Gads it's hot!

It's still hot and dry in San Diego. You probably already have heard about the fires north of us. Thankfully we've been spared so far this fire season. But for those who live in SoCal - don't be nonchalant - get your property prepped (looks like LOTS of people up on LA/Montecito did NOT pay attention to the fires we had down here last year and 4 years ago - I kept seeing houses with brush right up to their fence - absolutely no thinning of the brush, palm trees with tons of dead fronds hanging down - those go up like a torch when hit by an ember - saw that happen in the last Camp Pendleton fire a month or so ago), make sure your insurance is up-to-date and that you have replacement value, don't throw lighted objects out of your car windows (i.e. cigarettes!), don't create sparks near dry areas, and so on and so forth!

For some of the fire happenings up in LA try these links: http://www.abc7.com or http://www.cbs2.com

I'm going to get some bulbs planted in between cool down and water breaks since they are sprouting in the bags. Hopefully we'll get some cool weather so they don't just dry up and die once I get them in the ground.

Pretties from some Californians!

Ok - so I went looking for Etsy items from fellow CCCOE team members that would work in my treasury and found these lovelies ...

Gorgeous Gemstones!

I've been buying some high quality gemstones from a cutter in India and am finally making some designs using these beauties. Here's a necklace using green amethyst and sterling silver. I just LOVE this shade of green and the clarity and faceting of these stones is stunning!

Off the beading topic and onto politics!

OK - this post has nothing to do with beading - instead I'm doing a brief foray into politics - in this case proposition politics. I spent part of last night reading through most of the California propositions and wanted to let folks know what I think about some of them.

First - if it says "bond" I'm voting no. With all the budget problems we have right now we DON'T need to go into debt further to create/do something that obviously the state can't currently afford.

Second - vote NO on proposition 5. Not because it is a bad idea - but because the funding for it is a never ending siphon from our taxes! If you take the time to read the "fiscal impact" section of the actual proposition you will see that funding is based on a percentage of the STATE population (which will most likely continue to grow) rather than on the prison population. Also - to change anything after this proposition passes will require a 4/5 majority. There is NO chance 4/5 of our state politicians will agree on anything and certainly not on reducing the funding for prison rehab. So the funding for this rehab proposition is NEVER ENDING, CONTINUALLY GROWING and since it is a proposition, ALWAYS HAS TO BE FUNDED!!! So if we're having a budget problem - too bad - all the money required by this proposition has to be found somewhere - no cuts possible (unless 4/5 of the politicians agree). So ... please vote NO on prop 5. In fact I'm going to start reading all the fiscal impact sections more closely in the future since part of our budget problems are due to REQUIRED funding for many of the propositions that were voted into law in the past. Most of these do not provide an easy way to reduce the funding during bad economic times - so first we use our tax money to pay for all the REQUIRED funds that we have passed, and then the leftovers get distributed to all the other things that have to be payed for.

That's it for now and even if you don't agree with my ideas - at least take the time to read the actual proposition text so you'll know EXACTLY what you're agreeing to if you vote YES on the proposition.

Busy, busy, busy!

The craft fair went well. My mom helped out and between her, me and another jewelry seller we kept busy selling my jewelry, the other gals jewelry, succulents for a fellow soccer player who was in the tournament and raffle tickets for a quilt raffle. We were busy! The proceeds from the raffle went to a scholarship fund at the school where one of our fellow soccer players taught. She died suddenly while hiking with friends in the Grand Canyon last year.

Here are pictures of my setup at the craft fair:


Since the craft fair I've been getting things together to send to the 2 consignments shops where I sell. I delivered things to Gili Anna's yesterday. Today I'm working on some final things to ship out to the Bead and Glass Boutique. Hopefully I'll have everything finished and shipped out tomorrow so I can finish up some custom spiders and then I can get back to listing things in my Etsy store. I made quite a few new designs for the craft fair and not all of them sold so they'll be appearing soon on Etsy!