Friday Finds WE 073105

Hey there; hope everyone's weekend is going well. It's still hot as hades here in sunny SoCal. I've actually been down by the beaches several times this week, and what I don't get is that there's been almost no one on the sand except right around the Santa Monica pier last weekend, when I met KJ for beads. The beaches closer to Malibu have been practically empty. It's bizarre. I was wondering if it has anything to do with the Great Jellyfish Invasion of '05, but I don't think the jellies have made it this far up the coast, so it's pretty odd to see the beach empty at the height of the summer season. Especially when the temps down there have been ideal. I'm just saying.

So let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? I present for your inspection this week, a motley selection of links, to things both odd and (hopefully) useful.

I'm starting off with gauze masks of the kind once ubiquitously worn by Michael Jackson. But not just any plain old surgical masks, oh no. These are animal surgical masks. And no, I'm not kidding. I spent 30+ days in Japan, once. The Japanese are kooky when it comes to this sort of thing, so I've no doubt these are getting a lot of air play. I think they'd raise a few eyebrows here, though. Still, if the photos are anything to go by, the gorilla and monkey masks certainly blend well...

If you live in the LA area and are a DWP customer, you can sign up for and receive free trees to plant on your property...or elsewhere, I suppose. Actually, a lot of cities and states have programs like this, and the National Arbor Day Foundation also offers 10 free trees to new members, shipped free of charge. You can also buy trees from the NADF, and shipping is only $5. Not sure what kind of trees will grow in your area? Use the NADF Tree Wizard to find out. Trees truly are our friends. They filter particulate matter (dust & pollution) out of the air, convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, cool the earth and lower your energy bills by providing shade, block wind, and lower noise pollution when planted between your house and yard and a highway or other source of noise. They also serve as a privacy screen between you and the neighbors. Trees are awesome. That's why governments and organizations like the NADF offer free trees to the public. So check out where you can get your free trees today. :)

In addition to free trees, you can also get free plants. :) As a landscape designer, I can tell you that if you're looking into landscaping, free plants are definitely the way to go: properly landscaping your house costs from 10-25% of the value of your house. If your house is worth $100,000, that means it will cost you from $10 - 25,000 to properly landscape it, so cutting cost corners where you can is a good idea, and Free Trees and Plants.com makes it easy. Based in Nebraska, Free Trees salvages high-quality unsold nursery plants, shrubs, and bulbs that would otherwise be destroyed at the end of each season and sells them in pairs (by the half dozen, for bulbs) online or by phone for $6.95 to cover the cost of handling (digging the plant, preparing them for safe shipment, packaging, etc.) and shipping. Believe me, when the retail cost on a sapling starts around $25 and most 3-gallon plants go for $10 - 15 or more, that's a very good deal. They've got some really great plants on the site at the moment, too. I'm talking stuff that would cost you a LOT of money at a nursery or garden center. And Free Trees employs disabled workers, so as their site says, "You get free plants, help stop a huge waste, and deserving workers with disabilities get jobs. Everyone wins!"

The Tour de Lance has come and gone, leaving all us cycling fans a little bereft. If you live in LA and are a big fan of the bike - or just want to learn more about your Schwinn - check out The Bicycle Kitchen, where you can learn how to fix your bike when the chain snaps or you have a flat, learn how to build a bike (bring your 10 year old too!), or find out where all the best places to ride are. Vive le Lance--er, France!

If you live in the Dallas area and have always wanted to learn how to sew, but just didn't have the patience back in 9th grade home ec, try Make, the DIY Studio and Lounge, on Thomas Street, in the Fashionable State-Thomas District of Uptown. (::sigh:: I so miss my cute little apartment on McKinney, near uptown.) Make takes DIY to the next level with classes and a studio where you can work on your projects away from home. Get in a little me time and make a cute skirt, sun dress, or tote bag this summer. It's your own little sewing room away from home.

Does your dog eat his weight in shoes? I once had a german shepherd who never met a shoe he didn't like to eat, and while the plush toys at Haute Diggity Dog might not have dissuaded him either, they're still totally cute...and shoelike. :)

That's about it for this week. It was another slim fashion week. Heck, it's been a slim fashion month. I guess the middle of summer isn't the best time for new stuff. But the fall is coming, my lovelies. And then we'll see what's what. :)

Stay cool,
Jenie

Thank you

I'd like to thank those of you who ordered from Kindred Family. Thanks to you and others like you, it looks as if Rachel's family has a light at the end of the tunnel. I appreciate your generosity, as do Rachel and her mother. I love when people demonstrate their capacity for kindness and generosity. It restores my faith in mankind. So thank you.

Friday Finds will have to wait until tomorrow. I had a busy day, and I'm tired.

I spent much of yesterday traipsing around Hollywood with friends both old and new from France. It was a great time, but I'm still recovering. :)

Have been interviewing and am beginning to contemplate having bead money again. This makes me happy. It also makes me feel more motivated to be productive. I might just feel another spate of designing, photographing, editing, and databasing (is that a word??) coming on. Better yet, I feel the rumblings of anticipation for an upcoming trip to a certain little bead show down in Costa Mesa, where can be found briolettes of amazonite, cushion cuts of tourmaline, beautifully-dyed mother of pearl lentils, rectangles and ovals, and gorgeous irridescent pendants of shimmering abalone, to say nothing of whatever aquamarine, lemon quartz, chalcedony, kyanite, garnet, amethyst, ametrine, and anything else I can get my greedy little bead-lusting hands on.

Oh, my. I feel faint.


:)
Jenie

Buy a Candle & Help a Family

My friend Rachel's family has fallen on some hard times and needs some help. Through a string of unfortunate events, her parents are about to lose their home...the house in which they are raising 5 of Rachel's younger sibs. Rachel's mom runs her own business making and selling soy candles and candle-making kits. THE FAMILY IS NOT ASKING FOR A HANDOUT. They are requesting that if you've got some disposable income, please buy a candle. Or a kit. Or some tea lights.

The ebay store is called Kindred Harvest Family Store, and you can bid or use the "Buy It Now" option. Or go to the Kindred Family homepage; the links are very small and up at the top, under the big tripod banner. But there's more selection on eBay.

Pick up some scented tealights: a dozen for 6 measley bucks! Check out the scented body frosting. Pagans, check out the cool set of dragons blood palm wax pillar candles, 2 for $15. Heck, make your own candle with one of her scented candle kits for $7.

Again, the family isn't asking for a handout, just a hand. Rachel's mom works for minimum wage and her dad suffered a paycut. They got behind on their house payments, and they need some help so the bank doesn't foreclose. If you've got the dough, you might think about buying a candle. That's all I'm saying. And thank you.

Jenie

Introducing the Tuesday Treasures and 7twentyfour

I'm starting a new feature, of sorts, here in the old Dragonblog, and I'm calling it the Tuesday Treasures. Each week will feature a new discovery I've made in the world of independent artisans, those brave souls who have created small businesses to try and make a living selling their handcrafted goods. I'm starting off this week with a small stationery and card store, 7twentyfour press.

7twentyfour is run by one young woman in Southern California and has a small but very stylish collection of greeting cards and stationery ranging from elegant to moderne. The website is neat, clean, easy to navigate, and pretty...which is a must for me, frankly. I dislike shopping on sloppy or haphazardly designed websites; the more crisp and clean, the better, and frankly, every design element has an impact with me. If your website is not attractive, how can I trust your product to be?

This is something I wish more small business owners would pay attention to. I should start a Hall of Shame for those designers whose websites are atrocious, because boy, are there a lot of them. But I digress.

At the moment, 7twentyfour offers custom design services for baby announcements and wedding invitations, as well as a gallery of past designs in the wedding line and a line of ready-to-go baby announcements in the works. Pricing is generously below what most custom-designed invitations cost and offers four different packages and extra options which include hand-tied ribbons and bows and vellum wraps. The Everyday line is composed of ready-to-go designs, with prices ranging from $1.75 - 3.00 a card.

7twentyfour's line of announcement cards for new babies is absolutely adorable, and I really like several of the designs for everyday, especially the bright orange birthday card with a picture of a cake on the front and the asian print cards. If you're looking for something original, would like custom-made baby announcements, or are getting married, odds are 7twentyfour press can meet your needs.

Happy announcing,
Jenie

Fish Soup, a Haircut, & Friends of Dragonfly

I got a print from Cynthia Schmidt in the mail today! She sent me Fish Soup, and I have to say, I am really, really impressed with the quality of her product. The print itself is a very clean reproduction of the original painting, and of such high quality, you can see the canvas and every detail. On top of that, her presentation is also very nice. The print came matted and in a sealed celophane "envelope" with a label bearing the name of the piece, a cute little sentence about it, and all her business information. Which is not suprising, but it's a nice detail that I find a lot of small business owners skip. The quality of the print and presentation are very much that of a much larger and more expensive dealer, despite it being highly and easily affordable instead (only $19 for the print, plus a mere $4 for shipping; you can't beat that with a stick). Très impressive! :)

I got the print when I came home from getting my hair cut. I just couldn't take the heat any longer, so I went down and hacked all the hair off the back of my neck, which sets me back at least 6 - 9 months in the length department, which sucks, but the bottom line is that I really could not take the heat of it a second longer. It was too short to pull back, so it just constantly hung against my neck and kept the cool from getting there. I will weep for it later, though. Right now I am too busy enjoying the cool.

By the by, Dragonfly jewelry now has a new Friends of Dragonfly page, for independent artists and craftsmen. In addition to Indigo Art, Sea of Stars is listed. If you are an independent artist with a website and would like your banner listed, please let me know, and I'll check out your site. And if you'd like to trade banners, you can find one of ours here.



later,
Jenie

Mmm, Beads!

I met my buddy KJ today at the Santa Monica Civic Center, for the SM Bead Faire. :) It was a pretty good time. Not as much stuff as the LA Gift Show, but that's to be expected, and it made it less painful that I had no money to spend, though Kelly JEAN pointed out this one seller she likes, and they had some stuff I really, really wanted. We saw some cool dyed shell lentils that were really neat, and some stoneware beads and pendants that were unusual for a gift show vendor...usually you get the standards: Swarovski, semi-precious, glass, and pearls. I also saw some really awesome polymer clay pendants that were really neat. I shoulda snagged the vendor's card on the way by, so I could point you to the website, because they were really awesome. But I found them more suited to Christmas tree ornaments than actual pendants; they were really elaborate and sizable. Not to mention expensive. They had this really pretty and cool unicorn, but it was $125. I mean, *wow*.

I saw some killer larimar that I only WISH I could afford ($35 for a single pendant about 1 x 1.5" and 3/16" thick), great briolettes out of amazonite (for nothing; I really wanted to weep not to be able to buy any), gorgeous kyanite, abalone, and some really cool tourmaline that was 75% off, which I would normally have bought in a heartbeat. We also saw the aforementioned dyed shell lentils in the hugest range of color ever, some really pretty indigo-dyed shell beads in this cool triangular tube cut I have been looking for, and some also really pretty dyed shell pendants in ovals and rectangles. It truly killed me to have to pass on the abalone, amazonite, and tourmaline in particular. Alas. Hopefully that vendor will be in Costa Mesa in August, because passing on those beads was brutal, baby.

KJ got some lampwork beads while I looked at all the pretty, pretty colors and bemoaned the fact I am horrible with furnace glass. I really have no design sense whatsoever when it comes to that stuff, but she does neat stuff with it. :) I really wish I'd had money to spend, but it was good to go and compare prices and stock and just check it out, and it was way less crowded than the Gift Show, which is a huge plus, frankly. One of the vendors I bought from at the Gift Show in January was there, and she told me it's getting harder and more expensive to show, and they (it's a family company) don't know if they're going to keep doing it. While she was telling me that, the manager for the show today walked up and handed her a paper that said they had to go ahead and reserve their spot now for next year's Bead Faire, and she was flipping, because as it is the Gift Show started early and extended late this time around, and it caused problems for them to exhibit at two shows at the same time, and that both shows raised their rates. It's kinda nice to know that the big guys face the same issues small business owners like KJ and me do. Because I swear, when you run your own business, it can be a lot more trouble and cost than you might think. I went into shock the first time I had to do my taxes for this business, because I'd been a working actor paying taxes as a "small business" for years, and it had never occurred to me that actually having an inventory was going to amp up the complication factor, but boy, does it.

Anyway, after we looked around and KJ got her beads, we went to have lunch on the 3rd Street Promenade, and I have to say, I am shocked at how many restaurants down there have no air conditioning. I suppose it's usually not hot enough to warrant it down there, but it was pretty fricking humid today, and we needed it. We walked nearly the entire length of the Promenade before we found a place. It was sort of French, so we had grilled sandwiches and an evilly good chocolate crepe, which KJ said was not a genuinely made French crepe, but we didn't care so much, because it was darned good. Stupid chocolate. :)

Today was also the first time I got to hang out with KJ in person, and she is a lot of fun; I had a great time. :)

Jenie

Now Reading: Princess In Pink

I am so in love with Cynthia Schmidt's art, I may just have to feature a particular picture every week. She's also nice as all get out on top of it. I can't say enough how much I like her stuff; it makes me laugh and think of fairytales, and neither of those two things is bad. :)

It's so hot here during the day that I swear, even thinking is hard, and it takes hours for the house to finally cool down after the sun sets, and about the time it finally gets comfortable, the sun is up again. Luckily, the man of the house today hit on the idea of setting the fans *outside* the doors and windows and blowing the already cool air in, instead of trying to draw it in. The new method works so much better that it's shocking, and the house is cooling down a lot more rapidly. I may even get some stuff done tonight. That's a really good thing, because I have images to take, but running 3 very bright lights is very unhappy work when your house is still 93 degrees inside at 11pm. :( Today I just left the house altogether to go sit inside a fast food place to have a coke and read a book in the a/c.

The book in question was Meg Cabot's Princess In Pink, Book 5 of the Princess Diaries series, which I really love. I have to say, I think this may very well be my favorite book of the series so far. If this series had been around when I was a kid, I would have wanted to be Princess Mia in a way I only ever wanted to be Trixie Belden, my other teen lit hero. Heck, I still identify with Mia, just, um, somewhat older. ;) When I was 13, I wanted to be 13 forever, because that's how old Trixie was; if Mia had been around, I would have been happy to hold at 15, which is how old Mia turns in Book 5. :) Meg Cabot really has a handle on how geeky young adolescent girls feel, and I'm guessing she was a bit of a geek herself. :) I wish I were as fond of her other heroines as I am of Princess Mia, but I just can't get into the other books, so far. I hope she never stops writing Princess books, because they're seriously some of my favorites.

Periodically, I like to look through the books for young adults and see what's there. I still love reading those books. They're always either adorable and fun or deal with positive life lessons. Either way, they're a good read. :)

And next on my reading list are Books 2 and 3 of the Dresden Files, Fool Moon and Grave Peril, respectively. That Harry Dresden gets under your skin; especially if you have James Marsters in your head while you're reading them. ;)

I'm really happy to be going to the Santa Monica bead show and torturing myself this weekend, since I can't go to the mecca of beads, the LA Gift Show. And, I get to go with my cool pal KJ, whose latest blog entry reminds me I have to do my taxes. Which is good and bad. Good because now I (hopefully) won't forget, and since I am the Queen of Procrastination, there's a very good chance I will, and bad because I really don't want to do them. Actually, the reason I am going to the show is so I can hang out and have lunch with Kelly Jo. The torturing myself looking at all the beads I have no money to buy right now is a much less attractive part of the deal. :(

I have started a diet, which was going really well for the first 5 days. Now...not so much. ::sigh:: Why must diets suck so much? They all make you cut out my favorite food combo of all time, chocolate and potato chips. Potato chips lightly dipped in milk chocolate? Heaven. As well, why is exercise hot and sweaty, two things I really hate?

Oh well. Check ya later.

J

Hot Hot Hot. And I'm not talking jewelry.

Have I mentioned it's hot? Because wow, is it. I am totally flashing back to Paris, 2003. Except for the humidity. Thank *God* it is not that humid here.

Going to go see Jon in his play again tonight, only this time he will be playing the heart (last time, he was the brain). I'm not looking forward to the drive at all, because the first half of it will be in the heat, and the a/c chose summer to go out in my car. :( After a certain point, however, I will cross into the lovely coolness of coastal eddies, and evening will begin to fall, at which point, it will be a very pleasant drive. And when I get out of the play, I will actually need the heater, because it will be cold. Of course, I'll only need the heater for about 10 minutes, and then I'll be back in the unrelenting heat of the Valley. Even at 5am, it's only cooled off to about 76 degrees or so here at the house. The man of the house is gone for the weekend, so that's going to make for a very stuffy evening, because I won't be able to open the house up early to cool it for the night, what with being gone and all. Which means my night is going to be really hot except for that little bit of it I will spend in Santa Monica. Alas.

I have nothing else. It's too hot to sit at a keyboard, and I really don't feel like sitting under a nice bright, HOT light to make jewelry, either. Not to mention taking pictures of jewelry, which is even toastier. I think I will go sit in a nice cold bath and dream about making jewelry.

J

Friday Finds WE 071705

Let's see what I can scrounge up in the realm of finds, shall we?

I was so wishing for something like this Girl Balm stuff just this last week. If it works, it's worth its weight in gold, in my opinion.

I have not yet tried Twin Fin wines, but I like that they support causes to keep our oceans and streams clean. And both guys have solid winemaking resumes, so screw top or not, I'm willing to try a bottle. :)

And if you live in Big D, try your hand at making your own wine, at Swirll. Why didn't they have this cool stuff when I lived there???

So you wanna be a DJ and dis your mad skillz? Apparently, if you live in LA, you can now take DJ lessons. Who knew?

And that's it. It was a thin week, so I'm done.

cya,
j

The Heat & Le Tour

It's hot. Too hot to make jewelry or do taxes, both of which I need to do. To hot to work on either of my websites, which I also need to do. I hate living in a desert without any real air conditioning to speak of, in car or home. :( It was well into triple digits today; at 6:30 pm, it was still 99.5 inside the house, and that was when it had cooled off a LOT. :( When it is this hot, I feel all languid and useless and want nothing more than to sleep. If I must be awake, I don't want to do anything more active than lying on the couch in shorts and a t-shirt, sucking on a popsicle and watching the Tour de France, which I dvr religiously every morning at 5:30 (or earlier, if there's extended coverage). The Tour is handsdown my favorite sport to watch, and the only one I really follow, since I saw Lance Armstrong race in person, back in 2003. There's nothing like standing on the Champs-Elysees on final race day, as the stage ends and the riders sweep up and down the avenue, surrounded by screaming throngs of people, who not only cheer their favorite rider, but every rider who goes by, because they appreciate how much effort the race is taking and love the riders for having the heart to do what we can not. And believe me, until you've actually walked up one of the mountains those guys ride up for kilometer after kilometer, you do not have quite the proper appreciation of how thoroughly insane they are for doing it and how much work it really is. But me, I've done that. I've cheered Lance in person for 2 stages, and sweated it out with french television for the full stage day after day, glued to the screen, laughing at the goofy cartoons the resident cartoonist does for the camera, freaking out when Lance fell, standing on the side of a mountain constantly asking my friend "where's Lance now?" because I don't speak french well enough to follow the insanely loud race commentary. I am heartbroken not to be there this year. :(

At any rate.

I have some lovely rhyolite just begging to be used and a plant stick to get into the mail. I have earrings and pendulums to make, not to mention bracelets, which are woefully lacking in variety on the site.

The California Gift Show opens this week, and I'd really like to go, but unfortunately will not be able to make it. That means no new stones to speak of until January. I hate that. They have great briolettes at the Gift Show, and I was hoping to pick up some cool stuff like morganite, kunzite, green beryl, and some aquamarine and garnet briolettes or teardrops. Also some madeira citrine and lemon quartz. But I have blown my budget for the year, so no pretty rocks for me. At least, at the moment. If, however, a certain person I know who lives in OC wanted to go just to nose around and collect business cards, I would be happy to go and do that...

Anyway, I am tired and fighting off a flu bug, so I am going to bed, now.

And um, Go, Lance! A l'Arc de Triomphe, at vite, monsieur!

bon journee,
jennette

Consignment & the Friday Finds

Finally saw "I, Robot" this week and rather enjoyed it. It was a good, fun action/adventure movie. I haven't read the book, though, so I can't vouch for its authenticity, and I don't know how changed the ending might be, but it had a somewhat different plot than the previews made it look. Also somewhat incomprehensible in exposition at a pivotal point, but beyond that, I liked it a good bit. I love Will Smith. He always looks like he's having fun, and he used to come into my restaurant a lot when I was a waiter and is a very nice, good guy. So I like if he's happy and when he does well, because he certainly seems to deserve it.

Also, I have always wanted to know about a certain line in his song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," because it references a particular food we served at the restaurant, and I am dying to know whether it's really a reference to that food or just something he liked the sound of and tossed in there with an entirely different meaning.

I really wish I had something more to report, but the last week was really stressful and not great. I met with a store about selling my pendulums on consignment, and they want 50% of the sales price to carry them. I really think that's highway robbery, since the part they get is the part that is virtually straight profit, and I am stuck with the half that covers costs of production, packaging, and transport, which leaves precious little for me, the maker and designer of the piece. Frankly, I think 40% is too damn much to skim off the sales top of my product, but I am forced to recognize it is the business standard. I'd be a lot happier with 30%, but very few shop owners are cool enough to be happy with that. And I get that they have overhead costs to meet as well, but 40% is actually a lot more than it sounds when you realize that the designer had to pay use tax (8.25% of the cost of goods), cost of goods, packaging, labelling, and oftentimes display costs, shipment of goods (sometimes twice), transport costs (gasoline to buy the components and/or deliver the finished product to the store), and labor spent designing and putting the whole thing together. Depending on the item, that can leave the designer with approximately 5 - 10% of the sales price as actual income, and THAT has to have approximately 35% taken out to cover income tax and FICA.

Doesn't sound like such a hot deal, does it?

Which is why 50% is unacceptable to me, and I said so. Nicely, of course. And the woman very nicely said she's sorry, but that's the deal. It was all very polite and incredibly depressing.

So let's take a look at the Finds, shall we?

My favorite discovery of the week is the artwork of Cynthia Schmidt, which she showcases and sells on her website, Indigo Art. Her art has a fun, whimsical feel to it, and her Cranky Cat® pieces are hysterical to me, especially given the cat that thinks she rules this household is always cranky. Seriously, I've never met a bigger curmudgeon, and that includes the man of the house, who is pretty doggone curmudgeonly. Everything the cat does is cranky and chock full of attitude, and she has the most spiteful meows ever, and Cynthia's art captures that kind of spit with the perfect amount of humor. I also like the less cranky pictures too, including Fish Soup and Cranky Cat, Inchworm, and Kitten. It's not all cats, but it is all whimsical, so give it a look. :)

One of the ridiculous things I remember from being a kid are the lyrics to Polonius' "Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be" advice to Hamlet from The Gilligan's Island "musical" episode. The entire "script" of the show can be found here. :)

Rose and Sadie make the most adorable pins out of felt and embroidery. I totally love them, and the Favorite Things collection is my favorite. I love the white dress with blue "satin" sash and warm woolen mittens...though whiskers on kittens is also cute. :)

I made the mistake of weighing myself last weekend, and while I knew I had gained some more weight, I had no idea it had climbed all the way up to 147.6. :( Obviously, I need a very big one of these to carry around with me and keep in plain sight at all times. Put down the soft drink and step away from the donut. :(

And pick up some broccoli...Chewbroccoli, that is. Seriously, this parody of Star Wars just cracks me up. :)

That's about it, for me. I'm sorry there aren't any cool fashion finds in here. It was a slim week, and I think I've got kidney stones, so I think I will go lie down now.

later gator,
jenie

My Friend Jon's Play & the Friday Finds

My friend Jon is doing a play at The Other Space at The Santa Monica Playhouse, and I went to see him tonight. It's the first time I've gotten to see him really act, and he's very funny. :) I'd seen him in another play, but his role wasn't very large, and I'd seen him in some commercials and an episode of Almost Perfect, but this time I got to see him really do stuff, and he's damn funny. :) The play is called Pecker Patter and was written by two men as a sort of male version of The Vagina Monologues (and you will never know how hard it was for me to type out that v-word, which I have lividly hated my entire life, so bygones if it offends you; I only mentioned it because it's a relevant title...that word is just ugly-sounding). The play is very amusing most of the time and downright guffaw-worthy a lot of the time, and Jon was hilarious, so it was fun. The play just got extended, though I do not know if Jon will get any more performances, other than the ones he's already slated for, because he's an understudy, and if you live in LA, you should check it out. It's written by Frank "Franky C" Carrasquillo and Mel Kohl, and is directed by Frank Bonner. I'm sure Mr. Bonner would rather I point out he's a sharp director, but he will always be near and dear to my heart as Herb Tarlek of WKRP in Cincinatti, so if his name sounds familiar, there you go. :) I found a review of the play online, but I'm not going to post it, because it makes the play sound dreadfully boring, plus the reviewer must not have been paying much attention to the show, because he got some parts of it very wrong...but then that seems to be par for the course a lot of the time when it comes to reviewers.

Bygones.

So now, the Finds...

I have to start out with my pal KJ's embroidered flowered pendants, because frankly, they are too adorable and should be on the neck of every person with half a wit of fashion sense. If only some celebrity would wear one in public, I know they would be all the rage overnight. They're just that hip and cute. :) You will find them at the bottom of the linked page, or the orange one is linked from her initials.

I used to kickbox and liked it a lot, but I had to quit because I had a carwreck, and the high impact of the kickboxing workout caused a LOT of pain in my coccyx. I think I am ready to give it a try at home, though, so I'm thinking of buying a bag. My only problem is that I don't know which size to get...any ideas, comments or suggestions??? If you haven't tried kickboxing, it's a great workout, both aerobic and muscular, and I heartily recommend it. Along with rockclimbing, which is handsdown my favorite athletic-type activity, ever. It's insanely zen, and I say that as someone who could never get zen to save my life. But it sooo is. And incredibly empowering.

The G8 summit is about to start. If you haven't signed the declaration at ONE, or if you would like to get a cool white wristband or make a donation to help fight world poverty, hunger, and the spread of disease, go for it! And if you have HBO, I heartily recommend the HBO film, The Girl In the Cafe, starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald. It's a very good movie, and Bill Nighy is incredible in it. I wish it were being released theatrically so he could have an Oscar. He's just wonderful.

I have a Visor Prism which I let the battery run totally out on, which of course wiped every single bit of data I had in it out. So I lost some apps I'd downloaded to it, and when I started using it again recently, well, I needed them. I am happy to tell you that Palm (which took over Handspring) still offers Visor support and upgrades, which can be found here. Now if only my Visor were wifi, life would be totally cool! :)

Amy L. Burns is another blogging buddy of mine, one who paints (among many other things). I think The Fens is my favorite of her paintings. :) Hi, Amy! (kd)

My friend Hope hearts Nicole nail polish (by OPI) like there's no tomorrow, and since she is handsdown the girliest girl I know, I have to take her word for it that it rocks. I certainly agree that the shade names are cute. And 60% off is not a bad deal. :)

Speaking of Hope, she works at Origins, has beautiful, glowing, peaches and cream skin, and vouches for their product, so if'n ya need some skin stuff, hit it.

Me? I'm a Lancome girl. :) Re-Surface totally rocks; worth every single penny. And smells like sugar and tea. :) If you have over 30 skin that's startin' to show a few little lines around the eyes, I really recommend it.

And now, it's 5:18am, so I really have to go get in bed. I have to study for my driving test and make more jewelry this weekend, as well as update my website with all that green stone stuff and new jewelry. Have a safe and happy 4th.

a bientot!
Jenie