New Beads, Blue Balloons and the Same Old Weather

Ooh, ooh, ooh! A box from Fire Mountain on the doorstep when I got home from work last night!!! It's so pathetic but I had forgotten what all I had ordered. Maybe that's a sign that I'm ordering too much...nah. This shipment had lots of satin finish Czech druk beads in deep shades of green, blue, purple and gold. I'm thinking of a necklace with a combination of all those colors with Czech beads for sparkle. The cathedral beads and the fire polished crystals are in green, amber, bronze and cobalt blue colors. As soon as I do my Saturday chores I plan on spending the rest of the day at the workbench playing with my new pretties.

After much cogitation, I finally came up with a design for the Russian serpentine beads I got a while back. I used them with some unakite nuggets and gold maple leaf dangles to make a fall inspired necklace. They are so heavy I couldn't see using them alone so I made the last few inches on each side with gold tubes and small unakite rounds. Now I have to decide if I want to part with it or wear it myself.

The little red dog and I had some excitement last Friday afternoon when a hot air balloon descended over the house on it's way to a splash landing in the Intracoastal Canal. For a minute it looked like it would land on the house but the pilot managed to get it over another block before setting her down in the water. The basket never sank but it did take a few minutes to get airborn again. It was so hot and still that afternoon I'm surprised they even went up in the first place.

On the weather front (weather front, get it?!) - we dodged another bullet when Ike passed us with only a glancing blow (wow, two puns in one sentence - I'm on a roll). The island has had really high surf and strong winds for the past couple of days. From what I hear, the houses down on West Beach had water up under them and the city's gajillion dollar berm and beach replenishment work is history. I went down to the beach Thursday night to "watch the hurricane" as the tourists say. I think they expect a funnel cloud like a tornado. The waves were running a good 20 feet high if not more. I took the photo and the video from a rise of about 8-10 feet above the water level. You can see from the size of the folks in the video how tall the waves were. As for the video quality, I am not usually that bad a videographer. The wind was a steady 25 mph with higher gusts and I was doing my best just to stand still. All you can hear on the video is the wind roaring. Some of the blurriness was caused by the salt spray in the air. I definitely had hurricane hair when I got home.

Now word yet from the taller half. The boat is holed up in Lake Charles and the latest weather radar shows that area being almost out of the rain bands. My cousin called last night from Beaumont to say it didn't look like it would be that bad and for me not to worry about them or the big guy. She said they would reel him in if he came floating by. Several years ago during a heavy rain she did say a boat had cruised down their street, so I guess anything is possible.