A bracelet for Mom

My mom was looking for a rose quartz bracelet, so I offered to make her one. After a few incarnations, here's the final product. The rose quartz is such a beautiful pale pink, and at first, I didn't want to add any other beads for fear they might detracte from the quartz. I looked through my stash and found these little Swarovski rounds in the perfect shade of pink, and some clear Swarovski rounds as well. I also liked the look of the Swarovski pearls, so I found a way to work them in. It's a three-strand bracelet, with the outside strands rose quartz, and the inside strand and beautiful combination of Swarovski rounds, pearls, and rose quartz. I used silver findings and a toggle clasp so Mom can put it on by herself. She's already got a pair of simple drop earrings to match, and I made a fun pendant using the same elements as the bracelet.

Overall, it was a fun project to do. Mom wanted a rose quartz and silver bracelet. So long as my work included those two elements, she'd be happy. Well, I consider my mom a very dynamic woman and I often see her wearing very quiet, understated jewelry. I want to see wearing more fun, youthful pieces! She's still got lots of life to live, and I don't want to see her age herself before her time. My solution: include a little sparkle! A little sparkle never hurt anybody, and in fact, I recommend a daily dose of sparkle to keep the blahs away :) I think she's pretty happy with the set, and I look forward to seeing her wear it!

Sleepytime Magic

Something amazing happened today when I was putting K down for her nap. After half an hour of reading, cuddling, singing lullabies, and swaying together, K was still not ready to cooperate. Since my back was beginning to kill me, I put her down in her pack'n'play. She was very unhappy at first, so I sat next to her on the floor. I kept telling her "Mama stays." Over and over again, I just played with her hair and telling her I wasn't going anywhere until she went to sleep. Eventually, she sat down and started looking at her book, with her bear by her side. She'd look back at me from time to time and touch the side of the p'n'p. I'd meet her hand, and she would go back to reading. I sprawled out on the floor, just waiting to see what she would do. Within ten minutes, she was lying down and closing her eyes. I watched my baby girl fall asleep on her own for the first time in 16 months. It was truly magic. We've really struggled with K's sleeping routines and such. Watching her fall asleep felt like such an honor. And she slept, as previously mentioned, for almost 3 hours!!!!

J and I tried this tactic for bedtime as well. Mission accomplished. This time, J got to watch her fall asleep. We left the room smiling. Minimal fussing, no crying, sleeping baby, happy parents. Maybe she's been experiencing separation anxiety all this time. Since I tried so hard to assure her that I would stay, it was like she was actually comfortable in her bed. I can't wait to try this at home!!

Too much excitement

I'm enjoying a little time out from my everyday life. Hubby and I took the small child and ran away to his parents' house yesterday. I slept in, stayed in my pjs till 1pm, went for a 3.2 mile run, and now I get to debrief the last few days. J, his sisters and their boyfriends, and the MIL are all watching the Eagles-Cardinals game and K is sleeping (almost 2.5 hours . . . ). I'm staring at a coffee table full of fun munchy foods and somehow I'm managing to keep my hands to myself.

Saturday was a really eventful day. We never intended to have such a big day, but such is life. The original plan was to visit the SF Zoo with the parent-in-laws and L, my younger SIL. We were trying to figure out what to do for breakfast and J was playing with K. Suddenly he brought her in the house and she was crying and very clingy. This behavior from her was really random and puzzling. J said he'd been playing with her when he picked her up by the hands and handed her off to his dad. That's when she started crying. We put K down for a short nap, and when she woke up, she wouldn't use her right arm. I called the advice nurse at our pediatrician's office for a little guidance. She said "Can you come in now? Right now?" Thankfully, I wasn't too worried to begin with, so I didn't panic. J and I took K into the doctor's office and our wonderful doctor very gently popped K's elbow back into place. Yes, that's right. She had a dislocated elbow. Just because J picked her up by the hands. It's something we've done before, and needless to say, we'll never do again! Our doc just laughed it off, reminding us how resilient kids are and that this happens to even the most cautious families. J was feeling pretty guilty, but I made sure he knew that I didn't blame him and wasn't upset in the slightest. K seemed just fine the rest of the day. After lunch, I insisted that J and my brother, S, tackle the front fence. See, we live in my mother's family home and the fence is probably 30+ years old. There's two parts to the front gate: the "people gate" and the "car gate". The larger gate is truly big enough to open up and drive a car into the front yard. We tried to open in when we first moved in last April and it didn't cooperate very well. Since then, I've been watching it slowly shift its weight and look unstable. Given the fact that it's the time of year for wind storms, I didn't want to wait for a wind storm to knock it down. So, being that yesterday was beautiful AND J and S were both home, I asked them to get to it. However, life being what it is, it wasn't a simple job of replacing the 2 2x4s that formed the hinge. The hinges were rusted open and the middle hinge was actually broken. There's some dry rot on the ends of the large support beams. Stuff that has to get handled. We bought all the supplies to put a rather large, but industrial strength band-aid in place. Sadly, S started feeling sick. So, the gate is down, the supplies are ready to go, and we'll be putting the gate back together this week. After all the excitement, we hit the road. So here we are.

Here's an update on my running progress: Thursday I ran a total of 55 minutes!! I ran approximately 4.1 miles, which tells me I run slow and need to pick up the speed a bit, but that'll happen in time. Today, I ran 40 minutes, roughly 3.2 miles. So, I need to pick up my speed overall, but that's ok. It'll happen. I'll keep working on it.

The Green Sparklies!

I love these earrings!! They were totally spontaneous and turned out beautifully! I used a few Swarovski bicones and the rest are a mix of different seed beads I've been hanging on to forever. So playful and fun. Lots of movement.

My work

I starting photographing my jewelry today. I've really been dragging my feet on the whole project because I find the whole process daunting. I have never been good at taking pictures. Ever. And now, in order to show my work to the world, I have to take photos of my pieces. Up close. With detail. But I really want to get my work out there, so I bit the bullet today. I took advantage of the beautiful daylight and set up a spot in my studio. I started snapping away. It took some time to adjust my lighting and exposure, white balance, etc. My pieces are so small, and it's tough to get all the details in focus. I took a lot of duds, but I did get a few cool shots. This particular picture is a close-up of a necklace I made with reclaimed beads. Reclaimed: recycled from other jewelry and re-purposed in a new piece. This 18-inch necklace is made with polished, round onyx beads and turquoise and lapis lazuli chips. I'm a fan. . . I can picture someone wearing it with a crisp white button-down shirt and jeans (with heels, of course!).

New Year, New Me

It's so nice to be able to look back on my thoughts from last year to see how far I've come, how much I've grown, and how while so much changes, so much stays the same.

Here I am at the beginning of 2009, hoping to be better at journalling than the year before. Clearly, I didn't get very far in 2008. I'm sure I probably forgot all about the blog I started, lost the password, or some other half-assed excuse for not taking a few minutes to put my thoughts into words. I'm happy to try again, and to keep trying because I know I am a much more calm person when I take all my swirling thoughts and give them a place to go :)

As for big changes in 2008, my little girl started the year as a smiley, squirmy baby and finished the year a smiley hurricane! She's walking, running, climbing, dancing, falling, exploring, and all-around adventurer. It's really rather mind-boggling how much development occurs in one year - and I have a degree in that field!! No big changes in my marriage, and that's the way I like it. Nice and quiet, finding little ways to reconnect and remind each other why we got married in the first place. I'm adjusting to my new life as a wife AND a mother, he's adjusting to his life as a husband AND a father, and we're having fun, too.

As for me, HUGE changes have occurred. Not that most people would notice from the outside, but I know I feel so different! I was treated for post-partum depression in 2008. I feel no sense of shame, guilt or other such weirdness about my diagnosis and treatment plan. Yes, I took medication and thank God for it! Yes, I see a psychologist, and she is an amazing woman who has truly helped me embrace my new life role as a mother and integrate this new role with the rest of my life. And, yes, I'm off my medication now and I feel damn good :) I quietly (and quite accidentally) weaned myself off my meds at the end of December and made it through the holidays feeling like a good version of myself: confident, excited, driven, accepting. I stuck with Weight Watchers all year, through the ups and the downs. I started 2009 by reaching my 25 lb. achievement marker - a huge milestone for me! ALL the baby weight is gone! All of it! Bye bye baby booty!! I fit into my pre-pregnancy pants, and they fit better now than they did before I got pregnant! I attribute this to: running 2-3 days weekly, attending 2 mom/baby exercise classes weekly, strength training 2-4 days weekly and really tracking all my food intake. When you're on a roll, you can't lie to yourself and say "well, I only really ate 1.5 brownies 'cause that first one was small." Nope. I've learned to be painfully honest with myself in many regards because I know that's the only way I'll learn from my mistakes. "Feedback, not failure" is my new mantra for my weightloss achievements.

My goals for 2009 are as follows: Run Bay to Breakers in May, achieve Lifetime Membership status through Weight Watchers, and get pregnant. In that order. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Here's how I plan to get there: I'm following the 13-week training program in The Beginning Runner's Handbook by Ian MacNeill and The Sport Medicine Council of British Columbia. I started back in October because I knew that with weather, a small child, and Murphy's Law would all impact my ability to run. So glad I started early. I start my "ninth" week of training. I have a big run coming up this week. I have to pick a day to run it when hubby will be home because running with Kirsten is so trying these days. She just doesn't like being in the stroller so much anymore, so I need to save my stroller activities for my PowerStroll and Strollerobics classes. Anyway, running this training program has done amazing things for my health and confidence so far. I'm getting the runner's high and I swear it's better than caffeine! I'm on my way to achieving Lifetime . . . I'd like to lose another 25 pounds. . . That should put me just inside the healthy BMI range for my height. And, when all is said and done, we're going to try for a baby this fall. Kirsten will be turning 2 years old in August, and I really feel anytime after her birthday would be a great time to get pregnant again . . .