Aggitating Situation

As long as I've brought up the laundry so many times as of late, I thought I'd reminise about a story that I heard several years ago. Elissa and I had decided to attend the Fibers Through Time Conference sponsored by the Arizona Federation of Weavers, and we were staying in a small hotel just off of campus. These conferences tend to be very social events, the women and men attending gather in the lobbies of their respective abodes after the day's events conclude to spin and knit, compare notes and finished projects, and just have a good time in general. This conference was no exception.

I wish I could remember the names of the women we were sitting with, outside by the pool with our spinning wheels in motion in front of us. I do remember that one of them was a teacher. I still find that odd; I always think of teachers as lofty individuals and when one that is teaching me in the daytime comes down to socialize with the group as an equal at night, I enjoy it immensely but am usually startled that they have strange kind of lives similar to mine. No matter what our status in the fiber world, we are all eccentric to the same degree.

Anyway, we were discussing odd pets, and the teacher brought up her son's habit of collecting snakes. I told her the story of L- and her snake "Muffin" that had disappeared for several weeks at one point, to finally be discovered curled around the seat of her neighbor's toilet. Apparently Muffin had spent a good portion of his time transversing the plumbing system of L's apartment complex. And so the teacher told the story of her son's snake getting lost.

It had been missing for weeks. Unlike L- who generally believed that the absent reptile would eventually turn up curled in one her shoes or something like that, the teacher figured that her son's snake was gone for good. She went about her housework like nothing was amiss, and that's how she perceived the situation. Oh how wrong she was.

One day she was doing the laundry. She opened the lid of the washer and removed the majority of the clothing out of the barrel. Looked in, and was shocked. There was the missing snake, angry as all get out. She quietly shut the lid of the machine and left the room.

We were all hysterical at this point. Of course. I mentioned that since snakes can make their way through plumbing, it was apparent that they can swim. I figure that, during the wash cycle, it just swam around like a merri-go-round horse or a sea serpent waiting for the ride to be over. That would probably not make it angry. But I figured that the spin cycle would be enough to do it. After all, that would make me pretty mad.

First we speculated on whether the snake had been mixed in with the clothing in the hamper or made it's way into the machine via the plumbing. But we were all anxious to know the outcome of the story. "What did you do?" we asked with gleams in our eyes.

"Well," she replied. "I did what any sane woman would do. I called my husband at work and told him he neeed to come home immediately to remove the snake from the washing machine."

"Did he?!?!" we responded.

"Not at first. He was really annoyed with me and wanted to know why I could not take care of the situation myself. To which I said, 'I'm not having anything to do with it. That snake is clearly aggitated.'"

Evolution

"WHOA!" I hear you say. "What in the heck has just happened to your web site? I was just here "x" days ago and it was nothing like this!"

Yeah, very true. The look and feel of www.LauraRSilverman has changed. A great deal. "And why?" you ask. "I was just fine with it the way it was.

Well, it's kind of a long story, but here goes.

2007 has been a year of great changes for me Both for good and also some disturbing. It's been a year of incredible growth and learning opportunities. And new challenges as far as my health goes.

I originally concieved of this web site mainly in response to a traumatic event at Slimmons when I passed out during class and was kidnapped by Paramedics. Although I had kept updated medical files there, the staff - in their panic - gave the medical help old and way outdated information sheets, not realizing that not all the copies were the same. I spent almost the entire visit at the Emergency Room trying to convince the nurses and doctors that they were working with such old information that it was worse than useless... it was dangerous. For they were assuming that I was taking "X" medicines when I was now taking "Y." And the kinds of meds that I often take are often dangerous and have severe interactions with other ones. I realized after that visit that I needed a vehicle by which all I had to do was provide anyone who might witness a situation where I can't speak for myself (more frequent than I like to admit) current medical information without having to ever second guess what they had on hand. And so I got my web site. Those that potentially need my medical information know how to get to it. And no longer does anyone have to deal with multiples of paper.

In the meantime, I'm also somewhat of a writer. I've even been published a few times and may someday take the pen back up again although I'm afraid to send off query letters for fear of acceptance and -because of health issues- not being able to deliver on a deadline. I don't need a reputation of not being as good as my word. But I still have a need to express myself via the written word. Blogging was a natural course for me to follow. And so my web site became mainly an outlet for my thoughts.

Last March, I attended a fiber conference that may have changed the course of my life. I discovered a latent talent for beading and making jewelry. And much to my surprise, I also found out that people would pay for my work! And so I developed a small business in it. And decided that my web site was a good location to post my work too.

And of course, my weight loss pictures and story. I suppose, based on the amount of e-mail I get from others, I am providing some degree of comfort and hope to others who are traveling down the same road that I did. And so my web site also became a vehicle for posting pictures and motivation.

So many purposes for one little site! But a couple of things became abundantly clear as I learned about writing html code and maintaining the site. First, my audience who check my blog has grown at a rather startling rate, but it's still limited because I was not in a traditional blogging site. By that lack of connection, I have been unable to join "feeds" and increase my audience because of exposure. I long to have an impact on a bigger scale. And so I joined blogspot. I'm learning the ropes now, and hope to expose myself on a bigger scale shortly. Another writer I know has said "If you write it, they will come." We'll see about that.

I also realized that my web site had a look of 'fun and games' and was not an appropriate location to send potential clients to preview my work. Jewelry is fashion; jewelry is art. And what I had was a very servicable site, but nothing to impress. It was time to go "pretty."

If you've come here through my site, you probably noticed that it's no where near completion. Some of the pictures duplicate, many of the links are not operational yet. All that will be corrected in due time. My first priority is to re-establish access to everything that was there before. My favorite links, Fab Four pictures, weight loss story. Then I will get other items of business established. My Etsy Store where you can actually buy my work. Clips and credits from the media. And updated show of my jewelry and other items that I have learned to make.

And there are some lovely advantages to how I envision things going. First on my blog... you will be able to comment back to me on my blog. I have lived for your e-mails, but they have mostly been one-on-one responses. Now you can publish on the internet too! You will be able to see what I am working on via my artisan links and connect directly into vehicles to buy it if you like it and think that the price is right.

Because the web page is more efficient, I hope to be able to update the links on a more regular basis and keep you more in sync with what's happening. And along with the updates, I will decrease the size of the memory required to run the site and you'll be able to pull up the information more quickly and more efficiently.

I realize that I am rambling on here and I have an appointment to keep in about an hour. So I'm going to wish you adieu for the moment. I do hope that you enjoy what I am developing and will continue visiting as often as you have.

Thank you so much for your show of support!

Laura