Takin' Care of Business and Getting on Track

Wow... I have been a VERY bad blogger as of late! I'm not sure why I feel the need to apologize to my dear readers because you probably haven't noticed. Not that you don't love me unconditionally and wait breathlessly for my words of ultimate wisdom and yada, yada, yada, .... but, if you are like me (and I know some of you are!!), you have 100 or more other blogs that you read (via your Google Reader or some such) which you try to comment on or at least visit every once in a while. Anyway... if you blog then you know that while you may disguise your blog as a way to enlighten the masses, it is actually a place to keep your thoughts and latest projects - a way to keep yourself accountable to others for your progress as a crafter, entrepreneur, human being. You just hope that the things you find cool and amazing will be the same things others find cool and amazing and someone somewhere will let you know you're on right track.

So, even though my lack of posts make it seem as though I have lost my "right track" lately (I admit that it's a daily occurrence but don't tell anyone, OK?) I am trying... REALLY!

In an attempt to get on track, here's the latest news:

Here I am with my necklace "Green Acres"!

1. I had a necklace in an art exhibit last month. The exhibit was called "Art Meets Ag" and my "Green Acres" necklace was one of the featured pieces.

Here's a shot of the gallery on the University of Wisconsin - Platteville campus

2. My beadwork is scheduled to appear in 2 different craft publications in 2011 - one in February and the other in April! Yay! More on that later - I don't want to spoil the surprise!

3. There is a new bead shop in Dubuque (finally!) and I have a full calendar of classes scheduled for the month of October. We are hoping to have an open studio night for beaders every Thursday evening from 6-9pm. I hope it catches on and I hope I will have lots of students sign up for classes! The store, "River City Shoppes", is located in the Kennedy Mall shopping center here is Dubuque. No website yet but I bought her a .com domain name as a "glad you're here" gift - so hopefully a website will be up and runnning soon. In the meantime, you can check out the October class schedule on my website. Here are some of the projects I'll be teaching:

"Waves of Symmetry" cuff bracelet

Beginning Bead Embroidery - we'll make a pendant using the techniques in the one pictured.

Mandala Earrings

Dahlia Flower Pendant

4. I am one of the newest members of the Julien Chamber Choir here in Dubuque. We practice once a week and have 4 concerts during the course of the year - our first one will be on October 31st. It's great, I love it and I'm so happy to be singing "serious" music with a group again.

So I hope you will see that I have not just been sitting idly by while my blog becomes a dim memory. I'll try to be better... I will... I promise! :)