Does it Really Make any Difference??

Over the past few months, and in an effort to get more traffic to my Etsy and Mintd sites, I have been blogging, dropping and carding furiously. Does it make any difference? Is the lack of sales more because of the economic down turn? Will things improve? Anybody got a crystal ball handy?

I have noticed similar musings on a couple of other blogs so it appears that my experience is not isolated. There go my dreams of making a living at beading, I guess.

Back to the drawing board.

A Real Christmas Break.

Christmas Day was a family one with my children and their partners, grandchild, parents and parents-in-law and brother-in-law all present. It was a bit hectic around lunch time when we had our Christmas meal, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Then we had a visit from Santa (my Dad likes to dress up) and Santa's new little helper. Santa's little helper garnered more than his fair share of the presents under the tree, but was really more taken with the cardboard box that his ride on toy came in.

In the evening, we spent some time watching DVDs with my parents and eating left over Christmas cake.

Yesterday, for the first time for many years, I spent the entire day doing nothing but read a book. In fact I read the whole book in a day which is rare for me even though I am an avid reader. Usually I feel obliged to stop and do housework or bead for a while so that I don't feel that the day has been entirely wasted. Somehow, this year I needed to unwind and just do nothing. It was a great feeling and I recommend it to everyone wondering how to spend the holidays. We are all rushing around madly in our normal lives. All the labour saving devices we have only seem to add to the amount we need to do instead of the opposite. Just occasionally we need to stop and take the time to look after our inner self.

I hope that others have taken the time to reflect and to enjoy some family time as well as some personal "do nothing" time over the holidays. I think it did me good and I will get on with things feeling more refreshed than if I had kept rushing around.

Blog Love - An award for me!

Kat, at Candles, Crafts & Whatnot
has given me a Blog Love award! That's so nice of her - its been a while since someone has sent me one. Thanks, Kat. Your blog is great too.

Now I need to think of my own list:


Kerrie Slade
Etsy Beadweavers
Jael's Art Jewels
Wire Artisans Guild

Hope you enjoy checking them out.

The bees are still busy.

An update on our bee hive ... tonight a bee keeping friend of my hubby has brought over a brand new hive which we have set up in close proximity to the one in our garden. The theory is that the bees will be attracted to the honey in the hive and because it offers protection from the wind, will transfer to the new hive. If this doesn't happen within the week, the bee keeper will be back with a smoker and protective gear to cut the hive from the tree and transfer it into the new hive. Hopefully the bees will take the easy way out.
For those of you who admired my DH's photo of the bees, here is a close up which he claims he took by closing his eyes and hoping for the best.

Bee Hive

Have almost caught up with all the washing which had accumulated while we were away. Noticed that there seemed to be a lot of bees flying around near my face when I was on one particular side of the clothes line. Investigating further and to my surprise, I found a large bee hive thrumming with activity in the middle of my hibiscus tree. It seems a bit unusual for the hive to be out in the open like this. Click on the image to enlarge.

It is so large, I can't image how I didn't see it before we went away. Don't know how long bees take to get the hive this big, but I am sure it wasn't there three months ago when the tree had very few leaves.

Wedding on the 13th

On Saturday, I went to a beautiful wedding in Adelaide. Nephew Jeremy has married the lovely Theresa over there and we all had a great time, despite a few hiccoughs, such as:

Spending five hours at the airport on Thursday afternoon (partly because we went too early to try and miss the peak hour traffic and then the flight was delayed an hour). Glad I had a good book. When we did take off, we flew at record speed as Adelaide airport has a curfew of 11.00 and we barely made it in time.

Arriving in Adelaide on the wettest weekend this year. It started on Thursday, rained all day Friday (so we went out to buy umbrellas) and just stopped in time for the wedding photos.

Having to move apartments after only one day because of flooding (which meant repacking suitcases, lugging them downstairs, into other apartment and then upstairs and unpack....)

Darling daughter's windscreen wipers broke down on the way to the airport and she had to park in a school for the weekend and get a cab the rest of the way. She planned to deal with the wipers later. When she returned and got the car on Sunday, it was to find that after only a km or so it broke down (almost on the freeway) with transmission problems. Oh, and their flights were both late as well.

Arriving at the airport yesterday to find that Son and DIL's flight had been cancelled and they had been moved to a flight which was to get to Melbourne at about 10.30 pm. They decided to return on the Virgin flight with us (also 1/2 hour late).

Brother in law's rellies arrived in Adelaide only to suffer gastro on Friday, both parents and two small children sick on progressive days, with the mum being put off the plane on Sunday because although she thought she was going to be OK, she almost fainted in the gate lounge. She got sent back to my sis's place without her luggage while the rest of the family flew home without her. She has now returned home after obtaining Medical clearance.

Sister rings this morning with the news that her hubby now has the gastro.....

If you saw a show like this on TV you would think it was difficult to believe. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

Etsy Beadweavers voting has finished and the winner is...

Once again there were a fantastic batch of Snow Queen beaded goodies appearing on the Etsy Beadweavers site. The beadweavers excelled themselves and the winner was Karin of Gypsy Eyes Jewelry who won with her Queen of the Frozen Tundra necklace, a truly imaginative and interesting piece of work.

Blank Mind

Noticed that I haven't blogged for more than a week. At this time of the year there are way too many things happening. We have a wedding coming up on Saturday week (who said just before Christmas was a good time to get married?). I have been trying to finish my outfit to match the jewellery I want to wear. Yes, that's right. Jewellery first, outfit second. Strangely enough I bought the fabric weeks ago and then made a gorgeous necklace for a competition. A bit later I saw the fabric and the necklace together and realised that they were perfect for each other. Now all I have to do is finish the outfit in time for the wedding! Once that is done, I will post some pictures.