Sweet Sugar's Spoon

LoL BaBy TiMe

2009-02-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

Mommy's in a funny mood today.

Actually, this is a really great felted wool baby chain that I bought from babus. She has wonderful baby toys! My little guy grabbed this baby chain as soon as I gave it to him. I really want to try to not give him any plastic toys. Maybe once he's a little older, and isn't putting everything into his mouth I'll feel differently, but for now, I'm much cooler with wool!

I Am Mommy

2009-02-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I took a moment to write something here. Having to care for my little baby is all consuming most of the time. My husband bought me a cool Mac laptop, so now I can sit on the couch, hold my baby and type with my free hand. I love being a Mommy. Being pregnant was a....it's hard to explain my pregnancy experience. I had so many health problems; so much pain and so much stress. I was constantly looking inward, trying to peer around the corner of the boundary of my body to steal a glance at my forming fetus and see if he was o.k. The aggravation of constant pain nearly shut down my joy. I wanted to give birth at the birth center with the midwives, but there was the hospital, threatening me with intervention, putting a time limit on when my due date could be. In short, it sucked. I went over my Halloween due date. Finally induced, I was in labor for four days. I was allowed to be admitted to the birth center at the last possible minute. Had my labor gone on any longer, I would have had to go to the hospital for a more sever experience. But the midwives saved the day! We checked in at 3pm and left by 7am the next morning, exhausted, euphoric and as parents. It's been 11 weeks since then. I don't remember what it's like to be alone.

2009-01-22T12:11:00.001-08:00

My baby likes the rap music. And Jr. Gong.

Look What I Made.....

2008-11-19T00:37:00.001-08:00

My baby was born last week. We're so happy that he's safe at home with us. The birth was wonderful! I was in labor for four days, but it was nice to give birth with very skilled midwives in a relaxed and peaceful setting. It was everything that I wanted! And he's the most beautiful little boy I've ever seen in my life! We're so happy! And sleepy! I can't wait to make some more.....

Rolling Out

2008-10-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

Well, today my darling husband helped me out and rolled out all my silver for me. Now all I have to do is figure out what the hell to make! I have some ideas, but mostly my mind is on baby-type stuff. If you scroll down a couple of entries, you can see how big these pieces of silver have become as they've gotten thinner!

2008-10-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Best Start Birth Center here in San Diego for an ultrasound and non-stress baby monitoring. The difference between this center and the UCSD hospital is very dramatic. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Birth Center, but the equipment seems left over from the 80's when compared to what we had at UCSD. The ultrasound was pretty pathetic. But, I'd rather be in a low-tech situation than in such a cold and clinical hospital to give birth. My baby is doing well, not too big, as is the risk with Gestaional Diabetes. Basically, I just want to get in a nice tub and relax for the birth. I don't need flourecent lights or beeping machines or weird, strange nurses popping in and out of my room telling me what to do.
My husband went on a little star wars binge and has set these guys up in our living room. I remember all these guys! I think that my bro and I even had this carrying case when we were little! It's so great! Lately my husband has been riding his new bike a lot. It's a pretty great bike! He had bought this old VW truck a while back, and when we moved he decided to sell it. With that money he bought this bike. I guess it's a really good one. I'm not all that savy about bikes, but I know that he's been loving the hell out of it.

Last night was fun...

2008-10-02T14:31:00.001-07:00

Last night this treasury made it onto the front page of Etsy, with my sister's necklace and a pair of my earrings! It was fun because it was up for two hours! I love watching the click counts go up and having new people heart me! But really, the absolute best part was that the necklace my sister had up sold! I'm so happy for her! Yay Etsy! I love it so much!

Making Metal Hot

2008-10-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

Today I had to keep working on my metal. It's just so hot, though! Once I get that torch going I sweat like crazy, but at least I'm getting some pregnancy exercise. Most of the wire is ready to pull through my draw plate, but these big fat ingots for sheet still need some tough love! They're around 3mm thick at this stage. Some day, I'll have an account with Hover and Strong, order all my stock brand new and not care a wink about scrap. No....that's not true. Ordering all your own stock makes you soft. I sit on my ass as a jeweler enough as it is! Or in front of the computer! Ha Ha Ha....

Yeah, The Treasury Is Fun

2008-09-30T21:03:00.001-07:00

Getting on the front page is becoming a bit of an obsession for me. I just really want to make the prettiest treasuries...or be part of them. It's fun to look at all the beautiful, unusual things that people have in their shops and try to put them together in a lovely way! Plus, it's a creative activity that I can do while sitting down at the computer. I'm almost 36 weeks now, and my baby is feeling pretty heavy!
The next project that I have to get done is making sheet and wire. I ingot all my own silver, mostly because I have a lot of scraps and I'm kind of broke! I have a full bench set up, a crucible, an ingot mold, a rolling mill and a nice draw plate, so why not? It's just that lately my bump has been sort of in the way. But rolling out the metal has always been sort of fun for me, and it's really the only form of exercise that I'm getting right now. It's been pretty hot today, around 90, so the process is going at a snails pace. It's not fun to anneal when it's really hot. But I have so many ideas to get done, and not much time left to do it before my baby is born. I know that once that happens, the bench may just not be as alluring!

Front Page Of Etsy

2008-09-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well, this time my sister and I were in the same treasury, which made the front page this morning! We're both so happy! Now if only the economy would become as good as it was under Clinton so that all the charming lads and ladies out there could afford to indulge in some hand-made goodness!

This Is How I Do It....

2008-09-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am not a photographer! I love making jewelry. I love to look at photography. But the two only come together for me when it's time to post new earrings to my store on Etsy. And then....I just want to run and hide! Photographing jewelry is tough. Sometimes I wish I had picked up some other passion to pursue, like sculpture....something on a grander scale! I'm slowly getting my set up perfected. I have to hold the camera about an inch away from the beads to get a close up shot, and about three inches away for a full-body shot. And damn, those light are like the surface of the sun!

Front Page Of Etsy

2008-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, my sister seems to have the magic touch when it comes to getting up on the front page of Etsy! Gees! I'm just glad that I'm included! Unfortunately, I slept through seeing it up there, but I made a picture of the treasury itself! Ah, that East Coast/West Coast time thing...

Honey Comes Home, Front Page Of Etsy

2008-09-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

This has been a really nice week end for me! My husband is finally home, after being away on business for two whole months! Being eight and a half months prego and on my own is challenging! Now he's here and he can pick things up off the floor for me! Today we went outside and took some pics of my earrings on my ear. It's so hard to get an idea of how big or small something is with out seeing it on someone. After we finished that up, we went and up-loaded them in time to see that the treasury that my sister hotinjectionjewelry.etsy.com made was on the front page of Etsy! That's her second time getting up there! Yahy! After frantically loading all my new pics to my etsy store sugarspoon.etsy.com, we went up to the Zoo and had a nice afternoon. My husband met a very friendly Lorikeet that decided to make him his best friend. That little guy just wanted to jump right onto Adam's shoulder and have a ride! As it was, he did a pretty impressive little mating dance. It was cool, and just what we needed! It's been a really happy day.

Look! It's a baby!

2008-09-08T15:54:00.001-07:00

Why Sugar Sucks

2008-09-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

It's not really fair, in my opinion. After everything my husband and I have gone through in the last few months in order to grow a healthy baby, you'd think that we'd get some kind of break in these last few weeks. But no. It's never easy, never has been, never will be. And that's o.k. My husband and I are tough. We know the deal. We can take what ever comes along. But still, I feel a little pissed.
Plain yogurt is kind of yucky, but if your hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything.
I used to have a tumor. It was about an inch long and weighed six grams. It was in my neck, and it had been making me sick for years. I'd seen at least five different doctors on two different sides of the country. But it took getting prego for someone to finally run the right test, think the right diagnosis. Of course, once I was pregnant the tumor became a major health crisis. It could kill my baby, and maybe even me! The kind of tumor I had was extremely rare to find in a pregnant lady, because most ladies who have this kind of tumor can't get pregnant, and if they do they don't stay pregnant for long.
I'm still pregnant. I have a great big scar at the bottom of my neck to prove it. It looks like someone slit my throat....which I guess they did.
So now, all the pain is gone. I can sleep at night. The chemical imbalance in my blood has normalized and my brain can function properly. Which means I can now feel happy. Clear headed. In love, fully, without doubts. It's a big switch. Actually, that's a really accurate way to describe what it's like to suddenly be well....like someone threw a switch in my head and it finally works right. Bam...bright lights.
Now I'm all fixed up, pregnant, but still having a few annoying health problems. Common ones, this time, at least. Groin pain. Really bad groin pain. Yeah, I said it. I'm not embarrassed to admit it. My special place feels like someone kicked me! Like I fell on the bike bar. I can barely walk! Going to the grocery store is similar to what being water boarded must feel like. My special place has never hurt before, and it truly sucks.
But wait, there's something worse that has popped up. I only have eight more weeks to go, so at least it wont be an issue for too long, but I have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Damn, my husband and I are pissed.
My diet is pretty good. And that's what makes believing this diagnosis so hard. I don't eat a lot of sugar in my daily life, rarely eat a lot of carbs. Like bread, pasta, soda, so on and on....I've been living on yogurt since I got pregnant. I have to, because the tumor was making my body strip my bones of their calcium. We wont know how bad the ostioporosis is until after the baby is born. We joke that our baby is 98% yogurt. So, hearing that yogurt is a carb and I have to limit my intake is so fucking....painful.
My husband says that acording to the american diabetes web site, the test that I took was not properly administered. I was supposed to be carb-loading for three days before the test, but in fact did the complete opposite, having not been informed of anything by my doctor. Actually, she did say to not eat too many carbs...But anyway, when I went to the hospital to go to the gestational diabetes class, the instructor didn't seem to think that I was correct about anything. She seemed pretty brisk and went over everything way too quickly. I could tell she didn't really want to discuss my concerns or help me to feel better. The other two women in the class seemed pretty overwhelmed, too. No mother wants to think that something as simple as eating could kill their baby. And the woman teaching the class transitioned from talking about how to count carbs to how to tell if your baby was dieing inside of you. Nightmare stuff.
So, now I'm taking my blood every day, four times a day, watching what I eat...trying to be perfect. I've only gained 15 pounds or so during my pregnancy so far, and I thought I was doing so well. If I can't control my blood sugar, I have to start injectiong insulin, which I read on the internet can cause high blood presure. Basically, if I can't come up with the right blood sugar level numbers, I'm in for a whole lot more medical interventions. And all I want is a nice midwife and a big tub of warm water. Is that really so bad? Does anyone know of a nice cave in the woods I can hide in till this is all over?
I always sort of had a picture in my mind of what it would be like to be pregnant. A glowing, radiant goddess of creative power and new life force...and that's part of it, I guess. Feeling my baby inside of me the the most glorious feeling I've ever had. I love feeling him squirm around, slipping and spinning and safe. But now, if he doesn't move for a while, I get so scared. I go quiet and wait for him to move, something, a flutter, anything. Sometimes I grab my belly and shake it, just to see if he's o.k.

Front Page Of ETSY

2008-09-03T18:12:00.001-07:00

My sister made this treasury, and we are thrilled to make it to the front page!

Damn it, Etsy

2008-08-24T22:43:00.001-07:00

tonight the etsy treasure crashed and there are a lot of pissed off ladies out there! Including me.

Star Wars Forever

2008-08-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

Dude! Look at what my very cool husband found in an old antique shop in Wisconsin! Yahy! We both love Star Wars, have seen the movies too many times to count, and miss all our old toys. Both our moms sold them at a yard sale. Damn. I even had the Darth Vader carrying case. Well, technically it was my little bros, but they still felt like mine, too!

The Business Of Being Born

2008-08-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

It happens to all of us, one way or another. We don't remember it, and spend the rest of our lives playing catch-up with our past, hearing all the stories. Tonight, I'm wondering what my story was, and what stories I'll be telling in a few months; a few years.
I'm not going to lie, this hasn't been easy for me. There seems to have been one problem after another. And it's not even all that close to being over yet. Most days, my only question is whether I'll ever be able to walk normally again. Some nights, I have the worst nightmares of my life. Worst gas ever.
I'm thirty weeks pregnant. This has not been an easy pregnancy. At four months, I had to have surgery for a tumor in my neck that had been making me sick for years, but was not diagnosed until I became pregnant. According to some medical web sites and my doctors, it's extremely rare for a pregnant woman to have the kind of sickness that I had, because most people can't get or stay pregnant while afflicted. But, now the tumor's gone, I have a big scar on my neck and I'm still prego, so no harm, no foul. Then the groin pain started. Ah, relaxin. I'm making lots of helpful hormones, but they're being a little too helpful. My groin is just sort of killing me. I've seen a physical therapist, but there's not a whole lot they can do for my pubic bone. I'm having a really hard time making it through the grocery store, let alone any exercise. The latest thing to "go wrong" is that I supposedly have gestational diabetes. My husband is convinced that the test was not administered right, because I eat very little sugar or processed food, have only gained 15 pounds or so, and was not told that I was supposed to "carb load" for three days before the test. If anything, I abstained from sugar. I don't know. The basic out come of the testing has just been more stress and worry. But other than all of that stuff, I feel great. Better than I ever have in my life. And that's really saying a lot! That's why my husband and I feel fairly positive about transitioning from my ob to a midwife. I don't want an epidural, I don't want a c-section, I don't want to be flat on my back with some bossy doctor yelling 'push push' at me. Forget it! The way woman are expected to give birth in a hospital is just plain silly. And scary. I'm not afraid of giving birth, I'm afraid of having a bunch of strangers around me making health choices for me and my child that I don't agree with, but am not able to ward off. And my husband says that if anyone in green scrubs yells at me or tries to give me drugs, he'll punch them. But I think he's just feeling protective. He watched "The Business Of Being Born" before me and it had a big effect on him. It's really cute.
The most helpful thing that I've done for myself since becoming pregnant is reading Ina May Gaskin's "Ina May's Guide To Childbirth". It's a wonderful book. Before I became pregnant, I was pro-midwife, but hadn't really experienced what you go through with the medical system. Having a high-level stress health scare early on in my pregnancy really primed me for thinking that I need to stay in a hospital, with really experienced doctors, in order to have a health baby. But after having my throat sliced open, taking almost a month to recover from the surgery and having all that pain and terror about losing the baby, I just kind of want to have a less stressful childbirth. No i.v.s, no drugs, no one using lots of machines on me. Been there, done with that. I'm not sick now, just pregnant. But I had so many women telling me their birth horror stories. The only person that didn't tell me how awful giving birth is was my mother! Every other woman I talked to had had to have a c-section, or drugs, or had torn her vagina. Didn't anyone have anything good to say? The whole first half of Ina's book is positive, instructional birth stories. They did the trick for me. The bad dreams began to abate the more I read her book. Her whole philosophy is basically just chill out. Women are made to do baby making. There is nothing wrong with having a baby. Sure, it hurts, but not like breaking a leg. And the body adapts to what it needs to do. It's worth experiencing. I don't want to miss it.
The thing that bums me out the most about the general attitude of so many women that I've heard from on this topic is that giving birth naturally is barbaric or somehow macho or extreme. I see giving birth as the ultimate sexual act. I mean, men's penises expand and get pretty damn big and then go back down to normal, so why couldn't a woman do that, if given time and proper encouragement? What's the rush? And in the bigger picture, what's a few hours of discomfort compared with the moment of having your baby in your arms, with out a bunch of strangers yanking him away from you to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff.
So basically, I think that if you ever plan on knocking someone up, or becoming knocked up yourself, you really should see "The Business Of Being Born", reading some good books, and just letting your body sort it's self out. It isn't easy, but it's better than what the hospitals have to offer us.

2008-08-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

My bench is great.

Welcome To My Bench

2008-08-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

My bench is very beautiful. It's spacious and sturdy; well-made and easily organizable. Sometimes, as I sit on my new couch and contemplate it, I am overcome with the urge to stand next to it and stroke it's dove-tailed block surface and mutter "my precious" over and over again. The security and sheer solidness is has introduced into my artistic life is invaluable to me.
So, it still fills me with wonder at how completely enraged I was when my husband first presented me with it. I stormed and sputtered about cost. I raged at not being consulted on such a large and meaningful purchase. I was very angry with him, and ungrateful for my gift. But the truth of the matter was, I was ashamed. Embarrassed. I felt totally and completely unworthy of such a large, important, day-dream fueling gift. It's the best and most cherished gift he has ever given to me, and even though I am sure that I thanked him for it at the time, it's taken me years to get over my confused feelings and to truly be thankful to him. My husband is a generous, loving man. And better yet, he is a man that can truly appreciate good tools. He get's it; the pleasure that comes from losing one's self for hours in a project, making something worth while and honest. And using familiar, well made tools.
For a long time I didn't have a chair to sit in at my bench, and this was one of my excuses for rarely using it. The room the bench was in was a room we seldom used, and there it sat, in all it's hugeness and grandeur, alone and still new looking. Sometimes I would wander into the room and look at the bench, stroking it's butchers block top, and wonder what the hell he had been thinking. I would have been happy with a bench costing three times less. Was my talent really worth the money he had spent on me? As the days passed into weeks and month, my hand and arms had started to fail me. There was something wrong with my body, I knew it, although my doctor didn't know what. As I slowly started to lose my ability to produce, the bench began to seem more and more like something that had never really been meant for me. It taunted me. Surely it had been meant for a real jeweler, someone much more capable than I could ever hope to be. But my husband has never given up.
One day we went down to Little Italy to go drop off some of my husband's Velvia at a camera store to be developed. My husband is a many faceted man, and has a gift with most things mechanical, including cameras. After dropping the film off , we decided to stroll around for a little while. We rarely had free time together to just go explore the city we'd been living in for almost two years. It was late in the day, quiet, and nice outside. We went into an antiques mall we'd never seen before. It was a large place, full of discarded treasures, and high up on a shelf sat a very cool, vintage bench chair. Probably from some old factory, it's lines where pure 50's-60's space-age industrial. We both couldn't take our eyes off it, and my husband, much to the shop keeper's horror, proceeded to lift the heavy, steel bottomed chair down from it's perch, very nearly dislodging a large glass lamp that sat next to it. Triumphant, he had me sit down in it. It fit me very well, and I loved it, but in my usual way saw the price tag and was immediately against buying it. I could easily see how excited it made him, how great he thought the chair was, and he was right. It was great. Just as solid and well made as my beautiful bench, and it made me feel just as unworthy. We left. But it hurt to see how easily I could crush his enthusiasm and ruin a perfectly nice afternoon. We had found a treasure, a needed treasure, and I turned my back to it.
Fortunately for me, my husband is not a man easily turned aside. I also think he finds me a bit transparent. He's grown tired of having to put up with low self esteem, and I think finds it impractical and dramatic. And so, as I had secretly hoped would happen, my husband returned to the shop with out me and bought the chair. It was the right tool for the job, and it needed to be a part of our lives.
It has taken me years to settle in to my bench. It's set up in our tiny living room, regal and resplendent, tidy and compact. When we recently moved, he moved the bench by himself, even though it weighs at least a hundred pounds or more. I use it almost every day, and it stays fairly well organized and clean. Thanks to my husband. So, thanks, husband.