I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

Here's the last of the contest pieces I made in March. I'm sure these will all go into new jewelry designs (the big double koi is reserved for that kimono-style sweater, whenever I actually get around to knitting it). I might put one of them up on Etsy - not sure about that yet, though.

I'm sitting here surrounded by a mess of beads, franticallly putting designs together. Once again, I've discovered that I misremembered my deadlines. I thought I had until next week to submit designs for one of the magazines, and, in fact, the deadline is tomorrow. (A second deadline is, in fact, for next week, but because all of the pieces plus instructions have to be at the publishers for consideration by that date, I've decided to cut my losses and skip that one entirely.) It's amazing to me how absent-minded I am these days, especially when I consider how many deadlines I used to juggle when I was working. My work was so date intensive that we had specialized (and extremely expensive) software just to keep track of all of the deadlines. Nowadays, I'm lucky if I remember what day of the week it is. I'd prefer to think that it's simply the result of being out of practice and not an accumulation of "senior moments", but in my heart of hearts I do wonder if perhaps I'm starting to get a little doddery. Oh, well. I suppose I've got to work with what I have and hope that the Short One doesn't start running rings around me once he figures out my weakness (kids are so perceptive that way, don't you think?).

Anyway, I'm sitting here working on earring designs at the moment, which is unusual for me. I actually don't have pierced ears myself. Although my parents raised me in a highly Western fashion, my mother followed the tradition with which she grew up by not piercing my ears (and not allowing me to pierce my ears) when I was young. (One of my female cousins once told me that, in Korea, the saying was that a woman with pierced ears will be unfaithful to her husband. While I find this interesting, I hardly think most people pay it much mind these days, as I know plenty of Korean women with pierced ears. Actually, ironically, my mother now has pierced ears herself. Anyway, where was I?)

I was never terribly bothered by the lack of pierced ears myself. In college I was known for wearing huge, tacky clip-on earrings (it was the 8o's, after all). I had one pair of high-end, enamel and gold electroplate earrings made by a company called Lunch at the Ritz that were basically multiple dangling images of zebra posteriors. I loved them, but they were so jangly, I had trouble hearing anything when I wore them. Oh, what we sacrifice in the name of fashion, eh? I lost the habit of wearing earrings entirely once I started working, as I found it too uncomfortable to talk on the phone all day with even a small stud pressed to the receiver.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else here not have pierced ears?

I suppose I should get back to my mess of beads. Thanks for stopping by!

ps. Does anyone recognize the quote that's the title of today's entry?