Hello Cyber World ~ April 9, 2010

I am not sure what I am getting into starting this blog. But there is so much going on in my life I figured I needed to start journaling and keeping track of it!

First let me nail this down with some personal information. Well maybe not to personal after all this is the internet and God only knows who will read this!!

My actual name is Sandy Dillingham-Schafer. I have been married to a wonderful man (don't get to excited he is normal and has his ups and downs too) Randy, for 33 years. We have 3 wonderful children (who as I like to call are pretty normal, but in the entire realm of reality are pretty wonderful) Heather almost 33, Shannon 31 and Todd 24. I will write about them a lot because they are very important in my life, so I will introduce them to you.

Heather is married to Kirk, is now a stay at home Mom and lives here in Battle Creek about 3/4 of a mile away, Kirk works for Comcast! She keeps herself busy doing Ebay resales like her Dad and she gaves us one of our most precious presents, Xavier Russel our first Grandchild. He is amazing and is the exclmation point of our lives right now!!! You will hear me refer to him as PLD (precious little dude) because I already have my little boy, OK so my little boy is 24 and married, but that doesn't change him from always being my little boy!!

Shannon is married to Shawn for close to 5 years. They live in Olivet, MI with our grandpuppies Daisy and Dillon, plus two kitties, Twiggy & Kolbe. Shannon is a Surgical Technician in Lansing and Shawn is a Sales Representative for BDS, which builds lift kits and goodies for those big bad trucks that Guys love to drive!

Todd married Erin last September high up in the Rio Grande National Forest in Creede, Colorado where they make their home for right now. He is the Technical Director for the Creede Repretory Theatre during the season, and has done all kinds of odd jobs on the off season. Erin is working on her masters, substitute teaching and runs the after school program for the Creede School System. Creede is a town of around 400 in the Colorado Rockies that during the summer season is a large tourist destination, mostly because of the theatre. It is BEAUTIFUL!

Finally the little girl that lives with us, shares our bed at night and fills some of the empty hole that was left when our Children grew up is our wonderful, Great Dane, Kylee. She was a gift from our children to Dad and made the trip from Alamosa, Colorado in the back of Todd's car at 12 weeks old back in August of 2008. She travels with us and fills our life with lots and lots of Joy. She is also referred to as Dawg by our grandson.

Dilly as most of you know is my nickname, I have carried it around for close to 60 years. With a maiden name like Dillingham it's pretty easy to figure out where it came from. I really accepted it as a nickname when I started drawing as a kid. I signed anything with "Dilly" and it continues through today. It became my signature when I started melting glass 8 years ago. I use that name in the Lampwork world and anyone who knows me and my glass call my Dilly. It has stuck and it's really only family that calls my Sandy now. Many of my glass family don't even know my given name. Don't worry I answer to Mom, Honey and my favorite Grandma!

So if you haven't guessed already I am a Lampwork Glass Artist and I am sure my blog will be littered with photos of that! I sell my beads to artisans and crafts people who make jewelry or whatever inspires them. My latest interest are fish, along with my raised florals, cameos, landscapes and organic focals.

I am a computerholic, and visit Wet Canvas (a cyber artist community) daily where I am a guide in the Glass Artist portion. I visit Facebook, Craigslist, Lampwork Etc, Etsy and Ebay. I sell my beads on Ebay (search Dilly Lampwork and you will find me) and on Etsy I have a store selling my beads www.etsy.com/shop/DillyDesign.com.

In addition to that Hubby and I keep our business going with a resale business using Ebay. We have done that for over 12 years and Yes, it pays the bills, we won't get rich, but we are our own boss!! It requires regular road trips, visits to thrift stores, auctions, second hand stores, and garage sales. I guess we were into recycling/repurposing before it was cool and necessary!

If you are still reading this, man your life must be boring! Then again maybe mine is so stupid it holds your interest waiting for the even weirder things I do!

So here are some of the things that are going on in my life that I want to journal about. First of all at the beginning of 2010 hubby and I went for the most part organic. I had lost 55 lbs before this and was stuck and hubby had gained over 40 lbs and needed to get healthy! Believe me I have tried every diet known to man over the 40 years I have carried extra weight around. Like most people I have dieted and gained, dieted and gained so many times it is unhealthy. 3 years ago I started drinking tons of water, and cutting back my portions. Thats how the first 55 lbs came off. But to be honest I felt like crap, was exhausted and really wanted to be below 200 for the first time in over 30 years. I was at 212 and couldn't budge. Hubby had gained and his biggest obstacle was portions. I know what we should eat, but willpower goes out the window with the good stuff I was cooking.

We happened to watch one of those great shows on PBS they play when they are hitting you up for $$. It was Jillian Michaels on "Mastering your Metabolism", it made sense and we bought the book. January 1st we cleaned out the cupboards took the bags of food to our daughters and let them have what they wanted. We filled our cupboards with foreign looking stuff and collected cookbooks and looked at our grocery store with "New Eyes". It does cost more, but we are so fortunate that our local grocery store, Meijers, is up front and leading with their own line or organics. Each week I find more and more products and it has been a wonderful adventure finding new things. We have a local health food store, Apple Valley, that carries the hard core stuff, like Veganaise, yup it's good, I do add my non organic Splenda to it (a girl needs her fix of faux Miracle Whip!)

Since the first of the year, hubby has gone from 247 to 206 and I have dropped from 212 to 196. One thing leads to another don't you know and about 2 months ago we found a juicer, Omega II, and we now juice at least once a day and sometime twice. We love the citrus juices we have tried and are still looking for a veggie juice we could have regularly!

With all the fruit skins and vegetable stuff I decided I would like a composter. I had started a garden last summer and enjoy doing a square foot style garden. I would like to add in some wonderful soil to make my veggies grow. In addition we really had been talking about setting up a hydroponic garden so we could enjoy fresh veggies, especially tomatoes during Michigans winter months that drag on. While searching the net for instruction to build our composter out of a food grade 55 gallon barrel we found Aquaponics. I told you one thing leads to another.

You ask what the heck is Aquaponics????? If you are informed at all about hydroponics, the growing of things in water, it a lot like that. However in hydroponics you add fertilizers and nutrients into the water to help the veggies grow. In Aquaponics the basics is that you have two tanks, one is your growing bed for your plants that you run the water through, and the other tank is for fish that create the bacteria and nutrients that feed your plants. You pump the water from the fish into the plants, and drain the water from the plants into the fish tank. It's a plumbers nightmare, but basically the system goes round and round, no additives all natural and you can raise fish you can eat such as Talapia when you get everything in the set up. This process is fanning out across the globe and heavy in Africa, Australia and Eurpoe, but of course us lazy Americans want everything done for us so it's dragging here.

Add in my regular making beads, working on the house, spring is here so landscaping needs to be done and maintinaing my title of Super Mom, and Wonder Grammie I have one busy life.

I think as we forge ahead with the indoor garden, outdoor garden, composter, rainbarrel, organic eating, and anything else we come across I can keep busy keeping track of it all!

OK, are we all on the same page now??? I know I am writing this as if someone else will read this, but right now it's Me, but Hey maybe someday, who knows! Talk to you tomorrow. Todays dance card involves, having the taxes done, and working on the composter!

Keep smiling and if you have an extra pass it around!

Dilly