Mockingbird Lane

7 January was my last post. I had moved over to Dreamwidth, because several other friends moved, and because Dreamwidth will automatically cross post to Live Journal. Using Dreamwidth, though it looks and feels nearly identical to LiveJournal, didn't give me the same feeling of community I have here on LJ. Plus with literally years and years of history here on LJ it is too unwieldy to go through each individual post from way back to copy and paste over to Dreamwidth in order to save all of the things I'd like to keep from my journaling history.

Plus, although I'd gotten to the point where almost everything I journal deals with my creative endeavors in jewelry making, the pals I have here on LJ have been with me through much more personal journal entries.

Which brings me to tonight's topic. Is it me??? am I being utterly unreasonable????

This is Mother's day weekend. To some folks this means all sorts artificially induced filial guilt spurred by the rash of commercial advertisements saying don't forget your mom on Mother's day. Give her the gift of love, and only our (insert brand name product here) gewgaw will tell her properly of your affection.

The scary part is that our mothers seem to buy into the whole Mother's Day craze just as much (mayhap even more so) than the rest of their family members do. Hence more guilt/urgency to do something 'special' for and with mother this weekend.

Gah!!!!!


I don't much cotton to the thinking that one is obligated to do something or purchase something for someone (anyone really) on the basis that a particular day on Gregorian, Julian, Aztec, or any other calender you can name is possessed of certain special characteristics.

In simple terms, gifting and gestures mean much more in my book when they happen randomly and out of a natural upwelling of feeling, than when dictated by arbitrarily selected dates on a calendar.


My mother, on the other hand, puts more store in these kinds of things. Birthdays, Christian Religious Holidays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Groundhog Day (the last one is just a bit of hyperbole folks)....

Which brings us to this evening. The backstory is that a couple of weeks ago, in very general terms I talked with my mom about probably taking her out to dinner for a Mother's day celebration. She stated that she had no interest in doing this thing on the actual Mother's day because she hates restaurant crowding that such an event entails in our area, and she concluded that the only feasible alternative would be to do it on a Friday night. I responded that Friday nights in town are just as difficult, and that other evenings might be easier. I don't remember where the conversation wandered after that point, but I went about the next couple of weeks with the notion that at some point on or around the Mother's day weekend I'd be taking Mom out for a good meal.

Enter the changing situation of my existence. I had surgery a week ago. It was minor, but I'm still even today feeling the effects somewhat. Yesterday at 2pm I found out that my employer's needs necessitated a significant and rapid scheduling shift. Which meant that instead of traveling to Wilkes-Barre PA NEXT Friday to give a class to some of my Soldiers, I had to do so TODAY.

This entailed, jumping through a couple of hoops, working later than usual last night to prepare, and then departing the house at 0640 this morning to make a nearly 4 hour drive to the training site. Once there, gave my class of instruction, which due to lots of questions (a positive sign of involved students) the training ran to 3 hours instead of 2.5 hours. That time was immediately followed by the return drive, which due to traffic took over 4 hours.

During all of the above goings on, unbeknownst to me, my mom was gearing up, getting excited, and planning in her head for the expected Mom's day dinner with daughter out in town.

Can you all guess what happened when I returned home from my 11 plus hour work day, feeling achy, having had to beat back exhaustion on the last leg of the drive by sucking down diet dr pepper, munching on nuts, and considering every five minutes whether or not I should pull over and give in to the fatique? I kept going through sheer willpower wishing only to be horizontal for a little while after I returned.

I wasn't fully aware of just how poorly I felt, until I put the car in park, gathered up my work briefcase and attempted to get out of the car. I had to make 3 tries before I succeeded in dragging myself to an upright position. The walk to the front door let me know three things. I was so fatigued that I was actually swaying, that not only did my head and eyes ache, my lower back, legs, arms, neck, and feet were all complaining loudly that today had not been my best ever idea.

Waiting outside the house for me is my mother. She's dressed up nicely, but I'm too tired to notice. Once we get inside and I drop my belongings in their usual places, she asks: "What do you want for dinner?" I respond, that I'm not hungry at all right now. She then goes passive aggressive. Starts going on about "You forgot, I've been looking forward to this, and we said Friday night was the only feasible night, remember?" My response was to grab my head, voice a loud arrggghhh, and state "Mom, I need a few minutes here...."

After which vocal release of frustration, I simply say, "Mom, I just need an hour's nap and then we can go." To which I get, "Never mind then, I'm hungry now I don't want to wait for an hour, I won't be hungry then. Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling up to it when we were on the phone an hour ago? I dressed up......"

I said, "I didn't tell you because I didn't know how badly I felt until I got out of the car 10 minutes ago."

After that, there were a few more exchanges along the same lines, I attempted, badly I suspect since I was unable to think clearly by this point, to apologize. My attempt was brushed off as my mother donned her purse grabbed the dog and stated angrily that she was going out.

I crawled into bed and knew nothing more until a couple of hours later when she returned with dog in tow. She stomped in, immediately went upstairs, and shortly thereafter I heard many thumps, bumps and scrapes as she banged around doing what sounded like angry cleaning.

Now it is nearly 11pm, I'm still feeling tired but less so than before my nap and I'm also trying to figure out how my having had a long and tiring day at work turned into a minor world war at home.

No answers needed really, shit just happens. And my feelings about arbitrarily set meanings to specific dates on a calendar are fully reinforce.

Just finished up with this necklace. Wrapped loop moss agate bead links. 24 inches of finished chain.

Removable and reversible seraphinite pendant.

Front clasp that also serves as a collet for the pendant.

Bezel based on a tutorial by Abby Jewelry

Woven copper bracelet to fit an 8.5 to 8.75 inch wrist. For men or women. This cuff is not for the weak at heart, it makes a bold statement when worn. And at 5 full ounces of copper it takes a little bit of muscle to carry this piece around on your arm all day.

This very special and weighty cuff uses more than 60 yards of copper wire. I hand cut every piece of the 16 gauge warp wires. Then I spent 6 hours, yes you got it 6 hours with a butane torch melting both ends of each warp wire into heads. After the torch came a citric acid pickle bath for as long as it took to remove all of the fire scale and turn the copper back from black to new pink.

From there the pins went into my tumbler for 12 hours to work harden and make them shine brightly.

But this is where the really hard work began. Every single warp wire gets curved into a half circle while in the round tumbler. So I must straighten each one before I can begin the process of weaving. For the weaving itself, I used 24 gauge copper wire on spools and then I sat down at my bench and one by one began weaving using the twining method I learned from Mary Tucker (http://www.etsy.com/listing/86259095/twining-with-wire-lesson-tutorial) whose wire work is absolutely stunning.

I can tell you that it took more than 20 hours of weaving to finally make it to the finish line. After that, I put on the finishing touches, filing and smoothing any rough spots, shaping, and then putting the cuff back into the tumbler for a final 8 hours to give it more polish, shine and to finish work hardening.

Lastly, I give the entire piece a coating of sealant to protect the bright coppery goodness from turning penny brown.

My first attempt at getting the titanium to take on some color using my torch failed miserably. But this second attempt seems to have worked wonderfully.

What say you?

With the very last of the18g 14kt gold filled wire I had on hand, some 16g sterling half round wire and a gold tone hardware finding for making handbags/luggage I came up with this new 'lockable' slave cuff.

The gold tone ring closes with a screw down insert, making it more-or-less permanently closed once your partner screws the clasp closed.

Just finished the 3rd of 4 custom collar commissions that came in from 1 DEC through 9 Dec.

Here is a a slight variation on the cluster, a chain made of tiny micro faceted tourmaline rondels, sapphires, carnelian & garnet.

I love how the multi colored strands shade from one color to the next but I wanted something that gave the look of the shaded strands with more texture and visual interest. I also wanted to make a graduated strand of rondels go further than they would simply strung on a wire or thread.

Opinions welcome.



If you want to see the other things I completed this weekend, go to:

Ok, With so many entries and the fact that Survey Monkey limits Free Surveys to 10 questions each this time around is going to be a two tier voting system.

3 surveys with 4 items each, in no particular order.
These surveys are open to the public. We will keep them open for one full week. At the end the top item from each of the three surveys will be listed in a new final survey open only to Wire ...Goddess Team Members.

So here are the Surveys:
Part 1: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BRWTFMM
Part 2: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BWHNZW9
Part 3: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BM3WN63

Also, I will need some team leader assistance in making sure these links go via convo to each of our team members.

Voting on these three closes at 11:59pm next Sunday.

Well, it took nearly 12 hours but now I'm caught up.
   All the jewelry is back in individual baggies, sorted and ready to go out for the next show in two weeks.
   I also managed to clean up my ETSY shop.
   Update my inventory so that every new Item I've made over the past few weeks now has an inventory number and all sold items have been moved from the on hand inventory sheet to the Sold sheet.
   On top of that, I repaired a clasp. (never going to buy the tiny magnet clasps again.  They just don't hold up.); I tagged and packaged all of the new items that I finished making in the past few weeks, edited pictures, posted pictures, answered some e-mail, Posted new items to ETSY, and took the dog out several times.
    I'm still feeling pooped, but now I have a fresh slate, and tomorrow will be a jewelry making day.  Woot!

I think I've been spoiled by the trend since this past June of each month having if not equal sales to the previous month an increase in sales.  This month only one sale to date...I'm still busy with things, like making new items, taking pictures, editing pictures and getting things posted, but the extra income isn't there...cross your fingers that the show I'm doing this coming weekend will help to reverse the downward slump.