About Me

Artisan of beautiful and functional art, handmade in our glass studio. All items one of a kind due to the nature of our medium.

A little about me:  As the mother of four children, multiple four-legged ‘children’, wife and an ER nurse … I’ve always found pleasure in pursuing creative outlets. My current ‘hobby’ is kiln-formed glass.  As I never do anything half-way … my husband and I are really enjoying this medium.  Other hobbies have included/include stained glass, quilting, knitting, wine making, candles – oh, and a brief trial of the ancient Ukranian art of etching designs on blown eggs … don’t ask. 🙂

This blog is the ramblings about (mostly) my glass art.  Occasionally some of my other life spills over (life in the ER of a small community hospital, my journey as a wife and mother, adventures with my dogs …), but I come back around to my studio … so that I can share pictures and document my growth/development as a warm glass artist …

I’ve been a nurse for 20 years now, mostly in the ER in some capacity, but also did a brief stint (3 yrs) as a nurse manager for a level-one inner-city hospital in the Neuro Trauma ICU.  Basically, this means I have a crusty bitter outer shell, protecting my soft gooey center.  (In other words – I’m a tad sarcastic, but try not to let that affect my humanity.)  I’m also a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE nurse for rape victims) for our county, for the last 6 years.  It’s often an emotionally tough job, but I do it because no one should have to receive treatment for that ‘complaint’ in an emergency room setting.

I’m the mother to 4 teenage kids, 2 girls and 2 boys.  They are amazing kids really – beautiful, smart, witty.  Our youngest are girl/boy twins (yes – that means fraternal, NOT identical – you’d be amazed how many people have asked that question!).

Since I stopped giving birth myself, I now live vicariously through my dogs … we are hobby breeders of Neapolitan Mastiffs and Yorkshire Terriers.  I know – strange combination of dogs to love.  Kind of like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ … and it changes daily – which group is the Beauties and which group is behaving like the Beasts 🙂 … So you’ll find pictures of some of my four-legged kids throughout the blog.

Lastly, I’m the wife of my high school sweet-heart.  We’ve been together for 25 years, married for 20.  While he makes me as crazy as the kids do many days … he’s a wonderful guy and I can’t imagine life without him.  He (with my guidance and direction – of course) built our home 7 years ago.  As we were building it – we lived on-site in a 1970’s mobile home, complete with orange shag carpet and olive-colored toilet.  What an adventure that was – 6 of us in that cozy little box on wheels.  But – it was worth it!  I love our house … the never-ending landscaping, finishing and upkeep!  🙂

I try to keep myself centered and grounded, occasionally losing focus until I come back to a few phrases I try to live by – shared with me by some great influences in my life:

•   ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ – by an excellent ER physician who never lost his cool, regardless of the chaos or drama surrounding him.
•   ‘Stop and smell the flowers’ – by my dad, who has the same flash temper, sarcastic humor, and ability to over think/worry/stress that I inherited, but has some 21 yrs of experience on me embracing the simple joys in life.

You can visit my on-line glass stores at www.chneos.etsy.com 

You can email me at chneos@aol.com

And lastly, you can meet some of my four-legged family at www.chneos.com

9/7/2010