Semper Gumby

Always Flexible.

At least I am learning to be.  We’ve made it through the bulk of the move. We had planned to stay in a cabin, but it has a very musty smell that irritates my allergies so that isn’t going to work for us.   Instead we are staying with family so we have a bit less space than expected.

For now that means the vast majority of my beading supplies are in storage. Thankfully, the boxes were well labeled and I was able to find the kits that I had purchased.  That means I have some projects I can work on. Yay!

I brought down the Wave of Pearls necklace that I have been working on, a couple of bead kits that I snagged up in Hillsboro, and a project that I picked up prior to leaving Salt Lake.  If that one turns out nice I will make a second one as a gift for my midwife.

My May-June copy of  “Step by Step Beads” arrived and I decided that the cover piece looked interesting.  I dragged the man down to Heart Beads Jewelry for one last look before we moved.   After looking at beads for half an  hour I decided that while the pattern was interesting, the overall design just looked really crafty to me. It would be fun to make, but I doubt that I would ever wear it. Then I turned the page and noticed the pattern on page 38 called “Spiceberry”. We switched gears and I picked out some delica beads, a cool clasp, beading needles and some more FireLine.   Fortunately I had the forethought to bag it up together and mark the box. What I didn’t do, was mark the box that the pattern went in to.

I decided it would be easier to just buy a new magazine than it would be rifle through all of the boxes looking for the one that I saved.  So we went down to the local bead shop in Hillsboro. I figured that they would have the magazine for sure. It would have helped if I had remembered which magazine it was in, but the sales clerk had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. I described it to her and she told me that she would absolutely remember it if she had seen it, so we chalked it up to a n0-go and headed over to Barnes and Nobles. Of course I was able to find it there, along with the “Brilliant Crystal Jewelry 2″ that I forgot to pre-order,

and

.

I’m such a sucker for bead books and magazines. Once I finish up the projects that I brought down to the farm I am going to dig my Japanese Bead books back out and work on some of those projects.  So, I have lots to keep me busy.

I did start on the “Spiceberry” project last night, but none of my photos came out. I really need to think about bringing down the light box and or my tri-pod.  I’ll try to take more photos tonight. It is a peyote stitch project and I think it is going to look great. I am so very happy to be beading again.

Other than that, I’ve been keeping busy.   It seems like shopping is a never ending chore. We have seen some neat things though.  After joking about buying me some wire and nice beads so that I can make my own jewelry, he decided to take me out to get a feel for what kind of comercial jewelry I like.  I’m not sure what occassion we were looking for, but I’ve decided that I adore Le Vian jewelry. I am especially fond of the green quartz with chocolate diamonds. I’m also really in to Dana Kellin’s stuff. I love the intricate wire work. It is my goal to some day be able to make that type of jewelry.  SO, while browsing a shop in Newport Oregon I was delighted to find some pieces by Kathy Barbisan. Unfortunately, she is a bit more difficult to find on the internet. Her pieces really remind me of Dana Kellin’s work.

Farm life has been good for me.  The view out here is spectacular.  I needed some mint to go in a bean salad; it was so nice to be able to walk down to the garden and pick some. The man has been busy working on a tractor and my kids have been learning how to build a fire.  We’ve been fortunate enough to make it out to the coast at low tide and the tide pools are just amazing. We’ve also been berry picking.   If I can ever get the  internet working on my laptop, I’ll upload some photos to share.

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Moving, and the bead stash.

      Our move is coming along very, very slowly. We actually started (half heartedly) a couple of weeks ago. I sat and looked at my bead stash for a couple of weeks wondering what I was going to do with it all. On the one hand I wanted it to be the last thing we packed up so that I could work on some projects and get some content up on my blog.  We all see how well that worked out for me. :p  The reality of it though was that it became a source of stress for me. Every time I looked at my shelves I felt guilty for not getting any work done. Also, the more I sat looking at my stash, trying to decide if I could squeeze a project in; the less time I actually spent packing. It seemed a decision needed to be made.

      We are moving to a temporary location. The kicker is that we don’t know how long we are going to be there. I’m not sure how much space we are going to have for our own personal belongings. This created two issues for me. The first is that nothing sucks more than feeling like a permanent guest in someone else’s home. If we are going to be *living* there, I’d like to feel like it is our own personal space. Two, how in the world am I going to decide what to take with me? Once that thought was in my head I started to get stressed out about what I was going to bring. 

   The first thought was that I’d pick out a few projects, bring the instructions and then everything I needed to make those projects. Seemed simple enough. Then I started thinking about all the stuff I was just going to throw in to a storage unit somewhere. Like most people, I’ve been building my stash for years. I have a lot of money invested in it, especially in my silver findings and gemstone beads. The man, who was watching me try to wade through this thought process finally laid down a command decision.

“We’re just going to take it all Penelope”. 

     He pointed out that the craft mates take up very little shelf space and that all of the seed beads can be condensed in to one smaller container, as can the tools. The books and magazines are another problem all together though, so this is what I decided to do. 

   I weeded through my books and pulled out the ones that I thought I couldn’t live without . . .  even for a few months.  That was easy enough. The bigger *issue* was the three year collection of bead magazines. Initially I thought I’d go through and pull the editions that had the projects I most wanted to make. (There are a lot of those). Then I thought I’d pull out the articles I want to make. The problem with that is that once you start tearing pages out, the magazine starts to fall apart. Ultimately, I decided to go through every stinking magazine that I have, project by project. It took me two days. I condensed about six feet of magazine space in to about a foot and half. I piled them all in to a box. I will have to sort them once we finish moving. That is going to be an even bigger project.

   I have to say though, as difficult as it was it was kind of liberating.

   My husband and I have been pack rats for years. He’s collected computer stuff, I’ve collected various craft stuff, cookbooks and rocsk. When he moved out he took most of his computer stuff, a few pieces of furniture and left me pretty much everything else. It was very generous of him to do that. On the plus side, once he gets settled some place he can start collecting new furniture that suits his style. So it was a good move on his part. He even left some of the newer pieces of furniture that he bought for himself in the last year.

   The man and I are trying to start our new life together. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff. I’d like to create our new home with things that we like together. The reality of the situation though is that we don’t really have the funds to do that right now and the furniture that we do have right now has been serviceable.  This has made for an interesting move. I’m doing almost all of the packing because, well. . . it is mostly my stuff. He is being a real trooper and is taking everything I do pack down to the garage. This move is a bit different for me though because not only am I packing, but I am also sorting through the last 13 years of my life trying to decide what is really important to me. This has pretty much become the post divorce purge and in some ways has been a bit liberating.

   There are some things that have been pretty stressful for me. The furniture has probably caused the most internal conflict. It was very generous of my husband to leave almost all of it for me. But, I have to weigh the cost of the furniture against how much bigger of a truck I will need to move it, how much more the extra storage space is going to cost me, how much it will cost me to replace it and how likely it is to make it through the move intact. The answer? It will cost less to replace it and will remove a lot of stress if we let it go now. Of course, we decided this less than a week before we get the rental truck so that doesn’t allow for a lot of time to sell it, and I hate, hate, hate the idea of it ending up in a landfill.

   We took apart the Ikea Expedit bookcases, printed out a sheet showing what they are, how much they cost and how to assemble them. We stapled the pages together and taped them to the longer boards and set them out next to the dumpster. Someone started hauling them off before we got all the pieces out there. My neighbor knocked on my door to ask if I had any paper plates. :p Something spoke to me, and I asked her if she wanted my entertainment center. her whole face lit up. So, not only did she get the entertainment center she also got two dressers, under the bed storage, unopened rolls of wrapping paper, knick knacks, and several bookcases. She is absolutely over the moon about it. I don’t have to see it thrown away and I get to help someone out. It is about as close as anyone can get to a win-win situation.

    Other than that, we are trucking along with the move. We had hoped to be on the road by Wed afternoon. As it stands now we will probably be heading out early Tuesday Evening. (Yay!) My husband has generously offered to drive the rental truck up for us. We’ve bought him a plane ticket back and it will give him some extra time to spend with our children. That makes me happy. We can all use a mini vacation. Once we get the truck loaded in to storage we will have a couple of days to relax and play. The husband will get to see where we will be living, and hopefully we can make a short trip out to the coast to play on the beach before he has to head back home.

  We’ve had some drama with our rental truck. We got a call last week confirming that we are going to pick up the truck on Monday. We ran out of boxes though and made a trip over to the truck place to get some more. That is when we found out that there are no trucks on the lot, they were closed for the day, closed today and will be closed tomorrow (Monday) as well. So I’m not really sure how we were supposed to pick up our phantom truck. So of course we called the company. In addition to being closed on Monday (did I mention we want to be on the road Tuesday?) they had us down as returning the truck in San Jose California. We think we have it all sorted out but keep your fingers crossed for us anyway. :p

Life is interesting. 

I’m tossing this up unedited. I’ve really got a lot I need to be doing.

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We’re moving!

        This has become a very busy time for me.  We have started packing for our upcoming move to Oregon, Terry has signed me up for an online class,  I am dealing with the death throws of my marriage as the divorce progresses, I am tired and pregnancy is leaving me rather uncomfortable. I’ve reached a point that I can’t put things off any longer. I need to face the fact that I can’t do it all right now. I really need to focus on my family, the move and taking better care of myself.

      The good news is that the move is only about a month away.  The kids will be done with school when we leave, so I won’t need to enroll them  when we get there.  This is going to give us a much needed break and allow us time to just enjoy life while we await the arrival of our baby.  I should have time to bead, geocache and cook lots of great vegan meals so more content is coming.  I am hoping to have an opportunity to help in the garden and the kids are very excited about being able to pick Oregon grown berries. We should be eating pretty well this summer.

      I will try to put up a simple post once or twice a week.  Wish us luck. i am trying to weed through my belongings as we pack them up. It is so hard to part with “stuff”!   I’m not losing a single bead or cookbook in this move though! A girl has got to draw the line somewhere.

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