Private jewelry lessons!

So, it turns out no one else signed up for the jewelry class I'm taking for the next four weeks (it is a follow-on of the series of classes I just took), but the jewelry school is running it anyway, so I have private lessons. This week I learned how to set glass cabochons and make closed finger rings, both skills I need to practice quite a bit more before I feel competent :-)

I've also been thoroughly spoiled these last couple of weeks, and am trying not to become rotten. My family teamed up to buy me a jewelry kiln for my birthday, and I keep meaning to take a picture of it to post, but things have been crazy. It's a little one, perfect for me and what I do. I've yet to fire it up because I need to make some pieces to put in it.

Right now I'm in the in-between phase of going off my sleep medication. I go from feeling like I have endless energy to feeling I need to nap for 100 years in the course of one day. Those phases usually lengthen out until I have whole weeks when I barely sleep and feel edgy, then whole weeks when I barely sleep and feel exhausted and just sort of half doze for hours. The most annoying thing about not sleeping, though, is the feeling that I'm a little bit crazy all the time. Everything I do feels awkward and stress piles up fast, even if I'm not doing anything particularly stressful. At it's worst, I'll start having anxiety attacks over the dumbest things (i.e. did I put the cereal box away this morning?) and will keep having them, no matter what I do, to the extent that I'll have a nightmare and wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, even though my rational mind is thoroughly disgusted and wants to just forget the matter.

During those times, I stay away from my blog and become a hermit. Doing more things only digs the stupid, illogical stress in deeper, so I've found the best way to cope is to just shut down and wait for it to pass.

Meanwhile, I've finished a draft of my YA science fiction book and sent it out to Char and my husband. It's not done, by any means, but I'm taking a few days off to clear my head before I start polishing it up. I told Shadow Mountain I'd have it to them by the end of the month.