Bummer, the Cards lost!

As I'm sure everyone who has a t.v. in the world has now heard. Hey, they had a good run while it lasted. Leave it to the Cardinals to allow the longest drive in Superbowl history, 100 yards. If they had made that touchdown and not been intercepted they would have won the game. Though they fought the good fight after that it just wasn't enough to pull it off. Well, there is always next season.

Ashley was acting weirder than usual this weekend. She was constantly talking to someone who wasn't there. I don't mean in that talking to your self mode, but really asking questions in that tone you would use to actually ask someone, not the rhetorical tone like when you talk to your self. When a 4 year old talks to an imaginary friend it's considered normal generally. I think when a 17 year old talks to an imaginary friend it's called schizophrenia. I am afraid for the kids when she comes over because I don't know if and when she is going to snap. I would not be the least surprised if Andy gets a call one day, or we see on the t.v. that she has committed a double homicide on her mother and her roommate. I have heard she has had some real nasty fights with her mother and I think it is only a matter of time before something tragic happens. I just don't want it to be at my house. She is a big girl, over 200 pounds, and strong too. I think Andy does not feel as physically threatened by her as I do, hence the feeling I am over reacting to her presence. I have had enough tragedy, thank you very much.

Keeping the kids out of my garden seems to be a hopeless task, but I will persevere. Tommy purposely stepped in the garden, for the attention I guess. He squished a couple of my tomato seedlings. I hope they pull through and spring back but I am not holding my breath. Otherwise it is looking great and after about a month it's really starting to look like a garden, not a bare patch of ground. Tabitha seems to have more respect for the garden; she likes the idea of flowers growing. She makes this cute squinched face with a sniffing sound to signify flowers, which she makes when pointing to the little plants in the garden. She pats them like little pets, to show she is nice to them. Tommy is mostly interested in using the garden to get my attention. Kids will be kids and I'll just have to be patient.

I did a few hours of research online last night and could not find any definitive post about removing the finish off of vintage glass pearls, but I went ahead and decided to try out acetone nail polish remover, and it worked like a charm! I had half a large salsa jar of these beads and poured in enough polish remover to cover the top. It just melted the finish right off the beads. I still have to do some clean up; I really should have used less pearls at a time, with more acetone since I have congealed lumps of the coating that gathered in the solution. I am going to strain my vintage glass beads with a fine strainer and get the plasticy lumps out and give the beads a good cleaning. The ones that still need some more treatment I will set aside and use some fresh acetone nail polish and give those another go. I did find out acetone does not hurt real pearls with all my research last night so I might find out some of my glass pearls are real; that would be cool. I just can't believe that after all that Googling not one place on the whole web had the instructions on how to remove the finish from vintage glass pearls. It's not like those things don't get worn out and salvaging them just for the pretty glass beads they are underneath is a bad idea. It's just not out there as something people can do. Well, I'm off to go work on those now and by tomorrow I should be making stuff with those newly cleaned beads!