Columbia Show

I have a show this weekend in Columbia, MO, and I have been crankin' it. Holy Jebus, I am going to have arthritus at an early age. I'm a little concerned about how well I will do at this show, so I have been busy making small necklaces (50 of them) and earrings (75 pairs). My knuckles hurt. But, after this show, I don't have anything until December and I have some great ideas for new stuff. I'm super excited to start doing the creative stuff again. It has been 3 weeks. Luck has it that the creation of my smaller, more methodical pieces fell on the same week as tv premier week. So, I have been sitting on the couch, filing, sitting on the couch sanding, sitting on the couch forming and more filing, on the couch assembling. It worked out nicely, because I got to watch my shows. I was looking forward to the bachelor (i know, I'm a huge nerd), I'm obsessed with America's next top model (now you've lost all respect for me). Lets see, can i gain it back? I'm hugely obsessed with Law and Order, and I'm working on getting obsessed with Heroes. Grey's Anatomy was disappointing, but I'm still going to try to watch it this season and see if it annoys me. Sometimes it annoys me. Sometimes I can't live without it.

More importantly...Turner, now Tippy has been adopted almost officially. She will be taken by her new owner (my next door neighbor's friend), who lives in Kentucky tomorrow or Saturday. She's a lucky dog because she's going to be in a great home. I love that feeling, knowing that the dogs are placed in superb homes. It's the best. It's why I foster. I will be getting a terrier on Monday. I will post pictures when I get him.

For anyone out there who is looking to adopt, if you want to adopt a pure bred, there are pure bred rescues of every kind, all over the place. So please get on the internet and support your local rescues because it's just silly to pay for more dogs to needlessly be put on this earth when there are so many in desperate need of a loving family. Contact me if you need help finding a pure bred pup in a rescue if you aren't having any luck. I will help and it will be so worth it.

Steve's looking at guns again. haha!

These are my cute dogs Frankie Monster is on the left (the Shepherd mix) and Floyd, the doydy is on the right (as far as we can tell he's a lab/giant schnauzer mixed with a lot of love in his belly. I talk so much about all of the other dogs I have in my home, I thought I'd introduce to the perma dogs. They are sweet because they put up with all of the randoms I bring home.

Raw Food

I tried to go raw last week. Key word tried. I don't know man, all the rave about the diet...and it all makes sense. I think I did it right mixing nuts and fruits and hemp protein and lots of greens. We went to Stone Hill winery on Friday because Steve's band Strawfoot played for the Missouri bike race. Thank goodness wine is on the list of raw foods. However, I think I may have over done it. By Sunday morning, after 6 days on the raw food diet, six days of headaches, severe lethargy, and one day of way too much wine, I broke and had myself my favorite breakfast of hashbrowns topped with over easy eggs and salsa and sour cream. Far from raw, but oh so delicious. My goal was to make it two weeks, but I think 6 days of 100% raw was plenty. For those of you who don't know what a raw diet is, it is when you don't eat anything with preservatives, pasteurized, processed, no chemicals or hormones. It's a vegan diet, so no dairy, or meat. And you don't cook anything. But, there are recipes that are pretty good that can keep it pretty interesting for a while. I'm glad I did it, because I will incorporate some of these recipes into my daily eating repitoire, but definitely not 100%.

I am fostering a full bred Greyhound cutie. Her name is Turner and she is totally neurotic. I'm thinking she was kenneled most of her 3 years of existence and she is super uncoordinated so she probably wasn't raced. I think she was pushed around a lot because anytime I take her collar she freezes. I have spent a good portion of the last week pulling and carrying this 55 lb. beauty. That said, she has a great temperment. We are working on potty training since I don't think she had ever been in a house before. She also had to learn how to maneuver steps. She was pretty afraid at first, but now can go up and down short steps. But, if you have never seen a greyhound run and play it is an amazing sight. She looks like a deer. When she runs she bucks her back legs after she raises her front. Steve wants to keep her because although she is playful outside, when she is indoors she is like a cat. Just lounges around or chews on a bone. I think I've already found a home for her. I knew she would go fast because she is sooo cool.

This is a photo of Steve and I on the way home from Art Outside Schlafly show after a 14 hour day of working and then breaking down the tent and loading furniture and jewelry stuffs in the rain. This is a really good picture to show how we felt.

Vandals

This weekend was the Art Outside show. Despite the rain and the vandalism that happened to quite a few artists tents it turned out to be a pretty good weekend. For some reason, some buttwad decided to take a knife to the tents. They didn't steal anything from my tent, but did from the nice lady next to me. Fortunate for us, and unfortunate for Tom Schlafly, he is going to pay for all of the damage...from what I hear....which is super nice. I don't have insurance on my stuff (which will change very soon), so it will be greatly appreciated whatever he can do to help out. My first show after quitting County Glass. It's a little different, because my livelyhood depends on sales now. I am in no way, shape or form a good saleswoman. I really enjoy seeing all of the people though and talking to everyone. It is so different than working at a glass shop. I guess people shop for glass because they kind of have to, people shop for art because they want to. So, yes, getting into the swing of things still. I received quite a few custom orders, so those will keep me fairly busy this week, as well as catching up on the rest of my life which I have kind of completely let fall apart. Housekeeping...yikes! it will be a feat to get the house back in what order it was in prior to the constant jewelry making 2 weeks before the show. Not to say it was in very good order, but I'm working on it. I think I should post photos of my dungeon studio. Lots of people asked me at the show where my studio is. I know there will be a day that I look back on the basement and wonder how I functioned working down there. There is no water except for the wash machine. Every once in a while, after I've made a gazillion trips upstairs, I use the laundry machine water. Sometimes there are still clothes in there and they get a little wet and I laugh. At least I am more attentive to the laundry in the wash though. I'm one of those people who washes and forgets....sometimes I even run it and forget to put the clothes in. I haven't done that for quite a while and I realize how not environmentally friendly this is, so I'm paying closer attention. Back to the studio. I think a video would be a better visual, but I would be quite embarrassed of the basement. I just moved into my fiance's house and combining the two of us rugrats was quite difficult. It would be much easier to move into an empty house. One of these days I will have a semi-professional studio...ihopeihope. I kind of feel like I'm paying my dues and when my dreams of a shiny studio come to fruition, it will make me that much more appreciative.

Art Outside

The Schlafly show is tomorrw. Since I haven't been working at County Glass, I feel much more prepared. Either that or I've become much more lackadaisical before shows. That is no good since I've only done 3 shows so far. I feel like I should be stressed out, but I'm not. Maybe I am since I'm worrying about whether I'm stressed or not. I've had a lot of fun over the past 2 weeks in my basement creating and I hope it shows in my work. Each piece takes quite a bit of time to make...I wish I could go faster, but I don't want to lose the quality of the pieces. It's so hard for me to make the same thing twice. I get so incredibly bored with repetition.

My adorable fiance is sitting next me with his obsesticca looking at gun websites. His gun obsession is as to my ebay/myspace obsession. Yes, if he looks over, I'm either on ebay or myspace (obsessed with myspace) the whole making friends thing...I can't get enough artist friends. It's making me want to be a painter. Anyway, he's always making me look at guns on the internets and I think it's funny and cute. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of guns AT ALL, but Steve and guns is an oxymoron. He is a very wonderfully sweet and all around great guy. And then he has this gun obsession that doesn't fit...but it's cute. He's not into hunting, just guns and their mechanics and how they look.

In other news, I started my Yoga class this week. It was surreal. I've never taken a real yoga class. I love the idea of stretching and being one with myself, and my body and all of that, but we said a prayer, or something at the beginning of class in a different language, and we had to repeat it, and they swore up and down that it was not to a god, but i don't believe them. anyway, i think I'm going to make them tell me what we're saying next class. I'm positive it's a prayer to a god. which is fine, i just don't want to be tricked into saying a prayer.

I'm getting an Italian greyhound to foster at the beginning of next week! I'm so excited. I need my puppy fix.

Hope to see ya'll at the Schlafly fair. Here is a little preview of what will be there.