Last Post of The Year

Cannot believe it's New Year's Eve already! This year went by really fast. So, what have I accomplished in the past year? Will continue this once I finish the list, it's probably a very short list! But tell me first what you are going to do tonight. This? (I found this picture on blog Photography.)
Oh, this?And this?

Oh, we are having a white New Year's Eve. The snow is coming down rather fast, and I heard we suppose to get 8" this time. I have to work now, because of the deadline. So, I will chat more tonight or tomorrow.

Problem With The Thermostat

This winter we have been having problem with our heaters on the first floor. Sometimes the rooms are freezing cold, while the thermostat keeps telling me its more than 70F! At first, I thought something must be wrong with my furnace, but the second floor (different zone) is perfectly fine. Then I thought it could be problem with the first floor thermostat, since it reads the temperature so high, higher than the temp I set, so the heaters just won't start. We even thought about calling some plumber or someone else to service the furnace and check on that thermostat. But then it works just fine sometimes. It was really frustrating, we had to wrap up in blankets to watch TV. Then last Sat. suddenly a light went on in my head! It's the new TV! We bought this big LCD TV several months ago, and we put it where our old TV was, which is right under the thermostat. But this new TV generate more heat, so behind it is another zone! The thermostat read that temperature, and thinks the whole first floor is that warm. Finally we found the reason. But how should we fix it? That's the only place in our small living room where we can put the TV, and we really don't want to call in a electrician to move the thermostat. Then DH just popped up a great idea (this has never happened before), we can put a shelf on the wall, above the TV, to block the heat from reaching the thermostat. What an excellent idea! He has no idea about house and decorations at all, he didn't know those shelves called floating shelf, but I think this is the best suggestion he has given me. So, now I am on a shelf hunt, try to find the perfect size and color. There are so many out there, and so many ways to arrange them. I like the color in this first picture, it matches our other furniture in that room, but I will probably arrange them like the other two pictures. They look more interesting.

Pictures for Last Post

Here are the pictures of my train station. It was decorated for the polar express train the Sun before.

Xmas Gifting

Xmas for us, is just another reason to party, for me, it's another reason to get some cute decorations. We don't really celebrate it, so not much gift giving. But I was surprised by my manager Marie, and my best friend Jackie yesterday. Marie made some really good brownies, and two homemade soaps. They smelled really good, one was green, the other was pink, and they both had some lavender flowers in them. And Jackie gave me a set of Russian dolls! Since she bought them in China, they are decorated like chinese/japanese girls instead. Oh, I really love them. I will post their pics here as soon as I get my camera back from DH. Oh, there were lots of decoration at my train station, because the Polar Express was there on Sun. I took some pics on Monday, but well, you just have to wait unitl I get my camera back.

And yesterday, I suddenly realized we have never decorated our office for Xmas! What were we thinking? But we are in a hospital, and there are lots of rules. We probably could do something that won't piss off the hospital management. Well, it's already Xmas Eve. most of people took today off. So, maybe next year. Here are some fun office decoration I found online, they are a little bit over the top, we will try something simpler next year.

Hilarious Xmas Pic and Great Closet Organizing

Yesterday, I found a really funny Xmas picture on one of my favorite blog MakingItLovely. Nicole and her DH are expecting their first baby, and she is about 5 or 6 months pregnant now. In the picture, they stood side by side in front of their gorgeous window, next to their cute little Xmas tree. Her DH has the funniest hairdo, and he was making faces, while using his hands touching his and her belly. And frankly I think his belly is bigger than hers! At first I didn't even see their dog, because he has similar color as the curtain and carpet, and his back was facing the camera. He was staring at them, as if he was saying "what are you two up to now?". It's just so hilarious, you got to see it. Just click the link at the beginning of this post.

And then I scrolled down and found one of the most beautiful and well organized closet/wardrobe. Nicole made her Ikea wardrobe so lovely, it's every girl's dream come true. And I really like all the colors of her dresses and shoes. Oh, you have to check out her drawer of accesseries. She made me want to redo my closet. Well, it's on my long to-do list now. My DH will probably beg me to stop reading these fabulous blogs soon. Haha! :o)

The Big Storm is Finally Over, Right?

The snow lasted three days. DH tried to shovel the snow on Sat. It took him more than 2 hours! So, yesterday, he finally agreed to take the snow blower out of the basement. What a difference! He cleaned the entire driveway within one hour, including the big piles pushed in by the trucks. But he was not careful enough, and destroyed my Xmas lights, which was hanging too low and covered by snow. Well, no more sparkles before Xmas! :( Here are some pictures I took this morning, it was freezing cold, but really beautiful.

One of the reasons we love orchids is they, well most of them, always bloom in winter. When it's so cold and gray outside, and everything else went dormant, you can always depend on your orchids to add some much needed color to your life. Oh, the other great thing about orchid is their flowers last very very long, from 1 month to 6 month, sometimes even longer. Here are some new pics of my Lc. Little Marmaid 'Janet', and a couple of AK's phal.

Snow Emergency?

A big one is coming! I had to come into the city because of a doc apointment, but probably will leave around lunchtime. Just hope last year's mess won't repeat itself. Last Dec. 13th, we had a very wet storm, everyone left work around 2pm trying to avoid it. But the road condition and visibility was so bad, entire boston area was deadlocked. Nobody could move, lots of smaller cars stucked in the muddy snow, or slided into each other. Most of the windshield wipers broke because of the heavy sticky icy snow. DH spent 4 hours on highway, which is normally a 25 minute drive. My trainride was not bad, but I had to wait 3hr for him to pick me up. And from the train station to my house, the 10 minute drive took us more than 1 hour. I was walking in deep snow, besides the car, half the time, trying to clean the windshield with the ice scraper. Most of people were stucked on the way home for 5 hours. And there were some poor kids stucked on their school bus longer than that, I think some of them finally got home after 9pm, they left school around 2pm! They were scared and hungry. So, hope this time we will do better.
Oh yeah, last night, I waited for one and a half hour at my train station! DH said I95 was so bad, they were moving slower than snails. And he didn't see any accident or broke down cars. Just one of those crazy traffic days. At least today, I have one of my favorite magazine with me.
Good luck everyone!

BTW, we watched the NCAA women's volleyball semifinals last night. Stanford and Penn State won the games, but very tough, both played 5 games, and won by just a little bit. I played volleyball for 8 years in highschool and college, and our team was the champion in our province. I haven't really played for about 10 years, but whenever I watch a good match, I always jump around, screaming, very excited. The final will be tonight, we won't miss it for the world.

My Lc. Little Marmaid "Janet", and some organizing ideas

This first flower finally opened up on Monday! It took about 3 days to open, but it definitely worth the wait. Now the second one is opened up as well. Just hope they can last a little bit longer than my pink Oncidium (the one in the background).

And our friends Z&R just bought their first house. Yay! It's a 1960 house, in a absolutely wonderful neighborhood. They are going to do lots of renovation before moving in. Yeah, who want those ugly pink tiles, pink sink, pink bathtub, pink toilet, and awful and moldy wallpaper in their bathroom? The previous owner kept it the original way, which is not very space efficient to me. Z&R have no experience dealing with a house, and they are not very handy. So R turned to me for help. I was thrilled. I went to check out their house already, and took all my favorite magazine and books off the shelf, and started designing on my little notebook. They hired some contractor to redo the bathroom, so I don't need to worry about that one. So, my concentration is on the kitchen, dining room, living room, bedrooms, etc, basically all the rest of the space. I was looking for inspiration for closet organization, and found some really good ones. They have a pretty tight budget, so those store bought sets will work perfectly. Here is a great blog post from I'm An Organizing Junkie. I think these will take care of all the bedroom closets and the one in the foyer. They also have a very weird and narrow closet space on the second floor, right inside the bathroom. I think I know what to do with it, just need to get some measurements. I will scan some of my favorite pics from my magazines, and send them to her tomorrow. Oh, I even designed their basement laundry room! Man, I am so excited! Their house is going to be one of my "masterpiece"! If they let me do it my way, of course! What? A girl can dream! It won't hurt anybody!

Oh, I also found this wonderful blog, A Passion For Scrapbooking, Decorating, and Shopping. Since I am designing all closets for Z&R, and they are both shorter, and they also have two 5-yr-olds, twin boy and girl, I can borrow lots of Jeanette's ideas. I love her step stools idea,her laundry room,her master bathroom closet, and her linen closet. Don't these pretty, and perfectly organized closets just sing to you? Maybe I am hearing things. :o)

I See Butterfly

I made this set for my friend a while ago, and really like the way the butterfly looked. So, this weekend, I made 4 of these butterfly necklaces. I put the green one in my shop yesterday, and planned to put the other 3 online today. But before I even settled down in my office, my friend bought the purple one! Guess everyone just love the purple. I will make another purple butterfly later, but has to be with a different bead. I only got two of these among all the gorgeous beads I bought from BrookO last time. OK, here are the pictures.
Oh, here is another fun story. Someone bought the new black and silver Phoenix Tail knot bracelet over the weekend. At first I thought I have to send it oversea to UK, then I saw the "message to seller". Apperantly this is a "Secret Santa" gift! I will send it directly to his friend at CT, and I think the most fun part is that person won't be able to guess who sent it, because the sender's address is mine, and the handwriting on the card is mine as well. HaHa! We can keep him guessing for months! I am so happy to be involved in such a fun game. I bought these cute notecards from Michaels several weeks ago, and finally got to use at least one of them. Oh, sorry about the shine on the card and the box, I forgot to turn off the two top lights.

Progress Report

I promised to keep you up to date with my blooming/budding orchids. And here are some newest pictures. This first one is my Lc. Little Marmaid "Janet". This flower started to open early this morning, and look how big it is in just 3 short hours! And it's still only half opened.
These two are my pink Oncidium. There are total 5 spikes, and 2 already empty. Even with the humidifier and frequent misting, it's still too dry for it. So the flowers last pretty short period, only a couple of weeks.
And the first flower on this Dendrobium is half opened as well. Look at that rich color!

More Sales

Just sold these 3 to one of my favorite customer. I am very happy that she liked this new earring. I think lots of modern ladies really like the black and silver combination. The phoenix tail knot bracelet I made with the same colors were sold twice, to two ladies, even though I originally made them for guys. This combination is really neutral, and classy.

I really like how this hand model looks. Because it's frosted glass, it can really bring out the colors of the bracelet. These two bracelets are for kids. I didn't have to pictures to post last time, so here they are.

Busy Night

I have been taking some rest after my last show, so haven't made as much new items as before. But last night, I found myself working in my basement "studio" very productively. I made some zipperpulls (custom order), a necklace (custom order), and several pairs of earrings. Plus the kid size bracelets I made the night before, there are so many listings need to be done today. But you guys can preview them right here, right now.
I didn't have time to take pictures of the other two kid's bracelets. So, you guys will just have to wait. Oh, I got my newest shippment from NILE. I bought all my displays, boxes, some materials from them, very satisfied with the products, and their fast shippment. One of my customer really loved the panchang knot necklace with the jade fish, which was sold 5 month ago. I finally found the identical jade fish at NILE, so I ordered it. And of course, you know me, just like every girls out there, we can never just buy the things we wanted. I ended up buying some other displays and boxes. I need a hand model to showcase my bracelets, since I don't know how to pose my hand gracefully, and my skin always very dry. See, I have my excuses. I love how this one looks, even though it's a little bit smaller than I thought, I think it will work.
And I bought a set (4) earring stands. The ones I bought before have those black velvet base, which is very professional, but not as fun. So, I ordered these acrylic block based set, I think they look great on colorful background.