Lunch at the Winery

Well, its been a busy week, not to mention scorching hot.  Add some heavy duty thunderstorms to that and well, I am shocked to realize a small part of me is wishing for fall!
 Things have been so hectic with my last kid graduating from highschool, and now looking at two kids in college, the grad party, a new work schedule for my husband, I haven't had much time to do anything fun with friends

This is the view from our spot on the wrap around porch.

 .
Anyway, my friend Laura and I (we've been friends for 33 years!  Since junior high in fact lol), decided to spend the day together.  We headed out to the gym first then ran home, changed clothes and headed for the Wolf Creek Winery.   Not only do they have a nice variety of home grown wine, and
carry a nice variety of sweet fruity wine (which is the only kind I really like lol). they have a wonderful big wooden porch and they allow you to bring your own picnic food. (You can buy crackers and cheese etc from the also if you are in the mood)  So we gathered up our food and took off to the winery.  It was a bit humid (i.e. sticky and hot) but sitting under the roof on the porch with a bit of a breeze blowing was rather nice.  In case anyone is interested, besides the yummy wine (We settled on one called White Lies) we also had cheese and crackers, a delicious salad with tons of veggies and crab salad to add.  For desert, we had yogurt and fruit cups with fruit yogurt, blueberries, mangos and strawberries.  YUM! (and guilt free I might add!).  Every time we go, we say to each other, 'we need to this more often".  And we do. Need to do it more often.
 On a side note, if you like wine and you have lots of parties,
 I sell wine charms in my Etsy shop.  I will be contacting the appropriate
 people at the winery and see if they might be interested in carrying some of them in their winery.  Wish me luck!    

Busted!

What do you mean I'm not allowed on the dining room table!

Fine!  I'm leaving!

Our animals are not allowed to be on the dining room table.  Obviously, our cat Dragon has not read the memo lol!  After 10 years, he should know better!

The Garden

I love gardening.  Unfortunately the last couple of years have been so busy my garden was sadly neglected. (wish I had thought to take some before pictures lol).  So this year, while its still busy at my house, I decided that I was going to clean up the garden and whip the back yard back into shape.  I roto tilled a nice little spot for a vegetable and herb garden, fenced it off and weeded and planted all the beds along the fence and the garage. And then it hit the upper 90's with a bit of 100 degree weather thrown in for the fun of it.  My garden is struggling, despite the fact that my water bill has gone way up trying to keep everything alive!  There are some bright spots in the garden, this corner is doing very well.  And the weather is supposed to drop out of the 90's to a more reasonable mid 80's today and for the next couple of weeks.  I might actually get the rest of the garden up to par!

Big Hole Beads For European Charm Bracelets

Charm Bead Blue Green Sea Glass Dreadlock Bead
For those of you who didn't know, I do make big hole beads, just like you can find at the mall only mine are much less expensive.  I also make all of mine in my home studio.  They are properly cleaned and kiln annealed to help reduce the stress on the glass. (of course, it is still glass, and you shouldn't be taking a hammer to them and expecting them not to break lol!)





European Charm Bead Purple Skies
As you can see, some of them are cored and some of them are not. I have etched beads that mimic sea glass and I have shiny beads with lots of colors. 





  Turquoise Silver Big Hole Bead             
The turquoise one here has droplets of fine silver circling the bead.
I will be adding more beads in more colors to my Etsy shop on a regular basis.  Many of the uncored beads work really well with dreadlocks also.

 If you are interested in seeing more please click on one of the links to the beads or visit my Etsy shop, SilverRiverGlassworks.

Summit Nationals Drag Racing Norwalk Ohio

My husband goes to the races for the Nationals every year with a group of buddies.  This year, he finally took his camera lol.  So, I thought I would share some of the photos he took.  These were taken while the race was in progress (except for the one with the guys pushing the car lol)  so these cars were going at a very high rate of speed.  I'm so glad my husband picked up his camera again!

Hi!

Just popping in for a moment, I am trying to stay on track and post at least semi regularly.

Tomorrow is the big day, my youngest daughter's graduation party.  It was a super busy day today, running around picking up all the last minute items, cake, balloons, food etc.  I'm worn out but everything is ready to go for tomorrow hurray!

Of course, her party is outside, at the Metro park, so we are hoping for a nice, not too hot, dry day.  It hasn't rained here (in an amount that you can count) in 3 weeks, so you would think that there would be no problem right?  The ONE day it needs to be nice all summer, there is a 40% chance of scattered thunderstorms lol.  What are the odds?  AND its going to be nice and sunny all of next week too.

We have no back up plan, however, we do have several easy up canopy's  that I use for my shows so at least the food and most of the people will stay relatively dry if a stray rain shower comes through.

So, in honor of this new and exciting chapter in my daughter's life, I am offering a coupon code for 10% off this Tree of Life Serengeti Pendant until Sunday night at 10pm. (July15th).  I only have one of these so once its gone, there won't be another.  Coupon code TreeOfLife is good in my Etsy shop only.  Please note that I do accept major credit/debit cards in my etsy shops as well as Paypal, and I am always happy to ship internationally!

I'm Back. I Think Lol!

Well, its been quite a while since I have posted last.  Its been a crazy 7-8 months at my house.  My youngest graduated from high school this May and everything leading up to graduation has just kind of taken over our lives.  Her grad party is finally going to be next Saturday then we will be done!  Of course, college starts next month, my oldest's last year of college and my youngest's first year of college.  Lots of changes in our house.  In the mean time I have started adding items back to my Etsy shops, so for those of you who prefer to shop on Etsy, most of my new work is there.  You can find my jewelry at silverriverjewelry.etsy.com
I've added a mixture of old and new to this shop, with several new styles including more beadwork, ear cuffs and more.

I have also been adding new beads like mad to my etsy bead shop silverriverglasswork.etsy.com  Lots of new beads, more orbits beads, some very large lentil and heart focals among other things.  The lentil in the picture is a whopping 1 1/2 inches across!  This would make a stunning focal.

One more item on the shop news front, I have re opened my stitch marker shop on Etsy also, so if you are an avid knitter or crocheter, and want unique stitch markers/row counters come check them out! silverriverstitches.etsy.com.

I am hoping to be able to start posting again more often and may do a weekly post involving a coupon or an item prices at a special price for the day.  Keep an eye out, you might come across a great deal.  And dare I say it?  Christmas is only 5 months away!