Hello Blog Friends – I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the good wishes for my cousin. He is still in the hospital but is doing better. Still not sure when he’ll get to go home but hopefully that date is getting closer.

I continue to be busy with work and honestly I don’t see that changing much for a long while but I’m still also doing my yoga, doing my crafting and of course relaxing with a lot of books, more on that in a minute.

But, speaking of my crafting, here are my first pair of earrings! Well, you only get to see one for now.

They turned out a bit longer than I had planned on but I loved working on the copper and torching it to give it that rusted, old look. I’m still a bit in awe that I used a torch! haha… I still have a few more classes and my next project is another set of earrings but I’ll also be using beads for those. Anyway, lots of fun what with all that hammering and sawing to ease away a stressful day.

In book news, I finished The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar the other day. Not my favorite book of hers but very readable. I think what bugged me a bit was the ending that I didn’t have the closure I was expecting. Now I’m reading a romantic suspense novel which I’ve just started so we’ll see how that goes.

Hope you are all doing well and I’ll try not to be such a stranger in blogland.

I was once again kept away from the blog by different things going on in my life and just not having the extra energy to devote to it. A couple of weeks ago one of my dear cousins ended up in the ICU. Being that we are away from the family it is especially hard as I can’t just go on over to find out what’s going on. He is doing a bit better but still in the hospital.

I also had one of my best friends come in to town last weekend and that was so very wonderful. It was just what I needed. We talked a lot, drank a lot of coffee and were just there to share our stories. We could easily have spent several more days catching up.

Last week I started my jewelry making class and learned a bit of basics but I haven’t prepared my homework for tomorrow’s class which is to come up with several ideas of things to make. Ugh. I just have been so unfocused. I’m going to go with earrings. I love wearing earrings so that should be good right?

I think the only good thing about not blogging and being around in blogland is that my reading is going great. I read seven books in January, eight in February and I’ve already finished my first March book. The funny thing is that I’m sticking with comfort reads (mysteries and a dash of romance) and just realized that I’ve only read two fiction books. It would be nice to throw in a bit more variety in my reading but I’m not going to worry about that.

So now I’m off to look through Jewelry by Madeline Coles to get some inspiration. I hope you are all doing well blog friends and thank you for emails and support as always!