Time to play catch-up, pass the mustard please!

My son and I have this silly little thing we do - whenever we say 'catch-up' - reminds us of catsup (ketchup) and then we say "pass the mustard please"! (or something like that, and ok, not all the time, but sometimes. :)

I think I mentioned before that I love language - - its so interesting what people say and how they use words, and not only that, but how they VIEW words and language. Most people view language as static when its really quite fluid, always changing and filled with various nuances. But I digress.

I'm supposed to be catching up here. So lets get going!

Where to begin? I guess with where I left off which was sort of last Tuesday - promising the TT post later that day which of course, we see didn't happen. I had really wanted to get the foldformed pendant/ring tutorial up but it just didn't happen on time. I wasn't happy with the pictures and ended up redoing some of them, changed my mind about some of the direction I wanted to take, etc. So it finally got posted on Friday. YAY! :)

Tuesday night at the bench I think was spent working on the tutorial - although I may have done something else, gosh, its hard to remember now. . . even though my MRI DID show a fully functioning brain (finally got the results back - within normal limits! YAY!) I am still forgetful. So then there was no post on Wednesday because I was working on the tute (I think)

Thursday passed without much ado. I finally got to take little guy to his swimteam practice. In the rain mind you. At a temperature of just over 60. It was cold. For a change the pool water felt warm. I guess you take the good where you can find it. :) At least we like to.

On to Friday - 'normal' day at work. Then the other chee-hooa-hooa had a routine check-up (this was Pedro, Lisa had hers on Monday night) during which a lemon size mass was found on his spleen. I did say ROUTINE check up, right? And I mentioned this is a chihuahua, right??? And he has a mass the size of a LEMON?? What the heck? OY. So he had an x-ray, then another x-ray - and additional bloodwork and now we need to have surgery. Which reminds me I need to call the vet.

The weekend was completely full of activities - baseball game, play date, I had a 3 hour training to be a deck official for swim meets this summer, AWANA closing ceremony....hmm, doesn't seem so busy now but I truly went from one thing to another all weekend - oh, visited with my daughter on Saturday - grocery shopped at a little past 9pm Saturday night after getting back from College Park where the Officials training was held.....really it was a busy weekend.

Received some feedback on the new tutorial from the first few purchasers. YAY! And thanks!

Ohhh, almost forgot - I missed FF too. So I'll share now, part of my mustard ya know...

My fave for this past Friday was to be PUMICE. Loooooooooooooove it!

I was first introduced to pumice at the JAR last year. There was some by the sink when I went to defrock the patina from one of my pieces. OK, I'll try a little of that. Put a bit of pumice on my fingers, added a bit of water, rubbed my piece and voila' - like magic - off came the LOS. And my piece was left with a neat satiny look - no scratches from my steel wool (and I use '0000' steel wool, VERY fine) - and my piece was shiny - didn't really seem to call for tumbling after that.

I had sort of forgotten that magical occurrence, what with all the other magical moments in my life since then......but then I was shopping online at RIO the other day, when I was re-ordering the 14k gold solder, and it hit me - PUMICE - find it, buy it. So I did. And I'm so happy. :)

I'm interested in posting other people's faves too - so if you have a fave you don't mind sharing, email me janiceihg AT hotmail DOT com - and I'll put it in a FF and include a link to your site or blog. :)

HAPPY MONDAY! HAVE A GREAT DAY!

~Janice

BTW: Speaking of mustard reminds me of mustard seeds - they are SO tiny but pack a BIG punch.

I have made jewelry with mustard seeds - putting them in resin - just one in a piece - to remind people of the bible verse that says if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we could move a mountain. (found in both Matthew and Luke)

Wow, faith that small.....can do great things. So have faith, believe, even if your faith is small - it can pack a POWERFUL punch and it can grow into something BIG, like the mustard seed turns into a HUGE plant.

I've added pictures of seeds and a 'tree' - the tree is kind of scraggly, but has beautiful flowers. Like faith, it can be small, scraggly, etc - but it is powerful and beautiful too. :)