January has been an eventful month

Well, I let a month slip by without checking in. I guess I have been busy.

As always, I think my photos speak more for my activities than my words, so, let's cut to the good stuff:

Yes, I bought a "new" boat. New Years Day I picked up a 2012 Epic V6 surf-ski. It is 16 feet long, 23.5 inches wide, and has fore and aft hatches, and weighs a scant 42 pounds. As you can see, Epic labels this the "Tourer," which aptly describes it. It will be a warm weather boat. Deke bought himself a high-performance layup 16X and so kindly let me buy this baby from him. Even Deke eventually ran out of room for boats!

I have been turning out quite a bit of jewelry. I have begun learning wire-wrapping. Above, first is a Labradorite pendant that James gave me for Yule some years ago. I finally got brave enough to wrap some sterling silver wire around it so I can wear it. It is one of my favorite pieces to wear. The Lorax calls it my "pet."

The second photo shows a "beach bracelet" I made for my sister Lisa with a vintage sand dollar charm from our mother. The charm is sterling silver and has lots of meaning to us. We both remember her wearing sand dollar pendants all through our childhood.

The third, the little piece of blue glass wrapped in sterling is a piece of beach glass collected on Coltons Point MD. About a mile offshore lies St. Clements Island. There was a glass factory on the island in the 1800s. Century old glass bits from the factory wash up on the point. This is the same beach where my dear Uncle Steeleye has a home. As you can imagine, this little piece of experimental jewelry is dear to me.

I had a birthday, for which I got a sewing machine. Not exactly a romantic gift, but necessary to my work. All my other machines need work and I had a lot of orders to get out. So this is what I got, a basic A Line Baby Lock. I am pretty happy with my new Baby. We have already made lots of cool stuff together.

It started snowing right around my birthday.

And it kept snowing...

And when it was finally all over we had thirty plus inches of snow to dig out from under. I was proud of my neighborhood. Unlike the last blizzard sequence, Snowmageddon 2010, our neighborhood was ready.

I saw people helping each other shovel out. The fellow with the snow blower ran up and down the street for a whole day. It was nice. The whole region was not as lucky or ready. There was plenty of missed school, and frazzled parents. The grocery store still has not fully recovered.

So that brings me pretty up to date. Today I had my last pool session of January. It was a good day. Now I am working on getting stock ready for photography and posting on my etsy shop. I feel like my year is off to a good start.

Catch-ya soon mates!