Seismic Twitch

On the outside wall of a gas station in the Laurel Highlands in PA

Let’s see. The highlight of my week was getting my fingers caught in the car door. Again. This time it was my forefinger and middle fingers to get the brunt of the damage. Bran rolled his eyes and Boy was underwhelmed (it was he who closed the door on them, again). My forefinger isn’t very happy with bruising across the nail and a nasty scraping of skin off just below it. The middle finger just has a bit of bruising under my fingernail. Nothing was broken and everything is healing nicely. My boss is threatening to get me a helmet to wear because he’s convinced that someday I’m going to decapitate myself. Bran and I figure that something like lacrosse gloves or hockey gloves would be of more use. The residents just wince and then laugh at me.

My piercings are healing up nicely and look marvellous. I love them! I’m already thinking about getting more. The next one I want to get is tragus done next. I just can’t decide if I want to get both ears done or just one, and if one, which one. I might not though, I just read about how it might interfere with the use of ear buds. Hmmm…I’ll have to think some more. It’s a good thing I don’t get holes punched in my ears more often than once a year or longer.

I got some of my beading orders. I have the display racks for bracelets and earrings and the earring cards. They’re set aside and will go into a plastic box when I get one. I have more beads and tools. Alas, I ordered the wrong wire. I ordered 1/2 round. I should’ve ordered round. 1/2 round is shaped like it says. It works well for wire wrapping but not for other things. I’ve been playing with it regardless and done a few nice things. I ordered the round wire last night. I should arrive sometime next week. I got a new, metal jig. It’ll come in handy when I made chandelier earrings. I can also make my own hooks an closers with it.

I have a tool that I call the clapper. It’s two pieces of thick plastic, similar to what cutting boards are made of but somewhat harder. You put the metal work in between them and either use a hammer or hand, pound on the top piece. It helps to make the metal harder without damaging it.

I also have a neat tool that will allow me to make my own jump rings of various sizes as well as other round shapes with wire. I also have a pair of nylon tip pliers that will help me make scrolls without damaging the wire at all. Before I got this tool the pliers I used marred the wire. That makes oxidizing more likely. Of course, the wire I’ll be working with won’t oxidize as it will be surgical grade stainless steel.

I got some leopard skin jasper and aquamarine beads. They’re all quite lovely.

I’ve been looking at real estate in town for the past couple of weeks as well. It’s good to see that there are houses available that we’ll be able to afford once the will is settled and dispersed. We probably won’t end up in the area that Bran most desires. That tends to be an expensive area anyway, but prices are still coming down. It’s possible that by the time everything is ready (including us) we’ll be able to afford to buy in that area. There is one loft condo in an old warehouse that would be nice. 1800 square feet of living area. It’s out of our affordable range, but who knows? Maybe we’ll win the lottery, right?

I’m surprised at the number of new houses being built that don’t have things like closets at the front and back door. I mean, if you’re coming inside after gardening or even taking the trash out on a rainy day, don’t you want to have a place to put your shoes that isn’t in front of the fridge? If you have company come over, don’t you want a place to hang their coats? I just don’t understand that. So it’s a requirement for me, to have that.

Another annoyance to me is a fireplace. I mean, sure, they look good, but they interfere with furniture arrangement. I wouldn’t use a fireplace. When we had one at the last place we rented we only used it a couple of times. It was never used for heating. We finally put the couch in front of it because that’s where I wanted seating. That goes for those wood stoves too.

I like the idea of a galley kitchen. There are lots of houses that have that and then the eating area to the side. It’s similar to what many apartments have in terms of cooking/eating arrangement. It’s compact. The weird ones have the fridge or stove sitting all by themselves off to the side like little orphans. I want a surface next to the stove to put stuff if needs must.

You’ll get to see photos of the place we move into and of the yard. Chances are the yard will change because I’m not keen on grass. It’s a large monoculture space that lacks colour variety. Though I won’t take up the entire lawn immediately, I’ll work on making flower, vegetable and herb gardens larger and larger until there is little or no grass left. Perennials take less care than grass and are definitely prettier. Flowers encourage the population of pollinators like bees and butterflies. We need more of them in the world.

A friend is in town visiting. Right now she’s staying at other friends’ places but on Sunday she comes here. So I’ll be helping finish up the cleaning (the bathroom is long overdue) and getting laundry done. Laundry needs to be done anyway. We’re all kind of short on clothes.

That’s about it. I think I’m going to take apart some bracelets.

Let’s see. The Fringe Festival was a bust so far as selling my jewelry goes. I sold only about 10 pairs of earrings and no bracelets. There were other people there selling earrings made of feathers, glass and plastic who had better sales. Of course their prices were like, $2 a pair and such. I can’t go that low. I can spend upwards of 1/2 hour putting together a single pair of earrings (some of the more complex chandelier earrings take even longer) and use supplies that cost more than a plastic bead would cost. The shoppers wanted cheap stuff. I’m sure they got that. I hope the people who bought my stuff are happy and remain happy for a long while.

Bran was steady in his dedication to selling my stuff. He was out there every day, chatting to people, being all friendly and shit. Definitely stuff I have little tolerance for. Boy would go out and help him set up at times when our friend had to be at work. I’m extremely grateful to both of them for that.

Now I have to rethink my jewelry. People keep telling me my stuff is good and that they like it but it just doesn’t sell. That’s really discouraging. Even when the prices were cut to $10 a pair, $15 for 2 pair and $19 for 3 pair and the bracelets prices were cut from $20 to $10, nothing sold. Even people who wore dangly earrings didn’t even glance at my stuff. I just don’t get it.

One thing I thought of, judging from some of the stuff I heard, is for show sales in person, I’m going to concentrate on making simple birthstone earrings. maybe a few fancy chandeliers but nothing epic. People seemed to like the idea of having their birthstones. I heard this from people looking at the wrapped stone necklaces made by the woman we were sharing a table with. She made out fairly well and people were always more interested in her stuff than mine.

After that, I just don’t know what to do. I know I overpriced my stuff for what people were willing to pay on Etsy. That makes me sad because then my work is undervalued, if that makes sense. Plus I have to pay a shit pile to ship stuff and people don’t want to pay that either. I don’t want to lose money making jewelry. I mean, I love doing it, but I don’t want to be giving it away.

I’m feeling rather discouraged about it right now.

On a brighter, if more painful note, I got two more piercings in my left ear. I now have holes from my lobe nearly to the top of my helix. There are seven holes in total. I might get two more in the helix, I’m not sure. These last two hurt like the dickens!

Today, doing as I’m supposed to do, I went to the drug store to pick up some saline to clean the piercings. Unfortunately I picked up lens solution, not saline solution. I have to return it and get the saline. I feel somewhat stupid about picking that.

The landlords are coming into town on Tuesday so we’ve started trying to get the house less messy. We’re still going through stuff and getting rid of things we don’t want. That always creates mess. I swept up my area and the small foyer of the bedrooms and bathroom. Now to sweep the rest of the house. My back doesn’t like doing that but it has to be done. I’ll continue on and sweep up the kitchen and get the floor washed (at least where there’s obvious stuff on the floor so it looks clean).

I’ve been looking at houses around town. When Dad’s will is completed with probate and the taxes are all filed, his estate will be distributed. Probate shouldn’t take too long as he only had the house for property. When that comes through then Bran and I are going to be looking for a house, probably come next summer. I know it’s pointless to look right now if we won’t actually be looking to buy until next year, but I can’t help it. I want to stop being a tenant so very much. I’m tired of the limited space we have. I’m tired of our stupid kitchen (who puts a 4′ X 5′ island in a kitchen that’s hardly 10′ square?) and not being able to get around in it conveniently. I’m tired of having not storage space and having shit in the bedrooms that should be in a pantry or basement. I’m tired of not being able to do what I want in my own space.

Yeah. I’m a sad and pathetic case.

Well, I’m off to sweep up the kitchen.

I tried to get this to post last night, but it only posted the .gif that was above it. This is from yesterday’s stream of LOLcats.

Big cats comment on cat nip.

This time it’s for a Plumera beach bag from Original Satin Doll. Then go to Fishing and Wishing and tell which of them on the Satin Doll site is your favourite. Follow Fishing and Wishing and you’ll get another entry. Just follow the instructions and you can have your chance too.

Mention my (either Naomi or Dykewife) and I’ll get another entry.

This is a video of traffic accidents at least one intersection in China. It’s amazing that those most of the pedestrians and bicyclists managed to get up after the crashes.

Now, aren’t you glad we have traffic lights, yield and stop signs?

So I have tweeted, facebooked, carry the button, went to the site and commented and now I’m blogging about it (just in case I can win, being an international contestant).

So here it is. If you would like a chance to win a wall decal go to Fishing and Wishing and read you can have chances to win. Make sure you leave a comment at Fishing and Wishing after you go to Decal Delight to look at the decals and pick your favourite. I couldn’t pick one. There are several there I’d love to have like the owl, cat and penguins.

I hope I win.

http://seismictwitch.com/?feed=rss2

Thanks to dear Mush who supplied it for me. I’ll put up a widget when I know what I’m doing (yeah, I know, that might never happen).

Edit: there’s a widget at the side. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but it’s there.

Edit: removed the widget as it just showed the post and didn’t take me to the RSS feed site. Nertz.

see more Señor Gif