EXHAUSTED....

Thats all I can say to describe how I'm feeling. I'm just friggin exhausted. I'm having a lot of anxiety over every subject under the sun regarding bringing the baby home and how it will affect my life and my relationship with my wonderful husband. In fact, I went to bed last night at around 10:30pm and woke up at 2am and just started to worry. Then I was up every hour or so.. I had a catnap once today which I think helped some but I still have that nagging tiredness in the back of my mind.

I did finish the Breyer "lady phase" Mold halter that I was working on but it's just not up to snuff. I had to redo the knots (they were dirty)and re-adjust how it sat on the horse's face only to find out that the mold year of horse I was using is actually smaller in the head than the current year's mold. I've decided that I'm just going to keep that halter in my "collection" and do another one on a more recent mold's head to sell later on. The halter "Looks" really great.. just as good as usual but I have a nagging feeling that it shouldn't be sold or "played with".

I can not get my head around making a bit for the Mother Hubbard saddle's bridle. I just can't focus on it. It's probably my sleep depravation.. I just look at my reference and wait for it to zing me and inspire me like it normally would but no clear picture actually comes. I keep trying to come up with something that is unique and "Jungle" inspired but I just can't translate it right now to a miniature bit. I think that a snake would be nifty but I'm not sure How I'd incorporate that thought into a spade type bit... so maybe a leaf? or a flower? And then I tell myself to just go simple.. and then I laugh.. as if I could do something plain and simple now that I know how to do something more elaborate.. I want the bridle to be as special as the saddle so the bit (which is the foundation for the bridle) will have to wait until I can be more mentally clear..... Probably three or four months from now..hA!

So as of now I'm officially taking a short hiatus from the hobby and probably from blogging for a while... I can't push myself any more. My chair upstairs in the studio is too uncomfy but any other kind of chair is MORE uncomfy.. when I sit in my little space, bambino kicks me really hard and wiggles around and distracts me... then the Kitties want to sit in my lap and I just end up stopping. It's much easier right now to just lay down. I have a lot of respect for women who are perky and can work in their last few weeks of pregnancy and all of this change not bother them.. Cause it's certainly bothering me. I think I'm just overly sensitive though..

Getting closer..

This past week I've been utterly exhausted. I feel like I'm back in my first trimester again! I was getting off of work and almost falling into bed. I can't focus mentally on whats in front of me and I just want to sleep!

I finally got back up into the studio last night after a whole week of not getting up there. I got one silver plate finished and was working on the crownpiece of a halter and I wanted to go to bed. So I did. I fell asleep by 9:30pm and slept solidly until 5am. That longest I've slept in weeks!

I'm still a tad groggy today but I'm looking forward into getting into the studio today for a few hours and trying to get something accomplished!

Scary night

Yesterday started out as a normal day.. Work was nutso, and then a trip to the Dr's for a checkup. The checkup went great but after I got home my lower back started to hurt really badly. I wasn't overly worried about it(in the third trimester lower back pain is normal from the weight gain (don't get me started on THAT topic)and from not sleeping well) until I started getting some cramping up front too. Turns out these are the signs of preterm labor and hubby immediately got me into bed and promptly called the dr. The dr told me to lay on my left side and drink 2 or 3 glasses of water (whatever I could get down in the quickest amount of time). I got about 2 and 1/2 glasses of water in me and my body really WANTED those glasses of water. I was also really hungry - it kind of snuck up on me.. After about 3 hours I was back to normal thankfully but not without shedding a few "I'm scared, it's too soon!" tears.

I feel ok but achey today in my belly and especially in my shoulders and in my back around my shoulderblades.

Needless to say I guess I need down some more water throughout the day. I normally drink quite a bit but because I was at the drs office I got distracted and didn't drink as much.

As an interesting note, I mentioned that I am not sleeping well(as I mentioned.)to my Dr, and she said that this is due to hormones in my bod that are getting me ready for the bambino to come. It's keeping me alert even though asleep for when the bambino cries for me at night so this explains why I wake up at every noise and sometimes for no reason. I've also found that sometimes I'm just hungry when I get up in the middle of the night which doesn't make any sense to me.

Well, needless to say no tack got done yesterday. I think I fell asleep at 8pm and I woke up once at 1:30am with "The reflux". (Another lovely side effect of pregnancy is getting acid reflux because everything is pushing up on my stomach). I like saying "I gots the reflux" in a southern accent. (I live in kentucky so I'm entitled to whip out the southern accent whenever It pleases me ).

Today is election day for State Governor. Don't get me started. All I can say is that I wish that there were more viable Liberal Candidates in Kentucky. I know, I'm dreamin. I will be trudging to the polls late this afternoon provided I'm still feeling ok.

On Sunday I did manage to get a couple of bit shanks done. I'm not overly happy with them. I see these beautiful, "vaquero" spade bits on the Internet and I really want to duplicate them. Unfortunately they take some skills and tools that I don't know how to use an don't have access too. (like gas torches! ) I really wish that I had gone to art school and majored in something fun like metalsmithing. Of course, when I was in my late teens, early 20's there is no way you could have convinced me that my path was anything other than fine arts and I probably wouldn't have taken the class even if it was offered to me. Live and learn.

Here are some pictures of what I accomplished. I'm not sure if I'll use this design or not. Since, as I mentioned, I'm not as "on it" as I have been in the past (yet another side effect of being pregtnant my Dr told me) I'm not sure how this bit will turn out. I DO know, and feel confident in the fact that this is good training for mah brain and learning something new is always a step forward.

Been A awhile..

It's been a while since I posted and I apologize for that!

I've been very tired. I'm Due to give birth in December and the extra weight and the lack of sleep has caught up to me a bit. (Hard to sleep on my back because of the baby and hard to sleep on my side because of my shoulder problems) I've been "good" about napping every day so thats been sustatining me in my endeavor to keep working on tack so that I can keep relaxed.

I am very "fuzzy" in the brain. I'm not used to really not being "on it" mentally. An artist friend of mine says that the creativity and the spark of ideas will come back in time and for me not to fret!

I am happy to say that I've finished the reins for the matching bridle for my mother hubbard set. After a lot of mental indecision I've decided to do a fully braided bridle for the set. I think it just "fits" to do one. I have no idea how long it'll take me to get it finished though. I know that after the baby comes there will be at least a few months where tack will definitely go by the wayside due to sleep deprivation.

Today I've been looking through pictures of Spade bits to try to spark an idea for the bit for the bridle. Everything on the headstall starts with the bit so I need to get-a-movin!