Split personalities...

Sometimes I get stumped when it comes to blogging. I never know whether I should talk about my life in general, my work as an ER nurse, or my lampworking hobby. Most of the other blogs that I read tend to focus on one main area and I feel like I don't really have one main thing that I focus on hence the split personalities thing.

So, today I'm blogging about the fact that I'm having difficulty blogging :) Every now and then I think maybe I'll write about work but then I'm afraid that I'm going to scare people off with my frustrations and my jaded cynicism so I stay off that topic. My life....well, that's not the most interesting topic at all....no kids, no funny fluff-ball pets, no real news on that front. As for lampworking that's kind of a non-topic right now with the weather being so cold and my new indoor studio space getting worked on. No good beady news to share.

Sigh.

Let's see....ok...how about this. I'm on a search for some parts. Here is a pic that I purloined so that I could show an example of what I'm looking for.

I need the inserts that you see in the pic (or at least something similar). The closest I could find was stainless steel standoffs but those are open on the end that doesn't screw onto the mandrel and I was hoping for something with one closed end. Anyone out there in cyberspace reading this know of a good substitute of these parts? I'm offering bead rewards!

Tomorrow is a day off so maybe I'll come up with something good to write about. In the meantime....have you ever read The Pioneer Woman's blog? I love it!

Happy Turkey Day!!

Today I am thankful for many things.....thankful that my hot water heater is in the garage and not in the house. Thankful that it decided to finally let go when we were here rather than away for a week. Thankful that there isn't much to ruin with a cement floor.

'Nuf said. I'm off to work and I'm hoping that all the not-really-sick people decide to stay home to enjoy their tofurkey or turducken or just regular turkey and stay out of the ER!!!!

The Melting Room....

Interestingly enough the latest Flaming Hot blog topic asks us to talk about our studios...something I've been consumed with lately.

My studio is.....really driving me nuts. My studio used to be out in the garage. It actually is still in the garage but I can't get to it because my DH has managed to pile all of his HUGE woodworking equipment in front of and all around it.

Now, I really can't complain because we have a plan to convert our pantry into a new studio pour moi. Yes! This is totally exciting because it will be indoors and climate controlled. My desire to melt glass will no longer be dictated by the temperature outside. So far we've torn up the flooring and stripped the walls of the built in shelving that was there. The plan is to put down some kind of non-flammable surface - most likely tile of some sort. Concrete backer board will go up behind the torching area. There is a plan for exhaust as well as bringing in make-up air. We'll tee off the existing gas line that resides just on the other side of the pantry wall. I think this space is really going to rock! The only problem I foresee is figuring out how to accommodate all the power that the appliances are going to draw. I hope to get pics up of the progress as we start working on it in more earnest (probably after the in-laws are gone) so you can always check back for progress.

Up until this point I worked out in the garage on a table purloined from my DH. It's made out of a solid core door. I simply laid out 12 x 12 tile all over the surface and insta-unflammable tabletop! I have a creation station which I love. Use a Minor torch with 2 oxycons hooked up. My kiln is a Mike Crowley creation with I can't say enough good things about. I have to say the one really neat accessory that I have is an old dental tool cabinet. It has casters so it can roll around and I love the shallow drawers that house all my picks and tools. It also has deeper drawers that I use to store all of my frit jars. The top shelf is for all of my presses. The best part of it is that I got it for $7 locally from some dude selling it on Ebay. My best buy by far!

I'm looking forward to re-organizing all of my glass when I move indoors. I've got so much I'm really going to have to think carefully about my storage strategy.

Not sure what else I can tell you about my studio except that I long for the day when I have my own, standalone building dedicated to melting glass. Yeah....gimme another couple of years. Once all the renos on this house are done it'll be time to find some land somewhere a little further out where there's no such thing as a HOA to veto me putting up a studio.

Getting into the blogging spirit....

So, really my life is pretty boring and there isn't much to write about all the time. Luckily for me today I discovered Flaming Hot! which I hope will help get me over my sometimes blogging humps.

Today's topic is: The Witching Hour? Do you list auctions at a certain time faithfully every week? Are you all over the time zone map? Does it even matter? What is your listing time philosophy?

To tell the truth it's been a long time since I had anything listed on Ebay or any other auction style site. Part of it is that I've just been super busy with other things. The other part is that the market was becoming saturated with new lampworkers and not many buyers were buying anymore (at least they weren't buying my beads!). However, when I was still listing I found that the ideal time for me to end auctions was:

1 - Sometime in the evening after work and supper - so usually around 7pm PST. This covered both east and west coast buyers without being too late for the east coast.

2 - Usually on a Sunday or Monday night. Never on a Friday or Saturday. People have other things to be doing on those nights and are usually not sitting in front of their computers participating in a bidding war.

3 - I'd try to have things up continuously. This is the most important thing I found - consistency in listing times/intervals. Eventually I started listing everything as a 3-day auction and just tried to have things end not on Friday or Saturday. This, for me, was the hardest part. Having enough time to torch to be putting things up consistently. I guess that's why I haven't had anything up for auction in a long time.

I think most of these things are kinda common sense each seller has their own selling mojo, you know? Like if you've developed a cult bead following I don't think it matters when you list something....it's going to sell no matter what.