No A/C in Texas is NOT FUNNY

Oh, what a weekend it’s been at Casa Tapestry Beads. Oh, the misery. Around mid-day Saturday, I mentioned to Mom that we were already at the time of year where the air conditioning can’t keep up with the heat…but even as I said it out loud, it seemed wrong. I recall that last summer the a/c kept up with the heat as long as it was 100 or less. This house is better insulated than our former house where we always had a problem. And sure enough, it was not the heat outside but the lack of cool air blowing inside that was raising our indoor temp! A weekend. Naturally.

Mom was determined to not pay the premium fees for a weekend fix, so we’ve been sweltering in our own little sweat lodge today. Honestly, it was okay for the first half of the day since it had cooled off quite a bit overnight. Around 2pm, though, the game was up, and it got up to 87 degrees indoors before sundown. We have fans galore placed around the house and we’ve made it through. Here’s hoping the repair dudes will be able to come fix it EARLY Monday. Mom’s escaping to work (where coincedentally – there’s air conditioning!) while I’m at home in the sweat lodge. Since I have a class schedule here at home Tuesday night, we’d better be gettin’ cooled off and fast, or I’ll be looking for another location for our group! (Oh, Gwen???)

In the meantime, I’m still working away at samples for the flurry of class proposals due over the next two months. I’m going through a happy and wonderful creative explosion that’s really nicely timed. As a matter of fact, I worked out one design engineering problem that I’ve been mulling over in my head for the last four months. What a relief! And then while playing with another bit of beading that was only to be a ring band, my mind took a mental journey that went something like, “What if I used this motif on the edge of a peyote bracelet? And what if I made the peyote ripple a bit just past the edging? And what if I used those 2mm Swarovski crystals in the edging? And then I could put a combo of sequins, the Swarovski sequins, and Size 15s as decoration down the center. Yeah…that could work…” And the next thing you know, it’s 4am, and I’ve jumped out of bed and I’m beading away to prove that it will work out. It doesn’t always, ya’ know! I’ve been sorely disappointed before.

In this case, I’m happy to say it looks like this design will be full steam ahead. I just tried scanning the 2″ piece I played with to make sure a full-scale sample was justified, but honestly, it’s too raw and unrecognizable as anything cool to be worth showing. So far. 🙂

I plan on a day at Donna Menhart’s studio later this week for beading and gabbing. It’s Donna’s first year at Bead & Button with a booth, and to be honest, I have some mixed feelings about it. Donna’s amazing work has been my little secret for quite a while now! In the future, I’ll have to fight harder to buy her wonderful beads. Sigh.

Anyway, I promise to give ya’ll a peek as soon as I get the bracelet in shape for sharing, which will be by the end of the week since my first class submission deadline is the 15th and I’d like to include this new one in the batch.

Even Winston can’t be persueded to leave the cool tile in the front hall.