RE-ARRANGING DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC

This is representative of my day today.

They started out so promisingly.

Not much to show for a whole day of work.  

Well, it was one of those days where you should stay in bed or go to Starbucks and read a book all day.  It started the day with a cute idea for some simple bronze, tribal style earrings.  I cut the bronze sheet out, gave them a nice hammered texture, and finished them nicely.  I finished the first pair easily even though I haven't done any soldering since my hand surgery.  I did a fine job with the soldering (admittedly, it was a simple job) which made me happy after so long of a hiatus.  I pickled them to clean them up and lovingly polished them.  That's when I noticed that I had soldered the ear wires onto the wrong side.  ARRGH!  Ok, no problem, reheat, remove the wires, grind off the solder, pickle, rinse, make new ear wires because I mangled the first ones, flux, solder the new findings in place, clean them up.  That's when I realized that I hated how they hang in the ears.  It's amazing that I didn't throw them against the wall.  I stopped and started working out my problem in a sketch book and I think I have a good solution.  I started to disassemble them again but had to run off to an appointment.  So basically here's what I finished today in 6 hours.  Impressive, no? Just not in a good way!  I think maybe I'm a bit rusty.  I should be able to knock out several pairs of a simple thing like these in an afternoon.  I guess I'm going to have to find my groove again.  It's ok though.  I strongly believe that these kind of afternoons are the real work of what we do, a sort of way of working out the stuff we can't work out on paper.  Tomorrow is another day and I'm sure it will go much more smoothly.  Pictures of what happens next tomorrow!