The past few days I’ve looked a bit like Lucy when she and Ethel had the candy wrapping job. I’m sure you have seen snippets of the episode of the I Love Lucy Show where the candy comes faster that Lucy and Ethel can get it wrapped and moved down the assemble line. You can see it on YouTube.

I’ve always tried to make the most of my jewelry design time. Often this means stringing one piece while metal components of another have their turn in the tumbler or dry outdoors after they’ve been properly sealed.

I usually prepare several pieces at once before taking them downstairs to the torching room. Therefore, while some things are annealed or soldered others dry or tumble and this creates an assembly line for the designs – I’ll bet you have the picture. It probably works the same way at your house whether you’re preparing dinner while washing clothes or feeding the cows while the flat on the tractor gets fixed. We all multitask.

This week, however, the tumbler seems to get finished before I’m through stringing and the wire armatures are ready for embellishment before I get the foldformed pieced annealed and into the patina. I feel like someone gave each instrument in my orchestra a different tempo and some are playing a nice andante while others are engaged in a runaway fugue!

OK, you say, just show us the problem. Where are the pictures? Well that’s part of the problem . . . I didn’t get any pictures taken before the pieces went right out. You’ll have to trust me when I say that 13 necklaces, 5 bracelets and 14 pair of earrings have left this Lucy show since Friday.

Tonight, I’m going to stop wrapping those pieces of candy just like Lucy did and take a break. Here’s the only problem. Lucy ate some of those chocolates and I don’t think I should ingest any of these copper components. I guess they are just going to have to stay in the tumbler a few extra hours or just sit and wait to be annealed. What I do know is that it’s time to slow down the assembly line and get control of the schedule. After all . . . who’s is charge here?