Not really a good idea to start the week with a panic attack...but the week started on a Tuesday instead of a Monday and it's throwing off my sense of time...but for Veterans that would be okay be me. Thank you.

But I realized that I hadn't gotten any notification on the part I ordered from the kiln company...a part I NEED for the Jimmy Beans Wool retreat...like in need it NEED IT...can't happen without it sort of part. Couldn't call them over the long weekend...today I find out that they have it sitting there waiting for me to pick it up. Glad I called.

Parts for the gas hose from the tanks to the raku kiln are on their way...and will arrive with just a day to spare. Too tight for comfort...more panic.

I'll be firing some more raku tomorrow so that should take my mind off the parts...8 days until I'm on the road to JBW...

But only 7 days...yes, I'm counting...until the crate is picked up to ship out to Cleveland and the TNNA Summer Show...and Brenda has been all over me for a couple of photos of pieces...but the bits really need to cool down from the kiln...up against a deadline.


Off to work...inhale Jim...no panicking...breath...commune with the trees...

Fired both obvara and carbon painting yesterday. I was washing up the bits and thought, "I should have more carbon painted bits." Right I was...forgot an entire tray.

Back to the kiln, load it up, torch it off...luckily it was still early enough in the day that I could finish all the work and get them all washed.

The checklist for The National Needle Arts Association summer trade show is on our desks...time to make any last minute adjustments...and there are still bits to color up, bisque and fire. Two more days of raku...saggar later today and then detail all the bits for the Jimmy Beans Wool Retreat.

Between JBW and TNNA we're going to have a wicked start to June...Brenda will be in North Carolina and then Wyoming...flying home in time for the flight to TNNA...then it's off to Montana for a scant 3 weeks of time at the lake...RELAX...hurry up and RELAX...

We have a great friend, Margaret, staying at the house for our travels and taking care of the pups...Montana and Kylie. That will take some of the stress off.

The first real deadline...June 6...that's the day the truck comes to pick up the crate to ship to Cleveland.

Oh the life of a potter...sitting at a potter's wheel...shorts and flip flops...maybe throwing...maybe not...latte from a stoneware mug after eating granola and wheat germ for brunch...whistling to the birds in the trees while strumming the ukelele and contemplating a nap...not a care in the world.

Who's idea was this anyway?

I'm on a break from the studio work. I have been taking more breaks than I might normally...we have two furry kids and Brenda has been on the road for a few days. So my breaks have mostly for the pups...then I get distracted.

On my way to the studio I met up with one of my friends...we have a bazillion (or so) tree frogs on the property. They time of year the chorus at night is pretty raucous...cool little critters. They eat mosquitoes...we're besties.

I recently ran a little game on line...#heybrenda, Jim needs a compressors...and the message was received very well. Brenda was sent the message in some pretty wild ways. Brenda was attending a State Convention of P.E.O. here in California and a friend of ours plugged the #heybrenda tag through the AV equipment she was in charge of...while the winner of the drawing was a local fan up here in Gold Country, I decided that, based on the creativity alone, our friend Jen had to be a winner too...so I sent her a prize for the most creative delivery of the hashtag.

Of course, I'm still waiting for an ETA on that compressor.

Today is day 10 of the cast experience. It's not that uncomfortable. The weather has cooperated...I've only had one mosquito bite near the cast...so far so good. I'm hopin' that the good Dr. finds the wound well healed (or at least on it's way to well healed) and that I can wear shoes again...as opposed to wear shoe (as in singular). My guess is that he's going to want me to wear a boot. That would be better than the cast and I could take it off for kiln work. The cast slows me down and makes just the smallest thing a chore...like getting up and down in my chair on the studio. Never knew I was in and out of that thing so much...but alas, I need to return to that chair and glaze some more pieces.

The yard has just gone nuts with flower blossoms over the last few weeks...we go blue, we got yeller, we go purple...and rust and green on green...we gots that white color...just nutz.

I needed to take a few pictures so on a lark, I clipped a few blossoms and a couple of greens and what do you know, the pictures turned out pretty good.

So today is day five of the journey with the cast...nine more to go...yes...I'm counting.

Lucky for me...the entire time I'm "stranded" (I can't climb around the property and do yard work...and I certainly can not drive with the cast on the right foot) the plants should continue to provide blossoms as eye candy. So if I need to stay on Hobnob I will at least get to enjoy the bueatiful Spring.

I was taking pictures for work to put up on our Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/search?q=lickinflames

So it's been three days with the cast on my foot. Wow...what a challenge.

And during those few days the neighborhood is being overrun by sheep on the lam (punny huh?). Well maybe not overrun (there are only 2 at the moment). At least I have a good excuse not to volunteer on the roundup.

I'm able to work at about 50%...funny how hobbling along with just a couple of pounds of padding, foam and fiberglass can be such a significant anchor. The only really insurmountable challenge is throwing pots on my potter's wheel.

The control pedal is on the right side of the wheel...sort of like the gas pedal on the car. I can't bend my ankle to control the speed...and that power cord from the wheel to the pedal...too short to use on the left side. I think my Dr. would have a cow if he thought I was getting the cast dirty.

There is a fair amount of bacteria that can be found in clay...I'm not risking an infection in my foot.

With a month to go until we get into the plane for trip to the TNNA Summer Show in Cleveland, we are bearing down on all things TNNA. We have a couple of new products (pictures by the end of the week), new colorways and today we decided to move forward with a new kit. We just can't help ourselves.

Managing projects is a big part of what Brenda does for us...I mean I make the stuff, but Brenda, she's the one that keeps it all moving in the right direction. She funnels all the bits through the process...

...like the 1600+ pieces that are being made for TNNA...seriously...over 1600.

I don't usually post personal whining, and I'll stick with that policy today. I do however, want to share a thought.

A Facebook friend, I'll call him Joe, doesn't go for regular eye exams and doesn't get his glaucoma caught until way late in the process...he's not blind but what he is able to see...well...he used to be an artist. He's not able to practice his craft/art form as he used too.

Not going in to the  eye Doctor for a simple pressure test (it's painless...I've done it many ,many times) was a mistake. Not taking charge of you own body can create some very negative situations...

....but there are times when you take care of yourself as best you can and "stuff" still happens. That's my new cast. Stuff happened. At least it's a nice color. Now I deal with it.

My brain is swimming in a pool of ideas about how I am going to move forward...I got stuff to do...pots and bits to sponge...kilns to load...glazing and get this...I might be trying to fire raku in a cast. Sure I will...ONLY if Brenda is not looking.

You might wonder by looking at the pictures, how I get anything done in the studio. Some days I wonder the same thing. There are a lot of distractions and "eye candy" just on the short walk from the house to the studio.

I do find a great deal of ideas in that eye candy...sometimes it's a pattern that Ma Nature has revealed and sometimes its a color. So in a way, I justify my distractions by calling them inspiration.

It helps that I am curious by nature. Just watching the way that the sunlight can change a color over the course of just a few minutes is fascinating to me. While I like to think it's in my DNA, I also know that some of that curiosity was encouraged and developed by my Mom and many of my teachers. Nothing much happened in college in the encourage and develop department, but elementary through high school I was blessed with teachers who were pretty special. 

Most of my teachers have passed away now. It's sad to say that by the time I figured out how much they had done for me, it was too late to thank them.

I wish I knew then what I was going to be doing now and how much those teacher's influences were going to mold my thinking. I should have thanked them in advance.

We all could probably thank our teachers in advance...if we only knew.