Catching You Up

 

This one of my favorite pictures of Merlin. He's sleeping on my beading table, basking in the waning afternoon sun, but covering his eyes. Some days, the sun does get in your eyes. If you look closely, you can see his fangs while he smiles. He's our smiling cat. If you want to see a goofy grin, just offer him some ice-cream. Vanilla is his favorite. 

The table was mine until the cats realized it was a perfect bird-watching, napping, and ambush table. They took it over, forcing me to bargain for the space underneath to store my rolling carts for craft supplies.

This has already been a week. I'm really tired and I have one more class to teach tonight. It's my late-night class, which means I won't be coming home much before 9:30 tonight. My husband told me he would meet me at the school to drive me home, but it's only 3 blocks. I'm sticking to my guns here and walking home. I'm happy to report that I'm not as exhausted as I was last week, so I'm acclimating to the new schedule! 

Walking home gives me a chance to come down, review the class, make mental notes of what needs to be included or deleted from the next lesson. Walking home gives me a chance to relax a bit before coming home to Harley demanding neck time; Lacey needing a cuddle because I was gone so long; Ava chirping about her evening; Cuddles and Gabby showing me how fast they ran the racecourse while I was gone; and Max giving me kitty-butt because I left and allegedly didn't tell him. *grins* It's not my fault he wasn't paying attention, but in a cat's view--it's always the human's fault. 

 

Anyway, I had an uplifting experience yesterday.  Remember the Bead Party I joined?  I received my beads from my beading partner! This isn't the best picture, but I just love the package she put together for me! It's blues, purples, and blacks--my favorite colors! I can't wait to create with these wonderful beads! I've already thought about making a necklace/earring combination or a bracelet/earring combination from this collection. Thank you Elizabeth!  

I did play with my beads Sunday. I bought these mocha colored poly-clay beads from Terri a while back. They've been sitting in one of my cases since. Last week, I read an inspiring post from Kathy over at Four Dog Day about using up crafting supplies on hand.  These beads kept itching at my consciousness after I read Kathy's post. On Sunday, I dug through some of my craft supplies to see what I had that would help me use these beads. This is what I came up with--and I really like it. 

It's different and lightweight and it's casual! Best of all, it gave me a reason to use that cute pendent and the picture jasper that I just love. The stringing material came from a small ball of fingering yarn that a friend gave me a while back. It was part of a bunch of yarn she grabbed for me because it was too good of a deal to pass up. This little tiny ball of yarn wasn't going to make anything other than a cat toy but it worked perfect for this set.

So what have you been up to this week? Catch me up!