Daily Musings
The weather has been crazy here. One day it is in the 70′s the next the 40′s. Marcha dn April are flaky here. The weather is all over the place. My flowers are coming up but I think they are too early and will pay for it.
Peeking outSpring has sprung
Today is was wonderful out. I did sleep in a little but Nanook and I did get to get a walk in. Then Matt and I spent the day with Meagan. First there was Community Service at Petco in Chantilly. Her dogs were sad little mop type dogs. One had bad hips. Hardly anyone paid attention to them. I ran to the scrapbook store to pick up supplies for an album I am working on. When we got home we crushed what was left of the gazebo, we were able to save some of the uprights for vines to climb. Then it was onto the vans… vacuuming all the winter dirt and garbage out of them, clean the inside of the windows. Mine will be clean for the road trip to Delaware tomorrow to attend DRA (Delaware Rehabilitation Association) Conference. Nancy and I are representing NRA in Beverlee’s place since she is in Wisconsin at their conference. Maybe this will be the lead in so we can go to other conferences in her place. I know we are all going to NERA in July in NYC.
Garden ornament
Front door welcome
I am heading to the studio now to make a sample for an upcoming jewelry class. I got CDs from the Battlefield Band concert March 17 so I pop them in CD player for some background music. The concert was great and I got to meet Alan and Alastair. Wish I could have met Sean…. maybe next time. well time to get to work….
It has been a crazy two weeks. Last week we spent getting ready for the Summit, putting together the handouts, copying and trying to do all the regular office activities to boot. Sandra’s printer died and my computer has been dead since early February so I have been using Patricia’s since she uses it remotely. I was finishing up the window repair at home which got picked up the day before Summit started.
The Summit went well. We had 97 attendees. It was great to meet names to go with the faces. Lots of kudos for the staff on the work we have done this past year. Also got to hang out with old NRA friends that I had met at National Training Conference in Louisville. We worked long days but found time to let down our hair and even enjoy extracurricular activities. I am still recovering from sleep lost but it was well worth and I look forward to next year’s Summit.
So this week was clean up in the office, picking up odd jobs left till after Summit. Today I will pick up Sandra’s printer and drop of my hard drive so Abi can load stuff on my new computer. I will be the envy of the office with the fastest computer there. Don’t tell them I said that or they will be giving me more work!
Sunday Nancy and I head to Bear, Delaware to represent NRA at Delaware Rehab Association Conference. The pressure is on…. will we be good ambassadors for the NRA? You bet. We are ready! Road trip.
We talked to Christopher Kempski during the Summit and he is looking forward to having NRA staff at the NERA Conference in July. Look out New York here we come.
In the studio… the workbench is empty, no repairs at this time so I am working on making the molds for my new PMC pendants. I am really looking forward to starting this line. As soon as the ground dries a little more I will be getting the faceting machine from the shed and cranking that bad boy up. Can not wait to facet my first stone! I get get a couple of rough stones from Art to practice with. Will let you know when hand how it goes.
Well the weather is beautiful out and the animals are begging tot go out so I think I will take a cup of coffee out and sit in the yard with the boys and watch the grass grow for a little bit before I jump into the day.
Nanook lookin for his fox buddy
Sara and Doris
I am whipped from 3 day long Government Affairs Summit. We worked like dogs to get ready for it and then worked the Summit. I just wanted to let you know I was still here and will post tomorrow. Sorry I did not post anything from Summit, hotel charged for wifi and I refuse to give them any more money. Talk to you tomorrow.
My Next Level Jewelry class at Arlington Adult Ed did not run because not enough people signed up. So I have the next five Monday nights free. I do wish some of the old gang would come back. We did have fun and they were together for so long.
At work we are getting ready for the Government Summit which runs Saturday through Tuesday. Lots of copying and putting together of handouts plus doing our regular day work. We are going to load the van and use that to haul stuff to hotel, usually costs around $200 to get everything delivered. I am hoping there is a good gym at the hotel, should be. Also will be good to see NRA folks that I met last fall at Annual Training Conference.
Busy tonight finishing up the window repair. I did find some old glass to put in it and had to buy new glass to replace others. It is getting harder to find old glass. Yes I have put it off till the very last night. What is new? I keep kicking myself for not working on it on my days off but things would come up and nights off I just wanted to sit with the kids and be a family. I overestimated repair time because I know myself so well. I have to make this change for sure. I need to remember to take pictures of this one after, last repair I forgot to and only have before and during of.
I do like doing repairs. It is like a puzzle, how can I take it apart without taking it all apart? I do not like to do a total take apart because it takes the original stained glass artist’s work away, if I can I leave as much intact as possible. If it is a newer piece and they do not know artist then it is not as important to me top keep it together. Matching glass is sometimes so hard. If it is an old piece it can be really hard or impossible. Since we have lost some of the old time manufacturers it is even harder. When I find someone sells old glass I try to pick up as much as I can. Working with no paper pattern is a challenge sometimes. You have to take apart the piece, lay it back together to trace around the hole to get a pattern or fit the broken piece back together and trace around it. And then when it is ready to be put back to together you have raise the new piece up so it is flush with the old pieces and not a step down. The whole time I am wondering about the story of the piece…. Who made it? Who was it for? Was it in a store or a custom piece? How were the colors chosen? How old is it?
March 7, 2010
Sunday was good. I set the clocks ahead last night thinking it was Daylight Savings Time, oh well it is next weekend. I did get to sleep in a little and then took a great walk with Nanook. He sure does love to go for walks. He could and does go potty in the yard but this is what he looks forward to doing every morning. He is just so happy to be out and about. We looked for Alley Cat but could not find her. She has not been seen since before the last big snow storm. Hope she is ok and just in someone’s house of moved to a warmer place to live. She was living in storm drain in never built subdivision. We check for her every day. Nanook knows when I say her name and looks around.
A lady came to look at Michelle’s bedroom set she is selling and picked up half of it and will come back later this week for rest. We are waiting on call backs on shelves, tv and cabinet, 2 PS2s and other odd stuff. We will have a yard sale later this month to clear out shed of piles to go.
I started soldering back of window repair. It looks good. I hope to finish up the back soldering to night, if not then tomorrow night after work.
In the afternoon I was at Ellipse. It was a quiet afternoon. I did get to go through the piles from my desk and read some articles I have been wanting to read. I cleaned the counter tops and window faces, they were covered with fingerprints. Thought about doing a big clean but decided against that to do things for myself. That is a change,
Happy International Women’s Day in the US and Russia March 8th
Wouldn’t be nice if every day was Women’s Day? It should be that way. No woman should be left behind, whether it be in school, at work, at home, at play or anywhere.
When we are little we are taught that we should play with certain toys and behave a certain way. Be a good little girl. Little girls don’t do that. Girls can’t do that. You cry like a girl. Quit acting like a little girl. Girls are steered away from technical classes and pushed to home economics classes. When we grow up we can go to colleges for girls to excel or we can got to co-ed and fight for the good classes with the males. Female students are even out casts in college classes. Women have been trained to wear makeup to be pretty, men never do their face for a date. Millions of dollars of industry would die if women stopped wearing makeup. Just think of all the ads we see every day, every magazine we pick up.
At work women are generally paid less for the same job than a man would be paid. They do enjoy the fast paced corporate ladder climb as men. If a working mother breastfeeds and asks for a pumping place she will probably be directed to the ladies room. Would you want your meals prepared in the bathroom?
At home the woman is expected to cook, clean, take care of the children, take care of the husband, take care of the house. Many times she will give up her career to stay home and take care of the children. When you walk away from your career it is sometimes impossible to go back and you have to start all over.
At play female athletes are paid less than their male counterparts. The US values its male teams more than the female teams, shown by number of teams, fan support and pay.
Elsewhere… men are never grabbed and raped in parks or parking garages. Purse snatchers don’t rip the pants of men to get there wallet. Service stations don’t lie to men about what needs to be repaired on their cars, they assume men know about cars and women don’t. And being a woman she trusts that the mechanic really did the work. She gets crude comments flung at her, wolf whistled at, men pinch her butt but no one pinches his butt. Men look at her chest, do women look at his crotch? If women have facial hair they are made fun of. Fat women are made to feel worse than fat men.
So where am I going with this? Be sure to treat women as equals not less than equal. Take some time to think about how you have been treating women or other women. Yes some women treat their “sisters” horribly, as if they don’t get enough crap from men, you have to add to the torment.
Nanook guarding the driveway
Meagan and I both finished our federal and state taxes and filed for FAFSA. TGID! Now I can breathe and work on the window repair again. I still need to kit for the Basics class also for session 2. My honey do list is so long and I need to knock things off the list.
Artfire Listings…..send jpgs to Artful Gifts….Amazon account to move books I don’t need….solder the pendants….list the excess furniture on Craigslist….the list goes on.
I have been stretching designs for a new line in PMC, Copper clay and Bronze clay. I can not wait to get it going. I have the vision and think I know where to take. I am waiting to finish up the other stuff so I can invest the time and energy it needs.
OK I hate tax time. I gathered all the paperwork in a file early in January and put W-2s in as they came in, the instructions books to go with the 4 forms I need to fill out, had the calculator near by and have done them 4 times and get different numbers each time. Turbo Tax would not do page 2 of Schedule C, what is up with that? I think I have now, because I got these answers twice. I think I might need to go to H&R Block for their $29 recheck. I also think I over paid last year. I owed $5200 last year, this year it figures out to $1900 refund. I did have the NRA keep an extra amount each pay check to help take some pressure off. My head is killing me and my stomach is a wreck.
This has been an off week for me, no email for part of the week at work for me and I still can not get on weblink. It is not fun to be battling computer issues. And we have a conference coming up with loads of work to do. As always they put it off till the last two weeks. OMG!
Creativity… what is that? I want to work in the studio but keep getting road blocks put up in front of me. The window repair needed another piece cut and that glass is all gone so now I need to recut out of a different piece of glass. I was only short a piece 15″ x 2″! Tuesday I will recut and wrap and even start soldering. Saturday I can finish up and then get this window back to owners. I need to solder the pendants I have cut out for 2 months and get them on Artfire.
I need to find a accountibility partner so I can set up goals and have someone hound me to keep them. Anyone want the job?
