Aghhh...The Dentist

I went in for my routine every three months deep cleaning at the dentist yesterday afternoon. I have whatever the heck the gum disease is called where your teeth eventually will fall out because your gums aren't holding them in anymore so I have to have the cleaning done four times a year in the hopes that they won't fall out for a few more years at least. I had gum surgery a couple of years ago to replace some of the bone and clean all the crap out that the deep cleaning couldn't get and it was really really expensive and the insurance only paid a little bit of it so I'm constantly going to the dentist because I can't afford more gum surgery. I absolutely HATE going to the dentist and as soon as I get in that chair my body goes entirely rigid and I'm sure my blood pressure shoots up to dangerous levels. They use that high powered water jet thing first and then scrape scrape scrape and dig dig dig and my fingers are tightly clenched onto the armrests the entire time.

This is not because I don't brush my teeth, I'm always brushing (like five times a day) and flossing (twice a day) and he did say that my hygeine looked good, some people just get gum disease.

Anyway, it turns out that I need a crown put on one of my molars that the filling has broken on and there's not enough real tooth left to refill, so crap, I am not looking forward to that experience at all! The dentist office has to check with the insurance to see what they will pay on it first and then we'll schedule the torture appointment. Ugh.

While I was there I had them check on when Keith was due for a checkup and somehow he has managed to slip by for over a year with nobody at the dentist sending a little reminder card or anything, so he gets to go in for his scraping and digging, but not until April because they had no late day appointments until then. He had a crown put in last time he went so I'm hoping he doesn't need another one or any other major thing right now.

At least I don't have any cavities, ha ha.

And, in other news, my new etsy shop has gotten off to a pretty good start. It's only been open for 2 weeks and I have 8 sales, which to me is excellent for a new shop. I'm just hoping it keeps up!

New Shop

I was experimenting with pendants made with heart shaped wood instead of square or rectangle after searching on etsy and seeing basically nothing similar already. I need to find something that grabs some attention instead of getting lost in the wastelands on etsy. While making heart shaped stuff I had the idea to put them all in a separate etsy shop so if someone wants something heart shaped it's all conveniently located in a one stop specialty shop. So, I've opened a second shop on etsy for just heart shaped things. Keith thinks it's a stupid idea and I'll be spending too much time on the computer and more listing fees and all, but as I tried to explain to him, whether I list a heart pendant on my first shop or my second, it's the same fee and the same time spent on the computer, regardless of which shop I'm working on. So, second shop it is.
http://lizziepureheart.etsy.com

I've been noticing that shops that concentrate on one thing instead of a bunch of different stuff seem to do pretty well on etsy. Sometimes I think my shop is just a little too jumbled with too many different things in too many different styles so nothing seems to really take off these days. The biggest seller on etsy (over 12000 sales in just a little over a year) sells nothing but those darn scrabble tile pendants. The heart theme has a lot of possibilities and can be done in just about any sort of medium, so maybe my tired brain will be inspired to come up with new and creative ideas.

Here's some of the pendants I've been working on:

I also made some new soldered glass heart pendants. These sold pretty well when I used to make them a year or two ago, then I got tired of doing them. But, I had hearts left over and decided to try them again.

So, we'll see whether I'm wasting my time or not, it's not that I've got anything better to do these days. Nobody wants to hire me and I can't stand daytime TV, so hearts it is for now.