Top 5 Things of Joyfulness

I should write about what brings me unfiltered, child-like joy. So here are my top 5 things:

1.  When a customer or friend finds the perfect piece of jewelry.

Being an artist that caters to the public isn’t always an easy feat. While my designs aren’t meant to be trendy, I still have my share of insecurities. It really hit me when I started metal stamping. It’s so unique, it’s hard to really know who’s going to like it. To combat those feelings, I stared making personalized tags to give as a gift since it’s so personalized. And when I started, I was burning a lot of angst with every blow of my hammer. But nothing gives me more satisfaction as an artist when I find the perfect home for my jewelry. The black tourmaline from my crazy pirate rock lady has become a real hit lately. The necklace I’ve dubbed as the “vindictive karma” necklace did its job when I lent and eventually sold it to a friend. Her office had some nasty energy in the elevator and the black tourmaline made it run away. After that, I’ve had so many inquiries for it, I had to ask my crazy pirate rock lady if she has anymore. She’s in India right now, hopefully scoring tons and tons of kilos of rough stones waiting to become polished and beads.

2.  Being called “Hui Hui”

Backstory: My dad named me after him, so my entire family (immediate and extended family on both sides) calls me “Hui Hui” to differentiate me from my dad.

Honestly, only my husband and best friend from college call me “Hui Hui” and it just warms my heart and feels like home. It’s different when your “new” family calls you something your blood family has called you for your whole life. It makes me squee.

Yes, that is exactly why I decided to name my jewelry business “Hui Hui Designs”.

3.  My New Family

Getting married and being a mom has been so profound, it’s still a bit shocking that I have both. I should be used to it by now, but on a mental level, it’s still such a trip. But there are moments when I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. My husband adores me and my little baby is so smart and growing up so fast with each passing day. I am blessed to be able to have the quality time to spend with him during these fleeting and precious days.

Our lives are one big adventure, which is exactly what I wanted when we were discussing the possibility of getting married. We’re never that boring old married couple with a baby. The spark that made people gag with cuteness and jealousy still shines bright and the baby just adds to it. We’re a team with a very exciting future ahead of us. It’s wonderful to be so happy and I still jump up and down and squee while doing my happy clap.

4.  Flexing My Creative Muscle

The journey of an artist is never ending and full of opportunities to learn something new. One of the newest lessons I’ve learned is that you can’t control where the muse will take you. You can only help guide it before it fully takes over to find its true north. I’ve learned to analyze my creative process so I know when the muse takes over and I just run with it. It’s so liberating to be able to create so freely. Of course, I can only do this when I’ve gotten enough sleep, the baby is napping, and the apartment is calm. But finally being able to acknowledge how it all works is wonderful.  Someday, I’ll have more space so everything I need is directly at my fingertips.  Wire, chains, rings, everything.  I’ve already found my dream desk.  Next is to find a bigger apartment or a house.

5.  Spending Time with Friends

Last weekend was the best weekend I’ve had for awhile.  It started on Thursday when we met up with my east coast friends who were in town for the seatbelt bag limited edition release party.  Yeah, we’re a bunch of purse dorks, but hey, these silly purses brought us together.   She came to my wedding and her husband got Swiss chocolate coins from Geneva for my party favors.  That’s how awesome they are.  ;)  Saturday was the actual event and it was nice to see all my bag ladies.  I’ve been so preoccupied with the baby, but I was determined to get out and party.  Which we did.  One bag lady even traveled from West Virginia between her chemo treatments.  It was awesome meeting her and I’m so happy I got to spend time with her over lunch.  I loaned her my Perfect Ring for strength so she can beat the cancer and come back to CA for another awesome visit.  Check out her Facebook Page and drop her a line of support.  She started with lung cancer that has spread to her spine and brain.  But she’s a tough cookie and she’ll beat it back down into remission.

Now that I’m a married woman and mother, my time is worth more than it used to.  With that said, I only spend time with the people who warm my heart and are worth the time I could be spending with my family or sleeping.  Priorities change with martial status and age.  At least I know that my 30′s will never have a dull moment and my time won’t be wasted.  :D

Grounded

I’ve been working on the floor this week. I just figured out why. Hui.1 is trying to roll over but he hasn’t quite figured out how to roll over from his back to his tummy. He can sometimes roll from his tummy to his back, but he has to be in the right mood for it. Since he’s either on the floor or playing on his gym, he’s down there and I need to be down there next to him too. So I’ve been working on the floor. I feel like a little kid again. I also had Jesse.1 lounging all over the apartment floor for the week she was here, so that also has something to do with it.

I’ve been diligently working on my Rock on a Rope collection. I feel that this is the year of “understated elegance”. Something that can be used for both causal, lazy days and that extra bit of something special for more dressier occasions. We’re busy women, taking over the world and taking care of everyone but ourselves. Some women can’t afford a huge piece of bling and I get that. That’s why this collection is so dear to me. It’s just enough femininity and practicality rolled into a tiny package. And those modern day rock hounds can appreciate my love of obscure, rough stones.

So come on, get your rock on.

A Rorabaugh Christmas

This is Jesse’s favorite grandma.  I call her his favorite grandma because he lights up when he’s with her and he spent a lot of time helping her as a kid.  She’s pretty awesome.  I gave her this awesome necklace of iolite and tanzanite stones from my crazy pirate rock lady because I had to make something special and try to keep the beads together.  I think she would approve.

If you’re ever in the Central Valley, specifically Modesto or Patterson, check out Sunblest Orchards for the best dried fruits and snacks ever.  The best is probably her apricot chili pepper sauce (be sure to get the HOT one for a good kick), mix it with some cream cheese, and spread it over some artisan bread for an epic snack.

Vintage Faire Mall Farmers Market, Modesto – Sundays 9 am – 2 pm

Patterson Farmers Market- True Value Shopping Center-Wednesday 4-8 pm

Downtown Plaza Street Faire & Farmers Market, Brenden Theatre, Modesto-Friday 4-8 pm

This is Jesse’s great grandma and grandpa.  It boggles my mind that he still has a great grandma.  Actually, both paternal great grandmas are alive and still kickin’.  But we only visited this one because the other one is dudded “Granny Grump”.  I got Great Grandma’s fudge recipe.  I should try to make it with Jesse.1 and then call her to tell her we made it and how wonderful it is.  That would make an old lady smile.  Someday I’ll figure out logistics to get Jesse.1 to visit these Grandmas.  And get those rough tourmalines to Grandpa to play with… he polishes and cuts rocks, whoo hoo!  Yeah, I’m the only one who appreciates his rock hounding.  He gave me a chunk of rock from the “Motherlode” mine with gold veins the first time I met him back in May, and then he gave me another chunk to give to Hui.1 when he’s older.  Guess he also knows I’m the only one who appreciates his rocks.

Energy

Spent the day with my two oldest friends.  It was magical.

We haven’t hung out exclusively as the three of us since the weekend before my wedding, as we were stuffing my wedding favors and pigging out on pizza and this crazy pizza bread chocolate dessert thingy from Domino’s.  We were also watching some movie with Cher and Christina Aguilera… don’t remember the name, but it was surprisingly decent.  Sahara had probably one of the worst pregnancies in history and spent the entire pregnancy throwing up almost everything except french fries.  It was not a good time for her and she missed three weddings.  The first wedding, she was in the hospital for dehydration, the second wedding, she was having contractions, and around my wedding, baby was hanging out in the birth canal, but didn’t come out until almost two weeks later.  2011 was a roller coaster year for all of us, so I feel that it’s safe to say that we haven’t all synced together like we did today in at least two years.  That was the magical part of the day.

Sahara and Kandle are far better mystics than I am, even though I still have a lot to figure out; mostly what exactly my skills are.  Kandle is Queen of stone energies, while Sahara reads auras.  They dubbed me “Klingon Warship” because I shield so much that they can’t read any energy off of me.  Kandle has a better time with me because she sets her energy radar on whatever my frequency is, but it’s still far fetched because it’s so low.  It’s interesting that after all these years, they finally DO feel something off of me, but they’re sensing the baby, not me.  I was very amused by this, but Kandle did mention that Hui.1 should have a very strong water element, considering that he punched holes through my shields so they could sense him.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens after I give birth… will my shields go back to normal or will the holes still be there?

As far as my skills go, my “Spidey” sense for picking out the stones with good energy is innate.  I just do it.  If a strand of beads doesn’t “speak” to me, I set it down and leave it alone.  If it makes me go “Ooo”, it’s a good strand.  My Crazy Pirate Rock Lady had a small strand of rubies and I just could not set it down.  It so came home with me.  So yeah, innate rock sense.  I’ve toyed with water scrying a bit (duh, super duper water element here), and the only thing I got out of it is that I need to be bellydancing in order to stay creative with my jewelry.  Which is true, even though I haven’t been dancing since Sashi left for her Summer Down Under Tour.  I’m extremely sensitive to negative energy, though.  Enough that any taste of it makes my skin crawl and I want to run away screaming.

Today was nice because it felt normal.  Normal as in the three of us are happy and syncing together.  The only explanation I have for this phenomenon is that there’s nothing significantly stressing any of us out that’s taking away from that happy, “la la la” energy.  It was a genuine happy to be together energy and it was nice.  It gives me hope that no matter where life takes us, we can still come together and commune like usual. ♥

I have to do some research, but Hui.1 has made an interesting twist in my selection of stones this year.  I’ve been seriously craving tourmaline of all colors (mostly multicolored but still, it’s been one heck of a year for tourmaline), iolite, aqaumarine, charoite, garnet, sunstone, and moonstone.  Oh, and I prefer things that are BLUE.  My favorite maternity dresses are blue (and a purple one because it’s comfy and beats the So Cal heat).  Geez, I feel like a Smurf.  But I wonder what this baby is trying to tell me with all these stones…

Pasadena Bead and Design Show Recap

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, Pasadena is my happy place.  My entire family has been in love with Pasadena for over 40 years.  I have no idea what the draw is, but it’s definitely magical.  Mom’s family settled there before moving to Orange County, she and Dad courted there, and even I fell in love with it as I came into adulthood.

When I arrived in Glendale to meet up with Allison and her mom, I was treated to homemade KFC fried chicken.  Allison had been marinating the chicken in her secret sauce for 2 whole days.  Eating it fresh out of the frying pan was a real treat.  Hui.1 and I were very pleased with the quantity of protein and just a hint of flouring for the outside.  They made it especially for me, since they usually coat it in flour twice, but this batch only had one coating.  Once we finally made it out the door, we stopped at the donut shop for some naughty treats (hey, I only ate HALF of my donut that day), and made our way down the 134 to the Pasadena Hilton.

First stop was the Crazy Pirate Rock Lady, who was thrilled to find me expecting and how well I carry the baby.  I said having gestational diabetes has helped me keep off any excessive baby weight, which is pretty true considering how difficult it is to gain weight from limited carbs and a plentiful amount of protein.  Crazy Pirate Rock Lady had a blast quizzing Allison’s mom about all the different kinds of stones she had, because she has the craziest stash you could ever imagine.  I’m still drooling over the color changing garnets (she was down to her last 2 strands), but I don’t think it could handle 26g wire and it makes me nervous working on anything that requires 26g wire unless it’s earrings.  I have to say the best loot from her this round was the goregous strand of Goeshite, 3 pieces of sparkly golden green apatite, and a very special strand of iolite and tanzanite.  I promised her I would keep the iolite and tanzanite together since she wanted that particular strand to go to a special home. ♥

After we were finished with the Crazy Pirate Rock Lady, we circled the rest of the room and then headed directly to our next favorite vendor with some really AMAZING multicolor tourmaline.  These tourmaline beads came from these guys…

I ended up getting 3 strands… 1 with some awesomely large tourmaline beads (great for focals), 1 that’s a great size for more rock on a rope necklaces, and 1 very special strand of sliced watermelon tourmaline in bead form.  I’ve already put away the other two strands, but I haven’t had the heart to cut the slices yet.  I need to separate out the pairs that would make awesome earrings first.  Still waiting for that moment of, “alright, I’m going to do this!”

After that stop, I decided to sit out the next room and settled at the little Starbucks to finish off the baggie of fried chicken and cantaloupe.  People watching was pretty fun and the couple sitting next to me were very friendly and even offered me a bite of their chocolate cupcake, which was apparently the last one.  I politely declined and eventually made my way back to Allison and her mom.  They were drooling over the wire wrapped stone pendants and the artist was really awesome, interacting with both of them and talking about all of her drool worthy stones.

In the next big room over, I came across my other rock vendor whom I’ve dubbed as my “Mongolian rock people” because the husband has the look of a skinny Mongolian warrior.  Hehee.  It turned out that their daughter’s best friend was my wedding photographer.  I was chatting with the wife about the baby and the Chinese seclusion and customs for postpartum.  It’s weird, but after she said the same things my mom said, yeah, I’m seriously going to be a cow for the first month.  At least it’ll be nice to stay home and mostly in bed.  According to the blog link, a lot of the food on there is stuff Jesse puts in his salsa… I foresee him making a run to Superior for chips and salsa supplies.  Hehehe.  I need to remind him if his family leave is fully paid or not.  But it sounds like he gets a pretty good deal for 6 weeks of working for 2 days a week, then spending the other 3 days at home.  I bought some square kyanite beads that will make great earrings and necklaces (maybe an infinity necklace), some awesome grossular garnets I just couldn’t put down, and more sunstone.  She always gives me a better price than what’s marked, so whoo hoo!  It’s always nice to see them at all the bead shows I go to.  Hopefully one of their kids will keep the business running, or else I’m going to be really sad!

Eventually, we made our way back to the Crazy Pirate Rock Lady for Round 2 and meeting up with a friend whom we befriended at the last Pasadena show.  It was fun, we got to meet her wife and son.  Her son was really shy even though he was completely enthralled with pregnant women.  Beautiful family and we all bought more rocks.  Here’s a shot of all of my rock loot.  I forgot to include the glass beads I got from Grace…

Finally, we made it to the last room, which was also the main room of the show.  Yeesh, it was already 2-something by then. We wandered around and I found a chair to sit in because my feet were getting zonked.  The highlight of this trip and it’s crowning glory was when Allison’s mom found a lucky Chinese dangle of BOK CHOY.  She bought one for me and one to share between her and Allison.  We were laughing hysterically over the fact that it was bok choy.  Even the guy selling it to her was impressed she knew what it was… the pitfalls of being Caucasian and marrying Asian, I suppose.  So yes, this was the epitome of our adventure.

The last stop was seeing all the pretty shiny glass beads from Grace.  As I’ve said before, Grace is a former Computer Engineer gone artist.  She’s awesome and makes awesome beads.  We were jumping up and down in the aisle in front of her booth because of the baby and all that.  It must have been a sight to be seen.  Hehehe.  She gave me a free heart bead for the baby.  Of course, after I carefully picked out all of the beads I wanted.  I was very selective because I’ve hoarded so many of her beads but haven’t used them enough to justify the cost of owning so many and not making/selling enough jewelry with them.  Someday, I will find the perfect equation for it… I have a perfect bracelet design down, now for the rest…

The original plan was to stop at the Scarlet Tea Room for tea and snacks, but the kitchen closes at 4pm to get ready for dinner.  That was disappointing, but we found a cute little coffee and chocolate shop closer to the parking structure.  We took inventory of our loot while sipping our tea.  I love cute little café’s like that. ♥

All and all, an awesome day with awesome company.  Complete with rocks and bok choy.

This morning, Jesse picked up my strand of bok choy (it lives on the Brita pitcher that sits on the table.  I want to attach house bells to it), giggled, and shook his head at me.  He agrees it is the epitome of this Pasadena adventure.

Ooo, Rocks!

Last night I decided to bust out my stone boxes full of iolite, sunstone, and tourmaline.  The idea was to make more earrings, but that idea didn’t pan out.  I did end up going back to work on my “Rock on a Rope” collection.  This weekend, I hope to take photos and start listing them on Etsy.  I also need to calculate the prices too.  I’m hoping this will be a more affordable collection, because I want everyone from any walk of life to be able to purchase a stone that speaks to them.  This collection is also a way of introducing stones and their energy properties to the masses.  It’s also been a good way for me to freshen up on my stone studies.  I just happened to buy a stone book for my Kindle.  That’ll be more helpful than lugging around my favorite stone book everywhere.  I’ll have a baby to lug around in 2 months and a bit.  Yikes.  It’s scary how time flies.

From the left, prehnite, rough watermelon tourmaline, rose quartz, larimar, and pink tourmaline.

From the left, iolite, sunstone, iolite-sunstone waiting for their chainmaille bit and chain. ♥

Sporting my iolite and sunstone necklace with iolite-sunstone focal bead.  Of course, the focal bead is from my crazy pirate rock lady.  And I really don’t look pregnant from the chest up.  Hehehe.

Ooo, Kyanite

Woke up hungry so I had some peanut butter and milk… then decided to make a scramble on Jesse’s cast iron pan.  OMG, perfect scramble pan!!!

I made earrings this morning, after having a dream about driving to New Mexico and passing by a mountain range with rocks growing out of the ground like giant mushrooms.  I was like, “Hey, we should look for my crazy pirate rock lady” but never found her.  Maybe caught a glimpse of her, if she had dyed her hair a lighter shade of brown, almost blonde.  Random pregnant dream.  After dwelling on that dream, I decided to bust out my blue green kyanites and do something with them.  They work best on 26g wire, which is such a pain to work with on anything other than earrings.  Hopefully the bigger stones are better drilled so I can at least make 1 necklace out of it.  But here are the little pretties from this morning.  Not sure if I like the design or not.

Kyanite is typically a blue stone, but it also comes in orange, black, and indigo.  I think these are closer to indigo, but they definitely have a blue green tint to them.  I couldn’t see it clearly under my lights at the apartment, but once I got outside and under the sun, they are actually really gorgeous.  Kyanite is believed to open and align all of the chakras, which is nice if you have any that are blocked.  Apparently I need to work on my root chakra.  Kyanite also does not need to be cleansed because it doesn’t retain any negative energy.  That’s always a plus, especially for us noobs who don’t know how to cleanse stones properly.  Honestly, I like to toss them into the tumbler for a good polish for the metal and cleansing for the stones.  No idea if it works or not, but the intention is there.