Day one of my Vacation

Yesterday was a travel day. Not quite the fun it used to be. For some reason I am always frisked at the airport. And as an even further assault, yesterday, before I was allowed on the plane they asked me to step aside and they went through my purse and my overnight bag. What???? They didn't ask anyone else to do that. How can I possibly look so suspicious? Once upon the plane it was nice. Delta has the little tv on the back of the seat in front of you and so I was able to watch the house channel and crochet the whole time. It was great. I got a lot of great tips on how to remove wallpaper. My house has so much of that and it all needs to go.
When I arrived at Atlanta I had to find my boarding gate for the next flight. I arrived at gate A1 and had to leave from gate b2. Wow no big deal, right. Oh the Atlanta ariport is so big. It took a long time to get to B2. I stopped on the way to get a bottle of water. Big mistake. When I arrived at my gate and sat down. The gatekeeper posted a note saying the gate had changed to A1. Oh no, time was short now. I had to hurry back to where I came from. I shoved the bottle of water back into my purse, apparently not closing it properly in my rush. As I hurried to the gate A1 the water spilled all over my purse. No big deal except my cell phone was in there. When I realized what had happened, argh!!!! What an idiot i felt like. I needed the cell phone to announce my arrival in Richmond to my daughter. Plus her phone number was on the cell phone.
What to do. I had the laptop with me and managed to find her phone number on it. The man next to me allowed me to call her, but she didn't answer. I left a message. When I looked out the plane window, I saw snow on the ground. I have never in my life driven in the snow.
I managed to get to the rental car place and got a car with a gms thing. That should help me find my daughters apartment in a city I have never been in before at night in the snow. She handed it to me over the counter though and there were no directions to how to connect it to the car. I managed to find a friendly stranger and he set it up for me. Ok, now I am in a car that I am not used to and driving to her apartment. I rolled down the driver window to adjust the mirror and I couldn't figure out how to roll the window back up and in my efforts to do that all the windows are now down and it is very cold and very dark. I had to pull over and get out the instruction booklet. The GPS did not like this, but I managed to get the windows back up. It is so funny how simple things that we do everyday like driving the car can turn difficult when we don't know the basic operations of the thing and it is dark outside. It is so dark in Richmond. California has so many lights that there really aren't any really dark places even at night, unless you are in some residential area out in the boondocks. Plus it is never this cold. I did finally manage to get to my daughters apartment. I was so happy to see her. We decided to walk to a little latin place to have dinner and of course on the way there I slipped and fell. Oh my gosh, how does anyone walk in the snow. After it has been walked on and patted down it is like a skating rink. My fall didn't hurt too bad though. I will be more careful. Today is a new day and I am fresh from a good nights sleep. I will take some pictures to post and get myself and my daughter down to Norfolk Virginia where my sister is going to pick us up. We will see how I do. At least it is daylight.

I never post enough!!!

Oh dear, I look at some of the other blogs I follow and I feel so much pressure to post more. I will be able to do that for the next couple of weeks. I am going on a small vacation and I want to record it so I can remember the fun I am going to have. Hip Hip hooray. I will get to see my lovely daughter in Richmond and my wonderful sisters in North Carolina. I will be posting pictures and things as I go. There was a lot to do to get ready to leave. It is funny but when you work for yourself, you have to do all the work that you will miss before you go. So it is crazy work hours. Plus I had to clear up my studio so I could work on the frames that I am going to create for the bracelets. That is how I am going to display them at the California Gift Show coming up in January. I am going to take all my tools with me so my sister (who has a fantastic workspace) can assist me. Today I went to Joann's to buy some canvas.

Some of my work is going to be in Bell Armoire magazine, the Spring issue so today I finished writing a short article to go along with the pieces. I can't wait to see how they photograph them. The pictures are of my straightened up beading area. Ha Ha, You should have seen it before. And some things I am working on. Everytime I sell one of those little dolly pins I have to make another. I become attached to each one. silly me.

It's raining, iIt's pouring, the river is running!!!!

Funny, I live on a street called River Lane in Sunny California and although the Santa Ana river bed is directly behind my house, it is hardly ever a river. Maybe a river of rocks!!!!! But today when it is raining so hard we have a real river. It never becomes mundane for me. I walked down to where there is a little bridge between the neighborhoods where you can really see the river. Here is a picture. Of course I got really wet as it started raining on my way back. It is all good. I took the little stuffed cat with me. ML, remember I bought all the stuff to make it in Elizabeth City. The kitty lives. I finished it. I love his eyes. Rita

Unique show table

Here is my table from the Unique Show in LA.

New pen made from Grace Lampwork Beads

I made this brooch before the bead and design show in San Francisco and while I was there I fround the perfect bead for it. She had so many beautiful beads. Check it out. ww.gracebeads.com

Unique Show in Los Angeles

Wow this show is so different than the Bead and Design Show. I will post pictures later on. They are playing music. It makes it very difficult to talk to anyone. Lots of really cool people. I can't wait to walk around and look around at the other vendors.