Bat Cave, NC

I brought my sister and my mom with me to North Carolina. We drove the mountain highways through the quaint, picturesque towns of Bat Cave, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. I've decided I want to move there.

What am I doing?

I've been making, making, making, lots of jewelry, jewelry, jewelry. Unfortunately none of it will go into the shop until mid-October...I've got a show.


p.s. all those "charms" on the left in the bottom picture will have their own chains...I'm just waiting on it to arrive.

A Little Pretty in a Tent

I just bought some paper lanterns to hang in my jewelry tent. I'll be traveling to my first out of town show in October, so I want to make sure my booth is decked out.

IMAX

The Tennessee Aquarium

Hello Chattanooga

We're off to Chattanooga for the weekend. These are all the places we're going. See you next week!
(Ruby Falls. Image from here.)

(Lover's Leap, Lookout Mountain. Image from here.)

(Tennessee Aquarium. Image from here.)

World Geography IQ Challenge

See how smart you are and brush up on your geography.


(via Designmom)

The Kiev Opera House

I was browsing through flickr and I came upon this photo and instantly recognized it! Hey! I was there! Seth and I saw the Kiev Ballet Company perform Don Quixote in this very building. Another interesting tidbit, the silversmith that I visited with in Ukraine showed us a sterling silver model of this building that he made! To see more great pictures of places we visited, go to this guy's flickr page.

See You Soon!

We are going out of town for the holiday and while we are gone, the floors in the whole front part of the house are getting redone!

So four rooms worth of stuff is crammed into the kitchen and playroom. When we get back we'll have a lot of work to do to reorganize all of our stuff, but at least ours floors will look brand new! See you next week!

We're Back!

We had a great time on our trip and although we had time to relax, I am so worn out today! I need a vacation from the vacation! Here are a few pictures, and I'll post more once I've had a chance to go through them.

Bye for a while!

We are headed to the beach for one last splash before cooler weather hits, so no more posts until we get back next week. Feel free to browse my older posts and my favorite blog sites while I'm gone, and I'll leave you with a little of the new jewelry I've made this week.
Sterling silver circle with 14k gold accent(the center of the flower is gold):

Sterling silver branch with nest, flower and copper bird:

See you when we get back! Have a great week!

Plan To Carry All

Seth and I are planning to take the kids to the beach over fall break, so this week I am planning everything that we need to take with us to make make this a dream vacation. I have been searching around the house for little zippered totes that we can store our cell phone and keys in when we are on the beach, because we certainly don't want any more accidents. I also really need a camera case. Here is one that I found on Etsy and they can custom design it to fit my camera (I also like the other stuff they have at this shop, Working Class Heroes.)

I could also get a normal case. This one is a Tamrac, but it just doesn't thrill me. Does anyone else have any good sources for a cool camera case?

A Trip to the Dr.'s and a Trip Away

My kids are still sick today, sicker in fact. I am missing Bible study to take all three of them to the doctor's. I am just hoping we don't pick up anything else while we are there. We've already got plenty of viruses to deal with around here! Unless there is one huge monster virus that causes pink-eye, fever, upset stomach, sore throat, and croup. But I don't think so. I think all three kids went three different places and then proceeded to combine the little germs in to one big crock pot of disease.

Hopefully though, I will be o.k. to go on the Community Bible Study leadership retreat that has been planned for this weekend beginning tonight. I always grow so much at the retreats, and I do not want to get sick and miss it. I also don't want Seth to get sick and not be able to take care of the kids!
This is where we are going. The Lodge at Deer Run. Beautiful.

A Day at the Beach

I mentioned in my last post that we would be flying to Orlando to pick up our mini van. Well, we did, but there were a few hitches on the way. When we arrived, the guy who said he would be picking us up with the car became a no-show and we couldn't reach him on his phone. Apparently they had misplaced the key to the vehicle so they couldn't bring the car anyway. We were stuck at the airport until a guy from the dealership took pity on us and came to pick us up. They finally gave us a loaner car so we could get to the condo we had booked in Daytona. Seth convinced them to bring the car to us when they got the key the next day. They finally complied, thank goodness!
Waiting at the airport for a ride:


We had a few problems the next day too. We got trapped in the condo tower's garage for a whole hour (I thought we were going to die in there) because we couldn't find the button to open the garage door and we couldn't figure out how to get back into the elevators. We did escape eventually, and we enjoyed a rainy, overcast morning on the water. The next thing that happened, though, was that Seth took his phone (it was in his pocket) into the water. I bet you can figure out what happened to it. Salt water and cell phones aren't compatible. Bummer. We got over that one and continued to enjoy our day when we ran into the waves one more time before retiring to the room and Seth lost the key to the condo in the ocean. It was, yeah, you guessed it, in his pocket. Great. We ended up calling for help on the emergency phone in elevator. And we now have a 95$ bill for a replacement key.
Despite all of our setbacks (and there were actually a few more, but I'm tired of writing them) we had a lovely day together on the beach. The ever crashing waves always remind me that despite the fact that "life comes at you fast" our God is never changing. When I am having a bad day, he is still the same, loving me and being sovereign in His plan for my life. "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17





You can see more of my pictures of this trip on my flickr account.

New Car

Seth and I are flying to Orlando tomorrow to pick up our new mini van that we bought on eBay (thanks to the help from my wonderful Father who lives in eBay land). I'm so excited, for one, to go on a short little trip with my husband, and also to get a bigger car! My poor, poor children have had to suffer, cramped up in the back of our sedan. Especially Kaleb who always has to sit between two car seats. So now, seven seats!

Although I am excited about a new car, and true, we did get a good deal on it, I found myself longing to drive the red station wagon in the movie that we watched last night, Volver (which, incidentally, is a good movie.) I don't know what it is about this red station wagon, as I have never before wanted to drive a station wagon, but wants and desires sometimes have no reason. I guess I just liked the way it looked in the movie...

Butterflies

We went to a butterfly house in Indianapolis and the kids found this gorgeous butterfly about to take it's last breath on the sidewalk. I moved it into the bushes so that it wouldn't get stepped on and a nice woman snapped my picture with it. Good thing, too, because my camera was out of memory. The butterflies were one of the highlights of the trip for me.

My Ukraine Friend

Many of you know that a few years ago I had the opportunity to go to the Ukraine for an arts conference. I made some really good friends there, and a couple girls I kept in touch with. One of them is coming to Nashville this week! I am so excited, but there is a lot that I need to do before she gets here. Today and tomorrow will be the crunch days full of cleaning and baking apple pies, and then I will get to entertain Sveta! Hopefully I'll get some good pictures of her visit and I can share them with you! (The bottom picture is Sveta and the top ones are of some of the artwork that was done by the Ukraine artists.)