Whats-going-on Wednesday

Since I haven't been regular with blogging lately, I may have to start making this a weekly feature! Sooooooo, "what's going on" around here?

Well, this weekend was NICE. Quiet. To the extent that things CAN be quiet around here right now. It seems the past 5 weekends or so have just been a little nutty. We were on vacation for two weekends, and then I took that workshop over a weekend. I can't recall what was going on the weekends prior to vacation, I only know that I hadn't been to church in over 4 weeks and it was GREAT to get back. yay! We had family in late Sunday afternoon which was a lot of fun and other than that and going to church (and grocery shopping and laundry) I didn't do much of ANYthing! My son had a birthday party to attend on Saturday which left me free to grocery shop by myself for a change and I took that opportunity to run to a little natural food market not too far from home. It was interesting. I picked up a few items - more than a few actually. I was able to buy raw almonds in bulk (at only 4.99/lb!) and I bought some seeds and sea salts and some other interesting items like 'noodles' made from tofu and yam flour. I'm still eating at about 98% raw. I'm using some vinegars and oils that aren't raw and things like hummus on occassion and little tastes here and there of whatever my family might be having (especially while I am cooking their meals)...all in all though, I'm pretty sure I'm very close to 100% raw which is great!

A week or so ago a friend of mine found a great ad on Craigs list where a jeweler in PA was offing a lot of items for sale. I toyed with the idea of going up and shopping with her but in the end, with my son having the bday party to go to and all, I just decided not to go. However, it did inspire me to look at Craigs list (which I do occassionally, but definitely not regularly) and guess what I found? A jeweler in MY town dispersing his entire jewelry studio. Can I tell you how quickly I jumped on that? Quicker than quick. I am now the proud owner of a 'proper' jewelers bench (which I am crazy over as it has a sweeps tray!), a full size bench polisher with vent/fan/filter system, a little rolling mill (on its own little wood stand), a sandblaster, some hand tools....and I can't remember what else. YAY! And to top it off, I had the pleasure of making a new friend. Dave is a really nice guy and I hope to keep in touch with him. He was even kind enough to deliver the bench and rolling mill to me! I told him he could come visit his tools any time if he wants - to make jewelry or whatever. Dave is now working on a larger scale in steel sculptures and decorative home items. I'll be sure to post some pics of the things I was blessed to get, I just haven't moved any of it out of my garage yet.


As I've been reading more and more about eating raw, I've come across a lot of very interesting health/food information and beyond. Some of it I just shake my head at (though two months ago I would have shaken my head at eating raw as well...) but some of it will be very useful to me I am sure and some of it is just plain interesting.

Take these two links for example:

Eco Friendly Protein: 8 Best Bugs for Eating

Forget Gas, Batteries — Pee Is New Power Source


Some intesting stuff out there, no? Its amazing what daisy chaining through the internet or bloghopping will reveal. :)

OK, lunch break is over, so its back to work for me.

Ohhh. I did some more work on my vessel.

The photos here are not with anything further done to them, they are just updated photos because so many people thought the last set of photos looked really flat, they couldn't tell it was a vessel. So here you see it with the wax in it and can see its a little vessel. It looks much different now though! (I tihnk I may like it all smooth as it is in these photos though!)

Since I was tearing the heck out of it with my flat 'planer' punch/tool I went back and used a round chasing tool to texture all the lower areas. I really wanted to just keep pushing through even though the tool (or the operator) was marking up the metal really bad. I hope to melt the wax out of it tonight (or soon) and then reshape the opening a tiny bit. Then its a patina and we'll call it 'done'!

I'm kind of excited to see how it will look in the end. I know its going to be very crude, even without comparing it to David's vessels...but I am hoping it won't be so awful that I will want to hide it in a box somewhere.

We shall see. :)

Janice