Happy Halloween Monday

OK, I know, I know. I've been slow to blog lately. I've been trying to stay on top of my work in order to be ahead for the holidays. I've been getting the kiddies ready for Halloween and I made a bracelet for Jaded. We have been away most weekends lately and that means, I'm behind on laundry, etc. at home too. There just are not enough hours in the day...

Above are some recent fused glass pieces. The two long skinny pendants are my favorite and the great thing about some of the glass and the way that it comes out of the kiln is how it looks different on different colors. Above they are obviously on a white background. I also scanned the two long pendants on black so you can see the difference it makes:

Now you can see more of the dichroic color and pattern. Very fun! I fired nine, that's right, nine more pieces last Tuesday and I'm looking forward to seeing how they come out when I go to class tomorrow night.

What else to update you about? The U2 concert was awesome as usual. This was my seventh time seeing U2. Yes, I love those Irish boys! Bono had a bit of a cold, but still managed to give a great show. My husband doesn't share my love for all things U2, so my friend Jenni went to the show with me. We met downtown for dinner and then headed over to the MCI Center for the show. Damien Marley was the opening act. For as much as I love U2, I have never cared for their opening acts and Marley was true to the trend. Reggae is just not my scene. I had really hoped that Keane would be the opening act for DC, but no such luck. Anyway, Jenni scored floor tickets from her radio station, so we entered through general admission. Unfortunately, our tickets did not get randomly selected to go to the inner circle of the stage. We hung out on the floor for a while, but once U2 took the stage, we couldn't see a thing, so we headed upstairs to my reserved seats in section 417. We were up fairly high, but close to the stage and I could see my man Bono, so I was much happier. All in all, in spite of Bono having a cold, the show was great and U2 did not disappoint. They even had the audience sing "Happy Birthday" to Pavarotti, who the band originally recorded "Miss Sarajevo" with several years ago. Bono said that he would send a tape of it to Pavarotti and he hoped that he wouldn't blow the Italian portion of "Miss Sarajevo", since Pavarotti would give him a hard time about it.

We were again out of town this past weekend. While the in-laws took care of our boys, the hubby and I spent Saturday wandering around State College and then watched Penn State beat Purdue! It was a great game and it is SO exciting to be at a game when Penn State is doing so well this year. The stadium was literally hopping! GO STATE!!!!

We have a birthday here today at the office and then we are taking the boys "trick or treating" this evening. It will be a first for both of them. The craziness continues...

Tonight!

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you.

I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you. ...

I so LOVE U2 and I am there with Bono and several thousand of my close personal friends at MCI Center. Work can not go fast enough for me today.

My Job is Interfering With My Personal Life

After a very busy weekend in PA, yesterday was my oldest’s class trip to the pumpkin patch. These trips are a blast. I think the adults have as much fun as the little ones do. Tomorrow brings my youngest’s first class trip to the pumpkin patch. He’s my no fear guy so we’ll see how he does on the trip.

It is working out to be a very busy week. Hubby is studying for his mid-term on Wednesday night and I have tickets to see my man Bono and U2 at MCI Center Thursday night.

So to sum that up, I’m late to work Monday and Wednesday and I leave work early on Thursday—oh yeah and I have a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day Thursday. Nice.

The full “brain trust” will be in effect very shortly as they both have returned from their trips overseas. Ugh!

Alright, a boring post. Sorry. I leave you with a picture of one of the bracelets I designed for breast cancer awareness—since October is breast cancer awareness month. Enjoy!

A Pocketful of Sparkles

Here is a quick report about my adventures at Bead Fest last weekend. The drive from DC to Philly was worse than I anticipated. Way worse. It is a 150 mile drive and it took me 5-1/2 hours to get there in the rain. I'll spare you the details, it was bad! My four year-old had Monsters Inc. watched before I even made it north of the DC beltway.

Anyway, despite the rainy driving conditions all weekend, the show was great. I didn't buy as much as I thought I would and my hubby was quite impressed with my restraint. I mainly bought seed beads. I also got the above sparkly blue beads, which are just itching to be made into a necklace and earrings. I bought another kit from Maria Rypan. Her work is SO beautiful and she is just the nicest person. I had a chance to speak with her for a while and thanked her for being so nice and helpful last year. Last year was my first show and it was so incredibly overwhelming. She took the time to talk to me about her work and convinced me that I too could make her pieces even though I was just a beginner. She was right. I got two of her kits last year and had a blast doing them. This year she had a ton of new things and I got one new kit. I can't wait to get started on it.

The other purchase that I made was two pieces of glass for fusing. I cut some pieces and fused them Tuesday night. I will get them this coming Tuesday and hopefully have something cool to show you afterwards.

I was more prepared for the show this year. I knew more of what to expect as well as more of what I was interested in seeing this year. I had a better idea of which vendors I wanted to see and what I was looking for as far as products are concerned. I had the opportunity to talk to a really nice woman from Fire Mountain Gems, which is just bead supply heaven! I met and talked to a lot of the artists and craftspeople. It was just a great group of people to be with and everyone was so nice and eager to share their art.

This is weekend two of three weekends spent traveling to PA in October. My husband paddles canoe competitively and he has a race in Bellefonte, PA this weekend. I'll be freezing my butt off along a creek in the middle of PA. My inlaws will keep the kids on Saturday and then bring them to the race on Sunday. Saturday, I will have some down time to myself while the hub is practicing on the water. I'll bundle up with a book along the water. Hope you have a great weekend!

Tagged

I'm It. Pobble has tagged me. Here are the rules:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the 5th sentence (or close to it.)
4. Post that, along with these rules, in your blog.
5. Tag 5 people.

And the 5th sentence of my 23rd posting was:

"All that you need to do to help is click on a link from the homepage."

I was surprised to find that I actually have had 23 + posts. The sentence is from my post about The Breast Cancer Site. So while I’m at it, I’ll plug the site again. Go here now and click it.

I have seen this several times, so I’ll take a chance with a few of you.

1. Hadley
2. Playful in DC
3. ERL
4. Jaded was already tagged by Pobble as well, so nevermind.
5. Do I have any other readers?

Please Pray for Our Soldiers

I was going to post tonight about my Bead Fest adventures from this past weekend. I will do so hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime I'd like to talk about an e-mail I received today.

As some of you know, my 20-year high school reunion is coming up in November. Being the token graphic designer of the class, I am in charge of preparing a booklet updating the whereabouts of our classmates. In the process of doing so, e-mails have been going back and forth and classmates have been sending me their updates.

In mid-September I received an e-mail from a guy that I was friends with in high school, but haven't really been in close contact with over the years. He was at the last reunion and we chatted and got caught up with each other. We kept in touch a bit afterwards by e-mail, but lost track of each other again. Anyway, I digress. I get this e-mail from him in September and come to find out he's in Tikrit, Iraq with his Army reserve unit. He's been in Iraq since last December. His first child was born a month before he was deployed. They had a girl.

We exchanged a couple more e-mails. He sent me photos of his baby girl and I sent him photos of my boys. Then I didn't hear back from him until tonight. I think it's been 2 or 3 weeks. The e-mail that he sent to me and several other people contained a link to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. A staff reporter is reporting from Iraq along with a photographer. My friend referenced a soldier mentioned in the article as being the gunner on his truck. In the article the soldier talks about counting the days until he can go home. He has been keeping track of the days by using the usual group of four slash marks with a fifth slash through the four on their Humvee. On Oct. 4th, there is an arrow pointing to the corresponding slash mark. The arrow memorializes the IED (improvised explosive device) that hit their truck. The truck was not damaged and everyone is OK. Please pray for our soldiers.

My friend is one of those guys that is just the sweetest guy you could know. He is at war far from home. He misses his wife. He's missed most of the first year of his daughter's life. I have no concept whatsoever of what that is like. All I know is that the men and women of our military are making sacrifices that none of us can ever come close to understanding unless we have been there ourselves. Please pray for our soldiers.

Every night before I go to bed, when I check on my beautiful, sweet, innocent little boys and kiss their sleeping heads, I say a prayer to God that they may always be safe.

Please pray for our soldiers. They are not safe.

What I have to Look Forward To

How's this picture for a lovely drive up I-95 from DC to Philly. My dead lawn needs the rain, so I'm only slightly complaining. It hasn't rained a measurable amount here in over a month. Nonetheless, driving I-95 in the rain, on a Friday is going to be awful. I'm done bitching now and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

My Last Half Day of Bliss

I'm only working until noon today. The most annoying half of the "brain trust" returns from London on Tuesday. (We are off for Columbus Day). It has been so nice and peaceful here this week.

Anyway, I'm headed to Philly today for a HUGE bead show. My oldest is coming along with me since the hubby has Penn State tickets, which of course conflicts with my bead show. He's taking the youngest with him and dropping him with his parents. My charge and I will be spending the night at my sister-in-law's and she'll take care of E. while I head to Ft. Washington for a day of looking for beading treasures. If all goes well, I'll find some great stuff, not do too much damage to my credit card, and be able to make something fabulous to show you all. Have a great weekend!

The Downside of TiVo

If you TiVo "Lost" and the radio people start talking about the episode the next morning, which you have not yet watched, you must jam your fingers in your ears so as not to hear the radio people discuss what happened. This can be difficult when driving.

Sorry that I have been a little M.I.A. lately. I have been busy and haven't really had anything to say worth posting. I am however, enjoying the silence here in the office while both members of the "brain trust" are out of the country. More soon...I promise.