Bead Soup Blog Party!

The reason I started this blog way back when was so that I could join the Bead Soup Blog Party that Lori does every year. I've participated twice and had a blast. 

The first time, I was paired with Shirley. She sent me a challenging focal that I struggled with, but ended up with something I ended up liking.

The second time, my partner was Terry.  I loved what I ended up making with the soup she sent me.

I wear this all the time - the garnet chips and the pendant make me so happy!

This year, I can't wait to see who I'm being paired with. I've already started gathering my soup ingredients for my partner.

Since the last time I was in a BSBP, Lori has started a Facebook group for beaders and it's a wonderful community. I feel like I've gotten to know some people, and that is going to make this one extra special!

I'm all signed up - are you?

Wait...HOW long has it been since I blogged?

About a week after my last post, I started a new job which kicked, and is still actively kicking my ass. It's been a tremendous learning experience and I love what I do. I am one of the people in the world who can say they love their job. I got into the mortgage business in 2004 when it was a really easy way to make a lot of money really fast. Here we are 9 years later, and the only people who are still in the business are the ones, like me, who love it. The people who were only in it for the money got out a long time ago.

Up until my birthday this past November, I was working about 65 hours a week and it was kicking my ass. My boyfriend and I then went to Vegas for Thanksgiving. Both of our families are out of state and rather than cook a huge meal for just the two of us, we decided to go have some fun and we had a blast! The day we were leaving to come back home, though, I started feeling a little sick. It was a LONG 6-hour drive to Phoenix from Vegas. We went to the emergency room and I was in the hospital for five days for abdominal issues.

Since then, we've been to the emergency room four times, I've had three CT scans, three ultrasounds, a colonoscopy and an endoscopy, along with about 10 million blood tests, and apparently there's nothing wrong with me. That's what the doctors say, at least. I'm still fighting the battles, and our friend Lori and I had an encouraging conversation about not giving up. You probably know that she deals with her own health problems and she encouraged me to just keep pushing until they figure out what's wrong and they figure out something they will do to help me.

On the jewelry front, I've made a ton of new stuff.  Back in October, a friend at work said her daughter was having a Quinceanera and asked me to make her jewelry. Then, it turned into her daughter, her, and her sister.  I was given color guidelines and that's about it.  Here's a sample of what I made:

Please forgive my terrible, awful, picture-taking skills. I am working on it, but seriously - I suck at taking pictures. My camera is terrible, which is one of the problems. And hello, black velvet shows every single speck of dust!!!!

I'll be back tomorrow with some more news, but it feels great to be back! Hopefully you can forgive my silence for the past year+.

Have a great week!