Other Stuff and Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Paul—he’s 27 today! Since January, I haven’t been very good about updating this blog because life has just gotten too busy.

• We’ve been trying to plan our wedding—much thanks to our moms who have been taking care of most of the details—which is now only a month and a half away (exciting!).
• I did an art show in February that went very well and have been trying to build my inventory back up.
• I made a bunch of beaded flowers for our friends wedding (pitcher plants and trilliums were requested).
• I have been writing a grant (with Drs. MSP and MSW) to get funding for a new fish related project and trying to get together data for a presentation (with Drs. MSP and WTS) at the ASIH meeting in July.
• Paul has been trying to finish up his thesis work in preparation for a new job starting in August.
• Paul went on a week long research cruise to collect larval amberjack at the beginning of June
• AND we bought a fixer-upper boat that takes up any spare time we have left.

*** I've also started another site that is only for my beadwork called "Silver Perch Designs".***

Other interesting photos:

Huge Elephant Ears in our yard.

Kayaking on Blackcreek, MS

A Gulf Softshell Turtle found while kayaking with my toes for a size reference

Fish

I’ve finally found a moment to add some photos! I think I may have to rename this blog “Paul’s Fishing Blog” since that’s all I’ve been posting. So here are some of his latest catches and one of mine, too! Paul caught the dophinfish and cobia in his spare time on a research cruise that went out to collect larval amberjack. The cobia was wonderful and we’ve been eating mainly fish for the past couple of weeks.

I caught the spotted seatrout when I went fishing with Paul in our kayaks on a small reef out from our house last weekend. We also caught a bunch of little blacktip sharks that were kind of tricky to get off of the line without getting bitten or having them falling in to the kayak with us. This photo was taken just before it ended up in the pan for our dinner. I've also included a very small tarpon that Paul cast netted last fall that I've been meaning to post. This fish used to be more common in Mississippi waters but at present is fairly rare.

Bull Red

I haven't posted in a very long time--life has gotten in the way! BUT anyway..........Paul caught a huge bull redfish (red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus) while he was fishing in his kayak at dusk this evening. He's pretty excited about it! He caught it near the pier that's just south of our house.

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New and Finished Flowers

Some photos of flowers I've finished that are in my show. The green cymbidium orchid spray stands 46 cm (~ 18 in) tall.

Red orchid spray - 43 cm (~17 in) tall

Himalayan Blue Poppy
2 tone white flowers w/ orange centers

Art Show

Sue and I managed to set up our show last night as the February featured artists for the OSAA Art House Co-op Gallery. Sue does relief carved gourd vessels, paintings, and pastels. Our show is called "Inspired by Nature" and we used many pieces of drift wood in our display. Hopefully, I'll have some photos of it to post soon. I put 40 pieces of work (beaded flowers and jewelry) in the show, and I hope to finish up a couple of more pieces this weekend to add next week. Paul went along last night to lend a hand and check out Sue's gourds.

New Necklace Design

Here are a couple of photos of a new necklace design I'm trying. It uses herringbone (Ndebele) stitch and right angle weave (RAW).

A Wedding Dress & Some Loomwork

Exciting news-- I bought a wedding dress this weekend!!!!!! I managed to catch it on sale, too!I One less thing to worry about! I still have to do alterations, but that will be mid-February sometime.

Loomwork: I haven't done loomwork in a while and hope to get around to it soon. I have a really nice Mirrix loom (Big Sister Lap & Table Loom), but the ones below were done on a homemade one before I got it. Here are photos of some work I did a couple of years ago. They are both framed pictures. The shooting star beadwork is ~ 7x10 in and the tuna is ~ 4x11 in. My mother has the shooting stars and I made the tuna for a guy I was in graduate school with.

Myself and another lady are going to be the featured artists at the OSAA Art House for the month of February. That means we get an entire room to fill with our work, press coverage, and a reception. We have tons of work to do to get ready for it. I've been madly making beaded flowers and jewelry. The other lady is a gourd artist (carves gourds among other things!), and I get to make a couple of arrangements to go in some of her small gourds. We're putting our work up Feb. 1 and our reception is Feb. 24. I made business cards this evening and tomorrow I have to work on a bio and press release--Hope I can accomplish everything!

Reupholstered Couch

I found a really neat couch at a local thrift store and of course just had to buy it. It had an interesting shape, was very comfortable and long enough for Paul to stretch out on, unfortunately it had VERY ugly upholstery. So, I found a local lady (Ocean Springs Upholstery) to redo it for me. She did an absolutely fantastic job with it. I just got it back yesterday!!!!!! Here are the before and after photos.