on making anything for a long long long long time because #1: I was out of a lot of essential supplies so I'd have to shell out some $$ upfront just to get started and #2: (which perhaps should be #1) I have a super grabby, clingy 6-month old (who got a cold and cut a tooth this week just to liven things up) and an impatient 5-year old who wants me every 30 seconds for something or other.

But someone hopped on my etsy site and loved one of the necklaces on there and wanted four of them (but I'd only made one, and what's more, I made it from leftover beads from NM, which were all gone). So she requested that I find the beads again and make a set of four necklaces and earrings for the bridesmaids for her October wedding. And although 5x7mm pink topaz firepolished faceted teardrop shaped Czech beads may be found on every corner in ABQ, they certainly are nowhere near here. Thank goodness for the internet!

The finished product, finally

THEN I got custom order requests from THREE MORE people and then all my friends and cousins started having BABY GIRLS and of course there's MOTHER'S DAY coming up...........I made at least 20 bracelets, ten necklaces and six pairs of earrings, and when you take into account that a lot of them had multiple strands, it was like a million beads going on. No wonder I haven't seen the light of day (or the surface of my craft table) for two weeks.

Some of the baby/little girl bracelets

A "mom" bracelet to match some of the baby/little girl ones

A couple custom magnetic necklaces

Bracelets for my niece Emma's bridesmaids...I had made three of them already but then she needed two more

And then I got to thinking, "Hey--what about me??" I love bracelets and especially these new multi-strand ones I've been making. Sooo...

I'm keeping these. Luke has his eye on them. They look like some fancy teething rings.

I'll wait until after Mother's Day to show you what I made for my moms.

Now if only someone would come package all this stuff up and go to the post office for me. And clean my house and bathe and feed my neglected children.

This event was sponsored by SpongeBob SquarePants, who effectively kept Madelyn out of my hair for many hours. She's been watching it so much that she's picked up some new expressions.

She says, "Oh barnacles!"

And to add to the taunts she regularly exchanges with Mark ("Juice Goose!" "Bossy Pants!" "Chatterbox!" "Bummy Bum!") she now yells, "Chum Sauce!!" The first time she called Luke that, I couldn't stop laughing. The lack of sleep is clearly taking its toll.

Well, that's all I'll burden you with for now. Next up: mending and ironing!