A: Cranky and whiney and dragging.
Q: What is "how does Mysie feel when used as a human pin cushion", Alex?

Last week was the trifecta of pain: Estrogen needle in my ass, Lupron needle in my belly, blood draw needle in my arm. All three went badly. I got home and went straight to bed. I've been doing a lot of that, sleeping through the pain. The day after a butt injection has proved to be the worst - from the time I wake up to the time Eric goes to bed, sitting, walking, and just shifting around hurts. The next day, walking is much easier, and gets easier as the day progresses. Day 4, the day of another butt injection but on the other side, it only hurts a little to sit. Lucky me, the day after an injection is the worst, but the previous injection finally doesn't hurt so much!

Repeat, repeat, repeat...

All tests so far have been positive, and occasionally I'll hear that the donor is doing well on her side too. Retrieval is only 9 days away, implantation 3-5 days after that. So soon! The time really does go by more quickly when you don't pay attention to it and you spend your days either sleeping or boxing up your possessions!

I've been asked a few times if I'm excited. Honestly, I'm not much of anything - I am forcing myself to live in the moment to survive this. If I let myself actually think about what's going to happen in 2 weeks, the anticipation and anxiety will vibrate through me until I explode! I seem to be doing well with this technique. I'm not hyper-productive or as efficient as I worry about being when I worry. But I am calm, and things are getting done slowly but steadily. So why worry?

On a side note, I've made a pair of custom earrings for a giveaway online through a new, but interesting fashion blog. More details to follow!

It has been an amazingly productive weekend. I designed 4 different necklaces and have ideas for at least two more to start right away. I only managed to string and finish one of them, but I decided the day would be better spent taking photos. Took lots and lots of pics, and I've been hashing through them in Photoshop. As always, when there is a deadline looming, I am worried that I will not finish in time, or I didn't read the instructions right, or I forgot to do something vitally important. Not to mention the second-guessing myself.

I have discovered that my camera's self-timer is my new best friend. Despite all my research, every time I try to manually adjust the shutter speed or ISO or f-stop my pictures are still hit-and-miss at best. I think I've found a good setting, I take shots of all my items, and when I upload them they're all out of focus. All my work is for naught because my hands shake so much - it's so bad that using a tripod isn't enough. Nothing can secure the camera enough to keep it absolutely still as I press the button. So I finally worked out how to turn on my self-timer.

I tried to look online for a remote trigger, but all the ones that say they work for my camera brand conspicuously leave out my model. I'm pretty sure this means I'm SOL in that department, esp. since my manual assures me there is no trigger available for this camera. So here I am, experimenting with my auto-timer. And it's working like a charm! Unfortunately, I'm still taking a dozen or so pics of each piece at different settings just to be sure. I so very much hate the lighting in this damn room. What was I thinking with dark walls?

But back to the shaking hands. A few months before our trip to Italy last year, I noticed some weird stuff going on with me, but ignored it until I got to Italy. Pretty much ZERO percent of my pictures taken in churches turned out because my hands were too shakey. My hands shake and are weakening while becoming slightly arthritic. I am clumsier than ever, I'm forgetting things all the time, and quite often I stop mid-sentence when talking to someone because my mind just suddenly goes blank. I finally went to a neurologist, and I passed the cursory examination with flying colors - the doctor told me she was surprised because usually people who come in with so many symptoms get at least a few red flags when they undergo testing. Imagine that, one of my doctors has no idea what's wrong with me. Hoo-rah!

So as I was stringing my necklace this morning I noticed my hands were cramping and shaking, and also exhibiting a definite loss of strength and dexterity in my left hand. Which of course has me thinking about the future.

Doing this show in November has changed me pretty much over-night. I am so excited and motivated. And part of it is this feeling that it may be my last hoo-rah before my hands deteriorate to the point that I can't make jewelry anymore. So I could at least go out with a bang, right? Except today it ocurred to me that it is just as likely, if not more, that my hands will become too bad before the event. And with my iffy health, any number of things could go wrong between now and then to fuck me up. Not to mention I might be pregnant and experiencing morning sickness by then.

So after convincing myself I wanted to do this and I was capable of it, after convincing Eric that I am capable of doing it so he is willing to pay the entrance fee (the highest I've ever paid!), now I am questioning myself. Again. Imagine that.

But tonight I decided to just fuck it. The worst that could happen is that I cancel and get our money back - I have until the day before the event to back out and get nearly a full refund. Plus, I have been so lacking in enthusiasm and motivation to do just about anything lately, I think this might be just what I need.

So I'm doubting myself. But I'm just telling Self to fuck-off. I've got enough on my plate without adding another heaping serving of worry on the side - especially about things that may not even happen.

Most useful lesson I got from therapy: worry (and guilt) is a useless emotion. Worrying about the future does absolutely nothing for you but make your present miserable. It is surprisingly easy to stop worrying when I tell myself this.

Well, at least for a few hours, after which it's bound to pop into my head again... But at least this way I can catch some sleep between then and now. Ciao baby - I've got to motor if I want to beat Eric turning the bedroom light off for the night.

The gem show was amazing! I picked up a lot of stuff that I've never seen before - most of it various shades of chalcedony. Chalcedony has officially replaced moonstone as my favorite stone. It comes in so many amazing colors, and the murky/creamy translucency makes them appear to glow from within when the light hits them.

So I spent all day designing, mostly with the chalcedony. There is a lot about jewelry making that is calm and mind-numbing, but in a good, zen sort of way. I let my mind wander all over the place, inevitably coming around to whatever story I'm trying to plot out enough to write down. Today was no exception, but I kept coming back to the beads - I love these new beads so much, I want desperately to go back and get another set of everything so I can make duplicate pieces for myself! I was such a good girl yesterday trying so hard to stay within my budget, I don't want to blow it all by tempting myself going back into that building. I just have to make it until 6pm tomorrow night, then the show will be gone!

Anyway, here's some of the stuff I designed today, pre-assembly. Per usual, the camera was not cooperating, but I only took the pics about an hour and this room sucks for light during the day, so taking pics in here at night-time is a fool's errand. The deep-red walls just suck in the light like greedy little sponges.

Uh-oh, I brought up the walls. I will not rant about my living room fiasco. Nope. I will stay on task!

Anyway, here they are, just a sneak peak!

I'm trying to learn to live in the light, stop embracing my darkness and hiding out until the rain returns. I love the darkness, I love the rain. But there's only so much misery and self-pity and loneliness I can take. I promised myself last year that everything would be changing, and I meant it. I just haven't done that great of a job so far. It's so damn easy to slip into old patterns.

I want to write more often, even if it's just in this silly blog, so I searched high and low for an acceptable layout that would be bright and inviting and representative of who I've been and who I'm trying to become.

I want to create more in general. This has been a better year for that than previous, but I'm still only working in spurts, letting the laziness suck me in. Having no regular reason to leave the house is an invitation to disaster. I've discovered that I like to be alone, that I can often be more productive in solitude. But staying at home, it's so damn easy to turn on the TV and forget to turn it off. I really need to police my TV time.

So today I drove into town to pick up a copy of my brand new City of Seattle Business License! I am now officially a sole proprietorship, a small business owner, an entrepreneur! Of course, I've been operating without a license for awhile - I never really stopped after dissolving my previous partnership. But it's nice to be all official-like. Plus, it's required for the event I'm going to be applying to.

If I have my way, this November I will be having my first public event in about two years. I don't want to say anymore right now - don't want to jinx it! But thanks, Michelle, for putting it in my head. :)

So this weekend is going to be all about creating. I'm putting the finishing touches on a piece tonight. Then tomorrow I'm going to be working with this amazing chalcedony dyed a vibrant purple. Absolutely nothing comes close to matching it in color, so finding accents to go with them has been a challenge. Then, hopefully, I will create at least 2 more pieces by the end of the weekend. And preferably have it all photographed by then as well. That will leave Monday to put together the application packet.

Coming up with designs is just amazing. Implementing them is challenging. Photographing the results can drive me nuts, but in the end it's very rewarding. Putting together an application packet for an arts & crafts show is hell. No matter how much you think you know your way around photoshop, no matter how stocked on ink and paper you think you are, the process always takes at least twice as long as you set-aside. Because you DON'T know photoshop to do this one simple thing that you can't understand why the program wasn't made to do at the press of a button. And your printer hates you. I'm pretty sure that as soon as you open Photoshop, your printer catches on and begins binge-drinking your ink in the hopes that your project will totally bomb and it can laugh at you.

But right now I need to catch some Zzzzzzs so I'm off like a prom dress. 'night.

Except for the occasional TV commercials, mostly by used car dealerships, I don't really have much experience with the concept of "Christmas in July". I just thought that someone thought it was a clever way to make a sale, and every once in awhile, someone else thinks they are clever by using the phrase themselves. The Etsy Bloggers are celebrating it this year, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

First, I looked up the concept on Wikipedia. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal in the Southern Hemisphere because down there winter is in full spring come July. For them, it is a social event, an excuse to throw parties and celebrate with friends. The US and other Norther Hemisphere countries have taken the idea and used it for marketing purposes - capitalism at its finest!

I'm not a huge fan of capitalism, but I do quite like making money, so I kept poking around Etsy to see if this bandwagon was worth jumping on. A lot of shops are having sales, mostly very low-key, so I figured I should join in the fun! But how to celebrate? Or rather, how to turn my shop into a Christmas sale?

I decided I was going to mark all my items in green or red at a discount. I spent a few days creating some new green jewelry to list, because that color has been woefully absent in my shop so far. Today I listed the new jewelry, marked down the prices of all my green and red jewelry by 20%, and put everything in a new section called "Christmas In July".

Now all I need to do is get the word out:

HEY YOU! Yes, YOU! There's a sale in my shop with your name on it! All "Christmas in July" items have been marked down by 20%. Sale ends 7/26/09 - so come on down and bring a friend!

Here are some new items just listed for this sale - happy shopping!



ps: I've also been working hard on my photography, so be sure to take a look around to catch the new looks of some older items!

Everybody go check out my very first Treasury at Etsy! Show me some lovin' so I get some free advertising - the more you click on the items I've selected, the more popular I become! And YOU get to see the awesomeness that is Etsy, and become tempted to buy!

So elsewhere, on the mysie's soapbox front...

I'm looking into becoming a blogging contributor at The Gay Atheist website.

OMG, why didn't anyone think of this sooner? I'm not bisexual, I'm biromantic! Awesome!! :)

Here's a great pic about Vermont getting ready to make same-sex marriage legal.

This is an awesome little video (3 minutes) giving advice on how to tell someone they've said something racist (or sexist, homophobic, etc)

That blog post had a comment about this article.A political cartoon is stirring controversy as being racist and insensitive. It "depicts Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a strung-up pinata that President Obama is inviting Republicans to whack."

While I see what the Latinas quoted in the story are talking about, I'm going to have to side with the artist and the publishing newspaper on this one. Because it's satire. Spot-on satire at that.

Racism would be Sotomayer as a pinata with sombrero while quoting her or saying something about her. But this cartoon isn't about her - it's about people's reaction to her.

Specifically, it's pointing out that while President Obama may not have chosen her because of her heritage, it was definitely an important factor in at least the consideration stage. So Obama himself is partly responsible for race being such a large issue during her nomination process. The Republicans are there as Elephants because they cry foul at Obama allowing affirmative-action on a national level. Personally, I'm surprised that the elephants aren't a little angry or blood-thirsty looking. I guess they look a bit confused because although the party is opposed to her nomination, they don't know how to voice that without seeming racist. Then there is the media represented by all the cameras and microphones. That represents how hungry they are to report such a spectacle. And so finally, Sotomayor is dressed as a pinata because everyone around her has reduced her to nothing more than her race.

I believe that the artist, Chip Bok, has made a very eloquent statement about the idiocy of this whole subject by pointing out how ridiculously one-dimensional everyone involved has become.

And FUCK I can't believe that I've painted The Republicans as fair and Obama as a dick. Worse, I can't believe I believe it's true. Saint Obama, what's up with you?!

I started making my own jewelry a few years ago when I became disgusted at the mark-up on even the simplest jewelry pieces. I bought a few magazines, visited a few bead shops, and tooled around the net. It was unbelievably easy to learn how to make jewelry for myself, my family, and my friends. It took a bit longer than that to elevate my skills enough to feel comfortable selling my items, but that's another story.

I wanted to pass on some tips on one of the basics of making beaded jewelry: wire-wrapped loops. First, you need a good visual guide. I spent countless hours and dollars pouring over magazine and website guides before finally finding an illustration that "clicked". In that moment, I realized the mistakes I had been making and knew right away how to correct them.

I'm not an artist, so I'm going to refer you to two of my favorite guides online:

From Fusion Beads, Techniques: Wire Wrapping

BeadStyle Magazine, Basics: Wrapped loop (scroll down below the "Plain loop" instructions)

So on to some tips that may help you from making some of the rookie mistakes I did!

1. Practice on base-metal wire first. It will take a few (or a lot!) of tries before you perfect the technique, so save your expensive wire by practicing on the cheap stuff first.

2. Yes, you DO want to use chainnose/flat pliers when the instructions tell you to. Jumping from tool to tool may seem tiresome, but in the end it is worth it.

3. Make sure your tools are in good shape: you want sharp wire cutters, non-ridged flat/chainnose pliers, and round nose pliers that align properly. My biggest pet peeve: all my round nose pliers eventually become misaligned to the point that they can't hold wire between their jaws properly.

4. Your hands, especially your fingers, are very valuable, yet delicate tools. Make sure your hands are clean when you start work, and check that they stay that way during your project. Also, be nice to your hands! If they start to cramp, take a 15 minute break.

5. Your eyes get fatigued as well! Use good lighting, and allow your eyes to relax every few minutes - all that concentration on tiny stuff right in front of your face can eventually lead to a headache.

6. Always use Sterling Silver if you intend to sell the item you're making. A majority of customers will specifically look for this, and the others will be impressed that you used such quality materials.

7. Use soft, narrow gauge wire. Sterling silver is a perfect medium because it is so easily maleable. The narrower the gauge and the softer the silver, the easier it is to manipulate the wire with your fingers. Be careful not to use anything too fine if you're working on a heavy piece!

8. Count your wraps. Most projects using wire-wrapped loops will involve more than just one loop, so do your best to make all your loops in the piece look consistent. So if you make one earring with 3 wraps under the loop, make sure to make the other earring have 3 wraps around as well.

9. This may only appeal to fellow beaders with OCD, but here it is: when attaching wrap-looped items to the main piece (necklace, earring back, etc), make sure they all face in the same direction. Confused? I've got visuals!

Front of Loop


vs.

Back of Loop


If you don't see the difference, congratulations, you don't have OCD - continue on to Tip #10. If you do see a difference, then I'll tell you that a long time ago I decided I preferred the side shown in the first picture best - so I called it the "front" of the loop. Hence, when hanging the dangle from an earring back, I always make sure that the dangle's loop faces "front".

10. Relax! The longer you sit and fret at perfecting one thing, the more frustrated you become, and the more mistakes you make. So take breaks to walk around, flex your fingers, correct your back, grab a snack, or just go to the potty. Also, music can be very relaxing, but NEVER watch television when beading - it is so distracting, I eventually look down at my project and realize I've been trying to complete the same wrap for the past two commercial breaks!

So I got an amazing camera for Christmas! It has a million settings, and I can zoom in to read the house number of the neighbors half-way down the block. But apparently it doesn't want to focus on something small that's in front of it - like the pendant on a necklace. Working in the right lighting, it takes very crisp, clear pictures of my jewelry. However, if I want to zoom in to show the detail or pendant of a piece, the auto-zoom has an epileptic fit trying to figure out what to focus on, gets close to focusing, and then gives up in the end at the most blurry point of the focusing process. With my manual camera, I can focus until it's at least visible, and then manually focus the rest of the way in by twisting the lens. HA! Good luck with that on a digital camera!!

And I'm having problems with it taking good pictures in less-than-optimum lighting. That was a specific feature I looked for, so I'm really extra pissed about that.

However. I refuse to believe that this expensive camera is as crappy (or crappier) than my old camera. So I am withholding my final opinion until I can find the manual (I found the Spanish version yesterday! *sigh*) and read up on how to use it without the auto-focus. I would love to spend an hour with someone who knows cameras to talk to me about speed settings for different lighting. I think that's called ISO? For $65 I can take a 2-hour seminar at NSCC to learn the basics - the description focused on "getting to know" a digital camera, how to hook it up to a computer to upload files, and how to print pictures. Somehow I don't think this is the class I'm looking for.

Oh yes! Uploading files! *insert ironic belly laugh here*

I took a bunch of jewelry pictures last week, which I needed to upload to the computer and modify with GIMP to create new listings in my etsy shop. Guess what happens when you hook up the camera to the computer? NOTHING! After a number of adjustments to the camera, turning the computer on and off, I resorted to the Software Installation guide - the main camera guide being missing. Guess what - downloading pictures straight from the camera to computer without the software is possible, but you will experience problems such as it taking many minutes to access the camera. WTF? So I had to install their software just to grab my pictures! And then I had to figure out how to get the camera "ready" for the process - the software guide was very helpful when it told me that my camera needed to be put in the correct setting, and such setting would be explained to me in the main camera guide. So more fussing. Finally, everything worked, and I got my pictures. But then when you're finished, it quits the photo transfer program and automatically loads a 2nd program to view the pictures. WTF? I didn't ask it to do that!!!

This whole process took about a half hour. Half-way through I decided to give up, put the memory card in the old camera, and take the 45 seconds required to transfer files from it to my computer. There were no batteries in the camera. Not that I could find the USB cable for it, or that the new camera's USB wouldn't work on it.

And after that, GIMP died. It refuses to start up. Have I ever mentioned how many hours it took to figure out how to install GIMP in the first place??? So now I am back to ZERO photo-manipulation software programs. The camera's suite of software doesn't have one. And I have railed against iPhoto for years. I finally broke down and used iPhoto. 15 minutes to figure out how to tell iPhoto I wanted to look at pictures in a different folder than it had auto-selected. Resized my photos via cropping and scaling - holy shit, last time I tried, it didn't allow scaling!!! But guess what? When you alter a photo, it saves it as the same document. So your original photo is forever LOST. There is no Save-As feature. WTFWTFWTF??????

And then... Oh yes, and then. I went downstairs to make etsy listings on my laptop and spend time with Eric watching our nightly shows so I could calm down and stop being pissed off. This required me putting those iPhoto-manipulated files into our network to grab with the other computer.

The other computer being a PC that was so confused by the iPhoto files that it refused to even copy them over. Back upstairs, grab the old camera and the new memory card, find batteries and USB cable. Hook up old camera to move images to laptop. Use laptop to manipulate images AGAIN, this time with Photoshop.

There is no Photoshop on my machine.

I was about ready to throw every piece of technology in our house out a window.

Eric got me his laptop which allegedly had Photoshop on it. I couldn't find it anywhere. Because the only way I know how to start programs on a PC is to either click the shortcut on the desktop, or go to the Applications folder and find the program there. Want to ask Eric why Photoshop was not in the Applications folder? Neither did I. I was going to throw his laptop into the TV if I did not just give up right then and there.

He found photoshop. Launched it for me. Discovered there was almost no battery life left and he'd left his AC charger at the office. Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? He saw the manic disbelief turning my face into the freaking Joker, took both laptops in the other room, and when he came back my laptop had photoshop on it.

So something that should have taken me 15 minutes tops took about 1.5 hours. And then I still had to alter the images and create the listing. HA! Oh, and Eric couldn't keep from telling me that the new camera hooked up to his PC just fine without the software to do the file transfer.

Eric has a very similar story to tell about how his Mustang didn't work after we got back from Italy. I say point for me because I didn't throw anything in the end. It was a close thing though. Very, very close.

In August I set up a shop at Etsy - mysie.etsy.com - a website for crafters and artists to sell their handmade wares. I finally got my first sale last week! Woo-hoo!! Thanks Pixie! :)

When I first started making jewelry, it was mostly for myself - I liked simple, small pieces that I could wear with just about anything. But as I got more and more involved with beading and addicted to gemstones, my jewelry got bigger and bigger - the best beads are much larger than anything I would usually wear for myself. Then a few weeks ago I was in an artsy jewelry shop downtown, and about 90% of their jewelry was very small scale. Lots of small chain chokers with tiny faceted gemstones. I fell in love!

So I broke out my sterling silver wire and some small freshwater pearls and went to town. I have only made one hand-made chain necklace in the past and it took so much time and energy that I gave up ever trying it again. This new necklace took just as much time and energy, but this time I maintained my patience to be careful and make less mistakes to start with. The result was well worth it, so I started another one with Ametheyst, and that turned out really well too. I'm going to start working on another color tonight.

I really want to take some pictures and put it into the shop, but there hasn't been any sunlight to speak of this weekend. My camera sucks so much ass, the only way I can get good pictures of my jewelry is with bright - yet indirect - sunlight. I realized that the brightest, most well-light room in the house is our bathroom, which has about 20 lights in it. Inspired by Etsy.com's advice, I picked up some vibrantly colored felt for backgrounds. Then I went into my bathroom, turned on all the lights and added some extra, then set to work.

With that stupid crap camera. All the pictures were crap. I'm REALLY hoping that when I get my new camera for Christmas it takes better pictures of my jewelry. *sigh*

Now to wait for that elusive sunny December day when I can take pictures of my new jewelry. Grr.