Building Mansions

Well, I can say it's been awhile since I last blogged or posted here. Life sure can get pretty crazy.
Since I last wrote I have made it more than six months into my fifth pregnancy. Oh the shock and awe that numbed me for a few weeks. I've clearly moved past that and am happily nesting. I've been making jewelry like a woman posessed. I think it's some kind of self preservation mode that has kicked in. I know full well what happens when a new baby arrives. It's like a bomb that goes off an decimates ones life for a while. A most wonderful, sweet, exhausting bomb. You never know how the baby who is being abdicated from the throne will handle it either.
I have the joy of being pregnant at the same time as my baby sister. She's due 4 weeks ahead of me. It's funny how different we are, body wise. I look like I am about to deliver any moment and she looks like 5 months along, not 7.
People are shocked by my massive abdomen which swells to mammoth proportions, frightening even me. I have learned to say to the unwelcome comments, "Well, I know I'm big. It's just that I am in the process of building a mansion. Every time I have a baby the mansion gets bigger for the next one. " That seems to shut them up for some reason.
I always get asked if this is the last one. Please let it be the last one. Love them all but the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be and she's only 35. I'm thinking I'll need a mommy makeover. If you haven't heard the term before that's happy speak for tummy tuck and boob lift. No one, I say NO ONE, should have to tuck their stomach into their pants and fish the girls out of their armpits. Sorry if I've scared those of you yet to have kids. I look pretty good after a year goes by but it takes some smoke and mirrors. If you don't have children yet and are planning to expand your family you must invest in smoke and mirrors and a gym membership.
The gym membership serves more than one purpose. Mentally you feel like there is hope for your body that was taken over by an alien. Physically you feel better and look better if you actually go to the gym you paid to use. Emotionally, you get a break from your kids for an hour or two an pray that they childcare worker in the gym does not need to come get you to change a diaper or nurse the baby who know you are having "me" time. I might also add it's the only time you can use an ipod to dull the bionic sense of hearing you are blessed with in the delivery room. I like to listen to "Bringing Sexy Back." It gives me a sense of purpose and hope. I might have five kids but I don't want to look like I have five kids when I escape the house alone. I hate when you can just tell someone has a slew of kids and they are all by themselves. You know what I mean. I am off to attempt to read past the first chapter of Pillars of the Earth. I've been reading it for five weeks now, enough said. I might add that I am quite literate and have taught high school students. I didn't have kids then.

Lazy Days Of Summer

I think that whoever coined the term, "Lazy Days of Summer" didn't have small children and a penchant for beading. It can be so hard to find time to make stuff amid a bustling home filled with small children. One of them likes to make jewelry with me another on likes to eat the beads while another one likes to take them and press them into Play Dough. Some of the Play Dough beads are never seen again...
It's been pretty busy here. I have a sister who lives in Sweden and comes for a visit once a year in the Summer. I feature her Earth Elements pendants in my store and market them for her. Today was the first day I showed them to a lovely woman I happened to bump into. She loved them so much she would like to sell them in her pottery studio. She however, did not like my pieces. She said they were the type of thing that would sell but they weren't organic enough for her taste. Oh well, glad that she'll buy the pendants outright. It will help my sister along on her quest to purchase her very own kiln. It's hard to find used ones where she is out in the Nordic country side.
You'll be glad to know that I have manged to keep my son safe during our last two outings to water. Both of them were to the beaches on the Atlantic up in NH. I think the cold water deterred him from walking in over his head. I went swimming with my oldest daughter in oldest son while my husband watched from the shore. I'm pretty sure he was cringing and wondering if we'd by hypothermic when we finally got out. It was a great time.
I have and appointment at a store tomorrow. The woman likes to consign my items but I find that frustrating. I have all of this hard work sitting there waiting for someone to happen in and find it amidst the other stuff everywhere. It's not accessible to me for my shows or my website. I'm thinking I'll leave it be until after the holidays and see how everything pans out in the end.
I'm off to create, then sleep.

Just the Beginning

Well I finally got ten minutes to sit and get this blog thing figure out. If you should stumble across it feel free to browse my etsy shop and read about the adventures of me. I'm a mom of four silly little kids. Sofia is 7, Kate is 5, Aidan is 3 and Silas is 1. I love my job as a mom, wouldn't trade it for the world, but I am happy when I am afforded the moments where I can go about life by myself for a few hours. I mentally escape from time to time and when I am feeling really productive I will create jewelry. My bead obsession started when I was six years old with the friendship bead wave that hit the nation in the early 80's. It's been a crazy love affair ever since then with buying the little guys and making stuff.
I am aspiring to one day lamp my own beads but that will have to wait for a time when I can spin molten glass in a hot metal rod over an open flame and not wonder why the kids are so quiet.
Went to a nice little lake today in Southern NH. It's not too far from where I live but you have to be a town resident or guest of to be there. My little son Silas has been walking for a month now and had the art of walking down pat now. I was in the water, just at the edge. One moment my eyes were riveted on the baby, then I looked away for 20 seconds to deal with another child's need. Looked down and he was gone. Gone where... I scanned the beach to the left to the right and frantically behind me. Off to the left about 15 feet away was a horrible sight. There was a baby, face down in the water arms frantically flailing, legs uselessly peddling, my son. I ran through the water and grabbed him as fast as I could and before I had processed the enormity of nighmarish possibility. He had wandered off and fallen down right behind two other mothers in conversation. They didn't even know he was there. He's fine. As a matter of fact he has no fear of the water whatsoever and tried the same thing more times than I can count. Needless to say my focus did not stray from him for a moment and we all survived the trip to the lake. Never have had a child before him who was so fearless but I have enough fear to carry the both of us. That was my little adventure. I know I'm a wonderful mother. Just be warned moms with multiple children to keep watch over. It happened in less than half a minute.