A while ago it started overheating all the time. Then the hinges started getting floppy AGAIN. Then it started having mostly mild, but noticeable, problems with the display. Again.

After talking about it with the boy for a while, we decided that maybe the overheating was caused by dust, and maybe the hinge/display problem could be fixed this early on. So he cleaned out the fan–which, because my laptop was designed by morons (Sorry, Hewlett-Packard, I don’t care how many other good products you make, or that two of my family members work for you, but this thing really is kind of a POS.) required basically taking apart the entire machine–and sure enough, it was all full of dust.

So the overheating problem got solved. And once the screws on the hinges were tightened, that problem got solved too. But the display problems are still there, and more importantly–the machine now just plain turns off at random intervals, with no warning, with no apparent cause. And refuses to turn back on unless it gets left alone for a few minutes first.

Because of that I’ve spent all day backing up all my data. I don’t want to do anything that’s particularly important on the laptop, especially anything that doesn’t automatically save itself frequently, which is why there were no new Etsy listings today, despite the fact that I have lots of new photos up on Flickr and took even more goodies out of the kiln this afternoon. But now that everything is pretty much moved over to my desktop computer, I hope to get some stuff listed tomorrow, and maybe take some more pics. Meanwhile, here’s a little sampler of things to come:

Since they were popular in the past, I’ve put together a few more “orphan” bead sets, sort of samplers of my work, including beads that are, for various reasons, one of a kind.

I’m still doing work perfecting the process of making handmade ceramic rings–I can’t find any information anywhere about how to do it, or even find any people that are doing it at all, so I’ve had to find my own way. These two little guys are by no means my final “look,” but I tried them out and found them to be attractive and wearable nonetheless, so I thought I’d list them and see what happens.

I can’t quite decide what these 11mm rounds look like to me–the glaze was intended to look like lapis but I think they might more closely resemble some other natural stone–what do you think?