3 posts tagged “jewelry”

As I have mentioned before I am currently unemployed. Even though I am one of the lucky ones, I have state and union unemployment available to me, it still gets to me. My mood has not been all that great, it does not help matters none that we have had so many rainy days here in the Midwest lately. When I first was laid off I was working on my beaded jewelry in and effort to keep my mood up and with the thought of selling it as a way to make some money. Unfortunately I have not really been doing much with that either, I just was giving in to the blah feeling of it all.

In an effort to break out of that mood, I have been taking pictures of the jewelry that I do have made. (even though I do not like the quality the camera gives me, that is for another post). Last night I started working on editing for upload. I do not have much done yet, but it is a start.

I just uploaded some pictures of one piece that I have repaired. I showed the piece to both WPG and Country by Design when I got to meet them, but unfortunately it was broken at that time. So I wanted to post that one first so that they could see how I repaired it.

The necklace has a glass heart pendant and when I originally made it the pendant had a glass loop on it for suspending it from the necklace itself, but I broke it when I was storing it away to take with me on vacation. I have since repaired it using some copper wire to make a cage and loop for the pendant. I will probably not sell this item because even though I have filed down the sharp edges of the glass where the loop broke off of the heart, I do not want to take the chance that I missed anything. I am not sure what I will do with it now.

Its been a while since I have posted anything and although there has not been a lot going on there has been a few things.
 
Health:

I have been feeling a little down (not enough to go back on meds but just not peppy). I know part of it is just because of the frustration from being unemployed. I also know part o fit is from being worried about my health. There is nothing really big going on unless you consider that I am 'big'. That definitely is getting me down. Being unemployed so often I have gotten in to some very bad habits and also very sedentary behavior all which has allowed me to gain more weight than I am happy with. Heck gaining any weight is not something I am happy with.

Recently I had an IA attack and before it I had noticed something that I am not sure if it is connected to my IA or if it is another health issue. I have been having a lot of swelling in my legs and hands. I am not sure if it is symptom that can be tied to my IA or if it is a symptom of High blood pressure. (I have taken my blood pressure multiple times and it is borderline high [i.e. 135/85 or 128/87] it has not been extremely high but it has not been low {right now it is 119/84 so not too bad}). For right now I am going to keep an eye on my blood pressure, cut back on the soda, try to limit my salt in take and just in case it is a symptom of my IA I am taking an extra Benadryl once or twice a day if I feel the need. Of course taking the extra Benadryl is not helping my activity level, but I have noticed some of the swelling has gone down so maybe its the Benadryl or maybe it is just the reduction in soda and salt. I am fortunate that I have never been one that felt super sleepy from Benadryl but it does make it easier for me to sleep once I get to sleep so I do sometimes spend much longer in bed than I should be.

Friends & Family:

I gave one of my best friends a ride to get her cataract surgery. She is one of those fortunate people that have never had much need for any kind of surgery.  The only surgeries she has had were her tonsils out at the age of 5 and her wisdom teeth removed. Because of her limited surgery experience she was pretty nervous about the whole thing. She made it thru it just fine and is healing nicely. The biggest ordeal of the whole thing was the wee hours of the morning that we had to get up to make it to her surgery appt on time and to her follow up appt the next day. I do not blame her for being nervous about the surgery itself, after all it is her eyes that are being operated on. It does not matter that it is a very well practiced surgery that is supposedly pretty simple, there is always that one time that something goes wrong. I have  always had a  fear of loosing my  eyesight.  I  developed the fear as a child when I started getting glasses and there was a period  of time where I had  to get a new prescription  in as short a time as  6 months. I was afraid that my eyesight was eventually going to get so bad that I would not be able to see. 

My roommate has been considering adopting a rescue dog. He is a cute 3-4yr old beagle missing one leg. We have been keeping an eye on him on the groups list of adoptable pets on Petfinder.com . We were going to go see him last weekend but the weather was so bad that we made arrangements with the foster home to go look at him this weekend. I really was not super enthused about getting the dog, I was not against her getting a dog I knew she would take care of it. I just am feeling drained from being unemployed so I was not super enthused, but she wanted to get him so I agreed to go look at him. Did I mention that it is almost a 2 hour drive to get there, well it is. We drove all the way down there (mad-tante might know where I am taking about if I say Morse Mills) only to find out that he is not a cat friendly dog. {my roommate never thought to ask that, and I made the mistake of thinking that would be one of the first things my roommate would have asked since all our cats are indoor cats}. So we petted him and turned around and drove back home. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I was glad that we were not getting him, I just was not ready for another dog. I was a bit miffed with my roommate for not thinking to ask, what I thought to be, the most important question. I was glad it was a nice day and the drive was a pleasant one. I felt bad that the poor dog was still going to have to be passed up, he is a very active energetic dog, despite having only 3 legs. He seemed genuinely upset that the people petting him were leaving him behind, yet again. I was glad that he was in this foster home where he got lots of attention instead of at a shelter in a cage.

General:

I took pictures of jewelry that I have made and just need to start editing them so that I can upload them. I will try to get some of those posted as soon as possible. We have been having some very warm weather here. I just wish the weather would level out in one direction or the other so that I get the temperature in the house steady. If it stays warm I am going to have to consider putting the AC on early. Since we spent most of today on the road I did not check out the lawnmowers like I planned. We have two different mowers, a push one for using in the dog yard and a rider for all the area outside of it. We really need to get the lawns mowed, all the rain we have gotten has made for a very plush lawn. Of course it is supposed to rain again, so now it will have to wait a few more days.

The other night I spent almost 10 hours working on trying to get some good pictures of some beaded jewelry that I had made several years ago. I had a lot of trouble with the lighting and with focus. I want to get some really good pictures, so that the actual detail of the beads and the stitching can be seen. My camera, actually two different ones, just do not seem to get the shots that I really want, so I guess these will have to work for now. (there are more than just these few photos, there are more on my flickr page.