Snow and Shows and Summer Plans

Ok, so when I moved to Chicago, I expected snow. I'm not sure I expected 19 inches of it to fall in one day, but that's what happened Sunday. And committed Southern girl that I am, I loved every flake of it!

The snow looks blue because the sun wasn't completely up when I took the photo -
believe me, it's bright, bright white out there!

This was outside my front door yesterday morning as I set out for work. See that third lump from the left? That's my car. I expect to see it again sometime in May, when the thaw comes. Thank goodness I take the train to work!

In other news, I got notification yesterday that I've been accepted into my first Chicago-area show this summer!  It should be fun, but I wonder if there will be cicadas the size of Volkswagons at this show...It will have been about 10 months since my last show when this one happens, so I'll just be happy if I remember how to set up my tent without causing a crisis.  Stay tuned!

Antibiotics and Show Prep

If you've been hanging around here for a while, you may spot some
familiar pieces waiting to go to the show

Y'all, I woke up looking like ten miles of bad road today.  Did you know that a sinus infection can morph into some vile thing that causes your eye to swell shut?  Yeah, neither did I until this morning.

So I'm piled up on the couch, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in and working on getting ready for my first show of the season this coming weekend.  I took a tip from the muffin tin challenge and corralled all the pieces that needed to be priced, tagged, or carded into a loaf pan so that I could transport it to a comfy spot.

Hopefully, the jewelry will look good enough that it'll distract customers from looking at me, in case I still look anything like Muhammad Ali's sparring partner!

Wherein Good Fortune Freaks Me Out And I Go On A Challenge Hiatus

Have you ever heard the expression, "be careful what you wish for"?  Because I will be the walking, talking embodiment of it for the next four months.

This is going to sound like the stupidest, "shut up until you have something real to worry about" post in the world, but y'all, I looked at my calendar the other day and nearly panicked.

And yes-I-know-I'm-an-idiot thing about it is that IT'S ALL GOOD STUFF.  But I'm still in low grade panic mode.

See, I applied to a bunch of shows this fall, and I got into most of them.  Fabulous, right?  Yes!  I'm thrilled! Especially since three of them are new for me.


(This is last year's poster - oops - but here's the info)



A great little show just a few miles up the road from me

They call this "Indiana's Nicest Day" - who could resist?

An indoor show, which is nice in November!

 

Of all of these fabulous opportunities, the one I'm truly, utterly, speechlessly excited about is the final one shown above, the Kentuck Festival.  It's in a town I lived in for fourteen years, it's a show I loved as a patron, and it's a show I've been applying to for years.  Seriously, YEARS.  It got to the point that everytime I'd send off my application I'd tell the kids "Mommy's just had her annual exercise in futility."  So you can imagine how excited I was to get the notice of acceptance!  (Actually, I scared the crap out of my poor husband, who thought something horrible had happened when I opened the email and screamed...)

So with all of this happening on top of my busiest time of year at my job, the next few months are going to be, um, interesting!

And as many exciting challenges are out there (I'm looking at you, Saturday Sequins, ArtBead Scene, etc...), once my reveal in the third part of the Bead Soup Challenge is over, I'm putting myself on a strict no-challenge diet!