... jean...thinking. would you believe this is in actuality a tattoo? Quite a lovely one. I feel as if I am in my element but moving in a direction I am not knowing yet. At least it is some form of UP!!! It's a bit of hard work but that is OK.

Good shot of some honey, honey! We use a squeeze bottle. Jim has been eating it on rye bread! Hey, takes all kinds!

I like this honey picture despite the fact that the contents look more like caviar. That is some dark honey!

I am trying to reassess my relationship to VEGETABLES. It is easy to be a vegetarian and not eat enough of them. I need more exercise too. Wow look at all these New Year's Resolutions which were hanging out in my subconscious! Think I can follow through?

I mention my review of Tom's book later on below: he rocks. You can get it at Amazon. A nicer guy I never met. http://www.tomnguyenart.com/is his site. I sent this book on to one of my sons. Tom personalized it wth a giant, perfect drawing of Superman!

I used to write for the above corporation. I LIVED AUTISM every day in every way.

I was a card carrying member of the original Mothers from Hell. You will understand later.

First of all: a question: maybe Andrew knows. Is there anything good (meaning valuable) nutritionally about honey? I am trying to change my eating habits, even though I am a vegetarian, and Jim has decided to eat honey anyway--not that he ever ate much straight granulated sugar...but nutritionally, is it a good food for you? I suppose I could google this but I have been googling yoga, vegetables, other oddities, as I periodically go and check to see if they have put up my excellent (can I say that myself?) five star review of Tom Nguyen's book on Amazon, note that they haven't yet, and go about my day. And that has meant: having a REALLY hard time getting going today. It's as if this trip from which I just returned (why do I have to make grammar such a convoluted thing? It's fun for me to, that is why!) constitutes the ending of a beginning for me. Watch it, jean get's slightly heavy--a rare thing . What I mean by all this is that three years ago, right now, I was not anybody you would recognize by name, within the online beading community. I was selling my jewelry locally, which was fun, but I worked hard and thoroughly underpriced everything...Mostly I was intensely spending my free time teaching myself how to do the things I do. I was learning how to stamp on silver, begged Jim for Lisa Niven Kelly's silver bangle kit for Christmas (yes! I can do that! even though she had to answer some realy lame questions from me!), I was teaching myself Connie Fox's bangle, I was working on my chain maille. I was thinking about and playing with and delighting in my collection of my beloved beads from Ebay and Justbeads. I didn't have any websites I went to yet, although I was getting close...I went to bead stores and beadshops online. I read magazines, and the books Jim would buy for me at Michael's. I was totally a Swarovski girl when I designed and I still am completely dazzled by Swarovskis. I love the vintage store http://www.jewelex.com/ --it is my favorite!!! and I could get lost in there.

However, now that I am back from CHA I am thinking about the next turn my life is going to take, and I am telling you right here I am mystified AND fascinated to see what is going to happen. I do know I want to make ATC's and there is no one who is going to stop me--I have the great! Bernie Berlin's book! Going to review it shortly. Then, anyone who wants to trade...we'll trade!!! That is as far as I have gotten with plans. I need a collection of odds and ends ...bits and bobs. I am sure in this house I can find some!
Before the jewelry, it was all autism, all the time. I was the same focused person, it as just a different thing upon which I was intently focusing. We had our home programs and our early interventions for the children, and any writing I did was concerning autism. I had some major (to me) articles published, including one called "Stress and Parenting Children with Autism" which was pretty funny because I called everyone I could locate and interviewed them about how they released stress if they had a child or children with autism. Then I had had it for a nanosecond. It's not a surprising thing to have happen when you have this day in day out sort of life of endurance, even if you love your family. It was a good article in the newsbulletin of The Autism Society of America, which was one of the first and almost only established groups you could turn to if you had any sort of connection with autism at the time. I met my friend Elizabeth http://www.fourleafpress.com/ by interviewing her for her award winning book, Autism Treatment Guide, which was the first objectively written guide to various treatments for autism. As it says on her site, the book is now in its third edition, and it is a useful guide for those just learning to navigate the complex world of autism. It received the "Outstanding Parent Achievement Award" from the Autism Society of America. Anyway, we had that interview published in that Austism Society of America bulletin. We went on to become friends and she went on to publish another award winning book, Just This Side of Normal, about her son. I love this book! You can find it on her site. She has a way with her writing and it has great impact and honesty. After that, I joined (just a a paying member) her great group The Mothers from Hell, which is going strong in its second incarnation, in a different location. It was a fabulous group of women who at the time were very very funny and very very proactive about something which is very very serious--children who are disabled. The Mothers from Hell helped people who were new or confused or timid get what they needed from their school districts, or just know they were not alone in the crazy world of having a child with any sort of disability. It was incredibly empowering and not at all "cheap". Elizabeth had started it in Oregon with a group of fantastic women, and I wrote for them occasionally, when invited, and some of my stuff is still floating around on the net, kind of mishmashed up.

Anyway, that was an episode in my life which I loved and then moved on from, although you don't move on from your family, obviously. I just...after the stress article....I got stressed out concerning autism as a "subject". I still help people but I don't seek out situations where I am in meetings or advocating for other parents. I stopped that, last year. If someone needs me and calls I will talk forever, however. It's a very hard row to hoe.

So anyway, now it became all about: find something you needed and loved to do. That was what I needed when I began making jewelry. Making jewelry was waiting for me and I cleaved to it.
I must say the jewelry and beading community could not be a nicer group of people. Talk about sharing. Sharing information and loving to share generously. Just like the autism groups I had been involved with. The only difference, the way I see it, is that the jewelry and beading family I belong to now is slightly mellower. There are many familes who have children with autism who would immediately understand why I wrote an article concerning the stress we all endure. They also hopefully would understand why I would embrace a humor and advocacy newsbulletin called "Mothers from Hell". Pretty wild sounding huh? I still have my card I got for joining and I keep it with love. File it under happy memories, just like you can file these past three years learning how to submit to magazines, writing my book Links, and making great new friends...without leaving my old ones behind! EVER!