Hmm. I don’t seem to be very good at this.

Okay here we are another 2 months down the track, and we have another spasmodic post.

I don’t seem to be very good at this blogging thing.

But, I gotta say, that I do have some (reasonable?) excuses. I had several orders after the Big Opening (November 8). I don’t seem to be quite at that stage where I can just splat out the order and only what was asked for. No, I gotta try out several different versions, and then another several more. Efficient I’m not.

Anyway, I digress.

After The Opening, there were, in quick succession, the celebrations of: Sint/Saint Maarten (November 11), my oldest son’s birthday (end of October), Sinterklaas (aka Sint/Saint Nikolaas/Nicholas, the forerunner to Santa Claus, on December 5), and then Christmas (Dec 25).

November/December is a busy month here in Holland. And those varied (mostly Catholic) saints seem to demand their own form of mayhem in the guise of worship/celebration (and I haven’t really understood the reason why *I* have to celebrate these mostly pagan-originated celebrations).

After Christmas comes the New Year’s celebrations, with its own special rituals to see the passing of one year to the next. (Why is that so important, I often wonder?)

Then there was January.

In retrospect January was a very weird month. I started off the month feeling very motivated. I thought, “I’ve got a website, I’ve more or less got my online shop (etsy) organised, I’ve got business cards, postcards, a business manager. I got it all. It’s a start of a Brand New Year. So let’s go Out There!”

And probably around about the same time, the Whole World decided to collapse (bank lending crises [banks don’t want to lend to each other], credit crisis [no one wants to lend you money, and I mean No One], Icelandic banks default crises [ huh? a country can go bankrupt?]).

A few weeks later we seem to be sitting at the beginnings of the worse financial crises since the Great Depression (just BTW I NEVER, EVER, wanted to take part in a depression. Recessions we can cope with. Depression? Dunno know.)

Coincidentally (really), about a week later I felt the cold wet fingers of a Big Blue Funk (BBF).

A BBF seems to manifest itself (in my glassy makeover) as feelings of, “Oh no. I don’t want to melt glass. Oh dear. What does that mean? If I don’t want to melt glass then what am I doing?? Panic! No, no don’t Panic. But, if I don’t want to melt glass then who am I. Shit! If I don’t want to melt glass then, shit, what am I?? Okay, then you cant panic a bit. No don’t. Don’t panic. There’s no need to panic. Well, maybe you’re allowed to panic just a tiny bit. Ohhhhh, woe is me.”

But this time around, I’m “experienced” enough (in the BBFs) to realise that it will fix itself up. I know that it will blow over. Well, better said, maybe I am learning to trust that it will. But I gotta admit that this little version of the BBFs (3-4 weeks in total) got me a little worried.

About a week ago I finally had some time to go and play with melting glass. Sure I could make some excuses but I was actually totally and utterly free.

I had thoughts like, “What will I do there? Sitting in front of a torch, with lots of rods of glass waiting to be melted. What will I do?? What colours should I combine? What should I try? Can I think of anything to try???”

Then, thank god, I thought, “Well, there are several techniques that I’m sorta okay at, but well, let’s face it, I’m still a little scared of. Yeah, yeah. Like encasing. Encasing? Yeah, you know those crappy encased stripes. Encased stripes? Yeah, you’re right, you’re pretty crappy at them.”

And suddenly I had A Goal.

Big sigh of relief. I have A Goal!

I even became more ambitious than the encased stripes, and discovered the addiction of “pleated beads” (a la Tomba Dama).

I will take photos. I promise. But I’d just like to spill out some words right now. I’m just *so* happy to feel happy/motivated/enthused about melting glass again.