If it ain’t one thing, it’s your mother


I swear! I’ve got to watch that woman every moment. We had some excitement at Casa de Wiseman this weekend when Mom decided to be Wonder Woman. She was building a new raised bed garden for some roses we bought the previous weekend, and of course those 75lb stones left by the masons who did our house would be the perfect thing. And they will look quite perfect! But getting them from one side of the yard to the other is the part that tripped her up. Literally.

We figured out that she could flip them end over end on to a dolly, then use the dolly to get them across the yard. We were quite proud at our ingenuity. Until the dolly hit a divot in the yard, the stone fell….you see where this is going, right?? Mom’s foot happened to be in the way as the stone came crashing down.

Now the thing that saved worse catastrophe was that she was wearing socks and shoes (protecting the pedicure she and I had both gotten that morning) and that the stone hit the side of her foot rather than dead on top. But even so, it immediately puffed up to the size of a softball – it was scary – I didn’t know your skin could stretch so dramatically. I took her to minor emergency and they loaded her up with a bootie and crutches. They couldn’t tell right away from the xray if the foot was broken or not. Too much swelling.

She went to see her regular doc about it today, and she said they will treat it as if it’s broken anyway, so Mom’s getting a new, more stabilizing bootie to wear for the next 3-6 weeks. Sigh. Of course, it could have been so much worse.

In beady news, that darned lariat kit is giving me fits. When I made the first sample for the store I do a lot of teaching at, Nomadic Notions, I was using the Czech seed beads they have there. I was so thrilled with the way the colors flowed that I decided to use the same color scheme for the kit version. Easy! Except I use Japanese seed beads for the kits. And converting the colors over seems like it would be simple, but it turns out it’s not. I’ve been working on the kit sample and the colors just weren’t popping the right way. Plus a Japanese Size 6 seed bead is significantly taller than a Czech Size 6 which is effecting the way everything is laying. So I made the choice last night to stop trying to force it to work with the Japanese beads, and I ordered some Czech to use in the kit. Actually, I just ordered small quantities of several colors that appear to be the right ones. I want to check them in person before I order masses of them. So the lariat kit is delayed and now I won’t have it for Bead Fest Miami in 10 days. Bummer. But I want it to be right for ya’ll. That’s what you pay me for!! To do the digging for the right beads and the goofing up.