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Thursday, October 7, 2010

Beamer me up

Today hasn't quite turned out like I planned.

Before even leaving the house we got a delivery of packing peanuts from UPS and a deliver of 4 rolls of bubblewrap from the USPS. The USPS driver had an accident on our porch and knocked over one of my salt fired vases from a couple years ago. It was priced at $120 and he offered to pay for it, but I turned him down. I am sure he will be extra careful in the future.

We started the day with a trip to Webster's, the Post Office and then to Dogwood Studio, a dog grooming business with an Art Gallery attached. I hope to have pictures of the display next week after we add a few more things to the setup. It's a sweet space and apparently the place has a reputation for selling art as well as good dog grooming. Who would know?

As we got back into the truck to head home the phone rang...it was Catherine saying she thought she had broken her foot in a fall. We advised her to go to the hospital to get it checked out, but she ended up going to a new Med Express Urgent Care Center that opened up recently. We met her there and I was glad she had chosen to go there. I was impressed. They charge $115 for a visit, including X-rays and any lab work that they can do in house with a free followup within 10 days if the symptoms persist. I could even afford to go there if I needed to have something checked out since I have auxiliary insurance that will pay me back $65 per office visit. It's not like real health insurance, but it can help if I get hit with something major, or to bring down the cost of a visit or two.

So the next exciting thing happened as we were leaving, Cath in her car, a purple BMW 525i, us in the truck. We pull out first and as we are about to enter traffic Cath calls us shrieking and incoherent .

A scant minute before she was fine..so we turn around and find her car is straddling a median in the parking lot..she is stuck and can't more forward or backward..apparently she pulled forward and hopped it, not realizing it was even there. After going through the urgent care visit, I guess it was just too much for her. She was quite a sight standing in the parking lot with a Ugg boot, a flip flop, shorts and a tank top smoking a cigarette like her life depended on it.

Grateful for roadside service, we called a tow truck to lift her out of there. I tried not to mock her too much..apparently a lot of people do the same thing there, so it's not as ridiculous as it seemed.

Getting back to the studio I put together a giant goblet for one of my friends, trimmed apple bakers and soup mugs as well as a few XL mugs, and made an erotic piece for a special order. This is a mug with a special handle...all those handle pulling jokes became... VERY.. clear to me tonight..this mug makes me feel inadequate in a big way. I have a picture, but I don't want to share it on a family blog.

So in other studio news, we unloaded a glaze kiln this morning, it was sweet..here's a picture of what's left and one of the special orders as well as some shots of the bisc that came out.

Tomorrow I need to add the handles to the mugs and soup mugs, then start again. The cycle must continue!
















Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Master Blogger?

Masters Degree

What does this mean? I don't know..I s'pose it's cheap advertising for a website that helps you find online Masters Degree Programs. However I am in fine company on the end page..lots of blogs I follow.

Life, Studio, Faire and Shipping.

As usual, it's been extra busy around here. 4 weekends of the Pa Faire left. The buildup of stock for the holidays has begun. We made a delivery to the faire last weekend and found that we didn't bring nearly enough, especially in the Oak and Acorn section, so we came right home and blasted out another kilnload of work as well as a bunch of special orders. It has been busy, but busy is better than sitting around waiting for something to happen. I just have to remember that all the work now is supposed to bring us stability and peace later.

I haven't seen much of the kids lately. Catherine is attending classes at the business school and spends much of her time with one of her classmates. Morgan has been working and spending much of his down time with his girlfriend, not that he seems to have much. He works a lot.

I ordered in supplies I anticipate needing for the holidays, I had been buying "FRAGILE" and "DO NOT CRUSH" stickers in 100 piece packages for $6.00, but decided that I should go for more from a bigger supplier. I found a place on E Bay that gave me 2000 stickers for about $18 plus shipping. I ordered in some more packing peanuts from U-line. I was going to go for one of the really big 20 cubic foot bags for $28, but apparently the really big bags exceed the size limit for UPS and so would have cost $87 to ship by freight. I opted for the smaller bag.12 cubic feet for $18 and $13 shipping.

So this afternoon I got into the studio and made more soup mugs, more apple bakers and a few odd pieces for special orders. Then a few minutes ago we peeked into the glaze kiln. It is...stunning. I am so pleased with what I see. I can't wait to really open it up tomorrow.

I also put out 4 bags of reclaim to stiffen...I am almost out of clay again and I can make an awful lot more out of those messy lumps of mud when they stiffen.