Vacation goodies

Ever since I became a mother, my vacation days from work have primarily been about my kids' schedules.  I take vacation days at the beginning of school to make sure everyone gets started ok, I take vacation days at the end of school to attend all of the ceremonies and do a little celebration to kick off the start of summer.  I take vacation days when school is out to be home with the kids. 

One of the things I love about the school days off is that I can spend lots of time with the kids (well, "kid".  One will hang out with me and the other won't, but I should take that up with a therapist rather than in a blog post) but also have several hours in between to work on my own projects.  Generally these activities swirl around cake or jewelry and I can get completely lost in either of those for hours.  I walk around with my phone in my pocket, earphones plugged in, listening to satellite radio through an app for hours.  Most often it's the 80s music channel.  And I sing.  Loudly and very badly.  So lucky passers-by can surely hear me when I work at the jewelry bench in the garage with the door open. Nothing recharges me like working with glass and metal does, especially with the music playing and hours before I have to be anywhere.

So last week with the start of school, I took Wednesday through Friday off.  I probably got at least eight hours of bench time in, and it made me ridiculously happy.

I started with some metal work; earrings and a necklace from 12 gauge sterling: