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.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Happy Birthday My!


Today is my older sister's birthday. Her name is Miriam, Mom calls her Myra, and I just call her My. She is 48 now! For 5 days we were the same age.
It has always been that way. When we were younger she was 12 before me, 16 before me, 18 before me, 21 before me... I always felt like I got the short end of the stick on that deal! But for those 5 days , she always went out of her way to make me feel special. I love that about her. She is not a selfish person at all.

Then...it happened...she turned 30 before me, 40 before me, she will be 50 before me,
I am not as sweet as she is... I am snickering, giggling, gasping, and gulping that she is THAT old! HA!HA!HA! She will be 80 before me, 90 before me...and even 100 before me...she will always be the OLDer sister!

I am so very thankful for that!

I love you My. You are such a precious treasure of my heart.

Hugs and Kisses...
I miss you,
An

Sunday, July 26, 2009

A big birthday surprise!

Today is a special day. I have turned 27 years old with 20 years experience.

My honey invited me to go eat breakfast this morning to start my birthday off!
Sounded like a great idea to me. My favorite meal to eat out is breakfast!

After breakfast we headed to church. Service was good, Pastor is challenging
us to dream bigger than ever before. I am going there!...so is my honey!

After church, We headed home. The boys rode with Haleigh. She zoomed on by us...
and yes as a mother I thought, "that girl needs to slow down." They beat us to the house and into the house. I was so glad to see Kara's car parked in front of the
house when we got here. All my darlings were here for my birthday! Yay!


Once I opened the front door, I was greeted with a wonderful surprise! They had decorated the living room with streamers and balloons. There set a TALL carrot cake
Haleigh had made. It looked and tasted quite yummy. I love carrot cake! Thanks Haleigh! Beside the cake set this pretty pink package. I had no clue as to what it was. They were all excited for me to open it before we ate the cake soooooo I gladly obliged them.


They had been had been planning since right after Christmas to bless me with a laptop computer. I was so utterly surprised I cried tears of joy as I sat in disbelief. My darlings stretched themselves financially to give me something I really needed and would not buy for myself right now. There is nothing that I could use or want more. Thank you my precious darlings. Y'all truly are the best gifts I could have ever gotten in life. Come here and let your mamma give y'all kisses!

xoxoxoxoxxoxoxo

Friday, July 24, 2009

The Very First Piece of Jewelry I Ever Made




I found this picture yesterday. It is me when I was in the 6th grade. I had forgotten about this piece of jewelry. It was my mom's cross and pearls I repurposed them without permission. I think I remember thinking, They are just sitting in that old jewelry box of hers never getting any attention...so I helped myself to her goodies to make my self a goody. Hindsight says how thoughtless I was of my mom. Sorry mom, I would not do that now for anything. It also says that even at the young age of 11 my heart was to create jewelry.

Sadly I did lose it, I don't remember what I did with it, but I do remember wearing it for almost all of 6th grade, every day.

Honestly there had been quite a few clover necklaces and telephone wire rings before this necklace, but this is proof of my early exploits in jewelry design and assembly.

Anyone else make telephone wire rings?

Sweet memories...ahhhhhhh.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Today is Joshua's 20th Birthday!


After 20+ hours of labor, his mom and I finally got him pushed into the birthcanal!
Whew! What a job that was! Joann, truly was his mom before he ever got here!

He was a beautiful almost bald headed baby, with the deepest eyes and sweetest face.
He pretty much is still just like that. Except the bald part.

I spoke with Joann a while ago, after all these years, I still know I made the right choice. She is such a wonderfully awesome woman, and she loves Josh so wonderfully and perfectly.

I still have the peace of God about my decision. I will just continue to hang on to it for all eternity!

Hopefully I will get to speak to Josh shortly. He was not home when I called. I have a gift I have made him. I need to finish one part of it before I send it to him.
I will come back and post a pic of it here in my blog before I send it.

I hope your today has been super wonderful Joshua! You are an awesome child of the Most High God!

I love you.
Mums

Monday, July 6, 2009

The Goodness of God!

I am back just before bed. I want to share with y'all the goodness of God. Luke 6:38 says...Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.... So anyway, I have been planting seed for the shoppe since I committed to going to college. Earlier this year the Lord made provision for me to buy about $18,000 of equipment for $1200.... This weekend I was going through some more of the "stuff" I bought with that $1200. Found some casting grains, wasn't sure what it was so I took it to school today for verification. Guess what??!!!!??











It was white gold and platinum! Guess what the value of it is estimated to be???








$3600!!!!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

To be normal or not!

I am fully convinced that if we would search the Lord for our "norm" then none of us would be average.

We search the world for what it calls normal. Some are comfortable with that and some want to do better than that and some are just fully convinced that they are not ever going to meet the standard of the world's norm so they never make an effort.

If we would only seek God and follow after Him, His goodness, mercy, and love would take us so far beyond our wildest expectations!