Zycam--Good or Not So Good?

I recently heard about the side affects that some people are reporting from the use of Zycam. And of course the makers of Zycam are denying any side affects.
What is Zycam? It is an OVC cold reducer with the main ingredient of Zinc; the Zycam I used was a nasal swab. I am still not sure how zinc works in the nose to reduce cold germs. But when I first inserted the nasal swab, my upper nasal passages burned like hell, my eyes watered. I withdrew the swab, with murmurings of; oh shi-, ouch, all the while hopping from one foot to another.
Yet,all the while I am telling myself that this curative torture(Zycam) was better than the upper respiratory infection of a c-o-l-d!
And, I added to these thoughts that the FDA would not allow a product to be sold to the GP without being thoroughly tested, right? Part of the loss of the age of innocence, right!

I may have used it one other time, and after experiencing the same nasty side affects, I never used it again. In fact I just threw out the dated box last year.
But I never complained to anybody. Nowadays, I chalk every new hurt, or discomfort up to the aging factor.
The learned medical community has not really taken the time to research what is the normal affects of aging and what is not. And if they have they sure are not publicizing it as much as is needed.
Anyway, I digress. As a result of having used this Zycam, I have noticed that my sense of smell has been greatly reduced most of the time. Then there are times when my dtr-in-law's perfume will make my eyes and nose water for days. The sense of smell is too heightened. Yet when I try to smell the fragrance of a rose, the smell is dulled. I also notice my sense of taste is also diminished. My nose always seems to run.But again I am thinking it's 'old age'--

Now, I know my first thoughts were most correct, it wasn't an aging factor, as much as it was the Zycam. I was only in my early 50's when I first used it.

So, what can we learn from this Zycam experience? Be aware? Cautious?
If it hurts when using it, don't use it? That's not a bad answer. The body's intelligence is a great alert system. If it smells bad don't eat it. If something hurts when sticking it in your nose, don't do it!

Have a better day folks--:)

http://mysticsilks.etsy.com/

Picasso Moon Silk Painting Original Painting

"Picasso's Moon" I'd have to say is the most viewed original painting in my etsy shop. Yet, it has not sold.

It was one of the most relaxing paintings to create as I did not fret and strain myself with intense concentration, as I have done over some of my other paintings.

Maybe it was the subject matter that loosened my shoulder muscles: I've always loved the forest, a body of water, and the wonderful mad moon gazing down on me. Maybe somehow I magically saw myself in that forest. Who knows?

http://mysticsilks.etsy.com/

Affairs Of The Heart

I always state on any of the online dating sites, and on my blog, that I am willing to talk about affairs of state, and affairs of the heart. Well, here goes.

On Sunday of March 9th, I received a yahoo quickie " your profile made me smile" alert. Now, normally, I click on just to see who sent me a message.
Most of the time, in fact 100% of the time I click delete, because it always seems like the usual yadda, yadda( I miss Jerry's Seinfeld's TV shows), and I feel a yawn begin as a response.
But Sunday was different. I read this fella's profile and felt as if a long ago love had come back into my life. His words were not like others I have read: Love to eat out, love to cuddle, love golf, boring etc., etc.,.

No, here's what he wrote:

just imagine the spark you have ZINGed in me!...are you trying to find that special someone who makes you smile when you think of him?... a good relationship is not so elusive! you do really have a soul mate!... you should still believe...it starts with a spark that in time blossoms into a deep connection between two people...when we meet we will know that we have found that special someone...life is a wonderful adventure....let us walk the road 2gether!...what am we looking for?...we will see it in each others eyes and in that certain special smile... we will both exude warmth, love, caring, kindness and strength. our character is reflected in how we treat each other and others and how we live our lives... our intellects will glow...we will be confident, honest,communicative and most importantly, happy with ourselves... a gentle touch and a good sense of humor will be there... one of our real turn ons will be getting to know each other and feeling that we have made a connection with each another...we will have sparked a ZING in each other...we will remember past times having had that wonderful feeling of connecting with one very special person...i enjoy reading e.e.cummings...he has a special trait...but sometimes the opposite trait yeilds more fruitful results...'Because Of Better Great Results In Meeting My Mate AT YAHOO personals'...i hope to hear from you soon...you will know who exactly this personal is aimed towards!


SIGH--I was hooked, like I haven't felt zinged, or hooked in ages. Now, I realize this fella had not paid for a subscription to Yahoo.
I had not either. So, I sent him back the same free quickie reply" Your profile stood out above the others"
And I waited till Monday, and finally couldn't wait any longer. I joined paying the damn $29.90 for a month's service. I figured , kid why are we being frugal at this stage in the game?
I sent him a message containing some ee.cumming's poetry, along with my email address. And I waited. Nothing.

Then I logged in to my etsy account/shop, and noticed a convo. I clicked on it, only to find it was from the fella on yahoo personal who had done a search and found me on etsy.com.
He wrote me a convo with his email address. He let me know in one of his etsy convo's that he did NOT wish to communicate via etsy convo's.
OK, I can understand, if you're going to write steaming hot stuff, who wants etsy to know?
So, I emailed him using the email address he'd left in the etsy convo.
I asked him some key questions like: Why do you leave barn doors open in the spring and summer? He wrote back, " to give you 3 red roses." How do you make that loud bleep out sound-eeerrskiech--meaning wrong answer!!
OK, maybe this fella really doesn't want me to know who he really is, right?
So, I ask him how did you find me on etsy, if you didn't know anything except my yahoo 'cookiethief ' name?

He didn't answer back. In fact when he stated, after I had written " if and when we meet..." He wrote, " we will'--I asked him how he could be so sure of himself?
He never answered back.
He had enclosed his phone number in one of the etsy convo's, so today I tried calling--got busy signals the 1st 2 times.
The 3rd time I called the phone rang and rang--no one picked up, nor was there an answering machine to record a message.

So we still have a mystery here. But he sure wrote a great profile, didn't he?

Visit http://mysticsilks.etsy.com/

Mystic Silks Makes The News in "The Tribune Chronical"

A reporter from " The Tribune Chronical" contacted me about 2 weeks ago, asking if she could do an interview with me: Her name is Steff Watson.

She was asked by her editor to contact three people who live in the Warren, Akron, Youngstown , Ohio area, and who sell on etsy.com. I asked her how she found me? She replied,

" You were on the top of the page when I googled etsy.com."

OH, WOW! I thought, how neat is that!

OK, so my blog is about that interview:

Their art is all different, but they all agree one one thing: What they do, they do out of love. As members of the Etsy.com website, they're able to market their art to the world; as local artists, they're part of the fabric of culture that makes up our area.Klaire Martin is a silk artist working in Warren, working under the name MysticSilks. While taking art classes at the local college, where she happened to see something that caught her attention -- a class on silk-art. "I stopped to observe for awhile, and the process of creating silk art intrigued me. I signed up for the next class."The process isn't simple. First, the silk is prepared by washing it in a special soap, which removes any remnants of silk worm from the fabric. After that, the silk is rinsed, ironed, then stretched on a frame and allowed to dry. Meticulously painting French dyes inside of dried gutta lines of her own design, which sometimes takes a month or more to create itself, she then allows the painting to dry for as much as two days. From there, the new silk painting is rolled into a soft cotton sheet, wrapped around a wire cylinder and steamed for two to three hours to set the dyes deep into the fabric. The process makes the colors vivid and the patterns explode.This process can also coax mysterious patterns from the silk. One such painting of hers is named Bluebird Garden. As Klaire explains, "There appears to be the images of a man and woman between the stump, and red rose bush. That is the reason for the name: MysticSilks."A retired registered nurse, Klaire sells on Etsy and is also an administrator on the recently launched website http://www.designstyleguide.net/, which debuted in 2008.For some, Etsy is a way to showcase a pleasant side hobby. For Teri Gear, who primarily works out of the Austintown area, Etsy allows her to share her works with a broad audience; from rings, to glass button marble magnets for your refrigerator, to Valentine's cards. In her own words, "I love creating; taking one thing and turning it into something else. This has long been a hobby of mine -- painting, sewing, jewelry making, cross stitching, knitting... the list goes on."Her full time job is one many women can understand: Being a Mom. Her husband and her had decided that she could quit work to stay at home. Then a friend had told her about Etsy, and since she was going to create anyway, Teri decided to sell some of her creations on the side while raising the new baby. "Although some people make a living on Etsy, I use it as a way to showcase my work and do something with the many things that I would be crafting anyways."She goes on to add, "I started back into my crafting in winter so I haven't done any craft shows, but I may try some this spring and summer."Finally, for others still, Etsy is only one place of many where their art is shown to the world. This is the case for Rochelle "Shelly" Krok of Niles.Lampworking (or flameworking) is the process of creating glass beads; melting hot glass around mandrels and shaping it to create something one-of-a-kind. A seemingly simple process, but in practice, one that takes a good deal of diligence to master.Shelly started off in pottery and spent eight years working with clay. Then, five years ago, she observed a lampworking class. She took the six week course, then came home every night and practiced.Starting with Canfield on the Green, then moving on to the Trumbull Art Gallery, Christmas in the Woods, the Butler Art Festival and the YSU Summer Arts Festival where she took Best in Show, Shelly's beads have toured and her passion for making them keeps growing. She has even traveled to Corning, New York to study intensely under Loren Stump, a glass artist and lampworker who is known world-wide.Now a member of three different artists groups, Shelly gives classes out of her Niles studio. She continues to work -- twenty-seven years now at Trumbull Memorial Hospital, a job that has been good to her -- but there can be no doubt that her lampworking takes a large portion of her heart."This is the love of my life," she said, looking around her studio after demonstrating her art.Shelly's beads will be featured tonight at the B&O Station's Artists of the Rustbelt show, which is free to the public.----Sidebar----Etsy: How Does it Work?Etsy.com is a site that focuses strictly on hand-made, vintage items and related artist supplies. Their official statement is: "Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade."Listing on Etsy is simple; there's no web working or site building required. According to Shelly Krok of Niles, it's this simplicity which is a selling point: "If you don't have a website, it gives you a website." It isn't free to list an item on Etsy, but the price is minuscule: Twenty cents per item being listed. When an item sells, Etsy receives a sales commission of 3.5%, much like eBay and other large sites that broker goods.Once an item is bought, the seller ships it out. Similar to other sites, feedback is also encouraged by buyers -- buyers can rate the sellers by percentage, and other users of the site can check the seller's ratings.For those who love working with crafts, Etsy offers an outlet to sell goods without having to open a storefront or travel to various shows, though many artists do anyway. Another bonus is that users can search by location and find artists and crafters in their own area who can sometimes provide just what they're looking for.Klaire Martin of Warren sells her silk-art there, under the name MysticSilks. Her shop is located at: http://mysticsilks.etsy.com/, where she's said, "I've had many sales of my hand designed silk scarves, pillows, and the sale of one of my silk paintings to a buyer in Canada."Under the name CorinneCrafts, Teri Gear's work from the Austintown area can also be found there at http://corinnecrafts.etsy.com. She's hoping to pick up more sales as time goes on. "I've only had a few sales but I hope to increase that in the near future -- maybe when I'm not chasing my daughter around so much!"Finally, Shelly Krok maintains her Etsy shop at http://shellybeads.etsy.com/, as well as her own personal website http://www.shellybeads.com/. As for her sales on Etsy, she's made only two, but the site has allowed many people to find her locally and join a class or see her art in person.
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Design Style Guide Team-- Handmade Home and Yard Decor

I have been with the Design Style Guide Team for close to a year. In that time period we've grown from 200 members to over 900 as of this date!!

We've launched our new website http://www.designstyleguide.net/

in Decemebr of 2008.

This online site consists of items of handmade home and yard decor created by the members of Design Style Guide.

It is our goal to attract interior designers/decorators,home stagers, and the general public.

If a buyer wishes to purchase an item from our website, simply click on the item , it will then link you to the seller's etsy shop, or the seller's online shop where that item/s may be purchased.

Many of my paintings can be found there, and on etsy.

http://mysticsilks.etsy.com

Joe (Sam) The Plumber? By Mystic Silks

McCain feeling compassion towards ' The plumber'---Why?

When was the last time you paid a plumber's fees? Truly, I'm not the least worried about him( the plumber) paying higher taxes. The last time I had one come over to the house, he was charging a $50.00 service fee just for driving to my house, then another $95.00 per hour while he worked on fixing a plumbing problem. I can't recall the entire bill , but I do know we cut down on shopping for food the following two weeks.
In other words they make more, much more than I do-- more than a lot of people do:
It's just better to let that faucet drip.
I do not feel sorry for Joe, Sam or whatever his name , the plumber.

Please visit http:mysticsilks.etsy.com

Have a nice day!

The Great American Bailout, or Rip-Off by Mystic Silks

I'd like to be promoting and selling my silk art, however something more important is on my mind: Our government's bail-out of the greedy banking and lending institutions.
I have to think that our elected officials have no idea, no concept, no grasp of what their constituents really think.
Oh, some of the wealthy business leaders touched base with their elected officials, and said, " Vote for the bail-out!"

Frankly, I don't know why, they voted for it. The hearsay is, it's only throwing a bandage on a huge gaping wound: We ( the American people and economy) are still bleeding from other sources.
Does anyone really know the other sources, or what it's going to take to have a strong economy?

No one really has any answers for us. Wall Street certainly did not bounce back after the 'bail-out' . Something still stinks in Denmark, and it smells like very, very expensive rotting fish.

Here's an email I received from a concerned friend. I thought she expressed herself quite well:
I was hoping the house would stand against it, but I guess the pressure from within and with their consitituents was too much. And the millions for "sweeteners" is just ridiculous. I do hope the polls this November show and angry populus that really wants reform. And I hope McCain gets some of his earlier backbone stiff enough to mean business.

A friend of mine, a Christian, told me a while ago she looks at Sarah as the Esther written of in the Bible. There is a big similarity, but the outcome is yet to let us see. Esther saved a nation, and possibly Sarah will be used that way. Hope she's got backbone enough for both of them. I am thinking she will be next president before his term is half over.

As for the financial business, I would like to see those buggers in jail, espcially Paulsen. I feel he is the one who voiced the alarm and comes the question I hear on some programs, what was the "cause" of the alarm? People calling into Rush's show told of the ease of getting major credit without any trouble. Some lesser amounts and without having previous credit rating and with low interest.

Hope those boyscouts can now afford tons of arrows! And that flow of rum will save another drunk from sobriety.

I didn't care much for women in power, but I think the whole congress needs a bunch of us practical females to get in there with the mops and boiling hot water. Harry Reid is first in line to get it, then Pelosi. And I'd make that lady from Ohio Marcy Kaptur head honcha (a is female) of the senate. Wow, do I like her!

We have a bunch of crooks running this state now. And in the senate. Oh, they are despicable this Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy. GRRRR!

Yes, Jane Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr on the whole lot of those lily-liveried elected officials. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling"--seems G Bush needs to get better glasses or have a more wise group of people surrounding him.
We heard of the 'weapons of mass destruction in Iraq' and now "our country is going into a financial black hole. Save us, now"

Hey, if anyone would like to leave their comments, we'd love to hear what you have to say.

http://mysticsilks.etsy.com