Happy Holidays!

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the newest member of the Custom Family Holiday Ornament family - the Penguin Family!!!

As with the Snowmen, you can choose the colors for hats and scarves, as well as for the year plaque if requested.  Be sure and order yours by the end of November!!

Kindergarten

It occurs to me that I forgot to blog about Stephen's first day of school! Sorry - this picture was taken before I took him to school. Normally, he rides the bus in the morning, but my mommy heart just couldn't take NOT walking him to his classroom on his first day of Kindergarten. And I totally didn't cry!

It has been 2 weeks since Stephen started school, and as expected he loves it! He is playing with the other children, and enjoys the addition of P.E., art class, and music class. This is not to say, however, that this has been a smooth transition. For the past 6 months or so, Stephen has been waking up early with increasing frequency. And by early, I mean 5am, and sometimes earlier. For the record, a 5-6 year old should be getting 10-11 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Stephen is sitting on 9 most days. This started to become a daily issue over the summer, but we were hopeful that all-day kindergarten would wear him out enough to sleep longer, as he is really suffering from being so tired all day. We finally had enough, and took him to the pediatrician about this, and she suggested that we give him melatonin, and try to keep him up later. This is easier said than done - Stephen is ready to go to sleep usually between 7 and 7:30, instead of the 8pm that the doctor suggested, but we are keeping him up as best as we can. Unfortunately, it's not working very well after 1.5 weeks... Sadly, this has affected his behavior at home and school, as well as his school performance, but we are all working proactively to help him as much as we can.

Despite the sleep issues, Stephen's teacher reports that he is really a wonderful boy, and a joy to have around. That's what we love to hear!

New Schedule

Well, it's been back-to-school time around here!  My son started all-day kindergarten, and my husband is back to teaching as well... lest you think this leaves me to sit around all day eating bonbons, let me tell you what I'M up to!  I decided to go back to school too!!  I'm only taking one class this semester, since it's been 11 years since I was last in a college course, and frankly, it's taking a bit of extra work to remember how to study again.  Hopefully once I get back in to the swing of things, I'll be able to get a good blogging schedule set up too.

I have managed to make a few things over the past couple of weeks, though!  Everything can be found in the shop, of course.

I'm ready to pull out my clay here soon - I have a lot of ideas in my head right now, and just not much time for implementation.  So stay tuned!!

Still no photos

Sadly, 2 months later, I still don't have a new window in my dining room where I take my photos.  One was ordered, but evidently the contractor didn't measure correctly, so they had to order a second one, which should be ready in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I HAVE to find somewhere else to take my pictures today.  I currently have 3 pairs of earrings, 5 bracelets, and a necklace waiting to be photographed.

I did get a picture of this, though:

I've been holding off on working on Christmas ornaments because it's really hot, which makes it hard to work with my clay, and also because they are time-consuming, which makes them very daunting to me right now.  I am planning on making a mold of the bodies for the snowmen AND the penguins so that I can cut down on at least a little bit of the time to make these.  Hopefully my master plan will work, lol!

still no new pictures

...because I still don't have my new windows in yet.  Hopefully it will be this next week, though!  It's awfully dark in our house with 4 of our south-facing windows covered in plywood.  :-(

Is it hot where you live?  It's pretty warm here.  I think the high will be near 100 today, which is cooler than the past few days, although it's pretty humid.  Being from Southern Arizona, I'm pretty accustomed to the heat, but people aren't lying when they say, "but it's a DRY heat!"  It definitely feels a lot worse when it's 100* and humid, vs. 105* and dry... I swear it!

So, I was thinking about a sale... if you enter SUMMER at checkout, you'll get 25% off anything that is ready to ship.  Yes, this means you won't get a discount on an ornament...

What?!?  ORNAMENTS?  Yep.  Click the picture to head over to Etsy and see!

Psssssst!

We were on vacation last week, and of course I had to hit up a couple of my favorite Tucson bead shops... Unfortunately, my usual photo window is currently covered by a huge piece of plywood while we wait for our new windows (hopefully in the next few days), so I can't get any photos of my beads.  In the meantime, however, I just wanted to let you all know that yes, I'm still here, and today I'm planning on starting a prototype for a new style of Christmas ornaments!!  I'll still have the snowmen, but the polar bears were just too much for me, so I'm going to try something else new for this year!  I can't wait to show you all!!!!  :-)

So here's the thing...

I'm tired.  I'm really just exhausted.  This past month has been rough.  We passed a stomach virus around our house, and then after I got caught up from that, my son got done with school.  And on top of all of that, for whatever reason, no one has been sleeping particularly well in our house, which has left me with little motivation.  On top of that, we had a really bad storm come through 2 nights ago, and whatever free time I might have had for creating has been spent cleaning up glass from multiple broken windows, dealing with our insurance company, and picking up broken tree branches.  I'm trying to get back in to the swing of things, though.  It's just been hard.

Prior to all of this, though, I got these gorgeous yellow agate beads.  I love them so much.  This bracelet, and a pair of matching earrings went on a cruise to Mexico with my friend.

 Her trip inspired me to make these earrings that make me think of lemon-lime margaritas.  :-)

 I've been sitting on these acrylic coins for several months now.  They are HUGE!  But they are so lightweight, I knew they were just perfect for earrings.

 And another Christmas bead necklace has found it's way to my Etsy shop.

I do have a lot of new ideas in my head, and even a few new pieces waiting to be photographed (1 bracelet, 2 anklets, and a necklace).  At the moment, I just need some time to take some pictures and get them listed. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things after a few nights of good sleep!