Back to Blogging

I am back to my blog, and thankful to be here.  Since I last wrote here in my electronic journal, my life has changed immensely.  My last post celebrated the birth of my wonderful grandaughter, Maggie.  Her Papa and I dote on her so much, we moved from St. Louis, MO to the Fort Collins, CO area to be near her.

What an adventure and huge undertaking that was.  Papa is retired, but I needed to find full time work in Fort Collins that would approximate my income at the job I had in St. Louis.  We prayed about this, and I asked the Lord to either open the door wide to allow us to make this move, or if it was not the right thing for us to do, I asked that the door be strongly shut, slammed, in my face.  God is so good.  I sent out about three resumes total.  The one position for which I thought I was best qualified was the one for which I interviewed over the phone.  I was offered the job a few weeks later.  I now work for Poudre Valley Health System in Fort Collins, CO.  It is one of the best places to work in Colorado.  It won the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award for 2008.  This is a very high honor and is indicative of the commitment they have to provide patients with the best possible care and provide their employees with the best possible work environment.
I have worked there full time since January 11 as the Clinic Compliance Risk Analyst.  This is truly the best place I have worked, and I have been in the workforce for well over 20 years.

Needless to say, the physical move to Colorado and the attention to my new position left me with little to no time to create jewelry or to blog about it.  In addition, a major health issue intervened.  More about that tomorrow.

Here are some photos of Papa and Grandma with Maggie.

Voila! Creation of a Favorite Necklace!

I had so much fun creating this necklace and matching earrings. I found these large vintage lucite beads on eBay and fell in love with the scrollwork on them. I used to paint on wood and enjoyed Rosemaling and other types of decorative strokework. This reminded me of that. After I bought the beads and had them in that little plastic bag sitting all alone on my work table, my enthusiasm waned for awhile. All I could see is the brown color, and I did not have the slightest idea of what to do with them. Weeks later I started pulling out my various beads. I knew I didn't want everything to be brown. I thought of moukaite. These natural stones come in a variety of muted colors. They are brown, rusty red, soft rose, cream, gray, soft yellow, and other variations. They complemented my large scrollwork beads perfectly. Now, I needed some sparkle. Gotta grab your attention! So I selected some lovely faceted Czech crystal roundels in soft rose pink and pale green with a hint of pink. Sprinkle in some sterling silver beads , and voila - a wonderful unique necklace! As I say about my favorite pieces - It's just Plum Beadacious!

This necklace and the earrings are for sale in my shop. I named them Soft Earth.