Moving and the Demon Sink

Hello friends!

It's been a little bit since my last update, but I have been CRAZY BUSY moving and dealing with some chaos. Here are some before pics of the packing progress.

The bead studio at the apartment just about all packed up.

The family room all packed up to the last few things.

The Saturday morning we moved. This was the storm that rolled in just before we picked up the truck. It went from this to....

This. Ugh... So we decided to go out for breakfast to wait for the rain to pass. It was literally over in like 30 minutes.

In 2.5 hours Ricky, Josh and myself  loaded up our truck. Here was our whole apartment packed into one 14 foot truck! A HUGE thank you to Josh for his help loading. It SUCKS to move stuff from a 3rd floor to ground level place!

When we arrived at the house to unload we had some more help from some good friends. We got it unloaded very quickly which rocked! After this Ricky and I went to mom's to load up my studio and pick up a recliner from my friend Amanda. Needless to say we were WIPED after all of that. That last load ended up in the garage since we barely had the energy to move anything else.

That night we got the bed set up(most important thing first after a hard day of work) and began unpacking the kitchen. 

We have a TON of cabinet space in this little kitchen so we decided to make this little area our "Coffee Station". 

Ahhh it felt great to get the kitchen all organized and ready to cook some food.

Our good friends, Rossi, and Abram were kind enough to bring over 2 grocery bags FULL of amazing organic veggies and fruits. Ricky whipped us up some yummy quinoa salad!

When you finally unpack you get to find all kinds of things you forgot about that you didn't have room to unpack from before. Mom gifted me with these amazing panda bear creamer and sugar bowl dishes I loved as a child. They are from the 70's and the inside of the pandas are a brighter baby blue.

Here is my jewelry studio before I go to unpacking. 

That night I tried to hop into the shower and the water was FREEZING COLD. I waited a bit for the water to heat up, but it never did. Ricky checked downstairs and it appeared the pilot was not lit. He read the instructions and tried to lite it with no luck. It was Saturday night and we thought that maybe the gas was still turned off from when the pipe froze and busted in the house before we moved in. So it we wouldn't be able to call them until Monday morning :( We ran over to mom's and showered. Thank God for that!

We were pretty stoked to have a washer and dryer where we live again, FINALLY, but we couldn't do a small load of laundry without our drain backing up :/ 

The next morning our plumber came out to fix our dishwasher. We asked him about the water heater and he ended up getting the pilot lit. We have an older one where you have to light it with a match. I didn't blame Ricky for giving up after trying the other night. That would freak me out too. So we were in business! The water was HOT again Hooray!

After our plumber had left Ricky hooked up the washer and dryer only to find out the washer backed up lots of water after only doing ONE small load :( So we had

Meanwhile I noticed that the faucet in the main bathroom was stuck on hot with  this thin stream. I went to turn the handle only to find out it was STUCK on :(

The back of the sink revealed there was NO shut off valve for the sink! I put in a call, but the plumber wasn't able to make it out until the morning.

The water running noise was driving me crazy so I tried again to move the faucet in any position to get the water to run less only to make it WORSE and turn the thin stream into a wider one! *slaps forehead*

That night our friend Jon came over to try to figure out how to get the water to stop. He found the hot water shut off and turned the handle. The water had stopped running, but then began to drip out of the tub faucet instead. It was much better than a running faucet, but still bothersome :/  At least there was some temporary relief of the constant water noise! 

Morning rolled around and our plumber came out to put a pressure regulator in the line to see if that would relieve the problem since it seemed like a water pressure problem. The tub stopped dripping, but then the hot water was still stuck on. He was baffled as to what the problem was. He swapped out the washer in the faucet and fixed the spring inside. When he went to turn on the water the hot water problem was fixed! HOLY CRAP! All of that mess over such a small part! The crazy thing was that the washer inside the sink was just fine and looked exactly like the new one he just installed. Weird... Hooray for the water problem being fixed! 

He was also able to put a little plug on the washer drain so we could do laundry again. I guess the older drains dont' have great flow so people open them up to have better flow in the drain, but doing that can back them up. The little plug on the drain allows the water to move where it needs to go without over flowing the drain. 

We got lucky this round and got a fridge that had a built in ICE MAKER! So stoked! So we asked our plumber about hooking that up as well. He told us we just needed a saddle valve for the ice maker and that would allow us to use it. So Ricky went to the Lowe's to pick one up. 

The saddle valve is the little brass looking jobby with the tiny turn handle connected to that clear hose. Well Ricky got it all installed and it still wasn't working. So we asked our plumber if he could check it out to make sure Ricky installed it properly. 

Upon inspection of behind the fridge we found out that the line Ricky had attached to was CAPPED OFF. You can see the little cap on the top middle of the photo above where you see the tiny hose. Well that sure makes sense as to why it doesn't work huh? So our plumber just told me that we needed to connect the capped end to the other little hose and how Ricky could easily take care of it. My husband isn't a super handy guy so I shyly asked our plumber if he wouldn't mind just connecting it real quickly. He said yes, but you could tell he didn't really want to mess with it. 

As he attached the line I watched to learn how to connect the line and as I watched I was glad I had given that little push and asked. Pretty sure we don't have ANY of the necessary tools to have connected that line. So our plumber went downstairs to turn on the water to the ice maker. I watched as the water traveled up the little hose. YES we can have ice and water to the fridge!!

Seconds later I watched water pour out the back of the fridge.... *sigh*  I told our plumber that it was leaking and I felt like a total asshole for asking him to attach the ice maker. I asked him if that was why had not wanted to attach the line in the first place and he had said yes. So I continued with "So this is why people have so many problems with fridges with ice makers huh?". He had said yes to that as well. It turns out that there is some little part in the fridge that cracked from the cold of winter. The pipes had burst in this place before we have moved in so that makes total sense that it would have affected the fridge as well. Our plumber told me where I could call to find out how much the part would be. 

So later on I call to find out how much the part for the fridge is. $75 dollars! Can you believe that?! Then to have it installed would be another $35. *sigh* I guess we aren't using the ice maker right away huh? What a bummer :( At least the fridge still works....

In the midst of the chaos I began unpacking and organizing.

Here is the master bathroom. It's pretty tiny so I will have to really be creative to find a way to store my stuff in the bathroom or will most likely have to store some of it in the closet in the hallway. It's a super cute little bathroom though with really nice fixtures.

I organized my closet.

As you can see I took up those side shelves to store some bathroom stuff since there really wasn't space in the bathroom.

Here's the master bedroom. It's bigger than the photo, but I took the shot from the empty space in the bedroom to show the finished spot.

Here is the jewelry studio so far. I still have to figure out where I am going to hang the artwork on the wall and where to store the rest of the stuff. It works though ;)

Here is where I am typing up my blog as we speak. Where just seconds ago I clicked the last two photos ;)

We were gifted 2 large bags of organic veggies and fruits including a TON of bananas. I spent some time trying out some Paleo recipes and made the goodies below.

Banana and coconut flour muffins. So I pulled out the TBS and used an over flowing spoon by accident. I also had to sub some dried currants since I didn't have blue berries. Holy crap are these amazing!

Banana and Almond butter "Ice Cream" I added some cacao nibs for some crunch :D This turned out yummy and awesome. I want to try this with some more frozen fruit :D

"2 Ingredient Banana Pudding" This was really good too! I love the texture!

So remember how I was excited to be able to do laundry? Well I did probably 4 loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher. It was awesome to get some stuff done and have hot water gain. When I went down to put my last load in the dryer I saw this....

SHIT!! Where is this water coming from NOW?! Is the washer leaking????

This was the view from inside the hot water heater closet just  next to the washer. OMG! Now what?! I panicked and called my neighbor boys and "men on duty" Josh and Jon(my friends bf/hubby's) to help me figure out the problem. They came over and quickly located what they believed to be the source of the problem.

They said it looked like the water was coming from this pipe and to have the plumber come back out and look at it. FML... Well at least I got all of the laundry done and water isn't leaking out of it when I don't do the wash, right? 

So how do you deal with this problem? Walk away and do something else. 

When I walked upstairs this was the view from our front deck.

Ahhhhh... Now that is worth it, isn't it?

Just look at how inviting that is.

Now I just need a porch swing so Ricky can just swing away and think of this song.

Until next time...

xoxo Genea

A Life Time of Stuff in Less than a Week.

Hello friends!

OMG! Are you still there? *waters friends* You didn't die on me from neglect, did you? It's amazing at all of the things that have gone on this past week. So I hope you are ready to read! Lol, you may want to take this opportunity to get another cup of coffee or tea.  Here is what I am drinking as we speak...

Bolivia Organic coffee by Parisi with coconut sugar and coconut cream. SOOOOO GOOD! Cup #2 on this rainy and cold day.

Now that I have sucked that down, onto my second favorite drink after coffee, kombucha!

I would have to say their "Lavender" is my favorite, but you know how I like weird things :D

Anyways, onto my stories...

So moving day was Wednesday. Um there were TORRENTIAL  DOWN POURS of RAIN. So naturally the day I have to move the weather is awful.... I will add here that Ricky actually had to switch his day off due to "close-out" at work(the day the weather was just fine). Moving on.. So we were at least able to borrow a friends truck and use our car. We loaded the bed, and the other book shelves and other paper board build "stuff-that-will-bubble-up-when-wet" stuff and the rain starts. We quickly unload everything and I come upstiars and wipe everything down for minimal damage. The rain picks up and is just coming down in sheets!

So we sit inside and set up the computer for the A T&T tech. He arrives, he has trouble with the connection, then we finally get the computer connected and the monitor is flashing spastically to which my hubby says it's the computer. I say it isn't the tech is just standing there. Not offering up any help at all. The internet is connected, but the computer isn't getting online. The tech rushes through his spiel ended by "Is there anything else I can do to help you?" We don't look at him, obviously pissed off about the situation. So he jets out. So we are like "Um YEAH, YOU CAN HELP US WITH GETTING OUR INTERNET WORKING ON OUR COMPUTER, THANKS" *scoffs* So we sit up here with the computer for awhile trying to figure out what is wrong. We call our friend Brandon to rescue us from our computer woes. So after awhile we figure out that apparently I had plugged our monitor into the "secondary" video card plug instead of the good one(Um there is more than one plug? Oops!). So crisis is fixed.

Back to moving we go. Well, not completely. Ricky had brought us some Chipotle to eat since we got a buy one get one in the mail(SCORE!). I unpack and put the coffee on since Ricky was none too happy that I had packed up the coffee pot before we got our morning cup before moving(Oops again!). So we have to wait for the rain to let up. We get a short break before it starts raining again. So we take that opportunity to access what to load and take over first. We load everything up and then unload it under the awning by the stair well. Thanks to my brilliant hubby(I knew I kept him around for something ;) ! So we unload our stuff that way for awhile. The rain lets up a bit and stops. So we quickly load and unload. Now mind you, this is from the bottom floor to the 3rd floor so every load up is 4 flights of stairs( I know, weird how that works out huh?!). So if you take a heavy load you want to die by the time you make it up all of the stairs, but if you take a light load you have to make more trips. UGH... Then I think to myself, "HOW DO WE HAVE SO MUCH STUFF?! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY STUFF?! Then I think about just taking it all to the dumpster... lol. Then I keep loading and unloading. 

Oh and did I mention that I didn't pack up the whole apartment like I had planned? I spent my day packing up orders from my sale(THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!), making egg salad and chicken curry salad(which I will eat for lunch when  I am done writing this ;) and a little bit of packing. So here we are not even all the way packed taking the other "loose stuff" and packing it, then loading it. It takes us ALL DAY, I mean literally cause we lost like 2 hours waiting for the rain to stop. 

So the evening rolls around. My friend Lucas comes to rescue us. He stops by after work and helps us get the last 2 loads done. The boys go to take the dogs out while I start to unpack. I go to unpack the blender and mandolin slicer....You can already guess what I am going to say next....

I ended up picking it up UPSIDE DOWN and I feel the QUICK AND DEEP CUT. I immediately lift my hand up and pinch it as hard as I can and put my hand over the sink! I squeeze it as hard as I can while talking to myself "Put pressure on it:"! So I stand there squeezing my finger  with a napkin over it holding it over the sink holding it above my heart so the blood doesn't pump to it more. I hold it tightly while saying "Shit, shit, SHIT!". Eagerly waiting for Ricky's return to access the damage. 

I let go to check the cut and the skin just opens up more and blood gushes out. So I pinch harder. Ricky FINALLY opens up the door. I say "Baby, I fucked up! I cut myself with the mandolin slicer"! I take the napkin away and blood gushes out. I say to him "Tell me I don't need stitches". He replies "Babe, it's BAD, you need to go to the ER and get stitches. I handled it really well. I SOBBED.. and sobbed... We don't have health insurance, it's late in the evening. I can't afford a visit to the ER for my STUPID finger! Grrr. So I finally get my shit together while the boys look for the nearest hospital. I ask them to see if there is some Urgent care clinic somewhere. I can't see paying for an ER visit.. UGH and then I think of all of the sale money I just earned and how it would have to pay for my unexpected ER visit and I am just SICK! So the boys find the urgent care clinic. We get in the car and drive over. The bleeding of my finger has slowed, but everytime I take the damn napkin away it opens the cut back up and it starts bleeding. I squeeze the day lights out of my finger to get it to stop. 

So we finally arrive at the urgent care clinic.... IT'S CLOSED! UGH... It had closed just 45 minutes earlier. I  gently pull the napkin away from my finger and the bleeding has just about stopped. F* IT! It's better enough for me. Ricky tells me he will go to Walmart(just across the street) and get me the proper bandages and things for my finger. At this point I am just relieved that I didn't have to get stitches and pay all of this money for my finger! *WHEW* 

Here is what it looked like the next day. 

By now we are STARVING we hop across the parking lot to Mr. Gyro, one of my favorite Greek restaurants in the area. I get my fav, the Greek Salad and a gyro with no pita. We eat, and then I ask to go out for "ice cream" really Orange Leaf, this really amazing frozen yogurt place. I wanted some ice cream since I had a "boo boo"(it works for kids, why can't it work for me? :D). So we drop Ricky off to get the truck back to our friend and Lucas and I go out for some fro yo. It was amazing, btw. 

So we get done and Lucas heads back "up north" since he has to work the next day. Ricky and I settle in for the evening and we decide to make "snacky plates" and watch a movie. We cut open the large block of cheese and when Ricky hands me half of it the block of cheese JAMS DOWN UNDER MY THUMB NAIL(imagine the feeling of when you try to pull a staple out of a piece of paper and it goes under your nail, same thing). AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! Now I am injured on my left middle finger and my right thumb. I am hand "handi-crapped". 

I did, however have a good thing to my night besides some help, and some good food. My package from the lovely, Miss Love Art(Shanon LeVart) had arrived. I saved it as my "reward" for my hard work of moving :D

 I ended up hanging out the next day at mom's just chillin' since I couldn't work. I ran a few errands and cleaned beads while Ricky was at work. We ended up staying over night and then I kicked it with my sister the next day.

Here are are all of the INCREDIBLE things that were inside! This photo does NOT do them justice at all! Just look at all of these beautiful what I would call "water color washed" metals! So beautiful and the colors she achieves with the layering of different colors is amazing!  She even sent me a necklace, which I love! You can see her gorgeous work here in her shop. I am just so honored to have some of Shannon's work. I have lusted after it for a very long while! I can't wait to make some beautiful things to match my haul! Thank you so much, my dear, sweet Shannon!

So maybe you want to see "My little slice of Heaven". We call it "The Tree House" since we are up in the trees now :)

One of my favorite things about it, other than the immense QUIET( Thank God!), is the vaulted ceilings. Now normally I would call these a waste of space and high bills on heating and cooling. It's amazing how they just make it feel so big and open here. I took this photo while laying on the floor so you could see just how high the ceilings are in the kitchen/living room. 

Here is my bead table, right by the window, of course! Now I can leave the windows wide open without feeling like EVERYONE is just looking in. It's so nice. Oh, and the dogs are much more relaxed too without dogs coming up to our patio and people thundering up the steps.

Here is the view from my desk. Ok, so it's a parking lot, but you will notice the very large naked tree just outside the window that will be beautiful to look at once it starts to grow leaves again :)

The only bummers about this apartment versus the other one is that 1. the car port is BEHIND the building we stay in. 2. The mailbox is literally on the ground of a like 900 box mail storage thingy. 3. The water heater has been an asshole. The water was scalding hot when we moved in and when they turned it down the water has been cold. So pretty minimal(So glad!). 

Today I finally got to re-list some favorites that had not been in stock for awhile!

Here are the ones that are back in stock: "Biscotti Silver", Spiral Earth Stones "Black Lava Silver", and "Cream Silver".

I FINALLY got these recycled sari silk adjustable necklaces done. I received my copper lobster claws the other day in the mail. I sat up til 2am attaching them all! I will have these in the shop at some point. Oh and I will also be offering a tutorial on how to make them! I am working on edits now along with 2 other tutorials.

Here are the beads you will see coming to the shop this Saturday 4-27-13! Stone textured WING DINGS! Spacers, a focal and some headpins! I am SO excited with how well the wing dings took to their stone matte finsh! It's hard to tell how textured they are in the photo, but they are as textured as the coraly orange spacers on the top! They look amazing! 

I had hoped to make beads today and make more for the listings, but it was 32 today and on Thursday and Friday it will be like 66 so, yeah. I opted to stay at the "tree house" today and get caught up on all of this other stuff ;)

Thank you for stopping by!

xo Genea

Trying to Find Comfort in Chaos

Hello friends!

This is what my life feels like lately. A series of spinning plates and trying to keep everything going.

Well today I wanted to catch you up on the craziness that is my life instead of listing. I finally got to lampwork for the first time in weeks on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I have a few beads from my session on Tuesday and Ricky is picking up my beads from yesterday while he is "in town" at work. That brings us to  my story....

So if the most recent changes weren't enough more chaos has swirled around me and "left my life in ruins." Yes, I am again being melodramatic, but that is how it feels. So here is what has transpired...... So pretty much over night my life has been flipped upside down again. We found out Saturday afternoon that they have transferred Ricky back "up north" to KC to work at the gym there and that he would start work there on Monday. W...T....F?! You have GOT to be KIDDING ME. So a short 23 days after we re-located our lives to another state and just mere seconds from Ricky's work(he was moved to Olathe about 5 months ago and was driving 45 minutes each way to work 6 days a week) they move him back up north about 5 minutes from where mom lives. We are not LOCKED into a 13 month lease living in Olathe, KS where Ricky will again have to drive 45 minutes to and from work(1 1/2 hours a day, 6 days a week) and spending over $500 on gas. I couldn't believe it! He went from being a general manager to an assistant general manager so it's less in pay than what he was making as well.  Apparently he *should* actually make more money since they are doing way better than the club in Olathe, but that doesn't really help us right this second. We are hopeful that this is a good move for Ricky as far as work is concerned, but this GREATLY affects our living situation here. So lets take a look at that...

Ok so now as far at the living situation goes we got the news Saturday afternoon when we moved my studio stuff up to mom's. It was Ricky's day off, but he was asked to come in for a meeting where he found out he was being transferred. So we find this out late on Saturday. I call the apartment office to tell them the situation and ask for help. Our lease was supposed to "finalize" on April 1st. They were closed on Sunday for Easter so we had to wait until Monday morning to even talk with the manager to see what could be done. Ricky goes into the office for her to tell him that *maybe* we could give them a 30 day notice from that day and that we could pay the last month and be let out of our lease due to the situation. Ok cool an option, but we would have to wait until she talked to the District Manager for the "ok". So they talk, we wait, we don't hear anything. I call 15 minutes before they close to find out that we didn't get an answer yet and we have to wait until Tuesday. So as you might imagine those were the longest days of our life, well at least for me. I HATE waiting and especially on something that so greatly affects our lives. So Tuesday we finally get an answer... Um.. yeah she was full of SHIT apparently. That was NEVER an option and we were, well, just plain FUCKED. Yep, we were locked into a 13 month lease not even one whole month after we moved and he got a job transfer! I just couldn't believe it. Really? Even with a job transfer and being able to prove it before 30 days there was NOTHING we could do??? I guess not....

Breaking a lease means $1700 we don't have plus more money to put down on a place so another at least $1700. So now here we are... Stuck here when our Ricky's job has been moved 45 minutes away, again.... 

The other news I had for you all is that we on Saturday we had moved my studio stuff to mom's basement again and I was going to work there for 2 days a week. I was going to work a day, stay over night, work the next and return "home" to Olathe. Well as you can see even that plan came to screeching halt once we found out the situation with the apartments too. I thought ok when we had the "30 day option" I could just ride in with Ricky and make beads every day til we moved. Then we find out that is BS too. So now the "plan" if we can even make any kind of plans without shit changing AGAIN is to work at mom's for a "double session" (work 2-3 hours, break to eat, and work another 2-3) twice a week. So Monday I would work a "double" ride home with Ricky, he would be off Tuesday, I would ride in again on Wednesday to work a "double" and then spend the remainder of the week here in Olathe. The shitty thing is that Ricky would be driving in the rest of the week while I would be stuck here in Olathe for 4 days alone with no car where I don't really know anyone.

 I don't like it... Not one little bit. I don't like the idea of being 45 minutes away where if anything happened Ricky couldn't come to my rescue. 

We are kind of out of options... Apparently we are still able to do our transfer to a 3rd floor for free, but now I feel badly cause this second room we have is pretty much a waste of space since my studio is at moms. I am hoping the 3rd floor will give me some quiet at least.

One of Ricky's co-workers talked with us seeing if there was a possibility of taking over our lease so he and a friend could move in here and be across the street from the gym. He kind of called and asked some hypothetical questions, but we don't have the full story. It sounded like we could kind of transfer it, but Ricky  and his co-worker would be on the lease. Well if you are already on one lease you can go get another lease somewhere else. That means we would have to try to get a lease under my name to move up north to be closer to Rickys work and where I would honestly rather live. This still isn't a very good option. I don't really feel comfortable with this having 2 places in our names type deal. So now what?? *sigh* 

It's hard times guys. I know it's not the end of the world and surely someone else has it worse than me. It just feels like my world is falling apart in my eyes. I just wanted a nice solid place to call "home" and get settled in. I wanted a fenced yard for my dogs, a basement for my studio and just a small little space that we didn't have to share with anyone else. Simple needs, but for some reason seem like an impossible request. I have felt like we have been living like nomads for the past 2 and a half years. With our "year vacation" to Portland, Oregon, then our year "pit stop" at moms, and then not even being able to settle in here. Living out of boxes is so unsettling for the spirit. No where feels like home. That is a hard thing for me. I need my own space to call home. I hate change... even if it is for the greater good. It's hard. 

So onto the next plan, if there is one. It's hard to even want to try to make a plan or try to make a "normal" since everything keeps changing. So I guess the schedule for mom's is set so I can still keep making beads which is good, but now these other 4 days... Long days in another city with no car. Hmmm... I have office work to do and jewelry to make, but not really 4 whole days worth. I would so rather take all of that time and dump it into bead production, but such is life... So here is my short list of ideas to fill in the other days.. Staci mentioned this First Friday Etsy team that Marsha Neal was doing. I never got into too many teams cause I really hated "living in front of a screen". I much prefer person to person contact instead of glowing screens all day long. Oh well. It looks like I have the time now, right? I may check it out. 

Staci also mentioned to me about submitting tutorials and things to magazines. I have done some submissions in the past, but they were for ad space instead of pay(which kind of sucks since you still have to pay several hundred dollars to do an ad). So I may actually branch out and do some jewelry tutorials that way. Why not, right? I have not really delved into these things very much. 

What I did keep from you all is that I have been working on a few tutorials behind the scenes. Some "simple" things that would be a good thing for bead makers, jewelry designers and even some options for people that don't design, but love our beads and jewelry. I had to put a teeny halt on that stuff for a few days while I deal with life, but I am excited to get back to it and see where it takes me. I have really enjoyed the work so far and look forward to it's release.

So sorry for the wa wa blog, but I just needed to get it out. I wanted to share some of my struggles with you so you know where I have been lately(in case you noticed the lack of my presence on Facebook ;P ). Well I suppose I should get to it. I have a few beads with me to re-list in the shop! Let me show you a pic real quick!

I posted this pic of the first beads out of my kiln in weeks! They are actually going pretty quickly! I sold 2 teals, both blacks, and 1 ivory focal last night already! I have 1 teal(the one in the bottom left), 4 ivories and 2 blacks(in the kiln at mom's house to be picked up today). 

I will be re-listing the ivory ones today. I wanted to get another pic of the black ones in a pile, and I have some other beads that will get re-listed tomorrow when I receive my load of beads from yesteardays session. Stay tuned for those. You can always feel free to contact me about the beads here if I have not gotten something you wanted listed yet ;)

See you tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by.

xo Genea

Moving, Unpacking, Organizing and Mail!

Hello friends!

It's been an interesting week for sure. So rewind back to 2 weeks ago, I got a new tattoo! I had been wanting this symbol for a LONG TIME! I couldn't have gotten it tattooed at a better time. This is the African Adinkra Symbol called "Wawa Aba".  Here is it's meaning: 

"seed of the wawa tree"

symbol of hardiness, toughness and perseverance

The seed of the wawa tree is extremely hard. In Akan culture, it is a symbol of someone who is strong and tough. It inspires the individual to persevere through hardship.

Perfect, right?! We had a friend do the inking. I was really excited to have him do this tattoo since he is an amazing artist and learning to do ink. The tattoo is on my right arm just below "the ditch"(my elbow crease). It's nice to have a tattoo that I can see all the time and it reminds me to be strong and persevere :)

I have been busily moving, unpacking, and organizing everything. I feel like all I am doing is shuffling around boxes. 

Here was the living room when I first started.

Here is the start of the studio.

This week I have been getting new things for the apartment to organize. I started with a book shelf. This along with many other things this week has been a total PITA. I went to 3 different Walmarts looking for a white book shelf before I found one. The Walmarts in Kansas suck horrible  compared to the ones "up north" in KC, MO. So weird. It's literally only like 20 minutes to Missouri so you wouldn't think there would be a difference. So I get my white book case and this is what I find when I empty the box. A cracked corner! Grrr. So off to Target for a new bookcase.

So I follow the instructions for the bookcase and as you know nailing the cardboard on the back is the last step. The instructions even warn you to NOT stand up the book case until the backing has been secured so the shelf doesn't fall apart. So much for that! Look at that gap! Grrrr! So I had to undo about 7 nails from the cardboard. The seam from the top to bottom part of the book case needs to lay flat, but the stupid cardboard was too long. The cardboard backings were pushing up against each other causing the gap in the shelf.

After undoing the nails and hammering and pushing down on the shelf. I got the gap as close as it was going to go. Thank God! It is now heavily weighed down with my zillions of bead boxes and 3 drawer organizers :D

My darling husband left me sweet notes and breakfast :) It was such a wonderful surprise to wake up to. He knew I would see the note if it was on my coffee pot. It's my first stop in the morning! 

I also got this "sweet nothing" on the fridge! :)

I got my first "fun mail" at the new address! It was a wonderful package from Staci! She left me this sweet note with little bundles of Sari silk and a box FULL of beads! 

Some of stacis hammered metal connectors and star toggle. Love these!

Staci's "bones and fossils" pieces. I love the different colors and textures! Love that crackle!

Beautiful disc from Marsha Neal Studio, and bumble bee bead from Lisa Peters Art!

Staci's amazing urchin printed hearts, eye heart, eye bead and donut.

Beautiful patinated beads. I love them all, but especially love the verdigris wings with the big hole! So cool! 

A nice sampling of semi-precious stones including a large rough ruby!

Now to get back to setting up and organizing. I still have a ways to go.

See you soon!

xo Genea