Sunday Marathon Session

This last Sunday it was the London Marathon; which always makes me cry. Every year we go and watch it and we are standing by the 7 mile mark. The reason I cry I think is that I’m so impressed with the effort of the runners. Not so much on the day it self (that is impressive in itself), but for the effort they have put in before hand. The long lonesome runs, the muscle pain and the blisters; it all comes to a head on this one day in April.

I have wanted to run a marathon for the last 10 years, but have not gotten around to sorting it out, and now after the extensive hip surgery I’ve had I probably never will be able to. This is a small life lesson for me, if you want to do something, do it know as you never know when someone will remove all the soft tissue in your joint (or life) so that you can’t anymore.

My friend ran it this weekend, and he ran it for me. I was so happy seeing him and seeing that. It made me cry worse then normal. Luckily I was wearing my new Winged Zebra striped sunglasses that cover most of my face.

So the above picture is of Fred running the Marathon.

2.5 days and counting

It’s my last 2.5 days left at work and then I will be officially unemployed; By Chioce. That is the strange thing, I will be unemployed by CHOICE.

I am very financially risk averse, and leaving my job without having sorted another is something I would never think I would do. But I have and it’s scary and exiting at the same time. Exiting because it might allow me to do something different, don’t really know yet what the different thing will be. But I’m sure that will show it self. I will start by sitting on a beach for a couple of weeks to start; the meaning of life might show up there, you never know.

I have spent so much time in the last years being disillusioned with my previous choices and blaming everything and everyone but me (that’s right mum and dad I’ve blamed you) . But I guess I finally realised that I’m the one the blame. Better late then never eh?? Blame for wanting security before doing something that I like, but I think the most annoying part is that I whine about it. I guess I’ve grown up a little, you have to stand by your choices, I choose to study for 4 years something that I really didn’t care for. Mainly cause I didn’t really know what else to do, and I really didn’t want to move back home without having achieved something. So I got my MSc and then what. I started whining.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m going to try to not be such a cry baby, now if I get to the other side of the world and run straight into the same industry that I work in here and that I bitch about all the time. Feel free to whack me over the head. That will be hard as I will be living on the other side of the world from those most likely to hear me whine about it. But you can tell A to do it for you.

Anyway tonight I’m getting my camera that I left at a friends house on Sunday, and I will show you the fab photos of London Marathon and the fantastic sweater my friend Fred ran it in.

Super heroines

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about superheroes; well more like super heroines, female super heroes. What type of jewelry would a super hero be wearing.
I’m thinking for a super hero work situation they would have to wear a gun shot reflecting bracelet, an amulet necklace that would protect them from what ever is their own type of kryptonite., maybe a ring that allows communication since the phone/watch is so Bond ca 1970 but not in a good way or in which you can carry some type of poison.

I don’t think for their work costume they would be wearing big earrings, but small discrete ones with something like Bluetooth technology in them.

Whereas for their casual clothing I’m feeling some over the top drop earrings are in place, that could be used as a throw weapon incase of emergency like Modesty Blaises handbag handle.

They would still be wearing a bracelet, maybe one with a secret super heroine code on it so they could recognize each other. No point having two super heroines in the same coffee shop. Better to spread out the super hero powers over the city. So if they saw one with the secret sign bracelet in the coffee shop they could then choose another coffee shop. To make sure that all citizens of the town was save, in all coffee shops.

So my first Super Heroine I’m making jewellery for will be my made up “Water Woman”, she will mainly be wearing Sterling Silver and Aquamarine jewellery. I have not made any of it yet, I’m still in the design phase. I’m also not sure that Water Woman is such a good name for her. So If I explain what she is like, maybe some of the readers can help me with a good Super Heroine name

Water Woman– (name for now)
Gemstone: Aquamarine and Blue Topaz. (Aqua Marina – “Water of the Sea”)

Personality: Strong willed and honest. Sometimes to honest, she will tell you if you ask if that skirt really suits you, but only if you ask. She is diligent and hardworking, she feels no pain. She is great in a crisis but sometimes her clear slightness makes people believe she is cold and detach. She isn’t, but she likes to get the job done quickly and efficiently so she can get off and continue with her swim training. She is currently working on her butterfly stroke.

Super Hero Powers: Water Woman magically overcomes any effects of poison, she can summon the energy of water to deflect bullets or any attackers with a water shield. Can control and divide water in the style of Moses with her mind.

She is a great swimmer, gives Dana Torres a run for her money Dana.


Look: I see Water Woman as very fair, sometimes so fair that she is translucent. She can blend into any environment almost as she was see through. She will be tall and strong, almost a bit boyish in her muscle definition (again see Dana Torres, can you tell I’m a fan) . I will have to have a think about her casual wear style but her super hero outfit will be a aqua colored swim suit like outfit. With a small cape, the cape will have tiny tiny silver butterflies on it, so small that you can’t almost see them, as a nod towards her favorite swimming stroke and also showing her well hidden girly side.


Insecurities: She spends a lot of time on her hair and do not like to get it wet, but hates the look of a swimming cap. She currently working on developing a swimming helmet for her super hero work outfit that does not give her helmet hair.

This is my first drawing of the Amulet Necklace for Water Woman. I’m not so good at drawing on the computer, but you get the idea of what it will look like.

Old jewellery

I have so much jewellery, over the years I have made so much for me to wear that I could open a shop. Now as I'm moving i've been trying to establish if I should take it all. I mean I have things I made when I started out that I never wear anymore.

For example these rings, I made them , I still really like them. But I never get around to wearing them. They are such a statement,they are such a party piece of jewellery, I call them My Ninja Death Star Set.

Ninja Death Start Set

Rose Quartz Necklace
I have at least three different necklaces of this type, one in chaceldony, one in turquise and this one with rosequartz. I love the weight of these necklaces, and they work so well when you are wearing a mainly subdued outfit (as I do mainly wear only black that fits me well). I still don't wear them often. I wont be getting rid of it thought.

RoseQuartz


Then there are other old things that I would never get rid off. My stacking set, I've got one and it's the one piece together with my wedding ring that I wear everyday;I made one of these for each of my three sisters, they all wear it daily.
I like the fact that the the little gold balls allows you to rotate the ring between your fingers. So you have something to do with your hands when you get nervous.
Sisters Stacking

Travel Plans

We have finally decided on where to go to as our Chanteburi trip had to be cancelled. Our long trip will first to Hong Kong for 5 days, then to Bangkok where we fly straight to Langkawi to stay at this lovely place called Pondok Keladi .

It's a guesthouse and it has got wonderfull reviews on Tripadvisor, we stay at langkawi for 5 days and then go back to Bangkok to fly to Koh Samui where we will stay at Bohput Resort.

We stay in Koh Samui for 6 days and then back to Bangkok to fly to Sydney where we stay overnight, and then up to North Queensland to see A:s family. And then back to Sydney to start looking for a place to stay and a job for me. Exiting and scary in equal measures.

I can't wait to see all these places, and to start this new phase. I'm so exited. And SOOO scared, and all my jewellery making tools will be shipped so I wont be able to make anything for atleast 10 weeks. But I've been planning to use that time to rebuild some functionality on my webpage. And to get the shop set up. I have some stock, just need to get things up and running.

Right now I'm working on more of the rings with the pearshaped topaz stones. And I will go this week and buy more of the amazonite and rose quartz half drilled beads as those rings are popular with everyone I've shown them to. I reckon, when my little sis is here for the weekend, we'll make her one...

New Rings

I've made some new rings lately. I'm practicing to set square stones

I love topaz, and particulary this strong london blue colour.

This is a set of rings I've been working on, they are rosequartz and amazonite.
You can wear them individually or as a group.

I think they look real cute grouped together.

They are cute one on one as well

I've been trying to take new photos of my tourmaline cross over ring. It's really hard to show the cross over detail. It's a delicate ring, and the cross is where the ring meets at the top. I love this ring, the elevation of the stone makes a lot of light reach the stone and makes the stone sparkle and shine.


I find taking photos quite hard, but even harder is describing the pieces. I'm working on my description for my webshop and it's hard. It's hard to explain what they look like, and how much you like them without sounding like you are doing the hard sell...or like a prat.

First time in a long time

Today was the first time in a long time I went to do training and I liked it. It was a revelation; I had forgotten that I love the feeling of straining muscles and the type of tiredness that forces you to sit your arse down. I’m so unfit that it happens a lot.

It was also the first time in a long time when the muscles I was training was hurting more then my hip. Don’t get me wrong, with every step I take still feels like someone is punching me in the hip, snapping at my muscles, the scar still pulls and every time I touch the scar it hurts. But today my shoulders, chest and thigh muscles hurt more. And I loved it. Now don’t get me wrong it’s not like I like pain per se; but I don’t mind it, or I don’t really feel it. Except tooth ache, I can’t stand tooth ache.

I know the surgeon said it would take 9 moths to a year to get back to strength, and I have refused to believe him attempting to run after 2 months. Now I kind of get it, it’s getting better; much better, but very very very very slowly. Now one day maybe I will be able to run again. I don’t know. I hope so. Today that didn’t feel so important. Just the fact that I could do my 50 to a 100 speedy lounges without crying made this day a real good one.

So I’ve given myself a little goal. I shall be able to do 3 *15 Jackknife push ups by the end of May. I can now do 9,4,4 in my sets.

Latest Commision

I finally finished the latest commision and I'm sooo tired, I'm gonna watch gilmore girls, have a cup of tea and some chocolate eggs.

Unfortunately I couldn't set up my real light box, so I can't take any real good pictures. SO these will have to do, but the stones are much more vivid coloured in person.

The light pink stones are topazes, the dark pink tourmaline, light aqua is chalcedony, dark aqua apatite and purple iolite.



Close up of stones




In Box

New Commision

The guy that bought the heart has asked for another necklace.
It's the handfasting chain necklace. At our wedding we had a hand fasting ceremony, which basically means striking a bargain by tying of hands.

A traditional hand fasting ceremony uses coloured ribbons to tie the couples hands together, however I could not help but wanting to make something for it. So I made tree chain lariat necklace with multi coloured tourmalines to use as a “tying medium”. The necklace has a leaf shaped lariat point (a leaf shape is also a representative of the female form, funnily enough, I didn’t know that at that point) with three fine sterling silver chains attached to it. The multi coloured are attached to the end of the chains.

The photos shows how the necklace was used, and also one photo of it “wound up”. The photos are by our wonderful photographer Anna Rex at More Than Words Photography.


Anyway, this client wants to have similar necklace for his fiancé. This necklace will have pink topaz, aqua coloured chalcedony, hot pink tourmalines and some vivid turquoise apatite. As per always I’m working for to little money. I hate the pricing bit. For my next project I shall ask the buyer for a budget and design from that. Instead of designing first and then tell the price. Cause I always underestimate the cost and work effort. Hard lessons so learn from commission work.

Anyway, Photos of the new necklace to come.

Dumpster Diving

I spent the weekend sorting out some of the things in the flat that needs to be thrown out before we move. As always when you go through large amounts of your possessions when you start out in the morning you are very hesitant to throw out anything, but by lunch time you are ruthless.

That is when it happened, I ok:d throwing out of our congratulary wedding cards. All the cards wishing us a happy future, all those lovely cards all our nice guest had given us on our wedding day. I didn’t think about it much really, I’m not really a sentimental person that way. I’ve moved way to many times to allow myself to be sentimental about paper.
I only keep things that are vital for survival if you like.

Until last night at 10.30 pm I didn’t think about it at all. Until I had a chat to my sister about the things she kept (she is even less sentimental then me) she had kept all the wedding congratulations cards and all the cards she received when her children where born. Then it struck me, I got really sad I didn’t have these cards anymore. I was thinking about the things I would save if the house where on fire (my passport, my wallet and my computer cause all my photos; wedding photos included are on my computer).

So I got angry with A for talking me into throwing them out, then forced him to come with me when I went to the bin room and took a dive into the recycling bin to save my cards. Luckily we have lazy bin men in London; they don’t come so often and I was able to save my cards. I have decided to glue them into the guest book my grandfather made me for the wedding together with any extra photos I have received from our guests. That way I will have a sentimental wedding book for me of everyone wishing us our best. Basically it will be my book of confirmations that we made the right decision to get married. It could come in handy one day; one never knows when peoples bad habits get overwhelming (like my insistence to blame A for everything, sorry about that by the way) and you want to throw them out the window.

So to avoid any future back strain from throwing people out windows I know have my cards and I’m very very happy that A as per normal allowed me to blame him for something I really did and then helped me fix it. Thank you, you are super human. Like superman but way better looking.

Decorations

I always make decorations to mark the events of the year, I'm just not that good at taking them down again. This autumn I made beaded christmas stars that is still hanging in our Xmas Tree ...our tree is a bunch of branches in a duck egg blue vase.

For easter last week I painted some eggs to hang in the branches as a "Pask Ris".
So now we have easter and Christmas decorations hanging hand in hand...

Very nice...

Also A doesn't like to take the X-mas decorations down..so that is why they are hanging as well, it's not just me being very very very lazy.


My Christmas Tree


Easter and X-mas together



Sea X-mas Star





Golden star and flowery Easter Egg

The power of NOWness

I’m quite a now person, I want to start now, I want to finish now, I do not tend to procrastinate. I would rather do things I need to do straight away as the stress of thinking of having to do it is always worse then actually doing it.

That is why I like training in the morning, then I have it done. I do not have to sit and think about the training I have to do later. I like to clean and tidy before breakfast, so I don’t have to sit an eat breakfast and think about the cleaning I have to do.

As I’ve said before, we are moving to Australia on the 8:th of may. And I just want everything sorted. I want to have what is to be given away given away, what is to be thrown out in the trashcan, what is to be sold with their new owners.

Unfortunately it does not work like that, as I need to have bed until we leave, and I need to be able to cook food, and I do need to be able to eat the food of something. This means every time I open a drawer in the kitchen I mentally go through my list of things that needs to get done and I have to remind myself to not forget to give the pizza slizzer to someone. (Actually I think I’ll keep it, not that I eat a lot of pizza but it’s really good for scoring paper, so Now I need to put that in my craft box)

So I want to have things done already, to get on with the other things that needs to get done. But it doesn’t work that way, and it freaks me out.

Now I’ve found out that the Emirates can’t really change our flights the way we want them such that we can avoid Bangkok. So I will now focus my NOWness on figuring out a way to get around that…maybe go straight to Kuala Lumpur and take a cheap air asia fligh from there to Hong Kong och then back to Kuala Lumpur to get to penang or langkawi. I will investigate

Easter is over - thank god

Thank god Easter is over, it was so nice. My dad was here, which was lovely but meant I ate all the things I shouldn’t eat, drank far too much wine (and I’m allergic to wine so now I’m covered in red dots), and did no exercise or physiotherapy.

What is it with visitors that make you want to mainly feed them cake? I normally don’t eat that much cake but as soon as someone comes and stay I force feed them cake and biscuits. To make that easier I ply them with huge amounts of wine. What is that you say, You are on a diet? How about trying one of these dark chocolate truffle eggs…they are just tiny and luscious and one is not going to kill you… (hehehe in my mind I know they will eat 20). It’s like I do comparative dieting. I feel a bit unfit, here why don’t you eat a chocolate crème cake, make me feel real thin??

Monday I spent sorting through things I own and tried to decide what to ship, what to sell and what to throw away. I have 8 big black bin bags of discarded clothing; I didn’t know I owned 8 bin bags of clothing let alone 8 bags of it that could be thrown away. I also have one bag of shoes, mainly shoes I know I will never be able to wear again due to their heel height. Since the surgery the highest heel I will be able to use is 2 inches, I never knew I owned so many 4 inch heels.

After sorting that out I was so depressed as I’m feeling I’m loosing all my stuff that the only thing that would help would be to go out for a beer. It did help a little. Beer again comes to the rescue.

Also with the big riots in Thailand we have decided to amend our holiday/honeymoon/travel on the way to Oz. I don’t want to spend my holidays worrying if I can leave the country that I’m holidaying in. So hopefully we will be able to change the flights to Kuala Lumpur and then instead of spending some time in Thailand we’ll go to Penang or Langkawi. We’ll see, A is on the case. He is the best organiser I know. Where as I couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery!

Sticky - Stick

It's still sticky, but I think I've found the perpetrator..And i'm gonna move his screens around, so that when he get's in after easter he will spend the first hour trying to reconfigure his switch box and screens...heheh..

Other than that, as it's a short week the friday afternoon tiredness is setting in early. So i'm gonna go and buy easter eggs. One for my my A and one for my Dad that is here for easter.

I will get back to this ehen i'm not so after lunch tired..

Then I will talk about shopping...as i have to do some shopping before I move to Oz.

Stickiness

The stickiness is back, I was only gone for an hour. So I have to revise my theory on who is making the desk sticky. It could be my coworkers (i.e. boss), it would not be unlike him to try to wind me up with stickiness.

Or maybe I'm the one that is sticky to start with. Which is strange, since i've already showered 2 today and it's only 12.32 at lunch...

So the stickiness must come from somewhere else, I hope ( I would not enjoy being a sticky person, imagine being sticky and shaking hand with other people, it would make them attached to you. Very uncomfortable for both of you really)

I think I shall see if I can move the CCTV camera to cover my desk so I can check it. The problem with that is, that the security people could spend the day watching you and figuring out your bad work habits (mine is bad posture and dancing in my seat when there is a good song on my ipod).

So I would have to move the CCTV camera everytime I left my desk, and then move it when I got back. It would be a lot of CCTV camera moving and people would start wondering...

This problem is becoming unsolvable.

However. I found a real cool link for ...fabric easter eggs

Sticky desk

Every morning I come into work my desk is sticky. Often the seat has changed it set up and you have dirty foot stamps on my 3 hard drives. Sometimes my screens are also a bit splotchy as if someone has sneezed on them.

I spend the first 10 minutes of every day re-setting my desk.

Someone spends their night sitting at my desk eating jam sandwiches in dirty shoes while sneezing at my screens.

I really wished they would stop. I don’t like dirty desks, messy I can do, but dirt I can’t stand.

I’m gonna put a note on my desk saying “There is monkey poo in your jam sandwiches”.

Travel Plans

We are starting to gear up our travel plans and decided we are not going to Bali as well as they are having national elections during the time we would be there. Our plans right now is to stay in Thailand for about 14 days. We will first be going to Chantaburi to allow me to go to the gemstone market, and a gem mine. We are staying at a real nice place, but I can never remember the name.

The questions is now, where do we go after that. Shall we stay in Thailand and go super duper touristy and go to Koh Samui, or do we go up in the jungles, or do we go and visit Vietnam, Cambodia or any other country that is fairly close. (I would have loved Mayanmar but since they are not really a democratic country and they have had the opposition leader under house arrest for years and years, I do not feel that I can justify to support a heinous regime just so I can buy more rubies.)

Other than that I randomly walking around the house and throws things out, just cause I can’t fathom how much stuff we have collected. I used to be able to move with the help of one taxi. Two boxes of stuff and that was it. Now I have at least 2 boxes of stuff just for my paper craft, not including any of my jewellery tools.

So what do you do with all the books, my excitedly purchased two for one crap that is all over the place. I have 3 tea pots, and I don’t drink tea. I use one as a watering can. It has a good size snout.

I have sorted out most the books I’m giving away/throwing out. And I have no book takers, so tonight I’m placing it in the hallway downstairs in the building to see if someone wants them. If not I’ll just have a book fire.


And last night I painted easter eggs for the easter eggs "ris" - branches...very nice..

Random Thoughts...

Fridays somehow becomes carb days in my life...Im voting for a pizza dinner.

Fridays also seems to be the days that most people need help with crap things at work, hence making sure that leaving early to spend time with my mother becomes impossible.

Fridays also is a good or not so good day to go out after work. I'm often so tired so that 1 beer makes me jittery and I end up laughing at everything around me. I do however pass out after 3. Having 3 beers makes me useless for the saturday thought.

And I have never ever understood people who plans a meeting at 5.30 on a Friday afternoon, it's given that not many people pay attention.

So for now, I'm gonna tidy my desk, and go home to take my mum out for dinner...it will be very nice...

G20 Summit

It’s the G20 summit in the London and a global load of protesters have flown to London to raise awareness of the specific issue that is close to their heart; this issues seems to vary from global warming, global anti-capitalism and protesting against all that is wrong in the world (honest, there was a represent ant from one of the anti-capitalist groups on TV last night saying that they where protesting against all that was wrong with the world. Now I must say it must be nice to have such a very wide agenda)

Anyway these protests are going around all over the city, and that means close to where I work. You can’t hear them from where I sit, but you see them all over the streets. There are Swat Teams and an unseen level of police out on the street; together with a random selection of mainly young people in green and purple clothing.

My issue is with the purple and green, what is with those colours that makes them so popular amongst anti-capitalist and the global warming protestors. I don’t really get it.

I blame it on vegetable dyeing of clothes.
Beetroot and green leaves.....they are responsible for many of the fashion crimes surrounding the city today.

I want to point out that I'm not opposed to the protest, It is our democratic right to protest and demonstrate and a lot of people have given their life for our right to do so. I'd just really would like to see a larger variety in clothes style.

It's such conformity amongst the non-conformist