Bi-polar and sex addiction

I don't get a newspaper and I avoid the television news, I don't want to know what's going on around the World, its too depressing.  I do listen to the radio news in the glass studio shed; Radio 4 nice and quick, just a few minutes outlining the mis-deeds of human kind and its back to The Archers - my kind of news, even their weather seems much more positive, the outlook for the coming week being not as wet as last year.   

 

There has, however, been no getting away from the referendum in Scotland these last couple of weeks and I for one am glad its all over; families falling out over who to vote for, should they stay within the UK or go it alone?  I fall out with the kids on where they dump their washing so I think arguing with them over the state of the country is taking things a little too far, needless to say if there was a referendum in this house over whose job it is to put soiled clothes in the washing basket, I would vote 'theirs' and they would vote 'mothers', leaving a 3 to 1 divide (including the husband in this election and him siding with the kids...its inevitable *sigh*), one I would lose and unlike the politicians that are now saying they are quitting, no doubt on huge retirement funds, I would still be loading the washing machine or risk losing the cat under the mountain of stinking socks - all that without a retirement plan: the one of 'the kids are leaving at 18' now a distant memory as both are still at home and showing no signs of vacating the building. 

 

So I 'don't do' news, but I do like a little read of Yahoo home page when I turn on my laptop in the morning to check my emails.  I skip the celeb stuff, is anyone truly interested in who has milk in their coffee or was seen out and about...dare I say it...doing their own shopping?  What is the world coming too?  So imagine my surprise when I did click on the link that was discussing the latest scandal surrounding Gail Porter.  She is bi-polar, so am I.  She is a sex addict and blaming it on being bi-polar.  Good grief don't let the husband read this, if he thought that being bi-polar made me a sex addict he would be having a referendum of his own!

 

Maybe I shouldn't read Yahoo news either!

 

My daughter had her back drop for her photography delivered last week, and after leaving the massive box in the hall for a week, she finally set it up and had Izabel, Defi and Gordy pose, whether they wanted to or not, she took some lovely photos, this one is one of my favourites of all three.

 

You can find her on Facebook, Charley Mead Photography  and although the next picture shows her as being 12 she is really almost 19!

 

 

That's the daughter and yes purple hair is hereditary, and that little chap is our Gordy holding his most recent instalment of his adventures that are published monthly in Cat World magazine - I write them but as he says I couldn't do it without him, and yes, he does leave me piles of cat hair to clean up, he voted with the kids!

 

Maybe I should just go and eat magic mushrooms, won't make the front page, but who cares?

 

 

From dog towels to coal buckets.

The rain has been off and on this week, we have had spells of sunshine and I promised I would dig over my veggie plot again, but didn't. This morning the dog walk was through the veils of rain and poor Iz does suffer with soaking wet fur, Defi dries off almost immediately but poor Iz has to suffer being wrapped in a couple of towels to soak up the worst of the water.

 I had my car MOT'ed yesterday...it failed...but only on minor points so hubby can sort those out next week at the garage, I am using my daughters fabulous Rosie car and so I don't use  my big Penny the Peugeot Estate much, Rosie is nippy and fits into all those small spaces.  I have always named my cars, the kids think I am mad, but that doesn't stop my daughter from calling 'her' car Rosie.

 Daughters driving is improving, we have been out and about a bit more, she is still very hesitant when the daylight goes but we only had one shouting match, her to me, at some traffic lights when she couldn't stop stalling Rosie and got herself in a flap. 

I have been in the studio making more flower beads and loving every minute of it.  There is something about making flowers that makes me think of Spring and cheers me up.  In the evening I have been playing with seed beads and doing some bead embroidery and loving it.  I finished my first bead embroidery pendant last night, I used one of my lampwork cabochons and spent several hours in front of the telly of an evening this week placing small beads close together, its so relaxing and therapeutic.

 

These Rose hips and Blackberry beads are my favourite of the week and can be found on Ebay

 

 

 

 

And I will leave you with this photograph from this morning of our Gordy who took to sleeping in the empty coal bucket, empty of large pieces of coal but not of coal dust.....he does make me smile.

I did it!

Nothing too exciting, but I have managed to download the pictures from my new phone, all by myself!

 

So, look at these lovely cakes, sadly not my cooking, but a lovely young lady (ok girl, she was in her 20's!) whom I met at a craft fair in Weston Super Mare, the other weekend, they were delicious!

 

 

 

Then a few of the two gorgeous blondes in my life, Defi on the left and Iz on the right, enjoying some sunshine by the river the other week.

And hole digging, I am sure that Defi thinks there is gold in this field somewhere, he digs a new hole everyday with Iz looking on, just incase its an old bone or something interesting, so far we have just got a mucky Defi!

I was at the Flame Off in Silverstone the weekend just passed, and watched the wonderful Lucio Bubacco do a demonstration, inspired I came home to make some small glass sculptures, unfortunately my little torch is not up to the job for the scale I am trying to get, but, fortunately, I did succumb to a new Midrange Plus torch, just sorting out some oxygen tanks, regulators and space then I will be burning bigger and better...I hope!

Laney x

For the love of sculpture

Woburn Abbey Gardens

 

 

I love sculpture, in all mediums and I think that is quite plain to see in my glass.  I don't do girlie, but I do do dramatic!  In my teens I was quite keen on colour, mostly clashing colours lime green with pink, purple with orange...I didn't know then that my 'clashing' colours are really 'contrasting' colour, or opposites on the colour wheel.  In painting, to get that blue or purple to sing, add a dash of orange somewhere in the painting, it will bring out the bluey purples, or add green to a red painting and watch the colours pop, I love contrasting or complimentary colours. 

When I started to draw, that was just what I wanted to do, just draw.  I wasn't interested in colour, I loved form and wanted to be able to recreate a 3D image in 2D form in graphite.  Colour came later when I was encouraged to use coloured pencils as a medium, but even then I tended to use coloured pencils with graphite or an ink pen, later using the ink to sketch with, which is my prefered way of sketching, ink and wash, and back to the simplicity of just line and form.   

Trunk Tied, Elephant sculpture focal bead


Colour still plays a part in my sculpture work, and I still love contrasting colours, like in this gorgeous baby dragon, lilac with deep green and pale blue.  I think this gorgeous dragon is very well going to go to the gallery (more on that news another time!)

Its been a busy, and wet day, here at Chez Izzybeads, I have been soaked twice, once on the dog walk and once on the trip to the post office, I have been in the studio though and made some more sculptural beads and even a trip to the vets for Iz's yearly boosters.  Both dogs go to the vets, their boosters are 6 months apart, so they both go, both times and both get weighed. Its a good way to keep a check on them.  Being big dogs and being Golden Retrievers, they have to watch their weight so they don't put too much stress on their back legs in older age.  The vet was thrilled with our Iz, perfect teeth, perfect eyes, perfect ears and perfect weight...PERFECT :O) she is a healthy 33.8kg and at 6 years old that is brilliant news.  Defi got weighed too, he has gained 4kgs and is now 31.5kg, which is about right for his age of just 2.  He should get to about 35-37kg when fully grown I reckon.

The perfect duo...Defi and Iz


Laney x