As if I need another internet obsession, I'm now on tumblr.
Just a forewarning, it's addicting.

Follow me here!

Forgive the blurry camera phone pic, like usual. =)
I took this of me today. Finally did my hair. Finally put on some makeup. Finally went outside. Finally went back into the land of the living. After 6 L-O-N-G days of being sicker than hell I'm finally starting to feel like myself. Still have a stuffy nose, still have a nasty cough, still have a burning chest and still not feeling 100% but I'm so much better than I was.
I gotta say, being basically quarantined for that long really took it's toll on me. It blows to be sick but to be sick and by yourself really blows. I had a few visits from my mom and sister but for the most part I was alone and it really got to me after awhile. Especially by friday. Friday I was a mess. lol. I love the cats but for the love of God I was getting serious cabin fever. I needed human interaction.

Speaking of the cats. I'm totally convinced that animals know when you aren't well. They were constantly by me this past week just like in the picture. Cutie pies.

Me on friday ready to crawl outta my skin. ;)

I've never felt so awful for so long...and the meds didn't help with their gnarly side effects. (Kel, tamiflu is the devil!!!!)

I'm so, so happy to be feeling back to normal. Back to me.


Today was a good day all around.
Plus it was a rather important day because I finally got baptized. I'm feelin' really good about this.

customer: do you by any chance sell anything to a store in Louisville called The Makery?

me: Yes, as a matter of fact I do. :)

customer: i recently bought some stuff from there. and i bought the Mr. Tweet ring. and i wear it every single day! everyone asks me where i get it.

This made my day today. :)

Me saturday morning, feelin' good. I went out with Sam to this jewelry/fashion show that day and it's where I have a feeling I contracted my sickness. Close quarters with a ton of people. Bleck.

Me sunday afternoon. I woke up that morning with my chest burning but I managed to go out for a little bit. By the afternoon I was layed out. Terrible migraine, the start of the flu...

Thankfully I already had monday scheduled off of work because I felt AWFUL. This thing hit me like a ton of bricks! I didn't do a damn thing that day. Barely moved off the couch.

Me today. Me and my lil' nebulizer. It's not the first time I've had one of those unfortunately. Whatever is in there makes me feel like I'm on crack. I get all shaky and jittery. Not a big fan.

This is what you get when you have the flu AND bronchitis. Yup. Inhalers, antibiotics, etc. It's alot.
I feel like complete garbage. It'd be one thing if I just had bronchitis but this flu thing sucks. Chills, stuffy and runny nose (how does that even happen?), fever and the body aches. It's been so weird because my hands have been killing me. My hands! All my joints hurt. :(
The bronchitis blows too. My chest feels like it's on fire and I'm weezing and have shortness of breath. I had to have a chest xray today and my doctor told me there is scar tissue around my lungs. She said this is due to the fact that I've had bronchitis before and in turn I'm more susceptible to it now. This kind of concerns me. Oh yeah, that and the fact that I was told that have asthmatic bronchitis.

Alright, I'm going to lay back down.

Before starting, I'm going to apologize for the poor quality of most of these pics. I'm becoming lazy lately. Instead of grabbing my regular camera, I keep picking up my easily accessible Blackberry. It's so much easier to upload right from my phone too.

I got these ridiculously awesome magnets from My Button Boutique. I LOVE them. My favorites list on Etsy keeps growing and growing. There are so many amazing handmade things out there...

On the way to my parents house for Thanksgiving. What a wonderful day that was! I will be the first to admit, I have been eating (when I actually do eat) like complete crap. To have my mom's home cooking, and her traditional Thanksgiving feast no less, was just what I needed. I will never forget the smell as soon as I walked into the house. YUM. (I've since had left overs the past two nights. :)

My parents house. I spent a lot of time over there the past couple days. Although I live on my own, it's nice to know that I always have a second home to go to. It's funny, Thanksgiving night I ended up staying the night because my mom, sister and I went shopping on Black Friday. I slept (well, I didn't sleep I basically layed in bed staring at the ceiling) in my old bed, in my old bedroom. It was a really weird experience. First time I'd done that since I moved out.

Miss Wrigley. Lookin' all crazy eyed because of the camera flash. I miss her so much. She's such a sweet girl.

This is what exhausted looks like. Thursday morning my sister and I got up at 4:30am and went out to Meijer to see if we could snag a Wii Fit for her fiance. They had a deal for 50% off the regular price and the doors opened at 6am. Long story short, we stood in line for an hour, they only had 33 of the things with a 2 per person limit and there were too many people in front of us. We did get a raincheck though!
On Black Friday, like I said, my mom, sister and I went out. I didn't sleep that night and we were out the door at 2:45am. 3am we hit Old Navy, 4am we hit Kohls, 5am we hit Target, 6am we hit Walmart and 7am we hit JoAnn. I think we were home by 8:30 or so. I took this picture before I took a much needed nap. Needless to say, my sleeping pattern is still a little screwed up, which should make my first day back at work tomorrow pretty interesting.

Egg Nog Milkshakes! Yum Yum!!!!! (and no, those are not all for me. :)

My mom and I went out shopping yesterday (yeah, MORE shopping! ha!) and I ran across this thing. Oh Deer is right! Who would buy this? I had a blast with her by the way. It was nice to spend some quality time together.

I spent a large portion of this afternoon decorating my place for the holidays. So much fun! I love the holidays so much. I made this candle holder for $2. The dollar store is my friend. :)

Mikey in front of my Charlie Brown tree. :) I almost bought a 6 foot tree on Black Friday. I'm kicking myself for not getting it now.

Zer trying to get into the action.

Totally random John Mayer pictures. I couldn't resist. ;)
I've been meaning to post about his new cd all week. Truth be told, I actually did start writing about it, in LENGTH, and then the ENTIRE post somehow got deleted. I was so frustrated. I have to start alllllllllll over again.

This is one of the many examples as to why I have such great friends. I got the following email just a little bit ago and it means more to me than I can put into words.

Beth, you’re one of a kind awesome!


Dr. Jarvis has a prescription for you, that must be followed to the letter this holiday weekend. Trust your doctor...



You’ll be going on a journey with Damien Rice, so here’s what you’ll need to do:



1. If you don’t already have the Damien Rice “O” album, get it. Borrow it, download it, buy it from a bum on the corner, steal it from a baby – just get it.

2. Turn off all other distractions. I’m not saying you must sit in the dark, but it wouldn’t hurt.

3. Get your headphones on, turn up the volume *(not too loud, you don’t want a headache!)

4. Play the album, listen to it, uninterrupted in its entirety. Feel free to sing or scream along with Damien.



Try this emotional rollercoaster. It’ll be therapeutic.

And please, consider me your Eskimo friend.



Happy Thanksgiving – I’m happy and thankful to call you my friend, Beth! My thoughts are with you in these tough times. Do as Dr. Jarvis says, and it’ll start to get better.

This is me after I attempted to eat something the day after I got my new set of Invisaligns. It may look like I'm just smiling like a crazy person but in fact I'm wincing in pain. It felt like my mouth was in a vise. The first day or two is the worst. Now I can get the trays in and out no problem and my teeth don't feel like millions of tiny needles stabbing me anymore. :)

Me with my pal, Mikey. During one of our dvr'd Grey's Anatomy dates. :) I'm obsessed with this show. They play 3 episodes a day on Lifetime. I think I've watched about 20 episodes in the past couple of days. Good stuff.

Me today while packaging consignment orders with some Picnik effects thrown in. I need a haircut badly. Ya know when your hair gets to that point where it won't do what you want it to do? Yeah, well, I'm at that point. Big time. I'm trying to wait until right around Christmas to schedule an appointment. Meh.

Anyhoo...
I've been on vacation since last friday and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Doing what I want, when I want. Seeing friends and family. Staying up late and attempting to sleep in. Catching up on tv shows, magazines and books. Visiting stores and restaurants I haven't been to in awhile. Feeling inspired and tapping into creativity. And yes, taking random pictures of myself every day on my Blackberry. It's been great.

I'm looking forward to turkey day and then doing some early morning, and I mean EARLY morning, Black Friday shopping. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go with Sam to the midnight sale at the outlets....if not, I'm definitely heading out at 3am friday morning with my mom and sister to hit up our usual stores. :)

Rings!

Pushpins!

Earrings!

Necklaces!

All of these will be added to my Etsy shop soon. I've been busy adding some of each already this week. :)

I did it.
10 days notice and I'm ready for the jewelry show tomorrow.
Everything's packed and ready to go...

bracelets.

earrings.

necklaces.

rings.

fabric button earrings.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I did it. lol.
I worked my tail off. My hands hurt. My back hurts. (Yeah, making jewelry, at least for me, hurts sometimes.) I forgot how much effort goes into doing a craft fair/show. This one tomorrow is NOTHING like the Renegades, DIY's, Art VS Crafts and it's still been a lot of work. (40 vendors tomorrow) I love it though. I also forgot how much I love to make jewelry until this whole experience came along.

Between this show and being blessed with quite a few Etsy orders (holy pushpin requests, Batman! thank you!) I feel like I've been consumed with jewelry lately. It's been good thing.

I did manage to have one not so pagent like moment throughout all this though and that had to do with printing flippin' earring cards. Long story short, I had to improvise because of some technical issues which lead to me damn near throwing my computer and printer out the window. Below is what I like to call, "My Many Faces of Frustration" as I dealt with the cards. =)


Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's been a l-o-n-g time since I've done one of these and I'm excited to see what the turnout will be like!

Went to church again today.  I'm glad I'm doing this.  It brings me comfort.  I need that right now.  My sister and I are getting baptised in a couple of weeks.  Lil' nervous about that as I'm not a big fan of being the center of attention, (how I preformed in high school I don't know) but I'm looking forward to accomplishing something that I've always wanted to do in my life.  Some people don't get it but that's okay.  It's not for anyone else.
With all the stuff  I've been going through lately, I'm trying to hang on to the things that make me happy.  Seeing the triplets always warms my heart and makes me smile.  That's a big one.  Opening up to Lisa, the one person who knows almost everything that's going on these days, that's another one.  I've learned that even though I don't like to talk about my feelings, it brings me a sense of peace when I finally do.  Funny how that works out. 
I'm still keeping busy which definitely helps.  When I'm actually at home I'm not lounging around watching tv either. (My DVR is coming dangerously close to filling up)  I'm doing the OCD cleaning thing, or working on something creative or sitting outside reading a book or finding new music online (which btw, I've found some pretty cool bands from this site or walking around aimlessly from room to room.  Seriously, I've caught myself doing that.  It's like, I don't know what to do with myself.  I must look like a psychopath. 
Anyway. lol.
The other day I bought a journal.  Something I haven't done in YEARS.  I started drawing and writing stuff down the other night and I'm really finding it theraputic.  As much as I love LiveJournal, there's always going to be a filter on it for me.  I need something that's my own. 


I had a lot of down time today.  =)

Back to the grind tomorrow. 

More like exhausted really.
I totally thought it was midnight.  Much to my suprise I just looked at the clock and it's no where near that.  I also just realized that I haven't eaten since breakfast.  I've managed to consume about 3 enormous diet cokes though.  Eek.

I've been up since 7am and although I've had a great day, I'm spent.

My mom, sister and I went shopping today.  We ended up seeing Sam and her mom at Old Navy.  Good times.  It was nice for our mom's to finally meet!  After Old Navy we hit up the infamous "purse lady" and I scored a fancy Dolce & Gabbana purse for 35 smackers.  Yup, a total knockoff but it's killer and I love it.  It's so sketchy how they sell these things.  This place is literally a flea market and the women will walk up to you and go, "You want to see the purses?" Then they take you into these hidden rooms. I'm not even kidding.  It's weird as hell.  You walk in there and it's like purse heaven. D&G, Coach, Chanel, Ed Hardy, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, I mean, you name it, it's there. 

The rest of my day was spent working on jewelry.

This is what happens to a pair of wire cutters when you try to break a split ring.  In other words, I tried to cut a piece of metal that was too thick for the tool to handle.  My hand and wrist have hurt ever since.  Not sure what the deal is there but it goes from tingling to having really sharp pains.  lol, only me, I swear.
Despite my lack of sense, I made some really good progress today.  In fact, I think I've made all the jewelry I'm going to make.  30 pairs of fabric earrings, 16 button necklaces, 12 vintage flower necklaces, 47 rings, 20 bracelets and a ton of beaded earrings.  (yeah, I took count of everything)  This is nothing compared to how much inventory I had at my last show but  like I said with my last post, I'm going into this one alltogether differently.  There won't even be any pushpins, ponytail holders, magnets, hair clips, cards, etc.  Definitely a much smaller scale this time around.
God, my hand hurts. ugh.

Now onto random stuff.

Mikey & I catching up on Grey's last night. 

Blues Clues on a stick.  Yeah, I have no idea either but the thing is right outside my door and I've passed it a million times. Figured I'd take a picture of it today.  It makes me laugh.

Me.  Today. Looking tired.  Blurry as hell Blackberry picture.  Because that's what I do when I live alone.  I take random pictures of myself. 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
72 degrees for the high tomorrow.  Giddy up. 



"We can only learn to love by loving."~Iris Murdoch

I decided that I'm ready to dive back into Bethany's Designs again and it's been quite serendipitous really because I've had quite a few orders on Etsy lately, I was asked to consign with another store and just last night I was invited to be a vendor at a jewelry show.  The only problem with that is that it's 9 days away and I hardly have anything in stock so that pretty much means I'm going to be busting tail to get things prepared from now until then. 
At first I thought there were 70 vendors but after getting the vendor agreement I realized there's 70 tables and only 25-30 vendors.  Durrrr. A much smaller scale than a DIY Trunk Show or Renegade Fair but hey, I'm flattered to have been asked and it's good timing right now for me. 
Thankfully with it being a local show, I'm going into this figuring that I'm not bringing 1/2 as much as I usually would.  In fact, tonight I finished my beaded jewelry.  I actually had a TON of it already made.  I don't know why I don't have any of it listed in my Etsy shop.  I really need to get on that.  It's a shame that it's all sitting in organizers.  I was so surprised when I pulled it all out tonight.  I mean, seriously, I probably have 50-100 pairs of earrings.  I've got *maybe* 20 bracelets.  I'm not bringing any beaded necklaces because honestly, I hate making them and the ones that are already made I'm not real happy with.  I do have necklaces that I'll be taking though.  They're just not strung ones.  Okay, that probably doesn't make much sense to any of you but it does to me.  lol.
Tonight I also started working on my fabric stuff.  I freaked out a bit though because I'm super low on buttons and ring bases.  I mean, seriously low.  I'm afraid that I'm not going to get them in time whn I order more tonight.  Eep.  Kind of puts me in a bind.  I'm also a bit concerned when it comes to my fabric jewelry just because I saw the vendor list for this show and it's ALL beaded jewelry.  There's no one else who sells stuff anything like what I make.  Even my beaded stuff.  There's is all very professional looking.  A lil' concerned about that but everyone has their niche and mine is my own.  The owners of this show obviously saw what I make and they said I was a "great fit" so I'm goin' in with that mindset. 

I have to say, tonight made me realize how much I've missed creating.  I totally forgot how much I enjoy making jewelry.  I've been thinking of getting another tattoo lately and I can't decide if I want something related to life or to art.  Tonight makes my decision sway towards art.  I'm being vague here I know but I've got ideas in my head, promise.  ;)

Here's a few pictures from the past couple days...
. 
Pushpins drying.  I had a ton of pushpin orders this week.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I love making these.  It's a great little diversion away from jewelry.  I like picturing how customers have them up on the bulletin boards or work cubicals.

Packaging.  I like to add little gifts to each order. :)

Ready to be turned into earrings.

Earrings drying.

In other news too, bethanysdesigns.com is down at the moment but it should be back up and running in a little while.  My etsy shop though is always running! :)

Oh yeah, and I'm completely out of business cards and jewelry cards too.  Fabulous!!!!!  lol  Another thing I need to get on PRONTO!

Third day in a row that I've had a migraine.  I'm at work even though I should be in bed.  I just don't want to go home.

Been a rough couple of days.
Feels kinda like I've taken one step forward and then two steps back.

Some good news though, I've gotten quite a few Etsy orders.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  :)


That's all.

-Got up ridiculously early again.  For some reason the past two weekends I haven't needed an alarm clock.  I've gotten up, on my own, BEFORE 8:30am.  I can't remember the last time I slept in.  Today was no exception, especially with the fact that we turned the clocks back.  I woke up at 7.  Sheesh.
-Grocery shopped.  Or rather, walked around aimlessly.  Nah, I'm just kidding.  This time around I went in knowing exactly what I wanted.  This rarely happens  :)
-Cleaned.  I've decided that I have OCD when it comes to my place.  I actually love to clean.  It's a sickness.
-Spent the afternoon watching the race with Mikey on my lap.  One of my favorite moments of the day.  I didn't feel like watching the Bears.  I know, I know, how un-fan-like of me.  I think I'm still bitter about last week.
-Cooked.  Yes, I cooked.  I made meatloaf, some weird skillet potato thing and peanut butter cookies.  The meatloaf was one of my mom's recipes that I altered a little bit, the potato thing was straight outta the box from Betty Crocker and the cookies were a recipe I found off of cook.com.  See, I'm tryin'!  The meatloaf came out so-so, the potatos were not good and the cookies were great (except I burnt half of 'em. lol)  I refuse to let this stop me though.  I am bound and determinded to keep trying.

"What I want is what I've not got but what I need is all around me."-a little lyric that has been on my mind lately

I've been keeping pretty busy lately which has been great!
Seeing my girlfriends, spending time with family.  Good stuff.

Tuesday night I went over to Kelly's house and she put on a ridiculously amazing cooking lesson for me. I think by now everyone knows how challenged I am in the cooking department and this was a GREAT way to start me off in the cooking world.  I learned A TON. 
 We made ham risotto with sugar snap peas and it was delicious!!!!  You can find the recipe here. We also made (okay, Kelly made heehee) this super yummy desert that was one of her grandmother's recipes.  Chocolate chips, coconut, graham cracker crust....Um yeah, YUM!
I've decided that I can no longer eat like a single, 800lb man.  I can't rely on fast food nor can I continue eating quick crap like cereal for dinner every night.
I MUST learn how to cook. 

I've been visiting Sam and the triplets as much as I can lately.  They are at such a GREAT age.  They are getting SO BIG!  All of them are walking now and have such great little personalities.  I am constantly cracking up at them.  They make me smile so much. 

Watching them eat is still a highlight for me.  Ya can't get them food fast enough.  It's so cute.

Anyways, that's what's been goin' on in my little world.  Work, errands, going out, seeing my friends and family.  (By the way, I bought a pair of *gasp* skinny jeans today while shopping with Lisa....I don't know what's going on with me lately  lol)

I'm also going to jump back into Bethany's Designs.  I've been neglecting it for awhile and I'm starting to get the creative itch again.  Just in time for the holidays!!!!!


Now I'm off to catch up on the tons of shows I've DVR'd from this past week.  :)
Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Just a reminder, although I don't always post regularly on LJ you can follow me on Twitter here.  I update that daily :)

Adjustin'.
Keepin' busy.
Pushin' through.
Gettin' easier.

Inspired.

Hopeful.

Full Speed Ahead.

It was a gorgeous day out today...