Catching Up

Wow. I took a four day vacation last week and I'm two weeks behind on everything. How does that happen?
So two weeks ago I took an altered surfaces class at Sew Original in Winston Salem with my mom. The instructor, Karen Fridy, was teaching techniques out of Rayna Gillman's book Create Your Own Hand-Printed Cloth. We tried rust dyeing, stamping after making our own stamps, discharging with bleach and gelatin printing. I especially like my discharged piece with my acorn stamp. I can't wait to experiment with these techniques more.
I was going to spend the day soldering new pendants for an upcoming craft show but I somehow melted not one, but two, soldering iron tips every time I tried. Even my resident stained glass artist can't figure out what the problem is. I have several ideas as to what the problem may be but the thing I can't figure out is why it's happening now when I haven't done anything differently. Adam says he'll figure it out tomorrow. I hope so because I've got to get to work!
I ended up sulking in the garden (Yes, I sulk when things don't work that are supposed to i.e. soldering iron, computer, etc. It's a major pet peeve of mine.). I felt much better after weeding a whole bed, repotting seedlings to go to the neighborhood People's Market, and harvesting the last of the corn and spring carrots. We'll have fall carrots if the chickens stop scratching in that bed! Tonight we had the corn with Adam's fried chicken (yum!) and tomatoes. Does this sound crazy? I think fresh vine to table tomatoes taste like sunshine!