A Sand Dollar Face Lift

So Jonathan survived his first mini exam.  He did really well!  They haven't received their official scores yet, but he feels good about it.  One of his classmates, Michelle Dalida, made the comment that there is nothing mini about this exam.  Certainly not the amount of studying and preparation that went in!  So thank goodness it's done.  He's 1/3 of the way done with the semester now!  1 down 2 to go...

In the meantime, Michelle Wells is back!!!  Woohoo!  It's been lonely during the week since she's been in Indiana, but it's also been kind of good for me.  It's forced me to focus on ADKOF stuff.  But it is SO good for her to be back.  My tan is already 2 shades darker just from the sun time with her since Wednesday!  We went out to Banana Bay Thursday (we haven't been there since the week before classes started!).  We have both been searching for sand dollars as long as we've been here.  Matt has found a sea biscuit and three sand dollars and we haven't found any!  Until Thursday.  Kim (a co-worker that came back with Michelle for a few days) was walking around out in the ocean and then just nonchalantly says "There's a sand dollar."  Michelle and I freaked!  So I grabbed it up.  Here's what it looked like straight out of the ocean:

I probably wouldn't have even noticed it at all because it was almost chocolate brown.  It had a cool little green patch on it too.  The tiny little spikes on the outside were moving really subtly which totally freaked Michelle out.  We brought it home and put it in some bleach.  Here's what I woke up to this morning!

It's so gorgeous isn't it!  The three that Matt found are bleaching now but they're already looking really cool.  But I have to say that if I wasn't obsessed about finding sand dollars before, I certainly am now!  Of course now the question is gonna be how the heck am I gonna get these things home??  I guess I'm gonna have to be creative...

Chemo Kumihimo

The word kumihimo might be foreign to some of you, but the word chemo probably is not lost on many.  Yes, my dear sweet mother-in-law Bernice started her chemotherapy today.  This will be a fairly long process and it will be grueling.  She gets 3 treatments a week on 6 different weeks with 2 weeks of "rest" in between.  For any normal person, the prospect of chemotherapy might have them riddled with anxiety.  I picture most chemo patients showing up for treatment (each treatment lasts SEVERAL hours...) in sweat pants or jammies.  I know I would!  But not my Bernice.  Here's what our beauty queen decided to wear today in her first quest to kick cancer's butt:

Stretchy pants? No.  Jammies? No.  Matching ensemble, rad new jewelry, and make up? Yep!  That's Bernice.  She is fully embracing the idea that the better you feel going into it, the better you'll feel coming out.  And nothing makes a girl feel better than dressing up! (and yes, she's sporting a new ADKOF design!)  I'm so proud of her.  I told her she looks like a picture straight out of a magazine.  So much so, in fact, that I'm considering sending it into some sort of photo competition about cancer research or something.  My prayers for her the past few weeks have been that she would be able to tap into that inner strength that she possesses.  Though she is a warrior...a tiger...the reality of cancer and chemo has of course been weighing heavily on her.  But she has tapped into that strength!  If you're of the praying persuasion, would you pray for her too?  She has that silent soldier instinct and today she went into battle dressed to the 9's.  If only we all had a piece of the strength that she has!

So where does the "kumihimo" come in??  Well, there is a technique that I have started using in making my jewelry.  It's an oriental braid called, you guessed it, kumihimo.  You braid on a loom that looks like this:

It's a semi-complicated process, but the pieces are so beautiful when they come out.  Here's an example of one of the ones I've made:

So Bernice has decided that during her 4-6 hour chemo sessions she is going to take advantage of the time by "kumihimoing" while she's "chemoing".  Effectively...chemo kumihimo!  She's so funny because the word kumihimo is a little difficult to say (I'm sure some of you have stumbled over it yourselves in this post!), and she mixes it up and calls it kumihomo which I think is pretty hilarious.  

Bernice goes in for her second chemo session on Friday, so I'm continuing to pray that she taps into that inner strength.  But so far, I have to say she's incredibly inspiring.  7 weeks post surgery (where she had 8 organs removed) and now approaching chemotherapy, you just would never guess it to look at that picture!  I'm so proud of her.  I keep telling Jonathan that when we finally get to come home in 10 weeks it;s going to be amazing to see her because when we left, she was still in the hospital recovering from surgery.  When we return she'll almost be done with her chemo and she'll be on the downhill slope!  I'm so blessed to call her family!

Small Victories!

Well yesterday I went on a marathon cab ride with the famous and reliable Tyrone.  I had some serious errands to run around town and had basically no idea where I needed to go to accomplish those things.  My goals:

1) Ship my massive ADKOF merchandise collection that I've been slaving over for the last 3 weeks
2) Pay my power bill
3) Go grocery shopping
4) Fax some paperwork to TRS
5) Go to the casino to withdraw some cash

So I called Tyrone and told him I needed a chauffeur and he was more than willing to oblige.  Let me preface this whole saga by telling you that I fully intended to be blowing a massive amount of money on all of these endeavors.  I had prepared myself to be out close to $600 by the time my day was said and done.   If you're having a heart attack right now, you're not alone.  I actually had trouble sleeping on Monday night because I was stressing about the financial stroke that was impending...

So here we go:
7:30-After having stayed up until after 2:00 AM the night before, Jonathan and I slept in on accident!  So we had a "Home Alone" moment, tore out of bed, and somehow miraculously he was able to catch his bus ride at 7:36!  Phew!!  After he left, I frantically tryed to finish up my last jewelry pieces, package them, and get ready to leave.
11:30-Tyrone picks me up at my house.  I have been literally tearing my apartment to shreds searching for my BOA card.  I paid bills with it just the other day and now I can't seem to find it.  UGH!  It's gotta be here somewhere! Our Mission:

-Go to campus to give Jonathan the TRS forms to fax and get his BOA card
-Bounce from shipping company to shipping company to find the best deal
-Go to Bahama Electric Company to pay my bill
-Drop me by the grocery store

The Shipping Saga:
Usually it costs us about $50 to mail an envelope size piece of mail.  Yes, that's no typo.  $50!! So I was fully prepared to pay upwards of $150-200 to mail this massive box of jewelry.  We go to like 3 places, and finally end up at FedEx.  Hold onto your hats kids...it only cost me $61 AND it's due to get there TODAY!  Moral of the story: If you're gonna ship something, go big or go home.  Cuz 11 more dollars ships an entire box of goodies...

The BEC Saga:
I have been budgeting $280 a month for our electric bills.  Again, that's no typo.  I've been told sometimes it costs upwards of $300-350 monthly to power an apartment.  So yes, $280 to power my one bedroom bungalow seemed unreasonably reasonable.  And we tried to keep the AC on low and keep our power usage to a minimum.  I go to the power company and it takes FOREVER for them to pull up my account.  You see, there are no traditional "addresses" around here.  It's very weird.  So pulling up the account was a hassle.  It pulls up and survey says.......$193!!!  Woohoo!!  Sad that I'm excited about my power bill here being twice as much as my power bill at my 2100 square foot house in Houston, but it basically means that I've found like $100 a month!!  Doesn't get much better than that when you're skrimping to begin with...

Why Tyrone is The Man:
Generally an all day chauffeur complete with service to Timbuktu (which I received today) runs you about $70+.  Again, don't stroke out.  I was prepared for it!  So Tyrone drops me off, helps me unload my groceries into the apartment, and when I ask him how much I owe he says "Just give me $40 love.".  Wha????  I was like "That's it??" and he says "We were a team today man!  You made my day!".  What a great guy.  He is BY FAR my favorite Bahamian.  For so many reasons other than his generosity yesterday...

So yes, small victories.  I was expecting to spend $600 and I finished my day at the low low cost of $359!  So yes, it's still steep, but I'll take it.  A $359 stroke is much less serious than a $600 stroke any day...

Don' Worry Be Happy Mon!
Rach

Bugs from Outer Space...

So many many things to write about tonight!  I'll pare it down and maybe write about the rest of it later. Just to keep you guys on your toes!  Let me start with my wonderful hubby's news!  He had his last quiz before his first mini final (which happens this Friday) today.  His text to me after it was over was "I totally nailed that quiz!".  Without disclosing his scores to everyone (believe you me...I totally would, but he hates that...), he basically came as close to acing a quiz as you can come in medical school!  Incredible.  Jonathan is probably one of the most studious people I've ever known.  Certainly more so than me.  I always managed to pull okay to good grades, but studying was NEVER my forte!  Jonathan, on the other hand, is REALLY good at that.  This weeks quiz included material concerning the cranial nerve system (VERY complicated and intricate), blood typing (which he tried to explain to me yesterday and I thought my head was going to explode I was so confused), and several other things like all the intricacies of viruses like HIV and what not.  And THIS is the week he basically aced a quiz!  So stinkin proud of him...I'm sure you can't tell...

Last week for me entailed working my little tail end off on A Different Kind of Flair stuff.  Right now I have 34 pieces that are slated to be shipped to my sister-in-law Nicole tomorrow morning.  So yes, my little fingers have been worked to the bone!  But I'm so excited about the new product.  I feel like we are evolving as a company and it's really exciting (and I have to say impressive) to see!  Nicole and I had another "marathon Skype" session today (it was close to 4 hours I think in all) and there's still so much to do in order to be prepared for our September 21st Launch Party!  Whew.  Running an online business is much more complicated than it seems!

I have to give you a little island story now too.  Since, you know, I'm here in the Bahamas.  I want you to get the full picture of what it's like here.  Friday night we had a "Dominica moment".  By that I mean we had a little tiny glimpse into a certain aspect of life in Dominica according to the people who are there now (for those of you who don't know...we are only here in Freeport for one semester and then we're headed down to Dominica in the West Indies for 4 semesters...).  Instead of first describing this "moment" I thought maybe I should share a picture with you guys...

Yep.  I spotted it as we were walking up the sidewalk to the front door.  Scared me so bad I literally felt like I was gonna vomit.  Like I seriously dry heaved a few times.  I screamed, ran the other direction, and then Tyrone jumped out of his cab and came to the rescue.  He was really not happy with Jonathan for insisting on taking a picture, but he conceded and let him.  He then poked this thing with a stick and it made this AWFUL hissing sound and violently wrapped itself around the stick.  Tyrone had to smash the thing's head like 20 times before it actually died.  The picture probably doesn't even really do it justice.  It was about as big around as my thumb and longer than the distance between the tip of my middle finer to the base of my palm.  Oh no no no no no.  I HATE bugs as it is, but bugs from outer space???  Big. Fat. No. on that one.  So why is that a taste of Dominica?  Check out this video posted by a few med students who are there now.

I especially like the girls in the background saying "Now I won't be able to sleep at night!" and "Tell me what exactly is 'cool' about that??".  Of course they're med students.  Who else analyzes the severed body of a centipede to determine whether the white thing in it's middle is a nerve or a digestive tract??  Jonathan informed me that centipedes in some places hang from the ceilings of caves and when bats fly by they grab them, bite them, poison them, and eat them.  Wha???  Needless to say I'll be steering clear of those guys.  I don't mind the little geckos and mini iguanas.  Centipedes, however, will always be unwelcome...

So...now that you have plenty of stuff that nightmares are made of, I'll leave you to it.  Sleep tight! ;) -Rach

My First Blog Hop!

I'm linking up via the Blog Hop hosted by Tess at The Framed Lady.  If you're here for the first time, thanks for stopping by!  I'm a REALLY new blog and would LOVE to have you join my site!

A Treasure Hunting Success

So let me first start by telling you all that yesterday was a beach treasure hunting success.  Matt, Jonathan, and I found so many really cool shells and pieces of beach glass!  Matt even snagged 3 sand dollars which I'll be bleaching (and removing dreadlocks from) really soon!  I've had several people ask me to clarify what exactly beach glass is, so let me do that now.  Beach glass is essentially natures way of taking our "litter" and making it into something beautiful.  Say someone pitches a glass wine bottle overboard on a booze cruise.  That bottle then sinks eventually to the ocean floor where it hits a piece of coral or a rock and shatters.  Those little pieces then slowly get sort of tumbled by the ocean waves and buffed by the sand until the come out looking like a frosty piece of heaven!

We find pieces in lots of different colors, and the picture here doesn't even really do them justice.  They're just gorgeous!  My favorite of this handful is the one in the top left of the screen.  I love it when we find pieces like the long one in the middle because it's fun trying to speculate as to what broke apart to make that color.  The browns and greens and clears are pretty self-explanatory, but when you pick up something that's lime green or violet blue or teal there's no end to the possibilities of it's origin!  (Jonathan and Matt particularly like to assume they must have come off a pirate ship or something...).

So what's the key to finding beach glass?  Well, it's simple.  Walk around in the surf or in tide pools and look for things that texturally don't match (that's a good way to find cool shells too!).  If a color pops out a you as something out of the ordinary, that could be something cool.  But not all pieces of broken glass hanging out in the surf are "good" pieces.  They have to be rounded on the edges (look closer at the piece on the far bottom right), and BOTH sides have to be "roughed up" as we say.  It shouldn't be shiny or slick at all.   The bigger the "good" piece the better, because bigger good pieces are hard to find.  Usually they're pretty well broken down once they make it to shore and have been buffed out enough.  So when we find larger pieces or pieces that are thicker, we get really excited.  We also get pumped when we find those violet pieces or the ones that are slightly bluish green but almost clear.  Those are hard to find!

So once you've collected hundreds of pieces of beach glass, what in the world do you do with them??  Well, there's lots of possibilities.  For me, they give me jewelry inspiration and eventually I'm gonna start incorporating some of the pieces into my designs.  You can also fill vases and bowls with them (growing up I saw someone Bethany Beach, Michigan using them to fill empty lamps...very clever...).  Michelle had an awesome idea of taking the pieces and gluing them to a big wooden W (for Wells).  I'm thinking I might steal that from her.  I've got big plans for my huge stash! 

So there ya have it...a little lesson in the art of beach glass.  You'll never look at a piece of broken glass in the surf the same way again!  So I'll leave you guys with this picture "montage" of our beach finds.  Enjoy your Labor Day Americans!  For us Bahamians it's just another day in paradise...

Random bivalves is super cool colors

Branch Coral, Beach Glass, and other random cool finds

Raw sand dollars with seaweed dreadlocks...  Yes I'll bleach them and make them look pretty soon!

Some sort of sweet welk-like shell and more spirals

A crab claw from outer space...

A little trip to the grocery store...

So yesrerday Ashley and I made a trip to our friendly neighborhood market here in Freeport, Bahamas.  There are several grocery stores to choose from here in the Bahamas, but it's almost as though you have to hop from one to the other to get everything you need.  You're just not gonna find it in one place, and sometimes you might not find it all that week.  It has been an adjustment for sure (I actually shopped at Solomon's on Monday this week and didn't find everything I needed).  Butler's has the better produce selection of the stores I've visited (and by stores I mean Butler's and Solomon's), so that's where I prefer to go.  Thursdays are the days to go because Wednesday is shipment day and Thursday is stocking day.  So you get a stab at the produce (and the other merchandise for that matter) before its rotten and/or picked over.  Which happens faster than you might think.

We had Angry Steve pick us up.  Angry Steve is a bus driver without much integrity, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by this fact.  He talks too fast, yells at people, hangs up on you, and shows up 45 minutes later than he said he would.  Yep...45 minutes...  So why do we keep calling him?  Because the only thing he IS consistent about is answering his cell phone (which most bus drivers aren't) and our beloved Tyrone is just plain too expensive to use multiple times in a week.  Today before dropping us each off at our apartments after our grocery foray, he made a shady stop at a little strip center, went inside for 3 minutes, and came out smiling...nothing in his hands....  You draw your own conclusions...

Since I didn't have much I needed to buy I decided to take pictures for my loyal blog readers.  I'm always amused at what I find there.  I am equally NOT so amused by some of the prices.  So enjoy my picture homage to Butler's International Grocery...

One of these things is not like the other.  Or is it?  On the right...you guessed it...a papaya.  On the left? An avocado.  Yes...an avocado.  You can see how one might get the two confused and buy one thinking it was the other and be unpleasantly surprised.  I'm not speaking from experience or anything...

 Pig Tails are not just a fun hair style anymore...

 Wow...haven't seen this stuff since 1991...  Oh memories...

 Yep folks, that's right.  Ramen Noodles.  A 24 pack for the low low price of $11.59 (written on a hard to find price tag in Butler's...stuff is rarely marked).  And read the sarcasm in that last sentence.  Especially since that same 24 pack at home would run me a very expensive $2 . 85...

 No green onions, no Italian seasoning, but they've got these!  Cuz who doesn't need snail shells...

 I am so confused...

 Everything else might be outrageously priced, but this sweet little .5 oz bag of star anise is only $1.19! I saw this stuff at Williams Sonoma in the same size package for $20!  So apparently I need to find something to cook with Star Anise...

 The priciest mushrooms you've ever seen.  And they look like they've already been eaten a little...

Seems a but redundant don't you think?

 Ball Sacks.  No seriously.  Sacks of Tamarind Balls.  These are the hot commodity around here.  MERP students clamor to buy these when they see them.  Yummy!

The biggest no no in the store.  By 25% off they really mean that only 25% of this milk is still liquid...

 And this is why Matilda gets home cooked meals...

She doesn't seem too much worse for the wear because of it does she??  The queen upon her throne...

 Black Salt Powder??  Lies!!!  It's pink!

 Perfect for your standard MLT (mutton, lettuce, and tomato) sammy.  Except this mutton isn't sliced real thin...

 Or how about a standard can of corn.  With a side of OH DEAR LORD I COULD BUY 7 OF THESE AT HOME FOR THAT PRICE!!

Or maybe save a little cash and combine the two.  You never knew what you were eating when you ate Salisbury steak.  And now you do...

 My favorite cereal.  Which will NEVER make it into my basket at Butler's...

So what you're telling me is that you guys have a real hard time finding a banana vendor, right?