Friday, August 28, 2009

Chainsaw Granny!


I would like y'all to meet my grandmother. Her name is Mary Aneda. She goes by Anita. She is a true hero of mine. She turned 85 last week. Granny told me a few years back that middle age starts at 75, old age is at 115!
Needless to say, you can see the spunk in her words alone.

Granny doesn't drive anywhere much other than in her little town. In 1983, when she traded in her 1968 Dodge Dart, it had close to 11,000 miles. She bought a Dodge Neon in 2005. When I was visiting with her last July when this picture was taken, it had 3200 miles on the odometer.... back to why you needed to know that. My Aunt Donna normally brings Granny to town. It is about a 5 hour drive,Granny normally stays for 2 weeks when she does come. Someone from our family normally takes her home. Anyway,
they had just arrived and Myra and I started to unload the Granny's suit cases from the trunk. We discovered she had brought a chainsaw. We both looked at each other with great dismay and questions running through our minds. We knew better than to vocally ask why there was a chain saw. We just kept our mouth shut and did what we were suppose to.

The next morning after breakfast, we were cleaning in the kitchen, and all of a sudden the buzz of a chainsaw was heard outside in the back yard. We immediately ran to the windows and doors to see what was going on... and there she was..... my wonderful 72 year old grandmother had climbed a tree and was trimming limbs off of it for my mother! Why couldn't she ask a younger sprout of a son in law to do this??
There were two of them within hollering distance! She said she came with a purpose, that that was part of it! Did I mention she is a very determined and independent woman??

Since that day, we lovingly call her Chainsaw Granny!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Finished!

After three days of working 2-4 hours I have my work area in order.
This is my workbench area. The pic does not show how perfectly clean they are!
I promise they are!



This is my storage area and free work space. You can see my small kiln in this pic.
My larger one is sitting on top of the refrigerator until I am ready to put it into use.


This is my metalworking bench for drawing, rolling and hammering metal!


This is my easy reach storage area. I have all the things that I need to set up a bench for work right there with in reach to my left, since I am left handed.



The wet area. I bought a new faucet that I could stretch to fill up the steamer with.
It is so nice to not have to keep filling up water jugs for that.


This is the polishing area. I love the old polisher. It is an antique, but was just recently rebuilt. I hope it goes for a long long time!


Now tomorrow...oh my is my bead area! Anyone want to come help?? I think my honey is going to hide as I clean and organize that area.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

I Need The Help of a Professional!




The Lord has been so good to me, bringing everything I need, or at least I think I need for my jewelry business. I have been storing it in the back room of our shoppe as I have bought it. Now comes the time to put it in place and hope to make sense of it.



I am so overwhelmed by God's generosity. I feel like my store house is full and anything else is going to cause it to overflow. I have got to make some sense of it.
I have got to have it in full operation mode no later than this time next week. I need HELP!



In posting this I am making a challenge to myself to get it all organized, so that I can work efficiently

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Finally! & Thank You!


I graduated on Thursday from Texas Institute of Jewelry Technology
with a certificate in Jewelry Technology.

I mainly want to say thank you to my family for being such
a wonderful support to me during the past few years.
I could not have done it without you!

Here is a pic of the whole kit and kaboodle of us at graduation.
Left to right
Haleligh, Jordan, Kara, Me, Chelsea, Wes and Micah.