I'm Trying

I really am trying to make jewelry that's new and cool and different.


But it's hard to make jewelry when iCarly is on TV or MySims is on the Wii. Ah, life with a seven-year old. Love him dearly, but he rules the TV.


So this weekend Rick and Zack headed to the farm in PA so I could have a day and a half of quiet to bead. And of course, I had a headache, but I was bound and determined to make things.


I don't have photos yet, but I did manage to make some new things with Floridity's beads I bought for this month's Personal Bead Soup challenge I set for myself, and a couple of them were totally new designs to me.



But because of the headache, I found that I just had to make what I know -- the tried and true and (sigh) trite. OK, not trite. That's being to harsh on myself.


This morning, though, I looked through what I made and realized, someone's going to love those things. If I change my style too much, and have too many new designs, I'll lose my valuable customer base. The new designs will hopefully gain me new customers, but I can't forget the people who got me to where I am -- able to make this a full-time job.



The point of this post? I'm trying. And that's fine. I think I'll be "trying" all my life. I'll never be "there" because if I decide, "I'm done, there's nothing left to learn", I'm doing myself such a disservice.


So maybe this weekend was a pretty good weekend for beading after all.




Lori Anderson designs jewelry for Lori Anderson Designs and also writes the blog Pretty Things. She lives in Maryland.

This isn't quite going as planned.

OK, Dear Readers. This isn't going quite as planned.

I'd planned by now, nearly halfway through the year, to have made enormous leaps and bounds and huge artistic strides to great new designs and innovative coolness.

This, however, hasn't happened. Let's see what's going on, shall we?


* I started out with an Inspirational Journal. I am no longer using it. It's buried under papers.

* I started out with a stack of books so I could learn new techniques. So far they're still in a stack, although I've flipped through a few and read one.

* I've spent an inordinate amount of time in bed, reading a heck of a lot of novels, fighting a heck of a lot of migraines. I know I can't help that, but it still has been a huge time suck.

* I haven't even made all that much jewelry at all.

So I've got the "Time Off" part down pretty well!


But that wasn't The Plan.

So what have I done?

Well, I started lampworking, although all I can do is make spacers, and I did take two cold connections classes, but I haven't used the techniques since. I haven't updated my web site daily, like I'd planned, but then I have contracted for a NEW web site to be built.

So I guess it's not a total loss yet.

One thing I HAVE done my level best to do is stop looking at what everyone else is doing so as not to compare their progress with mine. It's crushing to feel like the world is passing me by, so while I still visit blogs, there are certain ones that I bypass (not that they ever comment anyway!) and focus instead on relaxing and getting well and rejuvenating.


I'm afraid I'm disappointing everyone, and I so don't want to do that. But there comes a point where I have to realize I'm just not able to do it all in a certain amount of time given my health and other obligations. I'm not giving up -- far from it. What I'm doing is regrouping, taking a deep breath, and remembering what this was supposed to be all about.


Lori Anderson designs jewelry for Lori Anderson Designs. She also writes for the blog Pretty Things.