*** Hello!  Welcome to my website.  Thank you for stopping by.  My name is Catherine Steele and I make beautiful glass beads!!  Every one is made with tremendous care and I�m very proud of every bead I sell.  All my beads are properly kiln annealed for lasting durability.  I post beads often so do stop by and see what�s new. ***

 

 

 

All sold...THANKS!! 
(Sorry if you missed them...they sold within 5 minutes....I'll keep making more!)

     

   

   
   

Jan. 25^th

Well, after all the snow we had, now it�s all melting away and causing driveway issues�AGAIN.  We have spent so much money (all wasted) to get our driveway to a point where it doesn�t wash away, and it STILL washes away.  I hate hiring a guy to �fix� the problem and then it doesn�t fix the problem.  This is a reoccurring theme in our lives�..  I�m willing to have it paved ($$), but we�ve talked with paver guys in the past and they say, the dirt/stones whatever under the pavement can get so saturated that the pavement will slip away.  ARGH!  Maybe we�ll find the right guy who has dealt with these issues before and will tile the driveway.  That seems like the solution to me but no one has ever suggested it.   Just another issue to deal with in the spring�

 

We had a rabbit living around our house eating our bushes.  Damn thing.  We finally decided to cage in his favorite bushes, which finally got him to try out the cage/trap we had set out.  I�m glad that bugger is out of our hair!

 

Lately I�ve been trying some new things in glass�mostly in silver glass.  I�ve avoided silver glass in the past because I�m cheap and silver glass is around $100 a pound, but for the past week or so I�ve been wiling to give it a go.  So far, I haven�t had much luck.  I had better luck when I was working with propane, but I�m on natural gas now and it�s a bit more challenging to get the mix of fuel to oxygen just right.  This is how it usually goes�.I spend about 20 minutes playing with the glass trying to get SOMETHING nice�take a break from the constant failure�go back and try some new things and fail for about 20 more minutes until I need another break.  I�ll go through like this for about 2 hours before I�m just DONE with lampworking for the day.  Not very productive!  But I really want some new stuff.  All my �old� stuff is not motivating me lately.  I have been repeating old standbys just to keep some stuff up for sale.  I�m sure I�ll find some great new thing and I�ll be all excited again!

 

For the past year we�ve had issues with our septic tank/s.  Our alarm would keep going off saying the tank was full.  (Thank God for the �silent� alarm option �that horn going off at all hours gets OLD).  Most of the time the light will go back to green over a few days.  I won�t get into the whole story, but we have a serious septic problem that will take a minimum of $900 MORE to fix (so far we�ve spent $1,000, had the �guys� come out 3 times and nothing is fixed�an on going theme I tell ya!).  The bigger fix, which I have a feeling will need to be done, will cost $9,000 (a complete redo of our sand mound).  We are waiting for a nice/warm day for the septic guys to come back and flush out our pipes and see if that�s the problem or if it is the mound.  The waiting to find out the problem (and cost!) is a bit wearing�.

 

On a more positive note, I have my onion and white strawberry seeds purchased and in the fridge waiting to be planted in a few weeks!  I�m getting excited to start the whole gardening thing again.  I was a bit tired of it at the end of the harvest season, but I�m all ready to do it all again :o)

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Jan. 3^rd

Marble just doesn't understand what is blocking his view!!!



Here is our weekly forecast!  Ack!!  Just more of the same.  I wonder how much snow we'll get by the time it's over?  Craig is putting off snow-blowing the driveway because it just keeps snowing and snowing.   He'll have to do it soon though because the kids go back to school tomorrow.


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Dec. 24^th

We're decorating the Christmas cookies...

Emily yells out..."My Angle has BALLS!!"

Silence

Craig starts laughing

I start laughing

Emily is clueless and all innocent.  I inform her what she has REALLY said to the whole family.

Of course she thought it was hilarious!  LOL

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Dec. 23^rd

 

It�s a beautiful day here in PA!  It was zero this morning, but it�s warmed up to the 20�s now.  I noticed the trees were really pretty when I went out to put the mail out, so I took a picture of our red crab apple tree.  It's supposed to be in the high 40's and rain on Christmas...boooooo...HISS!!

One thing I have noticed going to the vet every 2 weeks with Milo is his weight.  He was on this hypoallergic diet for 3 months (Duck pea�yummy!�) prior to going to the vet for the first time. I noticed he had lost some weight (though I never weighed him) during this time.  I could tell, just by how he felt when I petted him.  The first time he was weighed at the vet, he was almost 16 lbs!  DAMN!!  I wonder what he weighed BEFORE the duck pea food diet??  (He�s ideal weight, according the to the vet papers I have, is 12 lbs. or so).  He slowly lost weight in the following weeks on his duck diet.  After 4 months on this special diet, it was clear he was not allergic to his food, so I put him back on his regular kibble.  Well, he has been eating his regular food like crazy.  We put out 2 cups of food every night for our 2 cats.  Before the duck pea food diet, lots of food still remained in the dish.  Now, it�s always gone.  I refused to fill it when I saw it empty because I knew 2 cups a day for 2 cats is more than enough food.  Since the food dish is kept in the basement, where I torch, I noticed which cat was the one eating all the food. Yup�it was Milo!  He�s was ALWAYS eating.  I guess he was going a bit crazy after �dieting� on the duck pea for so long.  The last visit to the vet, I noticed his �body score� had gone up to an 8.  Unfortunately, they didn�t write down his exact weight, but it has obviously gone way up because every prior visit his score had been a 7.  It has jumped a whole number in 2 weeks!  (9 is the fattest body score and 5 is idea..fyi).  hhhhhhhhhhhh  Here�s a good shot showing Milo�s big fat belly.  Marble there is no skinny minny either, but not quite so fat.

So, Milo is now on a diet (day 2 now), which means I measure out all the food for both cats and separate them when they eat, etc.  It was so much easier just leaving the food out, but obviously that�s a problem and I need to change things.  Always a cat issue...ALWAYS.

Today I'm going to finish up all the wrapping!!  Today is the last day the kids are in school until Jan. 4th.  Craig goes back to school much later.  He gets a whole month off before he goes back to work, but I'm not sure when the new semester starts...

Tomorrow I'll bake Christmas cookies and the kids will decorate them. They love doing this and spend all day at it.  Each cookie is a work of art, I guess!

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Dec. 18th,

I completed all my Christmas shopping!!  YES!!  It�s so good to have that job done.  Shopping is not my favorite.  I�m real excited to watch my kids open all their gifts.  I think I did really well this year finding things I think they will love.

 

The on going drama with my cat Milo might be coming to an end�finally.  A few weeks ago I took him to the vet and his tummy was still not looking good.  There was some very minor improvement around the edges of his sore, but the middle bits were still all red and weeping.  The vet said he couldn�t remember a cat that was this unresponsive to steroids, and my vet is not a young man.  Great�.  It would be MY cat.  The vet switched him to a different steroid and it seems to be doing the trick. Today I took Milo again to the vet for a skin check and to have some dental work/cleaning done.  I know he needs to have at least one tooth removed.  Yeah�his mouth is nasty.  One thing I won�t do is brush my cat�s teeth.  That is just something I won�t do.  There is a line and that�s crossing it.  When I dropped him off today the tech there was talking about this gel that is applied once a week to his teeth to prevent plaque build-up.  That sounds great, but I don�t want to do that once a week.    I hate messing with my cat.  I said �okay� for them to apply it this time but I doubt I�ll get the kit to do it myself in the future.  Drops of some kind you put in their water bowl sounds more my speed.  I know�I�m terrible.  One thing that was kind of annoying was I had to get Milo up-to-date on all his shots.  It just seems so pointless to give that cat a Rabies shot when he never steps a paw outside.  But whatever�.it was required, so I agreed.  I can�t wait to get this vet bill.  Merry Christmas to me!!

 

Did I mention I was done with my Christmas shopping??  I�m so GLAD to be done :o)