January TO DO list - partial

Sales Taxes due this week
Fed. Taxes - start now! do 1/3 a month
Show apps due - this week
Work on new website
Get new label design
Consolidate mailing lists
Make beads to take to Tuscon for color match-11 days
New ideas???

Studio Sounds

I just locked up the studio for the night, and there was a strange noise. Did I leave something running? I checked the tumbler, the exhaust fan, the torches. Everything was turned off, and the noise remained. As I locked the door, the sound grew louder, and I realized it was the creek! Most of the time, it is a little dry creekbed that my studio overlooks, but now of course it is roaring!! Funny how we get so accustomed to our everyday sounds.
I can't wait to see if the nearby lake fills up. We need this rain!!

Trip to Ohio

The studio is almost clean, I have lots of new ideas to start working on, and after a short trip back east, I hope to start on 2010 designs!

Sketching Trip

I don't know if all of my customers know that my husband is a landscape watercolor painter. At some shows his booth is next to mine, but I do more shows than he does, so I know some of you have never seen his work ( http://www.johnmuirreid.blogspot.com/)

So, one of the wifely duties of a painter is to encourage and support his art. So, while on a sketching trip last weekend, I was pretty much caught up in the "duty" part of the trip, and was consumed mostly with worries of locations, numbers of sketches, future paintnings, etc etc. My obsessive work related thoughts were interupped , however, when we ended up at Moss Landing, south of Santa Cruz, midway through the sketching trip. Up until there, my mind was focusing on, well, work- getting the sketches whence come paintings. We were there on the beach, quickly scanning, quickly sketching and clicking photos so we could stay on schedule. Hurrying back to the car I noticed some floating things in the lagoon, and OMG .......there floating serenely in the water were sea otters!!! A whole gaggle of sea otters lounging and playing! It was so breathtaking , and I remembered one of the big reasons I love California is this incredibly accessible wildlife. Then of course we saw the sea lions, always a joyful moment for me, and I was able to relax and look forward the journey of this day, and not focus on the "work". What a great moment!!

You've Got to Read This

This is worth signing up for TWITTER for.....
Shitmydadsays. (that's the name of the (?) Tweet??? It's on Twitter anyhow.
It is good for a belly laugh every time!!! I am busy cleaning my studio, so I really need a good laugh. It has not, however, been good for my vocabulary. You'll see what I mean. TOO TOO FUNNY.
http://www.twitter.com

I am on Twitter as well, Fungirlsjewels, but I can't say that I am too exciting.

A Rare Starbucks Moment

I just had a Chai Latte at Starbucks. I have had these many times from Starbucks, but this was the first time I actually sat down, read a paper and drank the chai AT Starbucks. I see people do this all the time. One of my favorite shows is in San Francisco, where my booth is right in front of Starbucks. I watch many people hanging out there with computers, friends and coffee.

I always thought that someday I too would be able to just sit there and relax like that. My usual Starbucks experience consists of scurrying in frantically for caffeine enroute to a show, needing a bathroom break at a show, or getting coffee for the way home from a show.

So if I am sitting down in Starbucks, it must be January.