Life...

As seems to frequently be the case, I have been too busy with 'life' lately to have time or inclination to blog, and as 'life' has also interfered with my torch time, I haven't had anything to show anyway. In the last 6 months I have started a new job (which I'm loving, but it's taking a lot of my time) and had some health issues which have been getting in the way. I'm also completing an online course with Harvard Wide, which is really interesting - I'm enjoying it a lot, but it is one more demand on my time.

An Arthroscopy a few weeks ago has revealed I have no cartilage remaining in my left knee. Some fairly drastic suggestions for surgery have been bandied about, and I'm off to get a second opinion this afternoon. In the meantime, I've quit tennis, haven't taken the dogs to the park in ages (rough ground makes my knees hurt) and have also been avoiding the Wii workouts, as all those lunges and squats were also causing me a lot of pain. So, I'm not really in pain anymore, but I'm avoiding anything that might aggravate it.

On a more pleasant front, as of tomorrow I'm on holidays, and I am intending to focus on my glass in the next 2 weeks. I often say that, and it never seems to happen, but I'm hoping to stick to it this time. I haven't really torched since before Easter, and that was all historical recreations. I am really looking forward to producing some new contemporary work and building up some new stock to re-launch my Etsy store. I have decided to give up the Abbotsford market, as it has been very quiet since before Xmas. I am looking into a couple of other venue options, but now the global financial crisis has eased a little, I'm hoping I might be able to go back to mainly selling my work online.

I have also had a photography spread on my timeline beads, and a tutorial published in this months The Flow magazine, which is very exciting. I cant wait till my copies arrived so I can see how it came out - and they held one tutorial back to use later, so I will get published again in a future edition, which is great.

14 years and counting...

It was our 14th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. It's always funny to see the shocked looks on people's faces when I tell them how long we have been married. What makes it even funnier, is that I actually wasn't all that young when we got married - I was just shy of 23. Which wouldn't be considered young at all to earlier generations... Anyway, we went sailing on the bay yesterday as our anniversary celebration, and then to dinner in the new Docklands area of Melbourne. The weather was absolutely perfect - sunny but not too hot, with just enough wind to keep us moving along at about 16 knots, without it being too dramatic (apparently the day before they had 25 knot winds and it was bit hairy). We got some lovely views of the city skyline throughout the afternoon. Melbourne does have a nice skyline... lots of interesting new architecture has gone up recently. It has grown a lot in the last few years. We drove over that bridge on the way home... and then under the river through the tunnel as well. It seemed odd that we had been on the water, over the water, and under the water in one afternoon :) .

It would have been close to a perfect day if I hadn't managed to get sunburnt, through the long sleeved shirt I was wearing. *Sigh* I was so careful, reapplying sunscreen and wearing a hat - unfortunately, the relative merits of fine cotton as a sun barrier didn't occur to me. A day spent on the water for me always ends badly - I just cant be trusted out in the sun. I think Jason will make me where a full body snow suit or something next time....

Oh well, off to apply more Aloe Vera....

Making Some Changes...

I've been correcting some bad eating habits this week. I'm making sure I eat breakfast everyday, and I'm taking lunch to work. My worst habit was buying junk for lunch.

Im drinking 2 & 1/2 litres of water a day, and thats all I've been drinking for the last 4 days.

So far so good - I've even knocked back chocolate this week! :)

On the bead front, I've had 4 of my auctions sell - the rest are up as relists. Here is one I havent posted here yet....