Blog Update July 9, 2013

I am working every night on a back room at my store. I have a room

that used to be an office, but I am converting it into a Silversmithing/Turquoise Cutting and Polishing/and Flamework Bead Room. I cannot even count the number of times in my life that I have built in work shops for my Lapidary and Silversmithing work. I expect this will be the last time. Thursday night I will start moving the Silversmithing tools and supplies to the new room.

Yeppers, it may be too hot to open the store with the old air conditioning system down for the count, but the heater should not be a problem in the cold months. I think I can get enough cool air into this small room to be able to function. I sort of came up with a little solution. I may be an old 66, but I'm not dead in the water just yet.

Our little town has its yearly celebration on the Square this weekend, so I won't get much done Saturday. I usually avoid the square that day. People don't attend the Settler's Day Celebration to shop in local stores. They attend for the parade, the food, the activities, and I learned several years ago to just not open. I used to go up to my store an try to keep people from leaning on my big display windows, but people are simply don't care about other peoples' property.

I have a small class this last semester of summer. I guess I will find out tomorrow if the admin is going to let the class make, or not. If it makes, it certainly isn't going to pay squat for the time I put in on the class, but it sort of keeps my foot in the door for the Fall. If I am allowed to teach in the Fall, and I am scheduled for four classes again, I will be lucky. The new changes coming to the education system is about to take the fun out of teaching.

Okay, so it's time to come up with a name for my new Etsy.com shop. Just haven't made up my mind yet. I always dread trying to pick a name. Once picked, I'm stuck with it. The funny thing is that it does not usually take but a day or so to figure out why my choice was wrong. Well, that's the way it is today. "There is no such thing as an original thought."  I don't remember who said that, but it is certainly true.

With all the thousands of pieces of body jewelry in my store, I see no point in even thinking about displaying my silver work out in the main shop. People around here have little to no appreciation for the time and skills involved in handcrafting not only the silver, but also the turquoise and other gems and minerals. It will be nice to be able to actually have time to cut a turquoise cabochon and then make the silver piece to go with the stone.  I guess the one big negative is having to photograph the finished piece, then list it on Etsy. I remember how time consuming that was. Ebay was worse. The companies are always "improving" their sites, which means more time spent on the learning curve.

I am trying to be prepared for not teaching. That's a shame. I really enjoyed my time teaching. I guess if I get this summer class and even one Fall class, I should be happy. Teaching was not supposed to be the way I retired anyway. My retirement was supposed to be working in my store. I'm going to try to make that work out. Seems like every day, when I look in on Facebook, I see classmates getting sick, disabled, and dying. We Baby Boomers are at that time. Many of us have lived longer than we may have expected. Last night, I dreamed that I had a stroke. Oh, good grief. I don't want to live that way. I am doing what I can to keep my health as good as I can. My brain still functions, my eyesight sucks, my right hand has a slight tremor, but I think I can continue to function as a silversmith and lapidary for awhile yet.

I won't have as much time to play on Facebook, but I will be looking in to be sure everyone continues to misbehave. I am spending more time on Pinterest so that I can lead potential customers to my Etsy shop once it is in place. I don't believe in overloading my work on  Pinterest, but I will have pieces begin to appear.

I certainly appreciate being able to view my Friends' photos and the lively events in my Peeps' lives. I really don't have much of anything exciting to share, but I really enjoy what everyone else is doing. Not everyone has exciting lives, but I enjoy bonding with people who share their ups and downs in life.  Sometimes, all a person needs is to just be acknowledged.

May God bless us all as we go into the rest of this year.