Imagine "One Perfect Day"

If you could design One Perfect Day lasting as long as necessary, what would you do?

My day would be about 48 hours long, I'd be A LOT YOUNGER with the energy to relive a few amazing events in my life:

1) FLY FISHING: The day was warm but the water still cool, the sky overcast, & a light ripple on the small lake. No one on the lake but me. I quietly kicked toward the shore in my float tube with lightweight fly rod rigged with my very own rendition of a dragonfly. The real ones were flying low over the bubbly scum near the shore. I decided to false-cast my fly low over the water, too. Suddenly a fat 20" rainbow jumped 12" out of the water & snapped my dragonfly! I'd love to say I landed him, thanked him, & let him go. But I was so startled, I jerked the line, broke it, & kissed away the fish & my Magic Fly. BUT on my imaginary Perfect Day, I'd catch that Big One!

2) RACING: We were racing our 19' open sailboat (a Lightning) on a windy day in English Bay, Vancouver, B.C. Suddenly Greg at the helm steered onto a wave approaching from behind & the boat lurched forward like a racehorse at the starting gun. We surfed the wave as the 3 of us arched backwards over the side to keep the boat flat. I held on tight to the spinnaker line, letting the huge sail fill with each gust, wrapping my legs tighter around the strap. Our 3 heads nearly touched the water as the boat skimmed the surface. I remember feeling The PERFECT BALANCE OF POWER between Nature & Human Skill==> the Lightning literally surfed each following wave, then flew over the water's surface until the next wave. A thrill impossible to describe.

3) DUPLICATE BRIDGE: In a tournament near Tacoma, our 4some team had beaten the first 2 teams we'd played! Now we feared the Peter Principle, as we'd no doubt risen to the level of our incompetence. We greeted our new opponents as they sat at our table to play , Fred Fred Gittleman (a nationally renowned duplicate bridge player) and The Bill... yes, Bill Gates! Fortunately partner & I did not embarrass ourselves & really enjoyed playing against these polite, charming opponents! But we couldn't see who Bill's teammates were across the room playing against our 2 teammates. At the end of the round, all of us rejoined our own teammates to compare scores, but our teammates were green from defeat. They were shocked to learn WE had just played against The Fred & The Bill!! But we were all shocked to learn that the mystery opponents that skunked our teammates were Warren Buffet & Sharon Osberg (both fantastic players)! That will always be the highlight of my bridge life.

4) GREMLINS: At the end of my One Perfect Day, having energy to spare (Yes, this must be fiction!), I'd return home to await a visit from Vivi & Miles. The door bell would ring & ring & ring along with some persistent, lightweight knocking. I'd open the door & 2 pairs of open arms would embrace me.... "Grandma! Grandma!" The best words in the English language.

WHAT PERFECT DAY WOULD YOU RELIVE? We'd love to read it:)!

Jewelry Pics Made Wanda Wimpy

In my 3 short years as a jewelry artisan, how could I possibly take enough jewelry pictures to bring my computer to its knees? But I did! After all, my favorite geeky toy arrived in 2005 with the latest 74 gig harddrive- I was sooo proud of that:) In 2006 I started shooting away at my first jewelry creations... probably 5-10 RAW images for each handmade item, never dreaming how quickly those large files would eat up my C drive. But things were still humming along fine... until about 6 months ago. Over time, everything I wanted to do began taking forever, from opening Internet Explorer to check email to working in Photoshop Elements. Occasionally Windows complained that "my virtual memory was too low." Windows' auto-adjustment would help for a few days. But how much value was my high-speed, high-priced DSL connection if my computer could barely limp along?

I plan to buy a much beefier computer later this year, but I needed a bandaid in the meantime. By today there was very little storage left on the C drive, & computer performance was beyond intolerable. UGH! So I moved all 50 gigs of jewelry pictures (YES, 50 GIGS!) for my little business onto Tarzan, my name for the external drive I bought a year ago at Costco simply to store backup copies of our files, emails, favorites, outlook calendar, & contacts. With its 465 gigs of storage, Western Digital's "iBook" was a bargain.

The Copy/Paste of my 50 gigs from Wimpy Wanda to Tarzan took 2 hours 15 minutes! BUT my computer is once again humming along. Tarzan is so cool:)

There's Help & UN-help!

When you own a small business, you certainly must be grateful for any & all help. There aren't enough hours in a day for 1 person to do everything--designing, purchasing, marketing, online site development & maintenance, craft shows, bookkeeping, tax filing, making the jewelry, OH and saying hello to spouse, family, friends, PLUS SLEEPING! So I'm incredibly grateful for advice on marketing, photography, online sites, fashion trends, etc. One of my most persistent advisors even draws some designs for me! (Picture Grandma with a big, warm smile right now!) Vivian is only 6, but presents her ideas in GREAT detail, as you can see.


Then there's Miles, my 3-yr-old Weapon of Mass Destruction. He represents UN-help. Too bad he is fascinated with tools, especially MY tools. I thought he was taking a nice loooong nap next to my jeweler's bench... until I heard some small clunking sounds. The awful vision that popped into my mind's eye proved true: He had removed ALL my tools (half of them had just arrived as a Christmas present from me to me) & had lined them up in various places all around the room. Some places were so small that Grandma could no longer fit to get them!


Let me say 2 things about that "help" -- 1) Miles heard a tone in my voice he'd never heard before (suspect the neighbors heard it, too, AND 2) I still haven't found my favorite file or my sweet 2-in-1 rouge cloth. UGH!!!!!!!!