How to ...

So after a long pause, I'm posting to explain how to make a necklace. I saw a necklace on pinterest I liked so over time I hunted down the beads I needed and figured out how to put it together. So now people are asking how to do it and this is the best place for me to put together a picture how to, so here goes. This is the finished necklace. 

Here is the layout of each section. There are 11 rows. For each row you need two pins, a big chain and a small chain, two gold beads, a small lime bead, a raspberry bead, a pink bubble gum bead, and an oval turquoise bead. Line up the chains so that you string the first row in the very middle link of each chain. 

The top pin will have the green bead, all the way to the last gold bead on it and the bottom pin will just have the turquoise bead on it.  Here are the first steps: 

See, we have strung the green bead first and then the middle link of the smaller chain.

So as you can see, you simply string the raspberry bead next after the chain, then a gold bead and then a pink bead.

Next, string the middle link of the largest chain on and follow with another gold bead. After this we will use pliers to make a ring to close off the row.

I forget the name of these pliers, but as you can see the tips are rounded. So, you bend the wire back, then twist it around the tip, like so:

OK ,now we will set that down and take the other pin and string the turquoise bead onto it.

We are then going to twist the end just like we did with the top side of the row. 

Use wire cutters to clip off the excess wire on both pins.  You can use your pliers to make sure the ring on the top pin is securely closed.  Leave the ring on the turquoise bead side slightly open so you can hook it through the top ring.

Then make sure you close it off tightly as well.  This will all seem quite awkward if you have never done this before.  Practice makes perfect or better yet, good enough, so make sure you have lots of pins to practice on.  Now you will be doing 5 more rows on each side of this one, in exactly the same fashion. Here's the tricky part. 

This is upside down really, but as you string the chains on each additional row, make sure the chain is not twisted. just flatten it out by running your finger down the chain.  

Make sure on the larger bottom chain that you string the next row 3 links out from the last row.  But, on the little chain on top, you are gradually going to string the links closer together so that the necklace curves nicely.  This will depend on the sizes of your chains so just practice stringing the pins through to make sure you find the right intervals.  My first rows from the center on the smaller top chain were 5 links apart and then I went to four and then three links apart. After you do this, you'll want to place the hook and eye closure on the ends of the bottom larger chain

You use a jump ring for this, which we will also use in the next step so I'll move ahead. Choose the spot where the smaller chain will meet the larger chain on a model or yourself if no one will help. (Not sure why boys aren't up for that job, but oh well. ) Open a jump ring, easy with just your hands or pliers,

and hook it to the ends of the small chain and then hook that to the sweet spot on the large chain where it hangs nicely. You can just mark the links so you don't have to do this on a person. Once you thread the jump ring through the two chains, close it back off with the pliers. That's it! Ta da! You can make matching earrings as well!

Paranormal Vortex at Walmart

Some life events are so bizarre, you just feel compelled to share them.  Some of us have more of these experiences than others, probably more than our fair share.  This is the other reason we feel we need to share.  We don't want you to miss out on the fun.

So, yesterday, I decided to make the fastest Walmart run of my life right after dropping off my kids at school and before working.  So, hah! I made it in and out of that place in under 30 minutes with close to 30 items! Isn't that awesome? It would be if it weren't for the fact that this is against the laws of nature and so nature threw up in my face.  When I got home and went to put the things away, I was missing the last things on the receipt!  I figure they were all in the same bag.  So after making sure it wasn't hiding in my car or house anywhere, I called Walmart.  The person I explained my sob story to said that this happened all too often and to just bring the receipt to customer service.  But maybe the bag was still there somewhere and they could just hold it for me, I wondered.  Oh, no, I was assured, they just put everything back on the shelves, so just bring in your receipt whenever.  "How trusting, Walmart." I thought, how do they make sure you're not just making this up?  By the time I finished work and went to get my kids I found out my twins were invited to a birthday party so we had to go get a present anyway.  Also, I had been trying to make a necklace but I just didn't have the right size jump rings to finish it, plus, I had discovered a big bag of avocados on my kitchen counter (after just buying a bag of 4!) so I figured it was a great night for Chilean hot dogs and I needed wieners and buns. So,  I went back to Walmart for the second time with my receipt and a son, to recover my lost items and get the other items I was looking for.
First, I have to deal with customer service.  I explain my story and you can see the doubt oozing out of the worker's being.  He gets a notebook where I am not noted.  Well, that would be because the person I spoke to never asked me my name or anything.  I quoted my whole conversation word for word. I exuded polite I'm not lying vibes and I intend to get my things or my money back vibes.  I guess I don't look like a crook, since he called someone to look up the videotapes to see if a bag was left around the time I was there. Finally I was allowed to go retrieve the same items, and as fate would have it, they were all still there.  We picked up our other items, and while not the fastest trip in the world, it wasn't the worst.  Then, I get home and go to put everything away, when what do I find in one of the bags?  An Axe deodorant.  What is not in my bag?  My jump rings.  Apparently, I got my way with Walmart and so nature was still upset with me.  On the way home, my jump rings turned into an Axe deodorant.

This is even cooler than the miracle of two fish multiplying into enough to feed five thousand! This is like two fish turning into enough pizza to feed 5000!  Except I really needed jump rings, not Axe. So maybe it's more like the two fish turning into 50 gallons of soap (that in any case the 5000 men probably needed as much as food). I looked at my receipt.  No Axe, just jump rings.  I rest my case, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.  Today my husband asked me if I went back to straighten it out.  What was he thinking?  First of all, how do I explain that? Two times in 24 hours, I ask for something back again? they will think I'm trying to get a second something for free, or barter with deodorant in this case.  Or worse, they will think I'm a nutcase to insinuate that little circles of metal turned into deodorant.  They will show me the video of the jump rings going into the bag and not turning into deodorant.  They will at least say they did no wrong and the trunk of my minivan must be possessed.  I figure if I don't want to keep getting sucked into Walmart, I had better just quit while I'm ahead and pick up my jewelry making items at Jo Ann's instead.  (Note: this is not a hidden less than subliminal commercial for any franchise chain whatsoever, it's just what turned out to be more convenient.) Now my only problem is, will Walmart feel wronged by this? I just looked up the deodorant online and it is 88 cents more than the jump rings.  What if I just tip the customer service desk the next time I have no other choice but to go to Walmart?  What if I'm setting a bad Sunday School example of complete honesty with stores here?  Or could the fact that I am coupon deficient and can't price match to save my soul and thus always pay Walmart full price mean I deserve an 88 cent savings on something I didn't even want or need so maybe I can just give it to the homeless like the super coupon lady I saw on some talk show once?  Questions, questions.  The fact that I have spent more time in Walmart in the last 36 hours than I usually do in a month just cinches everything.  I don't even care what is morally right here, my mental health depends on me staying away from Walmart for a long time.  The end.  

Huck the Diving Wonder

I won't press my luck, I'll just post this one video for now and see if I can add more later.
There was this restaurant in Sandy called the Mayan we went to one day.  You could eat a fun meal while watching divers jump off a "cliff" with a waterfall into a big pool below.  Papi and I both thought it would be the perfect job for Huck when he grew up!  He was barely walking when he started diving in and out of the bathtub.  That's how he scarred his brother for life when he accidentally knocked his brother Tom with his foot, sending Tom's chin on a collision course with the edge of the tub, leading to stitches.  Huck obviously wasn't scared of heights, he would jump out the second story window just for fun when he got just a bit older.  Then by the time he was in cub scouts and they went to a swimming pool, the den leader asked me where he learned to dive. What? He had been doing flips off the high dive.  Most kids wouldn't even climb up it.  I decided he really needed to get into this sport. I knew he would love it.  It was his destiny :) It took us only 4 years to figure out how, but finally this summer he got to go to a BYU diving camp and from there got invited to participate in a diving team for kids at BYU.  So, as of September he spends his afternoons diving.  He loves it.  He's pretty good at it. Of course, he needs to learn a lot, but I'm sure he will.  So, he went to his first meet in Boise.  One of my awesomely super friends helped drive us there since I"m too chicken to drive.  My brother and his wife let us stay at their really nice home with them.  It was fun!  But, as is our usual style, it wasn't uneventful.  After doing all his 3 meter dives, while practicing for the 1 meter competition, he hit his head on the diving board.  I was just walking nearby and saw him dive and knew he was too close, saw him hit his head and couldn't do anything about it except freeze and watch him hit the water and then disappear.  Sickening feeling that is, but once the water started to settle, he popped up, upset and I was so relieved! I knew he should be alright.  But as he came up, a coach was diving in after him and they braced him and called the paramedics.  He needed to be checked to make sure he hadn't damaged anything.  I just tried to assure him because I was sure this was now freaking him out.  We got a ride in an ambulance and some nice people made sure he was fine and we were released in time to get back for his things as everyone was leaving.  He got a 4th place medal in the 3 meter though, so that cheered him up.  He will be in a meet at BYU in January so if you're around, you'll have to see him in person, as my camera is old and needs to be replaced.

Why I'm not the CEO of Apple

Or, why am I not on their creative team? I love my iPod, iPod Touch as I lovingly think of it. I can pretty much do everything with it except take pictures because I was channeling someone more practical than myself when I decided to buy the cheaper, older version without a camera.

 It almost replaces a computer if it weren't for the fact that too many internet things flip to the mobile version and there's the fact that too often there are pictures I just can't see since they won't let me enlarge them. If only this device were around when I was younger and had eyes. So, yesterday my nephew Scott (aka Scar) and I were talking about the iPad mini.

Probably the problem with their trying to sell this size device is the name. I really haven't heard all the people who use iPads around me complaining that it is too big. Gee, if only this were just half it's size, I could squint a little more... No, but you will hear a lot of iPod users like me wishing their iPod was just a little bigger. So, Why call this the iPad Mini? I realize it's JUST LIKE an iPad, yet smaller, however, why not appeal directly to those who are tired of using their imagination when viewing images on the iPod? Why not call it something that reflects a pumped up, new and improved iPod? Small enough for a true purse size, more readable than the iPod, chucking the iphonienesss of the ipod, ready to leap small buildings in a single bound, It's the Maxi Pod! WHO would forget that name? I would laugh at the sheer mirth of it every morning if I had one on my nightstand, thus increasing my resistance to disease by virtue of stress busting endorphins;), and even better, I would design a dock for it that had awesome speakers on each side, which I would call the wings dock, so you could wake up to the music blaring out of you maxi pod with wings!!! OK, I'm not expecting any calls from Apple anytime soon. Still, I just feel the need to draw up a prototype. That of course will probably have to be done on my clunky old PC (the pioneer pad)

Ta Da!

My Favoritest New Clothes

Yes, I know favoritest isn't a real word, I'm just using linguistic license, because it expresses my feeling so much better than most favorite does.  Also, I am testing my blogger to see if I dare do another post :)
I looove this scarf a lot!  And it worked, maybe, just maybe I'll try videos next.

Not missing the black at all.

We interrupt our reminiscing to deal with current events!

I HATE BLOGGER! HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME WITH NO OPTION BUT TO ERASE A COMPLETED ENTRY OR LEAVE IT ETERNALLY TRYING TO UPLOAD A VIDEO FOREVER END EVER AMEN?! EVERY OTHER PROGRAM IN THE WORLD INCLUDING YOURS USED TO PERIODICALLY SAVE !!!!!! WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?!  I MAY NEVER FORGIVE YOU EVER, HOW RUDE!!!!!!

The Health Saga

Someday, hopefully in a few more posts, I will be up to date on everything I didn't write about and can write on a blog, and then I can just pop in with what's up or on my mind.  Won't that be nice?  I think it  will be a lot funner.  So, when your body gets to be 40 something and you've been wearing it ragged, it finally will start complaining.  A few years  ago, I started having some problems with a cough and a feeling when I laid down at night that I was suffocating.  Then that got so bad, even when I wasn't lying down I was short of breath, so my Dr sent me to the ER, just to make sure my lungs weren't filling up with fluid or something, ha! So since they weren't I got sent home with vague possible explanations and I went to  see an ENT, who sent me to a GI who did an EGD of my esophagus and stretched it back open again.  Don't you just love medical acronyms?  They save so much time!  A year later, I start having a whole gob of stomach symptoms, loss of appetite, heartburn, nausea, etc and then one night my chest hurt so bad and I had such weird symptoms with it that we had to go to the hospital again, just to make sure I wasn't having a heart attack. Which of course I wasn't so they sent me home with vague explanations like some kind of inflammation, but luckily a smart nurse had told me that it was probably my esophagus.  SO I went back to the GI, who told me yeah, a  bad esophagus attack feels like a heart attack.  Oh, and you shouldn't be eating anything spicy or citric and you should have stayed on the medicine we gave you last time for life.  Except I never got that memo, just to not eat right before bedtime.  I had another EGD, got stretched, got meds and since there were scars from ulcers this time I had to stop eating all the things I live so much.  No more chile and lime!  No more grapefruit or pomegranates or pineapple, or need I go on?  BUT, since eating these things causes great pain, it was relatively easy to kick the habit. I just look back fondly at that food I can't eat anymore. Those were the good ole days!
SO, next I do fine for a while and the problems start up again anyways including problems swallowing.  I get another EGD.  It didn't really make much difference.  Meanwhile, I find out I have osteoporosis so since I'm having all the problems with my esophagus, I can't take the meds for that, so I get an infusion.  They tell you to take Tylenol after cuz you have flu like symptoms. I had to go straight after to a class so I bought some Tylenol on the way.  But then in class I got so dizzy, I thought I might faint.  Then I came home and had the worst flu of my life, and all I could do was sleep.  Eventually, on the third day I noticed that the Tylenol I bought was Tylenol pm and so it was making me sleep.  So I stopped that, by then all the aches and pains had gone away and now I was no longer dizzy and sleepy!  I figure next time should go much much better seeing as I will be real careful to take regular Tylenol.  It did help because now I only have osteopenia.  Getting the treatment through my insurance was a real pain in the neck.  If I can get that worked out again I will have that treatment soon.

While all this was going on, the GYN also found what turned out to be a cyst in one of my breasts that I couldn't even feel, but when I went back a year later, they found a huge lump I think on the other side.  So the technician was really freaking out and got the doctor and while I'm waiting, she comes in to let me know that the doctor will look at it soon and I suddenly realize that I am looking at a magazine about gardening and I am totally at ease and completely absorbed in thoughts of what to do with my garden while a total stranger is worrying sick about my health and after all, what if I turned out to have a cancer?  Well, that would really mess up my summer plans but I really didn't have time to die so I'd need to do whatever treatments were required and hope for the best.  I figured getting all uptight when I was going to have an ultrasound and find out within the half hour would be a lot of senseless worrying time that would be wasted if all was going to be well, so I decided to go back to the garden magazine. I did think it would be completely ironic if i ended up having cancer after the excessive amounts of nursing that supposedly lower your risk, had pretty much wiped away most of that body part.  Such is life.  Like running out of gas in Iraq.  Did you see that movie?  It was an  Italian movie ...A Tiger in Winter I think it's called.  That's when I discovered Chileans really speak half     Italian and took it up for a while till life distracted me but if you want to learn a language a fun way for free, check out livemocha.com, awesome site! That last message was brought to you by a lack of Concerta, because stimulants give me heartburn so they are off the table too.
Back to our story, after the ultrasound it turned out it was just a big cyst and everyone was relieved and I was so proud of myself for making the decision to put off worrying. Except, what about that sister in my ward who was told the same thing and the next year they said, no, it's cancer?....That's sort of like the story a comedian told about mosquitoes.  It turns out that Female mosquitoes buzz but they don't bite, so if you hear a mosquito in the dark while you're in bed, don't worry about it, go to sleep!  BUT if you DON'T hear anything, well the silent make mosquito could easily be in your room getting ready to bite!  Sweet dreams!
But wait, that's not all!  If you have heart attack symptoms that you know are just your esophagus, how iwill you know when you get older and have a real heart attack that you are having a heart attack?  Getting older is getting more and more complicated and I have decided the best solution is to not even go there.  It's better to read gardening magazines until you keep over.  You will at least die happier.  
So, I have spent the last year working out how to take calcium and vitamin D with my acid reducers so that they aren't cancelled out and how to get off acid reducers and not have problems because they cause as many problems long term as they solve.  Crazy.  Also , meanwhile, I was having too many headaches and dizziness and weird sensations that felt like adrenaline rushes and palpitations. This was all pretty frustrating, so that's why I started really working on getting enough sleep, eating better and exercising and meditating and doing other exercises to reduce stress.  Things still weren't very wonderful.  Managing my body was starting to get to be a real job.  NO wonder people get to the point where they don't mind dying.  I started getting theses shooting stabbing pains in my head.  That turned out to be an abcessed tooth, so I got my tooth pulled. That fixed that pain.  My Dr. gave me stronger meds, had me do the holter monitor, which came back "normal enough" and sent me back for another EGD.  Meanwhile I was felling crummier and crummier.  I needed to go to girls' camp and wasn't sure I could make it through a day there.  So, I asked Papi to give me a blessing.  This is when I learned an important lesson. At one moment I was told that I needed to exercise my faith to be healed.  This was the missing link.  Once again, I assumed I just had to suffer through all this and figure it out myself, I mean God can't just come take away all the pain in life for the asking or what in the heck would we learn here?  Except maybe I have that part figured out and I need to learn the other half, showing up and asking like a little lid for Him to take it away.  Since I just got told to do that, I did, and SHazam! It worked!  I felt a whole lot better.  Stuff  was still getting stuck in my throat so I went on a semi liquid diet for the week till I got my EGD, but all the other symptoms went away!    This time, when the Dr did the EGD, he stretched out the whole length of my esophagus, which actually looked better than the last time but felt tighter.  SANTO REMEDIO, as we say in Spanish.  Now I just  have to work at maintaining my new wonderful health.  Which is enough work for me as it is.  THE END.  (Don't you hate it when people tell you about all their every ache and pain in gross detail?  :) )