30 Years!

In January, Rocketman will have been with his company 30 years. The company offers a gift to the employee and you have about 15-20 items to chose from. The last time (25 years) he didn't really see anything he really wanted but I saw a diamond ring so that is what he got. This time, again, he didn't see anything that really interested him except this pearl and diamond ring for me. So that's what he chose. Lucky me!

Mayo Clinic

Last week we headed down to Mayo Clinic to have their retina specialists look at Rocketman's eyes. We were thrilled to get a call saying that they wanted to see him. We drove down from the Twin Cities which only took about an hour and a half from our house.

I booked the hotel using Priceline and the only complaint was that they air conditioner would cycle on along with the heat. The unit was also very noisy. We had lunch with a friend of mine who is also a designer and her engineer husband (see the similarities?).

We arrived for Rocketman's appointment and first had to register. It reminded us of bank tellers lined up. There were about 20 windows and you waited for someone to holler for you as you waited in line. It went very quickly.


As we made our way to the opthamology building, we saw this gorgeous art hanging from the ceiling.

I'm pretty sure it is made of glass. I was surprised at all the fine art I saw at Mayo. We made our way to the right area and checked in. We were told to take red seats. Names were called and patients made their way back.

Finally, Rocketman's name was called. We went back to a room where the gal asked lots of questions. She put dilating drops into Rocketman's eyes and said to wait again in the wait area and someone would call him for photography. I was to wait since there would be no room for me.

He was called back pretty quickly and while he was gone I took out some maedeup to do. It's always fun to see people watching me work and I had a few that asked what I was doing. There were a lot of patients who had macular degeneration and who came every few months for a shot in their eye. It is a revolutionary procedure that slows the macular degeneration and preserves the sight.

When Rocketman came out, he had that dazed look and I knew something unpleasant had happened. He said they put an IV in him with a dye (which he has had before) but the girl taking the pictures was new and being trained and she took forever to take and retake pictures. He was getting nauseous from the lights.

It wasn't much longer when they called us back to meet with the doctor. She came in and said that she was going to take a few minutes to look at his pictures and read his history. She couldn't seem to get it straight that multiple things had happened to both eyes. So kept thinking it all occurred on one eye. She said that we were there to consult on his swelling in one of his eyes which we knew would incur from the latest surgery.

We told her no, we were there for a second opinion on his eyesight. He has a lot of distortion in both eyes and we were hoping for some good news. She didn't pull any punches and said that he was lucky to have the sight he had considering what had happened. He would forever have to accept this distortion. The eye with the latest surgery may still get better since it takes a year for the eye to heal.

As she did her examination, apparently the chin rest was jiggling a little. She got REALLY upset and told Rocketman to hold onto the grips on either side of the chin rest, like a periscope. Rocketman has been in this position hundreds of times and it wasn't his fault it was jiggly but it made him feel bad.

She then wanted to start him on a new antibiotic drop but asked if he wanted to take it. Um, what would you recommend since you are the doctor. She said it was up to him so he decided to take it.

We left feeling a little confused and disappointed. I guess we had our hopes up that Mayo would be the savior of his sight and now we know that isn't the case. I also thought that she could have had better bedside manner but it seems to be the norm these days with specialty doctors. It isn't right but it is what it is.

We drove down to Rockford to spend Christmas with the folks and had a grand time.

Maedeup Monday!

I keep a stash of pendants and beads to use in my maedeup. I've had this pendant for many years even before I learned maedeup. It is made of polymer clay and I wish I remembered where I got it from. That is one of the many reasons I love Etsy, I can always look back at my purchasing history to see who made something that I have purchased in the past.


In maedeup, sometimes the simpliest knots make the most elegant jewelry. This necklace is made with continuous dorae maedeup with some gold garakji maedeup thrown in. I whipped this necklace up while visiting the folks for the Christmas holiday.

It's a Crafty Christmas!

This project had to be kept a secret until today. Noah, our grandson came to stay for an overnight in November and it was the perfect time to make something for his mama, our daughter. She is expecting our new grandchild in June.

I bought some onesies, fabric markers, fabric paints, stencils and some foam dawbers. Noah would decorate onesies for his new brother or sister.

I put down plenty of paper to protect the kitchen table. I also put paper inside each onesie to keep it from bleeding through.

I used 3M's paint tape to mask off the sections of stencils we would not be using at that time.

I held the stencil while Noah tap, tap, tapped with the dauber. He decided he wanted to work without his shirt.

I removed the stencil and Noah was so excited to see what he had created.

We had a blast and I can't believe how fast he went through those onesies.

I also helped a little putting on some faces.

We had a blast!

This is what we ended up with.

Noah decided what went on each onesie. What color and where to place the stencils.

Can't wait for his mama to open these up today! Merry Christmas everyone!

Rocketman Has Landed

Rocketman returned from Asia bearing gifts. He bought these paintings in Insadong in South Korea. Insadong is a crafty area of Seoul and a favorite of mine. It is a big tourist attraction and if you want hanji paper, it's the place to go. Now I just have to figure out where to get them framed.

Maedeup Monday!

Nothing is better than a maedeup Christmas tree. I bought a small fully decorated with lights Christmas tree while living in South Korea. It stood under two feet. I then decorated it with projects from my maedeup class.

Rocketman made it safely back from Asia. He has a lot to do now for the next couple of weeks. It's good that he on "vacation." The new computer needs to be put together and everything on the old one needs to be transferred to the new one. The new furnace is working well with a couple of hitches. The humidifier doesn't seem to be working.

It has also been verbally approved for us to relocate back to South Korea. Rocketman has a huge project that will keep him in Asia for 2011. Now they are working on the specifics but that officially start date is 1-1-11. We won't be there by then. Rocketman thinks it will be February while I'm thinking it will be midJanuary. We are lucky that we will have family members staying in our house while we are gone including our deputy sheriff son.

Exciting times are coming!

And The Winner Is!

Comment #2:

Annette:
Sorry for such a terrible week, with everything new, it's got to get better, but unfortunately not your bank account.
BTW, love reading your posts and seeing your pictures, especially the snow, we don't get snow much down south.


Email me (becky@meverden.net) your address and I'm mail the ornament out right away. Congratulations!!!

FaveCrafts Blog Hop!

It's the time of the month so let's hop to it. This is an oldy but a goody. You may have seen it on HGTV's The Carol Duvall Show. This "Snowballs for Sale" Snowman polymer clay ornament as always been one of Carol's favorites and mine too. I hope you like it. For more great projects, check out FaveCrafts Blog.

copywrite 2010 Becky Meverden

CLAY SNOWMAN ORNAMENT

Materials:
clear glass bulb ornament
Premo! Sculpey:
- two 2-oz. blocks 5001 white
- 2-oz. block 5033 orange
- 2-oz. block 5323 green
- 2-oz. block 5382 cadmium red
- 2-oz. block 5562 ultramarine blue
2 black seed beads
straight pin
12 white pompoms
AAA-22 Snowflake Stamps by Judith

1/2" Kemper circle cutter
3/8" Kemper heart cutter
pink & blue chalk
cotton swab
paring knife
round toothpick
paintbrush
pasta maker or acrylic roller
black fine-tip pen
white Pentel Milky gel roller
light blue card stock
scissors
eye pin
gold cord or ribbon
quilt batting
baking dish or cookie sheet
circle template (optional, to measure clay)
clear Liquid Nails adhesive from beauty supply stores

Instructions:

1. For the snowman's body: Roll a 1-1/8-inch ball of white clay into a cone. Press straight pin halfway into the top of the body to support the head.

2. For legs: Roll two 3/4-inch balls of white into 1-1/4-inch-long tapered logs. Use snowflake rubberstamp to indent snowflake on end of each leg. Apply blue chalk to snowflake indentations with a cotton swab. Attach legs to body.

3. For arms: Roll two 5/8-inch balls of white into 1-1/4-inch-long tapered logs. Attach arms to body.

4. For head: Roll a 7/8-inch ball of white clay. Press two black seed beads into head for eyes. Use a toothpick to make two squint lines at each eye. Roll a 3/16-inch ball of orange into an oval nose and press onto his head. For his mouth, use a circle cutter and press half of the cutter into the head under the nose. Blush cheeks using pink chalk and cotton swab). Set aside.

5. For hat: Roll a 1-inch ball of ultramarine blue into a 3-inch-long tapered log. Use the rounded end of a paintbrush to make a hole in the center of the hat. Gently roll the paintbrush around the hole, making the hole larger until it fits over the head.

6. Bend the tail of the hat up and down. Press onto top of head.

7. For the brim of his hat: Roll a 1/4-inch-wide log of ultramarine blue. Flatten with your fingers and then use the paintbrush to indent. Starting at the back of the hat, press the brim around the lower edge of the hat and cut off when ends meet.

8. For the pompom on the hat: Roll a 7/16-inch ball of white. Use the rounded end of the paintbrush to make a hole in the pompom. Press onto the end of the hat.

9. Press the eye pin into the top of the hat.

10. Sit the body on top of the ornament and press slightly against the glass. Attach the head to the top of the body. Lay the ornament on a piece of quilt batting.

11. For the holly accent: Flatten a sheet of green through the pasta machine at a #4 setting (5/64-inch if using an acrylic roller). Use the heart cutter to cut out three hearts. Fold each heart gently in half and press ends together to form holly. Press onto glass. For the berries, roll three 1/8-inch balls of cadmium red and press them onto the center of the holly.

12. Bake at 265 F degrees for 30 minutes and let cool. Gently remove clay pieces from the glass.

13. Remove the metal top of the ornament, put 12 white pompoms inside and replace top.

14. Glue the body and holly accent onto the bulb. Set aside.

15. For the sign: Cut a 1-1/4" x 3/4" rectangle of blue card stock. Use the black pen to dash lines around the edge of the sign. Use white gel roller to write "Snowballs 4 Sale." Glue the sign into the hands of the snowman.

16. String with gold cord or ribbon.

Maedeup Monday!

What a wild week last week was. If something could go wrong, it did:

1. Furnace acting up and not working, getting a new furnace and air conditioner.

2. Computer dying, getting a new computer.

3. 17+ inches of snow on top of the 8" we got the weekend before.

4. My laser printer quit printing, let Rocketman figure that out when he returns.

5. The dryer died, ordered a new Whirlpool from Sears.

I haven't added up the total cost of everything but it is over ten thousand dollars! Luckily I had all my Christmas shopping done.

So in honor of this horrific week and Rocketman's return on Saturday (he's been gone since Thanksgiving weekend), I am giving away the ornament above. All you need to do to be entered is leave a comment.

I will draw a winning 8:00am CST on Wednesday. Good luck everybody and here's to a less costly week.

MinneSNOWta

This is what I was doing while we were getting 17+ inches of snow. I found this darling pillow in a quilt magazine. It was easy to do and turned out so cute.


I also had to snow blow three passes to get our driveway clear yesterday. Today I woke up to this and it was as high as my waist. It took the better part of an hour to clear. It also didn't help that the temperature was 5 degrees. Look at my poor mailbox.

Do, Do, Do, Lookin' Out My Back Door

This is my deck after the blizzard of 2010. We've never had the snow piled so high.


I stuck my yardstick to see how tall it was. I was shocked to see it 25 inches. I have been out since the blizzard and it's still dangerous. At the end of our street, the snow is so high that you have to pull out into the intersection to see if there is a car coming. The snow is as tall as my car.

It is also in the single digits with it -20 below at night. This means the salt that the snowplows has put down will not melt the snow or ice. That makes driving on side streets very dangerous. It's slow going if you don't want to get into an accident. The weatherman said tonight that the temps will be below normal the rest of December.

Woeful Wednesday

I guess the title pretty much sums up my week. The 2o year old furnace decided it was time for
a new one. I had the furnace guy out and even though we weren't in immediate danger, with such an old furnace it was on borrowed time. So I talked to Rocketman and we decided to take advantage of the Fed Rebate of $1500.00 and get a new high efficiency furnace and air conditioner. It's going to be installed next Tuesday.

Our computer has been giving me a lot of trouble and Rocketman finally decided what he wanted and ordered it last week. On Sunday, our computer decided it didn't want to power up. I tried all day to no avail. The new one showed up on Monday, the same day the furnace decided not to work properly.

The day was stressful and I was about to call the Geek Squad when I decided to say another prayer and turn on the computer. It powered up!!! I couldn't believe it. So I am not turning it off until the new one is up and running. Poor Rocketman has to take all the information on the old one and put it onto the new one.

To relieve my stress I've been knitting. I made the pumpkin hat above for the little grandbaby that is coming in June. It really does help to keep my fingers busy. I had my weekly knitting class today and everything I had done was ripped out. You would think that after making one sock the mate would be a piece of cake. Well it's not!


I also took a class at my local quilt shop and made this snazzy purse. The pattern is for three different sizes and I love how it turned out. I added a JHB button to top it off. It was a fun class and since there were only two of us, it went pretty fast. If I had time I would make a couple for gifts this year but I think I will have to put that on my list for next year.

Maedeup Monday!

This video contains my other two segments I taped on "Creative Living with Sheryl Borden." The first segment I am demonstrating a polymer clay refrigerator magnet and the second segment is the hapjong maedeup.

I am hoping to get my computer issues resolved since all my pictures are on my non-working computer.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Or should I say, Rocketman, we have a problem. I am been freezing all week and wondering what was going on with me. I kept raising the temperature on the thermostat and yet I was still frozen.

We have an indoor/outdoor thermometer that needed a new battery so finally on Friday I dug out some triple A's and put them into the thermometer. I was shocked to see the reading and how off our thermostat was. I had been keeping the thermostat at 70 which had the indoor temperature at 61 to 62. No wonder I was freezing.

I talked to Rocketman and he felt we should have someone come out and look at the furnace. We have gone through multiple thermostats and it could be that but he felt that with a 20 year old furnace, it would be a good idea to rule the furnace out.

It was Friday night by now and I called our furnace guy and they will be out on Monday. I didn't want to pay for an emergency call and I can now use my thermometer to monitor the actual temperature. I'm a little scared of it being the furnace and hearing the cost of new furnace/air conditioning units at $10,000.

Then I woke up this morning and powered up the computer to find that it will not power up. After the initial shock and trying many times to power it up, I noticed that the keyboard wasn't lighting up. It may be just the keyboard or something more serious. Luckily, I have this backup laptop computer but it doesn't have my old emails. I owe some answers and don't have the emails addresses to use on this computer. So I'm kinda in the weeds until I figure it out.

Rocketman just happened to order a new computer last week (maybe the old one knew that) and it will be here tomorrow. My plan is to use that keyboard and see if I can reboot my old computer. If not, I may have to wait for Rocketman or place a service call with someone. I'm really at a loss.

Hopefully, this will be the end of the bad luck for awhile.

Pillow-Making Class

I also took a pillow-making class this week at my local quilt shop. I made this beautiful scalloped edge pillow. There were four of us in the class and we got to go at our own speed. They had outlets set up for our sewing machines and also ironing boards ready to go.

The class was two and a half hours long. The time flew buy and I was thrilled with how my pillow turned out. I bought enough for two so as soon as I arrived home I made the second pillow. They look great on my bed.

Today I awoke to about 6-8 inches of snow. The snowblower started without incident and my driveway looks marvelous. They are saying we are in for a chilly week. I have another sewing class on Tuesday and my weekly knitting class on Wednesday. A busy but fun week ahead.

Enameling Class

I had my first enameling class since learning enameling while living in South Korea. The class was a community ed class and took place in a local middle school shop room. The class was $80.00 for three hours.

I arrived at the school about 15 minutes early and found that our teacher hadn't arrived yet. So I sat down on a bench while a few more students arrived. The teacher finally got there at 6 which was when the class was to begin.

We made our way into the room along with his two bins of supplies. He let us know that he knew very little about enameling and when we left that night we would know just a little less than him. I didn't think that, along with being late, was a good start. He spent the first half hour explaining enameling.

I was interested in how to clean the copper since that is where I was hung up. He didn't have any answers for why my Korean copper would not clean but he said to stay clear of nitric acid which is what my Korean teacher uses. I've decided to get some U.S. copper and see how that works.

He said that the majority of the class would be about playing with the enamels. He really didn't give any instructions of things to do so luckily I had some ideas from my Korean classes. He said his job was to man the kiln.

We prepared the copper by cleaning it and then applying a liquid coat of enamel followed by a sifted dry coat. We did both sides at once which was very different than what I had learned in Korea.

Then we decorated the enamel any way we wanted. We had to finish up by 8:30 so his kiln could cool down. There were four of us in class and the others seemed to be having a great time. My intention was to have some instruction in English and perhaps learn something that my Korean teacher couldn't communicate.

All in all, it was nice to get out and meet new people but for now I think I will stick to my Nan, my Korean enameling teacher. She really is the best!

One Down, One To Go

I finished my sock. It included two emergency trips to the yarn shop for help but I was able to finish it up the last day of class. My teacher has an ongoing Wednesday morning class where you bring what you are working on or questions and she's there to help. Today was my first day and I was surprised and happy to see a gal from my sock class. She is still working on her first sock.

You would think that since I had completed one sock that the second one would be a breeze. Wrong! I feel like I didn't learn a thing. Eileen, my teacher, is so patient with me and also very encouraging.

I bought another set of needles to begin to work on a second pair of socks. I thought it would be a great idea to make two sets at the same time. I have a feeling I will be taking this Wednesday class a very long time. It's a great way for me to get out and meet new people. The class is two hours long and the time flies with the knitting and talking that goes on. I have an enameling class tonight and am very excited.