29 August 2014

Beady giveaway

As I've written in the last two posts, we were hit by a rather nasty earthquake last Sunday. My studio and my sewing room still are very chaotic. Open shelves are not earthquake proof. There's a lot of stuff on the floor.
All that chaos has made me realize that I have stuff - nice stuff - that I am no longer interested in. Yes, I could try to sell it on ebay or etsy, but that takes much more time than I have at present. And I really doubt the thrift store is interested in my beads. So, I am doing giveaways. I started on Facebook and will now continue here.
Today's giveaway involves smallish lampwork bead sets, lime with teal dots and sky with turquoise dots. I don't remember who the lampworker is who made them. I bought them off ebay years ago (this was before etsy).
So, if you would like to give the beads a new home, please leave a comment here and make sure I can get in touch with you (or check back in 2 days to see if you've won). If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can also leave a comment there, I'll be linking to this post next.
Same rule as always: if you've already won something recently, please give somebody else a chance.
And here are the beads:

Earthquake pictures

Mostly pictures, few words.
I went downtown today, needed to replace a strainer that broke and took a few pictures along the way.
 Wine tasting room, I am guessing that one is not easily fixable. The other side looked pretty bad, too.
 No glass in the art gallery.
 Yarnstore, no window, but open all the same. And very grateful to any customer who came in.
 Salon, no ceiling, closed for business.
Relatively new hotel, red tagged.

 This salon is open, nevermind that the windows are gone. There is a small sign on the glass saying not to lean on it, it's loose.
 Another relatively new building.
Post Office, closed.
 This is why.
 Presbyterian church, stained glass window broken.
 Bail bonds, obviously red-tagged.
Car, anyone?
 St. John's Catholic Church. The school next door seemed to be closed. Couldn't see any obvious damage.
Close-up of the roof.
I did not get a picture of the little house just a block North of the church that was completely rocked off its foundation, leaning off to one side.
There is much, much more damage, but I only took pictures of the damage along the way, didn't go out of my way to find more. The rough estimate for damages is $300 million and that is only for private homes, does not include damage to businesses or financial losses. Over 100 structures are red-tagged, over 200 people ended up in either the hospital or the ER, one of those a heart attack, the other very serious one a teenager - a brick fireplace fell on his pelvis. He has successful surgery and is expected to fully recover - in time.
If anybody feels they would like to help, the Red Cross is an obvious choice. My favorite local charity, though, is the Napa Valley Food Bank. The address on their website is wrong, they have just moved here: 1766 Industrial Way, Napa, CA 94558.

27 August 2014

All creative activities have been interrupted for the time being


Napa was hit by an earthquake on Sunday morning, at 3:20 am to be exact. It was a 6.1 magnitude and it scared the wits out of me. Not immediately, I guess I was too shocked to actually be scared until 2 days later when I felt aftershocks for the first time. We did not lose electricity or water, just internet and cable. Not a big deal. There is no structural damage to the house, just cracks, mostly along the edges of sheets of dry wall and a minor amount of roof damage.
The inside of the house, though, was a mess. I went downstairs immediately and straight back upstairs when I saw the amount of broken glass. Put on shoes, came back down and then decided I might as well get dressed and get started on cleaning up. I heard later that quite a few of the people who ended up in the ER had injured themselves by stepping on broken glass. Not me, I did cut two fingers, though, picking up glass. No big deal there, either.
We were lucky, too many others not so much. There were over 200 people who ended up either in the hospital or the ER, one of those a heart attack, another a teenager hosting a sleepover when the brick fireplace fell on his pelvis. He had successful surgery and is expected to fully recover - in time. I think over 70 structures have been red tagged and several mobile homes burnt to the ground when a fire erupted in one of the mobile home parks.
Here is a link to a video somebody took with his drone (with permission) showing the damage to some of the older buildings in downtown Napa:
http://abc7news.com/technology/drone-aids-in-changing-fate-of-badly-damaged-napa-church-/282553/
And here are pictures I took before I dug in and cleaned up the important messes:
The fridge moved several inches forward.

Kitchen.

More kitchen mess. The Lagunitas glass survived, a couple others did not.

Around the dog's feeding station.

All the papers that should have been filed years ago in the study. I am now shredding like crazy.
Pictures above the stairs.
Bedroom.
My studio.

My lovely organizers fell over and everything ended up dumped into the middle of the room.

Garage. Some of the bookshelves fell over and the stuff on top ended up on L's car.

The forgotten drawer. I found this mess a day later.


 As you can see, mostly a big mess, all of which can be cleaned up in time. L cleaned up the garage, including moving his car back where it belonged. For some reason, and I don't know if it was the bookshelf that moved it backwards or the power of the shaking, it ended up pushed into the garage door where it pushed out a panel. And, to top it all off, a ladder fell on the back end of it. Both of our cars have a few minor scratches and his has a small dent from the ladder. One of the springs on the garage door broke, thankfully, we had two, but it needs to be replaced.
I spent about 4 hours cleaning up and straightening things and then took a break. The glass had to be cleaned up first, the dog sniffs the floor and it just wasn't safe. He (the dog) was good, though, he kept coming downstairs to check and see what we were up to so very early in the morning, but went back to bed without any trouble. 
We're not quite back to normal yet. I simply cannot get myself to just power through what I know I have to do. Cleaning up the studio (okay, I have to admit to having two here. One room for metalsmithing and all the tools and supplies; the other for fabric, yarn, beads etc.) just isn't something I can do in one go. I had cleaned up the metalsmithing studio just a couple of months ago before taking online classes. Everything was neatly (well, almost) sorted and put away in those lovely rolling scrapbooking organizing carts. Thankfully, I labeled most of them and so it should be easy to put stuff back where it belongs. 
L is working on putting spackle on those areas where the plaster fell off in preparation for repainting. The garage is mostly put back together and all the living areas are in good shape. 
We lost a few things in the dining room when the cabinet there opened and things fell. I would have thought the carpet there would protect glasses and cups, but not so. A little bummed out because I lost two Blue Denmark cups I had found on the flea market. Thank goodness, none of my Fiesta was hurt and neither was the Hornsea pottery we bought many, many years ago when we lived in England.
While cleaning up studio No. 2, I came across quite a bit of stuff that is looking for new homes, so there will be giveaways coming. Mostly beady stuff. So, if you're interested, keep an eye out for that. I started on Facebook already, but will move the giveaways here from now on.