Gripe, gripe - June 24, 2026

Yesterday, I tried to make a beaded rope necklace, not one with actual rope inside, but one made of nothing but beads and thread, to use as something from which to hang a clay pendant.  I had all the stuff  - beading needles from "way back when" and seed beads in a wide range of sizes and colors.  I watched a how-to video, multiple times.  Got this.  

The thread was a recent purchase (the "way back" stuff has dry-rotted), thin, clear, nylon line.  The video said I'd need 5 meters of it, which amounts to 20-something feet if my math is approximately right.  I measured about 6 arm lengths, threaded it through a needle, poured up a bowl of sparkly size 11 beads, sat down in my recliner, and got to work.

For one thing, I can't see worth a shit.  Tiny beads, miles of nearly invisible thread that kinked and curled and knotted, needles with tiny eyes.  

Lord have mercy.  

Do I have a beaded rope necklace today?  

Nope.

I gave up.  The battle was mostly with the nylon line.  It fought hard.  There's about 40 feet of it in the garbage can this morning.  And every time I sit down in the recliner, I hear beads raining onto the floor.  

Following that failed attempt, I found a pattern I like just as well and understand a little better.  I'm going out to buy groceries in a little bit, and while I'm out, I'm going to check the hobby store for a different kind of thread.  Going to the hobby store could be dangerous to my craft budget.

Speaking of buying groceries, have I mentioned how I hate this chore?

* * * * * * * 

Yesterday afternoon when I went to retrieve our garbage can from the roadside, I noticed that Nanny's garbage can was still at the end of her driveway and decided to take it home for her and check the garden while I was there.  I had not set foot in the garden in a couple of weeks.  The tomato plants never got staked and were just running across the ground, almost invisible in the weeds and grass.  It has rained a lot this month, so the ground is mushy.  In places, there are strips of landscape fabric and mounds of wood chips left over from last year.  The garden is a haven for fire ants, ticks, frogs, and no telling what else.  

I waded in and pulled enough weeds to find the tomatoes.  They do not appear to be faring any worse for laying on the ground.  We've had so much rain that the some of the fruit is baggy with water.  But there were a lot of firm green tomatoes.  I picked some for Nanny and some for us for fried green tomatoes.  The mosquitoes nearly ate me alive.

 

A Stormy Day - June 22, 2026

It is raining cats and dogs here this morning.  Gloomy.  Thunder booming overhead.  I'm at my worktable on the back porch, trying to decide what I'm going to do today.  I've been watching tutorials for inspiration, but the rain is so loud at times that I can't hear the narrative.  

The smart thing to do would be to clean up my workspaces.  The junk on this porch table has encroached so far that there's only room left for the laptop and the mousepad.  There's scarcely an inch of free workspace on the sewing room table.  The danger in cleaning is in running into something that has been set aside for later and forgotten - "Oh, look!" - which will open up a whole 'nother can of worms and only add to the existing clutter.

* * * * * * * * 

A day later:

Well, I did manage to mostly clean off the worktable in the sewing room.  I did not put away the pile of polymer clay pendants and earring components on one end of the table, intending to finish them.  Someday soon.  For real.  I promise.  

I also managed to produce a couple of pendants that - well, they were different and interesting in a weird sort of way.

Shout out to the lady at TurtleSoupBeads - YouTube.  Her tutorials got my mojo workin'.  

Circle this date - June 21, 2026

My niece texted me yesterday and said that her mom (my sister) was coming over Sunday morning to help her decide where to plant the three hydrangeas she bought this weekend and said that I should come, too.  I replied with a thumbs up.  She texted me this morning with her mom's ETA of 9:15.  I got there about 9:30, and the three of us decided where the hydrangeas should go.  I volunteered to help dig some holes, but my niece turned down the offer (thank goodness!).

After a nice walk-about in the yard to admire what's blooming (it looks great!), I came on home.  One of the first things I did was to check on some polymer clay that I had put between two sheets of paper to "leach" yesterday afternoon in hopes of making a "Skinner blend." 

Now, here is the big announcement:  IT WORKED!  For the first time ever, I made a long, even, sheet of clay that graduated subtly from red to orange to yellow, which I then successfully rolled into a cane.

Hallelujah!

And this was done with the too-sticky clay from Hobby Lobby, which has laid opened (but in a plastic bag that sometimes gets sealed) for several weeks.  

There's a distinct possibility that I will ruin the cane once I start cutting into it.  But that's a different hurdle to leap.  

Before I left to go to my niece's house, I gave The Husband his Father's Day present.  As I handed him the gift bag, I said, sincerely, "This is not retribution for the Mother's Day present [an iron] you gave me."  He got some comfy sleep shorts, an extra-squishy seat cushion, and 4 packs of Dude Wipes.  

There was no insinuation in my gift choices.  (Well, not much.  *snicker*)  

Out of the mouth of babes - June 21, 2026

 A couple of weeks ago, Son #2 and his family bought a few baby chicks to add to their thinly-populated henhouse.  This weekend, on his days off, Son #2 and the granddaughters cleaned out an old tractor shed and turned into the Chicken Mahal, fit for their small flock.

Today, just about suppertime, Daughter-in-law texted The Husband and me, saying that a snake was in the chicken house and had eaten one of the babies. 

The Husband grabbed a rifle and we walked across the road to dispatch the reptile.

By the time we got there, Granddaughters #1 and #2 had already offed it with a shovel.  Its abdomen with swollen with the chick.  #2, the hopeful veterinarian, was contemplating extracting the chick from the snake, just for fun.

Their mom said, "Don't touch that snake with your hand."

Five-year-old granddaughter #4, standing nearby in her bathing suit and a life jacket, said, "But mom, that's the only way you can touch it."

She had a point.

Weekend Edition - June 20, 2026

This week, there were fights between young owls and adult mockingbirds in my yard every evening as dusk approached.   The owls are at least 4 times the size of the mockingbirds, but the little guys run them off, screaming and dive-bombing them in unison until the owl flies away.  There must be baby mockingbirds close by. 

This morning, I found a mockingbird feather in the yard.  The Husband found one yesterday.  I hope the owls haven't won the battle.

On the garden front:

A few weeks ago, I planted crookneck squash seeds in flower beds.  The ones I planted near the stump are healthy and proud and yielded two squash yesterday.  The others are sickly, even some that are in the same flower bed as the healthy ones, not 4 feet away.  I don't get it.

The Husband reported that there are volunteer squash in the "garden" at Nanny's.  I used the quotes because it's not much of a garden - a few tomato plants, a few sickly peppers plants, a row of okra, plus the volunteers.  They are surely butternut squash, as I believe that's the only kind I planted (by accident) last year.

Yesterday, I noticed a few odd plants growing in the compost pile.  They looked vaguely familiar, so I left them.  Early this morning, it came to me; they're potatoes.  If you only knew the agony I've caused myself trying to grow potatoes.  And here they are, volunteering in the compost, healthier-looking than any potato I ever planted.  I'm going to keep throwing stuff on top of them (I mean, don't the experts say to hill up dirt around the stems as they grow?).  We'll see what happens.

I am absolutely riddled with chiggers and mosquito bites, just from walking around the yard.

In the craft room this week, I made some polymer clay pendants and earrings that came out nice.  I wore some of them to the class reunion committee meeting on Thursday, hoping they'd be noticed, but nobody said a word about them. :-(  Booo.  On the bright side, most of the committee were menfolk, so they might not have said anything even if they'd noticed. 

The other pieces are unfinished right now.  Can't decide what to do with them.  

There are a lot of unfinished things in the craft room . . . .

 

Struttin' My Stuff - June 18, 2026

In about 45 minutes, I'm going to a planning committee meeting for the Class of '76 50-year reunion.  (50 years?  WHAT?)  Hopefully, we will nail down a date for the event, which will probably happen in October.

And I am wearing jewelry that I made.  {Nervous expession.}  A polymer clay pendant, matching earrings, and a slinky wire bracelet.

Hoping for unsolicited compliments. :)

Twixt and Tween - June 14, 2026

I have been a powerhouse of ideas this morning.  

Just now, I put some polymer clay earrings and a pendant in the oven.  Earlier I was sketching out some pendant designs that I will scan before I color them.  I also flipped through a few old sketch books, looking for useful things.  There were too many to go through right then, so I'll finish that job tomorrow.  

Last evening, Granddaughters 1 and 2 came over to show us their birthday party attire.  (The party is this afternoon.)  They looked like two hookers.  I said to #2, "You'd best be careful in that dress not to let your toochie show."  She clamped her knees together and cried, "IS IT?"  😂😂😄😄  As they prepared to leave, I told them, "Hurry home [though that would be tough in their hooker shoes], if some dude comes by, you might get propositioned."  Just as they were walking out the door, it started to rain.  The Husband drove them home, thus avoiding a proposition.

While they were here, they saw some earrings I'd baked yesterday but not assembled. One of them said, "Oh, I like those!"  It so happened that they matched the dress she was wearing.  So this morning I attempted to assemble them, and the clay (the Walmart clay) broke when I tried to put a jump ring in a hole.  Granted, the clay was thin, only 1/8".  I remade them with a backing to thicken them.  They're baking now.  Unless I eff them up, I will UV resin them before I assemble them.  That ought to stabilize them, for sure.

We'll be taking the birthday cakes over in a couple of hours.  They're not the most professional-looking cakes, but they'll do.  One has a horse head on it (with pretty feathers in its mane) for the wanna-be cowgirl, and the other has a highland cow (for the wanna be veterinarian).  I hope they get a kick out of them.