Celebrity Party Guest!

To see my Bead Soup, click here!

I have a lot of catching up to do, as the Bead Soup Reveal Day was the same day as my rescheduled birthday party (for those of you who aren't regular readers, it had to be postponed due to a tropical storm on Labor Day Weekend). I looked as much as I could during the day, and then as much as I was able to on Sunday (I was feeling a little rough). And I'm trying to get through 10 or 20 a night until I'm done.

But the most exciting thing happened at my party! My friend Bridget, who is in my etsy circle and who I have not seen in months, walked into the bar wearing a lovely party dress. I got up to hug her and better examine her dress when a very familiar sight caught my eye. Could it be? Was I really seeing what I was seeing? Was it Lorelei's "Soaring in Africa" necklace? In my presence? After it had been staring up at me for months from the cover of this summer's Stringing Magazine? You know, this one?

Sure enough, it was. Bridget had noticed it when I ♥'ed it on etsy and she just had to have it.

What a wonderful birthday surprise that was!!! I couldn't stop telling everyone all night, but I think I was the only one to truly get it. Though Bridget was happy to discover her necklace had been on a magazine :)

On another note, I don't participate in the I ♥ Macro thing everyone else does, but I wanted to share this photo I took the other day. This hole in the sidewalk is no bigger in diameter than a Sharpie, yet a little plant saw fit to grow there. How cute!

Tea with Her Majesty

Well my first attempt at having a birthday weekend got Tropical Stormed out, but this past weekend I was able to make up for some of it. Sunday, I had my family party. My mom made my favorite --Veal Piccata and a delicious carrot cake. My 5 year old nephew helped me blow out the candles and there are photos, but they are as of yet not in my possession.

I do have plenty of photos from the English Tea Room, where some friends and I enjoyed High Tea. They brought out the Queen for a photo op. (And before anyone corrects me that pinkies out are uncouth, we were just being goofy and I am fully aware!) We had a really fun time and I left with 3 bags of tea -- Paris Black, Maple Cream, and Baroness Grey. Mmm...

The Queen and I.

 Teas and knees.

 Charlotte the Infrequent Beader and Ashley.

I don't think the Doctor is in here.

Also, on the day after my birthday, I received a very unexpected and wonderfully generous present in the mail! Rebecca Anderson sent me the lovely Moogin Poppy necklace of hers I'd been eyeing for months! I nearly fainted with joy when I opened the package. Thank you again Rebecca! I love it :)

I also went shopping and bought some fabulous shoes and I got my new drivers license (with a fairly decent picture, which is always a plus). And my mom introduced me to a young coworker who had seen my etsy and really liked my jewelry. She bought a few things, including some of the most favorited pieces I had on etsy: this necklace and this bracelet.

I will leave you with a necklace I made with one of the Golem Studio pendants I treated myself to for my birthday, and another necklace made with some beautiful deco bits from Heather's Big Box o' Vintage Treasures.

Lee Crashed My Party!

My birthday is next week. The one we all dread. The Big 4-0. So I knew I had to do something really special. After much deliberation and opinion gathering, I decided the easiest and most likely to be successful plan was to have an early evening until late night gathering at a centrally located bar -- tomorrow. There's this couple I'm friends with -- one works there, and the other insisted on cooking jambalaya for 50. Another friend was going to make my cake, Steve and I were going to pick up some finger sandwiches, and I was going to make my world famous guacamole and my new specialty, sun dried tomato & basil hummus. I was so very excited, I could hardly wait. And then that stupid Tropical Storm Lee developed and decided to rain on my parade. I awoke around 3 am to discover the power was off, and then an hour or so later, the first of three robo-calls announcing a tornado warning again woke me.

So after much deliberation and opinion gathering, I decided to cancel my party. I hope to reschedule it soon, but September is a very busy month, and it'd be a little anti-climactic to celebrate my birthday a month late. Things have kind of slowed down for now, but the storm isn't moving. It's just sitting there dropping rain all over the Gulf Coast. They promise much more over the next two days. Fortunately, I didn't get the finger sandwiches. But I did have 10 avocados ripening on the window sill. We polished off one batch of guacamole last night. Four more batches to go...

The silver lining, I guess, is that I got to finish up a few pieces of jewelry and even managed to photograph them in a brief sunny reprieve we had a couple of hours ago. Tonight, I'll be making a huge pot of Donald Link's Chicken & Rice with Mushrooms Soup. My mom gave everyone his cookbook a couple of Christmases ago, and I've made this soup quite a few times. It's easy and delicious, and will be the perfect antidote to all this howling wind and rain. I wonder if it pairs well with guacamole...