A new chapter - going back to school

In a previous post I rambled on about trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, if you didn’t read it you can view it here.  Well, I have made the decision.  After a lot of phone tag I finally got in touch with the Vici Aveda school and after talking to the admissions officer and taking a tour I decided to attend the esthiology program there.  There are two main reasons I chose them over the Martin’s school in Madison.  Vici had openings in the April program where Martin I would have had to wait until June, Vici is also about $2000 less which is nothing to sneeze at.

So I have registered for school, and March 27th was my orientation.  At orientation we got homework and a school supply list.  I am such a nerd.  I had the homework done Thursday night and got my supplies picked up on Friday.  It is now Monday night and I start school tomorrow.  My bags are packed, all I have to do yet is pack my lunch and I am set to go.

I am very excited about going back to school but less excited about having to get up at 5:30 in order to get to school on time.  :)  So wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to keep you all updated about my adventures in Esthiology school.

My potatoes, spring can’t come soon enough.

Last fall I decided that instead of just going to the farmers markets I was going to work on growing my own vegetables.  I started collecting seeds, set aside some potatoes to sprout, and bought and planted three different types of garlic.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out the closet where I had set the potatoes in a paper bag to sprout.  I noticed the bag was wet so I pulled out the potatoes.  One had started to rot which was where the moisture came from.  I tossed the rotting one and decided to plant the rest before they started to rot too.  Here are the sprouting potatoes.

I put them in a plastic bin and set them in a window.  I wasn’t sure what would happen because I read that store bought potatoes didn’t tend to grow very well.  The potatoes were planted on March 8th.  On March 16th I checked the potatoes and found they had started growing already.

Then today I checked again.  If store bought potatoes don’t grow very well then I don’t think I want to see potatoes that do grow well.

Spring can’t come soon enough, I can’t wait until I can get these things in my garden.   I just hope I can keep them alive long enough for them to make it to my garden.

Basement Cleanup - DONE!!!

I didn’t make my end of February deadline but I did finally finish my project. 

Here is the last section. Here  is the first wall, drylocked and painted, and the second wall drylocked.  I thought the second wall one was funny because you can see everything pulled away from the wall, it looks like my basement  exploded

Next, the area completed with everything moved back into place.  If you notice from the original post I have rearranged my torch area, including moving the vent to take out the 90 degree bend.

The bookshelf in the above picture is right next to the table in the picture next to it.  The fish tank contains a female El Rosario rosy boa.

As well as painting the walls I painted the glass rack.  I painted it using four different shades of blue, then drybrushed metallic silver over it and glued on rhinestones for sparkle.

I think it turned out cute.  It certainly looks much better than the plain particle board and plywood that it was before.

Needless to say, I am tired. 

Basement Cleanup - More progress

Well, I’ve been sadly neglecting my blog due to the basement taking over my life It sort of feels like this past month when I wasn’t in the basement making beads I was in the basement working on the remodel. So I have a lot to catch you up on. The first two areas are completely done. Here are the finished pictures of the first section I had shown you.

What a difference a little color makes

Next, I worked on my box room. Here it is with the drylock, then the paint.

And now, here it is all done and reloaded.

Another dramatic difference This was all done two weeks ago. Then I paused because I have a big bead show in April and I wanted to take some time to get things made for it.

This past week up to today I managed to get my glass rack painted and decorated, the last two walls drylocked and painted, and the ventilation for my torch moved. I finished the last of the painting an hour ago so this afternoon I will move the furntiture back to where it belongs and start organizing. In a day or two you will see my finished project. I can’t wait to see it myself.

Basement project part 3 - More progress - COLOR!!!

My original plans to get paint and paint the basement on Wednesday were cancelled by the nearly 20″ of snow we got.  So I got my paint today and got it up on the walls.  IT’S ORANGE!!!!  Tuesday I had picked up a bunch of paint chips and brought them home to show my husband.  The orange chip I picked was mostly a joke.  I really like the color but I honestly thought my hubby would look at that chip and give me a “OMG WTF” look.  When I handed him the chips he looked thru them and put them in the order that he liked with the orange chip on top.  Needless to say, after he told me he was serious about liking the orange the best I was stunned.

I did get over my shock and this morning I headed to Home Depot to get the paint.  We had decided not to do complete coverage at first but to use a short napped roller and let the white of the drywall show thru wherever the roller didn’t reach.  After getting the paint on the wall I am really glad we decided to let the white show thru in the shallow spots.  The orange is really pretty but it is also REALLY bright and might be sort of scary if we went with complete coverage.

So, without further adue, here is the section of basement I have painted - the color is called Apricot Flower but I really think it looks more like an orange dreamsicle.

Isn’t it pretty?  Now to go thru what had been in that section, toss what we don’t want and organize the things we do want.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

As many of you know I was fired at the end of October.  I haven’t had any luck looking for an administrative or office position so I am contemplating a total change in career path.    Last Wednesday just for giggles I looked into going to cosmetology or dog grooming school.

There is a dog grooming school about half an hour away from me but they never responded to my requests for information so they are out.  Then I looked at a mobile dog grooming place that would train me but he’s not looking to hire for a month, doesn’t like the fact that I am so far away (I told him the drive didn’t bother me, I’d been making a longer drive for 4yrs), and would rather hire someone with experience (which I completely understand).  He did say he may call me in a month if he doesn’t find anyone before then.  Needless to say I am not holding onto any hope for that one.  LOL  I also tried the Petco website to apply for a position at their Delafield store where they also train.  They only have a computer application system and halfway thru the application it stopped working on me.  I called the number for tech support they have on their site but the tech people told me to contact the store via the contact us link.  I did that and they told me to call the tech number so obviously they didn’t bother to read the section of my email where I said the tech people told me to contact them.  Ah well, I guess I really don’t want to work for a company where their customer relations people can’t be bothered to read inquiries.

Then we get to the ‘people grooming’ schools. :)  I emailed the Martin College of Cosmetology in Madison and about 10min later got a call.  I ended up going to see them last Friday and I really think I am interested.  Then Saturday I received an email from the Vici Aveda Institute in Milwaukee that I had emailed.  I tried to call to set up an appointment to tour and so far the woman there and I have been playing phone tag.

I am most interested in the esthetician (skin care, waxing, facials, etc) program but am thinking about taking the nail technician program as well just because that would make me more valuable on the job market.  Money is a concern because the skin care program is about $7000 and since I am out of a job that is a hard sum to come up with.  The program is also full time days for 5 months so it would be hard to work part time to afford it too.  Especially if I added the part time nail program at nights.  Doing both programs would also make it very hard for me to work on my beads and Jewelry.

Needless to say, this is a hard decision to make.  My husband told me that if this is what I wanted then he would find the money which is very sweet of him but I would rather not put the burden all on him.  I guess this means I should get my fanny to work on my torch so I can make some things to sell

Anyway, I’m just rambling here to try to put my thoughts into print so I can try to figure out if this is what I really want.  Not only is it a lot of money but its a huge time commitment if I find out I don’t like it.  On the other hand I really like dealing with people and have an artistic flare so I could be very good at this.

I don’t really expect anyone to have any answers for me but if you want to give me an opinion I’d be happy to listen.  Also, if you feel like buying some jewelry to help me pay my way I would be more than happy to sell some to you, just go here. :)  hehehe  Thought I would throw that in there, after all if I’m not going to pimp my stuff who will?

Basement project part 2 - Progress is being made

I continued my basement cleanup this weekend by starting work on the section of our basement by the water meter.  To remind you of what it looked like before, here are the pictures.

My husband and I started my moving EVERYTHING.  Then I swept while he vacuumed up what I was sweeping.   Then while he mixed up the drylock I wiped the dust off of the walls.  I had hoped that I would be able to get everything moved, cleaned, and drylocked on Saturday but I severly underestimated how long moving and cleaning would take.  I ended up only getting the wall in the second picture drylocked.  Sunday I managed to get the rest of the area drylocked.

Here are the pictures of the drylocked walls. The piece of plumbing in my picture is the water meter.

The whole area looks so much brighter and cleaner now.  For those of you who haven’t had the misfortune to use drylock let me tell you a bit about it.  Drylock is a masonry water proofer.  It is about the consistency of plaster of paris mixed with sand and has the delightful aroma of latex paint mixed with rubber cement.  It is very heavy and has to be worked into all of the nooks and crannies in the wall.  To make things more difficult, my walls are not the typical flat, mostly smooth poured concrete.  My builder decided to be fancy so poured our concrete walls into molds that made it look like the wall was made out of brick which added lots of low spots to work the drylock into.

My next step is to choose a paint color and paint this section.  My husband and I decided that instead of full coverage on the walls I am going to use a short napped roller so that only the high spots get color on them and some of the white shows thru.  If we don’t like it I can always ad another coat for full coverage.  However, doing everything I did yesterday was to much and my right hand is very sore and swollen and I can’t straighten it out fully so today I am taking the day off.  Tomorrow while running errands I will get some paint chips so that Wednesday I can get the paint and work on that.  I am hoping that by this next weekend I can go thru everything that goes in the area and finish this section of my basement.

Wish me Luck!

Bitten by the cleaning bug.

About a week and a half ago I went to visit a friend in Michigan to help her work on her studio.  We had a blast and got tons more done that we had thought we would.  She had the room drywalled and primed so we painted our fannies off, cleaned, and reorganized a ton.  This gave me the bug to spruce up the basement where I work.

Here are pictures of what my basement looked like before.  The first three pictures are of my box room where we store stuff we aren’t using at the time.

These next images are of the rest of the basement. (Ignore the propane tank, that’s only there when I work, and had taken the pics just before sitting down at the torch.)

Ok, so now you can see what I have to work with. UGH!  A huge task.

Well my husband and I hustled our butts this weekend and made what I thought was good progress.  Thursday I took the huge pile of crap (in front of the paint cans) to St. Vincent.  Then on Saturday Brian and I went thru the box room.  We ended up breaking down a reptile rack I had and between that and other stuff we went thru ended up with 7 boxes and 3 bags of trash, plus we filled our normal trash can.  We ended up breaking down enough cardboard boxes to fill 9 bags for recycling.  We also ended up starting another box of stuff to be donated.

After getting all the junk out of the box room we ended up being able to move our patio furniture and christmas decorations into the room because we made so much room.   Here are the after pictures.

Huge difference eh?

Now that we got that section done it will be much easier to work on other areas of the basement because the Christmas stuff and patio furniture are no longer in the way.  After I go thru everything and toss/donate what we no longer want or need I am going to drylock the basement and use some of that vast collection of paint to cheer up the dark gray concrete walls.

Be sure to check back for future progress reports.

Flaming Hot - Staple Glass objects

This week’s Flaming Hot topic is what is our staple glass object and why.  My staple is a gravity swirled pressed bead.  I make these beads when I am having problems with settling down and getting to work.  The beads are simple to make yet always turn out differently so despite the simplicity they are still fun to make.  The act of making these beads puts me into a zen like place which helps me relax enough that I can work on more complex beads.

As you can see from these three examples I rarely leave the beads as just a gravity swirl and a pressing.  A few little twists and dots of a transparent turn these beads into something quite pleasing and interesting to work with.

Pimping my site

I just put a new coupon on my website and thought now would be a good time to do a little pimping.  For anyone who doesn’t know, I am a hot glass artist and jewelry designer and I sell items on my site at www.squareonebeads.com.  I also sell on Ebay, JustBeads, and Etsy.  My work on Ebay and JustBeads can be found on my site via the auction links but the Etsy store is not up there yet.  If you are interested in my Etsy store please click here.

If you would like to make a purchase thru my site use the coupon code FreeShip and get free shipping from now to January 15th.

Thank you, we now return to your regularily scheduled blog.