Good god, I'm part of the problem!

I get so agravated when I get 99.9% of the way through an online purchase and get an "ERROR - Card not found 998833762xxbb" makes me say "#&*@^!!*#&#!" Well good god, my site's been doing that too! How embarrasing!

My site's been giving people errors when they get to where they have to pick their shipping. How frustrating. To make it up to everybody, I'm offering free shipping for all of February.

If you were having problems with my site, shoot me an email and let me know. I'll make it worth your effort somehow. But please, be honest, I've already been taken for a ride over some Christmas orders. So much for the Christmas spirit! Downright Grinchy if you ask me.

Oh, and I fixed the shipping error - let me know if you see any other funkiness. Somebody emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking if the price for one of my necklaces was really $3,700. I wrote her back that the piece she was looking at had a chain handmade by pixies from pure unicorn hair, thus the exhorbitant price. Yeah, it was supposed to be $37. Oh well!

I love my Subaru!

So, we got a solid dusting of snow a couple of days ago...enough for Devera to stay home from school for the last 3 days. The really bad day I had to drive in the snow...there were people in the ditches all over the city...but not my trusty little grasshopper!

I used to joke when we first moved to portland that you were assigned a dog and a subaru when you move here. And I resisted for soooooo long - I'm not really a conformist, you see. But there's a reason that every 3rd car around here is a subaru - because we're the only guys not in ditches when things get slippery!

Be safe out there!

Here's a good cure for the winter blues

It's cold and dark around here these days. Uggh this is just the worst part of the year here in Portland. But I found a great way to kick the S.A.D. ... I bought some clay a couple of months ago and a book on making sugar flowers (like the kind on fancy wedding cakes). And ta daaaaa - the first fruits of my labor. Can't you see these on a bridal tiara?

Let's see what else I can come up with - there are a whole bunch of different flowers in here. Maybe I'll have to start baking some cakes now.

Hey - free beads

You'd think I'd read my husband's blog a little more and know what's going on! He was as touched by an Inconvenient Truth as I was - check out his blog and maybe get some beads.

The 2 month trudge

Ok, Portland is the greatest place on the face of the planet...that is, if you can make it through this 2 month trudge. I swear, it takes like 12 cups of coffee to survive January and February. It's sooooooooooo dark and cold and rainy, and did I say dark? All I want to do is hibernate like a bear. But if I can make it through these 2 months, the rest of the time it's about as wonderful as you can get. I've already had my latte this morning (it's pretty funny - there are just about more dogs in the coffee shop these days than there are people - last weekend there was even a cat - go figure). But, yeah, already caffeinated, and I'm ready for bed. If I can just make it 2 more months...let's see...60 more days...how many more minutes? I think I can stay awake that long.

Happy New Year!

Looking for a good way to eat healthy this year? I found this great site: Local Harvest. It lists the farmer's markets and locally grown foods in your area. Pretty cool, huh?

So, we spent New Years Eve watching An Inconvenient Truth, now there's a happy way to kick off your new year. It was a really good movie, though. Good old Al, has a good way of simplifying the ideas that have always seem pretty convoluted and Carl Sagan-ish to me (although he did quote Carl-the Cosmos guy-a lot in the movie, which brought back some bad middle school science heebie jeebies!).

Any way...good movie...interesting stuff, and you can go their web site for some good ideas on how you can help. Seems like the best things you can do are to watch the movie and vote...seems simple.

Ok, off my soapbox. Happy New Years, everybody. Hope the hangover's not too bad.

Happy Discardia to you.

For those of you who don't celebrate festivus...I've got a new one for you, well, treehugger.com does...Discardia. Since I've taken a couple of days to sit and veg out this week, I've noticed that every corner in my house is just piled with stuff. And me...I guess I'm just not the kind of person to sit and veg out. So I'm big into preparations for Discardia day. It's not nearly as fun and festive as Christmas - and there's no candy involved. But when the day actually comes, whooh! I feel a lot better. My rule...if I haven't touched it in a year, and it doesn't have huge sentimental value...out it goes! Happy Discardia to you!

Not a fan of blinking snowman earrings?

Yeah, me neither. Which leaves me in a hard spot. I have a little bit of elf blood in me. I'm sure of it because as soon as the Thanksgiving tupperware's put in the fridge I've got the goofiest Christmas grin on my face. But I just can't bring myself to wear blinking snowman earrings for the next month.

So, I had to take things into my own hands. Here's what I do to be Christmassy, without looking like a complete goofball. These Sari Earrings always do it for me. I just love these beads anyway. Since they're a solid color, you can pull them off later in the year too and not look too silly.

I like this lampwork pendant too. I really like the silk cord it's hanging from. You've got to see it in person to see how cool it is. The pictures just don't do it justice.

There - now you can be festive without needing batteries to do it.

Oh momma - these turned out cool!

Ok, fresh off the work bench and I just had to share. How cool are these two pieces? The solder gods were smiling on me for these projects. These are both custom orders. The first one is a montana agate, from, you guessed it, Montana (the banks of the Yellowstone River to be exact). And the second is an Owyhee Picture Jasper from Eastern Oregon. If you want to see the before, these are #2 and #14 on my rock dork page. I can fit in two more custom orders for Christmas, so if this strikes your fancy. Email me quick!

Ok, today I'm a white chocolate goddess!

Mmmm...death by white chocolate today. How's this for divinity: white chocolate irish cream truffle dipped in white chocolate. Yep, I ended up licking the bowl on that one too. These ones actually turned out pretty so I didn't even have to wrap them in foil this time.

Ok, if you're looking for a book to turn you into a chocolate snob, this is the one to do it. There's more that you ever wanted to know about tempering chocolate, and some really cool things to do with it once you've got it tempered (which is the HARDEST thing to do! I think you need to be an industrial chemist to figure that one out).

So, all I've got left now are my osbcene turtles (there is nothing better on the planet than homemade caramel! It's worth the hours and hours of stirring). And a secret for Judy - since I know she's reading I'm not going to spill the beans.

So, did you make out your wishlist to Santa yet?

I Guess if Starbucks is Doing It....

Good lord! When did Starbucks become the herald for the holiday season? It's like it wasn't official around the country until the red cups and gingerbread lattes got pulled out of the back cupboard.

Me? For some reason I keep thinking it's still April. It really can't be November, can it? Thanksgiving's not really next week, right?

Well, gingerbread latte in hand, I put together a new little contest together that should be fun. Tell Santa what you want for Christmas >>

Happy Holidays, I guess. Oh, and twenty bucks says my Christmas cards are going out as Happy New Years cards (happy valentines?) Oh goody.

Stop! no Go!

Perusing my favorite treehugger site again, and I came across this cool little article

Drachten, a small Dutch city with around 50,000 residents has removed almost all of its traffic lights. Major intersections have been converted to roundabouts, smaller intersections just let drivers work make decisions on their own. Basically, it's anarchy. Anarchy that has completely eliminated dangerous crashes and road fatalities and created a surge in bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Read the rest here...

How neat is that? Although, I bet that wouldn't work if you got too much bigger - can you imagine like Paris without any stop lights? I wonder what Portland would be like...

I am a chocolate goddess!!!

No, not in the Ray Nagin sort of way... But I made my first batch of candy of the season. Oh momma! I almost don't want to give them out. I found a truffle recipe called "Death by Chocolate". Now, if there's any way to go out, going by chocolate is the tops. Anyway, the filling in these things is just unreal. I ended up with more filling than I needed...and you know, you just can't let something like this go to waste...so I ended up squirting the remains of my parchment bag of obscenely creamy chocolate directly into my mouth. MMMMMMMM. I felt like I was a little kid with a whipped cream can. Well...actually I think I'm more of a chocolate princess than a chocolate goddess - I still have to work on the presentation - they're still a little swirly on the outside instead of perfectly shiny like I want them. But that's just an excuse to practice more and have more leftovers. Dave gets all excited too 'cause he gets to eat all the broken ones. And Devera...well, you've seen the photos.

I found a good quote...

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Ok, that's a little better

It's like a kaliedascope for those of you who visit frequently. I think I'll settle down now. I don't promise anything though. At least I'm back to purple and green again.

Dammit - I pressed another button again.

Aack! When am I going to learn. Hold tight while I figure out how to turn this back.

2 Lines I Really Like

2 of them caught my eye (and ear today one was on the radio) We're all just recycled stardust (cool concept - and true if you really think about it). The people who are in control are the people who come out. (Don't just sit there - go out and vote - for ANYTHING!) Ok, there are my random thoughts for today.

More spiders please

Yep, that's certainly my kid. No that's not halloween face paint. It's cupcake frosting. We got halloweeney cupcakes for Dave's birthday on Monday. Devera's had a big black spider in frosting on top. She literally sucked the spider off the top (yes, you could hear slurping sounds and everything). When she was done with the frosting, not having eaten any of the actual cupcake, she looked up at me and said, "More spiders, please." There's an equally entertaining and very technicolor story on the other side of this event. But I won't gross you out. Oh yeah, and after I posted that I'd never have another reese's again, I had 2 more after dinner. I earned them, dammit!

Toby does pennance - goes to aerobics class

As pennance for eating reese's peanut butter cups for breakfast, lunch and dinner last night (note - not "with" breakfast, etc. but FOR breakfast). I decided to go to my first ever aerobics class. Those of you that know me are laughing already. I learned a whole lot of things tonight. In order to be proficient (or even not look like a complete idiot) you need the following skills:

1. Need to know your left from your right (I'm still working on that one - I have to make an L shape with my left hand for verification - hard to do when you're bouncing up and down)
2. Need to have just a little bit of rhythm (SP??) - yeah, don't have that.
3. Need to kinda be able to dance - I got nothin there.
4. Need to be kinda perky - I wonder if they make surly aerobics? I'd probably be good at that one!

I'm just really glad my spot wasn't anywhere close to a mirror. I would have run out crying. I know I looked like Devera when she does the hokey pokey, except that I'm not 2. But then I thought - she throws herself into the hokey pokey with wild abandon. I guess I could just laugh my way through it - it was really comical. I completely gave up on the arms halfway through after I almost hit the poor woman next to me a couple of times. At least I was entertainment for somebody - the little 70 year old ladies were smiling and winking at me. Oh yeah - this was the EASY aerobics class. I will never NEVER eat reeses for breakfast lunch and dinner again!

Good god I've got a lot of rocks!

I'm not just a rock dork - I'm a hording rock dork! While I was updating my site, I decided to redo the custom orders page. So I pulled out all of my rocks to take some photos of, and good god - where did all of those come from? I couldn't even label them from A-Z - I've got too many! Take a look at the cool ones I've got listed here >> There are some great landscapes hiding in a bunch of them. I think my favorites are number 11 & 12. Which one's your favorite?