Happiness and Heartache

All day yesterday I was thinking of those pots in the kiln. When I woke up this morning I found it surprisingly easy to get out of bed because I knew the sooner I did then the sooner I could get to school and open that kiln! It was the first thing I did when I got there... Christmas.

And as expected I lost a few of my hopefuls but had a couple of big successes that I was really pleased with. (Disclaimer: I am not a photographer. I have never pretended to be nor do I have the equipment set-up to pretend to be. Judge not the quality of the photos but of their content... and then judge nicely!)

Success!

Half-success
Miserable failure (glaze ran like crazy)
Success
Wild Failure (again with the running. A bummer because I really loved the carving on this one.)

Success
And remember these little bitty guys?

Yah, there used to be 3. During my 4th hour final today, one of my favorite classes, full of wonderful kids that I adore, one of my little bitty wheat pots was stolen. STOLEN. When I discovered it missing after school I was devastated. It was my favorite of the three little bitties. Of course it was my favorite, slightly different in shape and perfectly wonderful... the one I was planning to keep for myself because it made me so happy... I searched everywhere because surely none of those kids could do such a thing. It's gone. And I won't be seeing those kids again so there's nothing I can do. No amount of ill-wishing will change the fact that I can't get it back and someone will have to live with a black and rotted soul. Even now I can't imagine a single one of them that would do that to me but I know it was there at the beginning of the hour and gone at the end. There was a snake among that group and I wished them well and gave them candy... I hope you can sleep tonight Snake.

One more
Mostly Successful
Detail

I had work to get done after school but was so physically sick to my stomach I couldn't bear to stay there any longer. I came home and wallowed in the hurt while I escaped watching Karate Kid II until my awesome husband came home. Tomorrow is my birthday and he bought me flowers... big beautiful smelly ones... here, smell!

Pretty, huh? Pretty lucky. And on top of it all I get to spend my birthday at graduation. I wouldn't miss it though, not even for my birthday. We'll go out on an afternoon date instead. All I can say is thank goodness there's only 3 half days of school left. I need to get away and we'll be hitting the coast a week from today to celebrate our one year anniversary. Cool, eh?

Spraying Glaze (part 2 of 3)

Today I finally ended my standoff with the pottery I've made this semester. I finally got my own crap out in our Ghetto Booth for some spraying and found that afterward a weight had been lifted that I didn't know I had been carrying. I'm so used to not finishing ANYTHING that I become accustomed to that feeling of "bleh- I really should finish those...." But I figured with our last couple of firings coming up this week it's my last opportunity to get my things finished before the fall (unless I want to pay to have them fired elsewhere which I am by no means up for- especially when you consider the odds of my glazing turning out like poo and me adding yet more artifacts to the potter's field of broken dreams). I had several student items to fit in the kiln and of course those get top billing before my stuff as we're down to the wire but I managed to squeeze all but one piece in. So the good news is that will fire off tomorrow and I should have pictures for your (hopeful) viewing pleasure on Friday or Saturday. Can you taste the anticipation? Yah, me too. I don't know any potter who doesn't feel that Christmas morning thrill when they open the kiln after a glaze. After all this waiting now it suddenly seems so hard to wait. I'm reminded why my students hound me about when will the kiln be unloaded?? and did you get my stuff in??? and why didn't my stuff get in??!! which always makes me Crazy (yes, with a capital C). Here's hoping I'm not monumentally disappointed.

On a related note, my plans to bring the ceramic studio a little closer to home (like, say... in our back bedroom) are making me buzz with ideas for this summer. I've got some new ideas I'd like to try out and I think by having all that I need at home (minus the kiln) I'll be more motivated to see my ideas through. Adrian said he would build me some shelves to store my stuff on until I can transport it back to school for firing in late July/early August. My plan is to treat this somewhat like a job with regular (though perhaps not as long- it is my summer after all) hours every day. I figure I could bust out a boat-load or two over the span of a summer and feel more willing to experiment with new forms and ideas. I'm feeling pretty pumped about it. More on that later, I'm sure. Stay tuned.

For Comparison

I was organizing photos tonight and found some photos of the back yard pre-majesty. I knew I must have had some pictures somewhere. So now maybe you can appreciate it even more! I know I do. These photos were not, however, taken at the height of the weed tyranny.

Check it!

Hooray for bark! Look at the sophistication!

We ordered 6 yards of bark and still didn't quite make it all the way around (not shown). I get paid next week so we'll get a few more to finish it off. And of course you should all see it in person. The photos just don't do it justice. It's majestic!

These are my front porch baskets... the ones that make me smile everyday.

Silly Dog

Silly Molly. She enjoyed the sunshine today... a little too much.

Spraying Glaze! And other news...

Yesterday we made MVHS history and sprayed glaze for the first time. I know what you're thinking... yes, it was quite momentous. It may not have been the prettiest setup but I tell you what, once we got it, and despite the wind factor, and the fact that all of us were wearing about as much glaze as went on the pots, and the fact that air compressors terrify me we were triumphant. Of course the real test will be when the pots come out of the fire next week. I've yet to spray mine as I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have less wind on the day I make my attempt. We were pretty excited about it, regardless of how ridiculous the setup was. Probably more excited than is reasonably expected for such an activity. So I took pictures (not great ones, and of course the photos I took were prior to me pulling out the safety masks so it looks like I'm the irresponsible teacher but really I'm not!

I'll probably post more about our experiences soon... now to other news.

Last night Adrian and I took the plunge and bought a new laptop. I've had it in my mind to downsize to a laptop for a couple of years. My old computer (which was purchased around 2000) had become an antique and gave me so many memory problems (on the computer, not me personally) that I finally had to be done with it. My generous siblings stepped up to donate to the popular "support the baby sibling" charity and supplied me with a fancy new (to me) computer and a huge monitor. But I've been hesitant to do too much with it because it wasn't really mine and I knew that one day I would eventually replace it with one that was really ours. So I've been watching the deals at Costco for a while, researching what I thought I would like and finally last night we did it. It's an HP Pavilion Notebook with 250GB hard drive and a bunch of other features that I couldn't begin to describe (and don't really understand.) The wake up call was that I have to actually purchase Microsoft Office. Way back when, that kind of thing came standard. I guess I get why they don't put that on automatically but for people like me it would be really handy. So for now I've got a 60 day trial on Word and Norton but will have to do something after that... unless I have a connection out there somewhere... but we'll see. Now I'm just in the process of figuring out how to transfer everything. Really I'm not all that computer savvy so I may have to enlist some help, possibly in exchange for dinner (Jas) or free babysitting (Chris). Anyway, it's pretty exciting. I'm amazed by the technology of this thing and can't wait to learn all the bells and whistles.

Busy weekend ahead!

Yard work

Adrian and I have been determined to get our yard into something resembling a nice place to be for years. When his dad first bought the house the back yard had weeds up to your waist. No exaggeration. So we've come a LOOOOOOOONG way. I don't have photos of the weeds, but then, we've all seen weeds. You can imagine how trashy that looked. Here's what things looked like before we planted grass seed about a year and a half ago...


And this just because it's cute...

Two weekends ago we spent an entire Saturday pulling up this Spring's weeds which had gotten way out of control already and re-cut the edge of the grass where our bark will start...

Then we also planted some clematis next to the shed.

And today we finally got the weed guard down and pinned. We're just waiting for bark now!


It was hard work for everybody...
These two are best friends.

Only one of my clematis has blooms and surprisingly it was the one that the dog tore into right after we planted it. I didn't think it would survive. Clearly it's doing well.

Hell-ish weeks!

It's been a rough couple of weeks. With all that's been on my plate at work I've reminded myself numerous times of how incredibly grateful I am that I'm not planning a wedding THIS year. I actually have no idea how I did it last year but figure that I must have been a REALLY bad teacher and I've blocked the memory for the sake of my pride.

Everything came to a head over the last two weeks. Somehow the grading, which is normally a moderately over-flowing pile on my desk avalanched into a tidal wave of potter's logs (dumb dumb idea!) and Design projects that buried my desk and my computer. For a few days there I thought I was going to have to simply pass everyone and mentally check out to save my sanity. So what I did instead is took off to McCall and spent an entire weekend in my bathrobe playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the original Nintendo (yes, that's PRE-Super Nintendo). I returned Sunday and felt that sinking dread that reminded me of the piles and piles of work that I procrastinated while in the mind-numbing coma induced by an antiquated gaming system. I spent Wednesday night at work feverishly pumping out 100 clay medallions for a senior awards night next week. I'm not really sure how I got volunteered for the task but I've since taken a memo to me: NEVER AGAIN! Ten and a half grueling hours of smashing clay into plaster molds left me miserable and grumpy when I drove home at 9:45 that night. The next day Adrian and I conveniently slept through the alarm and woke up with an expletive at 6:20. It requires a full hour and a half for me to become a fully functioning human being so I normally rise at 5:00. Needless to say my grumps followed me to work where I bitterly resented having spent so many hours on a project that I was neither paid to do or helped with (besides Adrian who graciously came to my aid to speed the painful process.) I think what bothered me most was that it kept me from even attempting to catch up on all the other work I couldn't do while making mold after mold. I'm over it now... mostly. And once they're out of the kiln on Monday I wash my hands of the whole deal. I will not be painting or stringing those silly things, nor do I care who does. The awards ceremony (Olympic theme, thus the medals) is Tuesday and I've nominated a student who has been outstanding in my program for 2 years now. Unfortunately the cost of nominating someone is that I have to actually present it in front of hundreds of parents. The last time I did that I fumbled my speech (hearkening back to that humiliating experience at my Homecoming Queen pageant... don't ask.) So I'm not exactly excited about the opportunity but will relish when it is over and the whole messy business is behind me. Meanwhile I've managed to slowly chip away at the piles and have now whittled it down to something mildly manageable. But the late work seems to keep showing up in my basket and my work is never finished.

So with all the overtime I've spent I have done ZERO art and regret it. Once summer comes I am banished from my room until mid-July. It seems horrible now but really, come June 5th I'll want nothing more to do with the place for at least a month and a half anyway. But it's all the more reason to be pumping out the work now as all progress halts in another month (not that there has really been any progress in the last ohhhhh 3 months.) It is my goal to have some actual photos of pottery up here by June... Actual finished stuff. You're excited, I can tell. I'll keep you posted. Til then, enjoy a couple of oldies...