Chilly Sunday Four-Strand

When I went outside for a walkabout on our property this morning, I was glad I had my coat on! Brrrr! 43 degrees may not seem cold to you...I know it's nothing compared to some places where it's below zero and snowing but hey, I live in Northeast Florida. My blood is thin! LOL I've got two pairs of socks on and my feet are still cold! SOon as I finish this blog post, I think I'm going to go curl up in my chair under a blanket! I'm pleased to report I have made some progress on getting stuff together for my taxes but it's been awhile since I've made any jewelry so once I completed phase one of the tax prep this afternoon, I sat down and made this: click on photo for close-up view
Beautiful Chinese cloisonne beads combine with red aventurine beads and faceted Czech glass fire polished beads separated by glass bugle beads and crow beads in this 24-inch multi-strand necklace. It's for sale in my Artfire Shop where 50 % of my profits are still going to Doctors Without Borders providing relief to Haiti.

One World/One Heart Giveaway

I'm a little late this year but better late than never, right?!? This is my second year participating. Last year I made many new friends and had a grand time visiting everyone's blogs and seeing what everyone is making. Come join the fun!

One World/One Heart Giveaway is an annual event during which handcrafters from around the globe get together to hold giveaways from their blogs and to meet other crafters. It's fabulous fun and a great way to make new friends!

For more information, click on this picture!
Check out all the wonderful possibilities from talented craftspeople all over the globe!

This year, my giveaway is a purse charm composed of beautiful faceted Czech glass beads, glass pearls and featuring two breast cancer logo charms -- one in enameled metal and one in a handcrafted lampwork glass bead.

The entire pretty piece swings from a swivel clasp which easily attaches to your purse, belt loop or whatever!

To enter, simply leave a comment on this blog entry. I'll need your e-mail address to contact you if you're my lucky winner.

Contest ends February 15th so get your entry in quickly!

My Worst Pet Peeve!

If there's one thing in this universe that I absolutely hate, loathe and despise, it's doing taxes!!!
*MAJOR GROAN*
If I were more organized, I'd keep my records through the year, making notations in a ledger monthly of all the incoming and outgoing deneros of my biz. But oh, no! Not me! I'm too busy for all that nonsense. Which is why I end up having to do the entire year's worth of accounting all at once. Why do I torture myself this way?!?!?!
I can think of better things do be doing on a rainy Saturday morning but here I sit, rooting through stacks of receipts, trying to make sense of what I laid out on the biz last year. And these are only part of the expenses. The rest has to be sorted out by going through my monthly statements, one at a time, and highlighting all the entries that pertain to Adagio. Oy!

At least I have a picture of my smiling spouse to keep me company -- Doubt if he'll be smiling so sweetly when we finally go see the tax man!

More Ways to Help

From my e-mail In Box

According to Unicef, 46% of Haitians do not have access to safe drinking water.

However, Unicef can purify water at a cost of 1 cent per liter.

It only costs 50 cents to provide clean drinking water to a

family of four for a full month.

Therefore, CouponMom.com is going to donate 5 cents per every

printable coupon redeemed in the next week, beginning today.

When you use 10 coupons printed through our links,

you will provide clean water to a family

for a month at no cost to you.

You do not have to use the coupon within the next week, but you do need to print it by the end of the day Tuesday, January 26th to be counted.

Please forward this email to friends and family to encourage them to help in our Haiti fundraising drive, at no cost to shoppers. In fact, you'll save more! Print your coupons from the links below to be counted in the drive.

___________________________________

Hi, my name is Carmen Queen.

I came across your website and was thrilled to read your post about Edsel and Jayne.

My husband is in charge of the Haiti relief website for FISH, he has been working

with them for a while, and I was wondering if you could add our website for updates

regarding FISH and Haiti. We are in contact with Jayne daily getting our information,

and I'd love for more people to have awareness of what FISH Ministries does.

http://www.haiti-earthquake-relief.com/

We also have a FISH Ministry facebook link too.

This way, anyone who is following the events can easily view the

information we've been asked to relay.

Thank you so much, have a great night.

Carmen Queen

Hoping to help...a little

In an effort to raise additional funds to contribute, I'll be donating 50% of profits from today to 1/31 to Doctors Without Borders as a small way to help those affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Also asking those who feel moved to do so, to help here as well:

Edsel and Jayne Redden, who have been working for many years in Haiti feeding children through a ministry they started called Fish Ministries.. (They are the ones who make the ribs we’ve had for several functions to raise money to support the ministry efforts.) Through their efforts and expertise in agriculture, aquaculture, etc (Edsel is an agricultural scientist with the Univ. of Fla. IFAS program) 1800 children have been fed every week for many years.

The earthquake has obviously devastated Haiti throughout, and the need all over the country is overwhelming. That is true of the of the Fish Ministries locations, too, specifically Christianville and Robinson’s school, the two locations out of which the kids are fed. These locations are about 18 miles west of Port au Prince, and about 5 miles from the quake’s epicenter. All the facilities (save one guest house) were flattened in the earthquake, including schools at both locations and the eye clinic, dental clinic and housing at Christianville. Edsel is still waiting word on the fish ponds and chicken coops used to raise the protein for the feeding effort, but it is clear that everything is in great disarray. Edsel does know that the feeding of the 1800 kids has not taken place since the earthquake, and feeding them, and providing medical care, are the most immediate pressing needs.

Edsel is trying to get to Haiti, but that is extremely challenging due to the inability of Haiti’s airport and infrastructure to handle the influx of aid workers and personnel. He is working with the military through a contact and has been assured that he will be able to obtain transport for him and 3-5 doctors who have committed to go with him, as well as supplies, food and other needed items. Although he doesn’t know when they will be able to get into Haiti, he is assured that they will be, and he needs to be prepared, equipped and supplied to leave immediately.

HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:

1. PRAY , including for the overall relief efforts in the country, as well as specifically for Edsel and his team to get down to Haiti. When they arrive, they need to get to his ministry locations and re-establish the feeding effort (incl. water), deliver medical care, address shelter needs, and do whatever needs to be done.

2. GIVE MONEY – Edsel assures me that all of it will be used to provide food for the 1800 kids and medical care. He said to assure you that none of the money will be used for transportation – it will ALL go for the feeding of people and delivery of medical care. Those of us who know Edsel know that these are not empty words.

Your tax deductible contribution can be made payable as follows:

“Christianville Foundation” and make sure to put in the memo section “Fish Ministries Quake Relief”

Please send donations asap to this address: :Christianville Foundation, P.O. Box 24598, Jacksonville, FL 32241

Please do what you can. Also, please circulate this as you feel is appropriate.

Post-Holiday Ramblings

We had a lovely Christmas this year, mostly because my husband and I had a visit from my wonderful son and his equally wonderful girlfriend. Having young people in the house made everything so much more festive.

Christmas Eve our TV died just before dinner so once we'd eaten, we had to go out anyway for some critical item I'd forgotten and we wound up at Wal-Mart. I figured I might have enough on my Wal-Mart card to find a pretty decent TV. My son has a Droid phone so he looked up my balance somehow. I'm telling you, the doggone phone does everything!

When we were at Pop + Mama Jean's for Thanksgiving (my in laws) Pop showed us his HDTV. We watched the Macy's parade and I was amazed at the clarity and sharpness of the picture.

I located a TV I thought I could afford and was mulling it over when my son came up and said, "Mom, come look at this one." It was a 32" RCA HDTV.

"Oh, that's over my limit, son," I said.

"We'll make up the difference," replied my offspring.
So we toddled home in Sam's little Cavalier with her crammed in next to the huge TV box in the back seat. I think it was fitting that the first movie we saw on our new TV was "Holiday Inn" wherein the famous "White Christmas" is sung.

The kids gave me a terrific book - Making Designer Jewelry. It's chock full of amazing designs, instructions and beautiful pix. I'm looking forward to tackling many of them!

I wish everyone a very happy, healthy and productive 2010!

Sammy, Bob and Mama on the beach Christmas Eve.