Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Now where the heck did that come from?!?! Some old nursery rhyme that somehow infiltrated my brain as I was typing the title. It's amazing the things that are stored in my head.

So, I'm home. Back to the cold weather, with the snow on the ground. Back to the house that needs to be cleaned and tidied, laundry that needs to be done, meals that need to be cooked. It's nice to be back, though. I'm about theme-parked out. SeaWorld... Epcot... Animal Kingdom... Universal. That's a lot of walking and standing. The economy has obviously had an effect on all of the parks. While it was nice to be able to walk around the parks without feeling like sardines, it was kind of strange to see so much open space. At least we didn't have to stand in a bunch of lines.

The pictures have been removed from the new digital camera. I love the camera I use most of the time, but for vacations it's quite bulky (it's a digital SLR, and I have several lenses that I always want with me). I decided to travel light this time, so I bought one of those tiny Olympus digital cameras. I've figured out so far that if I take a picture of something that's being absolutely still, and I'm being absolutely still, it works quite well. The moving shots? Well, not so good. I'm sure there's some setting that will allow me to get better pictures of moving things, but I haven't found it yet.

Of all the pictures I took on vacation, these are my two favorites:

The Killer Whales at SeaWorld

Baobab Tree at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Now that I'm back, I'm catching up on all sorts of stuff. I have a list about a mile long of things to do, and I'm whittling away at it. One of the things on the list was to update the Bead Art Originals Holiday Gift Guide with Valentine's Day items from our members. There are some beautiful pieces, all of them perfect for the impending holiday of romance, and in a variety of price ranges. Check it out!

Although I have quite a few beadwoven creations finished and waiting to be photographed, I only managed to list one new piece today: Ironman's DNA

I designed this DNA pattern a few months ago and created one version of the cuff in blues and violets, but then my metallic beads began calling to me. When beads call out to you, you just have to listen! :-)