I’ve had a productive week in my studio. Pieces are coming together and there’s still more altering to be done. Just for now those pieces are wrapped tightly in plastic such that they don’t dry out by the time Monday rolls around.

In other pottery news:

• I will be joining the local Guild and look forward to those shows and special functions this year.

• There are quite a few goals I’ve set for myself this year and am pleased with how everything is coming along. One of my pottery goals is to have my work displayed in some of the galleries by March. I don’t have much time but I’m working diligently to achieve it.

• I’ve signed up to help with the Food Bank project again this year (next month). This particular function is where potters in the local area donate their pottery for this fund raiser. I truly enjoy helping the buyers pick out their pottery and it gives me such joy. I will not only be a volunteer but have also donated quite a few of my things to this wonderful charity.

Tomorrow is Bobby’s Friday off, so today is grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry and a few errands to be all caught up by the weekend.

We’ve warmed up to the 50’s around here with beautiful sunny skies, so on that note, we should have a beautiful weekend.

I began to suspect that the sun wouldn’t shine, and had a very strong awareness that the clouds would never roll back the dense gray to show the earth that there was a blue sky above. Just before going to bed last night I told Bobby that I would gladly trade a warm day and replace it with temperatures in the 20’s or below, just to see a glimpse of the sun. It was an amazing day as we left that cold 30 degree weather and replaced it with a high of 60. Today we expected snow and more clouds but instead we were blessed with a sky free of clouds, I didn’t see a single trace of a white puffy cloud at all today. There’s something about the beautiful sunshine that warmed my heart in a very special way. Thank you God for this beautiful day, Amen.

Most of my time was spent in my studio yesterday. I finished the pieces I started last week by adding the bottom strips to the vessels. I also spent a good portion of my time throwing all different kinds of large forms. I altered a bowl by attaching three “uba juba” feet and three handles. Potters come up with the darndest names as my potter friend says, “uba juba is the noise one makes while forming this foot”, thus uba juba and that’s all there is to it.

Today is cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping day. I have the laundry already going and will get to the cleaning as soon as I finish my coffee and checking up on everyone.

We woke up to a little sleet and snow this morning, just enough to barely coat the ground. As we looked outside this morning, Bobby asked “how would you like to go back to FL”. I responded, “let me weigh my options” a brief pause, then I replied “OK, LETS GO!” We have not seen the sun since last Thursday which is just not like TX. Of course we’re used to getting the cold snaps, but just not staying this cold and gloomy for days and days on end.

We live on a huge hill and our street becomes the sledding haven for all the children in our neighborhood. The schools were closed in our area due to the weather so Bobby and I spent a good portion of the morning outside where all the commotion was. We met our new neighbors who moved in a few weeks ago and visited with several other neighbors who were out.

It’s so cold out there and I actually have to get out in that climate today as I have my wonderful pottery class this afternoon. I’ve been thinking ahead about this and plan to make a couple pieces here at home to take with me. I plan to add some details like handles and such to the pieces and do a little hand building in class. If I take my pieces along, that means I don’t have to clean up a dirty wheel and clean all those splash pans and tools outside in the cold afterwards. That’s my thought and I’m Sticking with it, so I had better get busy.

That’s a view from the back of our home yesterday afternoon. You can’t really see the ice on the trees very well from the pic. but it is there none the less.

We had quite an enjoyable weekend together around the house. Friday we had our nice date out to dinner and then we checked out Home Depot and Lowe’s. When we left the house at 4:00 PM it was only 65 degrees which was quite comfortable. I left with only my sweater thinking it would be a nice evening. We finished our dinner and back outside where we noticed a huge change in the weather. Indeed it dropped to 46 degrees in an hour & a half and I was utterly shocked. I knew we were expecting the ice storm and all but was not expecting it so fast.

We stayed bundled up here at home by the fire and canceled our plans for the stock show and parade downtown Saturday. We much preferred staying warm and toasty here at home.

There are many homes in our area that are without power but fortunately we still have electricity. Luckily for us, all our power lines in the community are underground so I don’t think we have any power issues to worry about, we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Bobby was able to get his car free from the ice and get in to work this morning. He called after he got in to let me know he made it and also told me of the many cars he saw off the side of the road and several accidents he noticed along the way. I’m so thankful he’s ok.

It’s currently 30 degrees out there and will remain in the low 30’s during the next couple days and the 20’s during the night. But look out baby, Thursday is coming and we have an expected high of 49 and Friday’s forecast states a nice high of 50 Woo Hoo!

Normally I show my finished pieces but I decided to give a step by step look at some pieces from start to finish. I won’t do that all the time but I thought it would be fun. Today I’ve been a busy beaver in my studio. There were some more details to add to my pieces. Today I added the strips to the sides and handles. I believe I’m going to add yet another strip to each of the bottoms of these pieces to finish them off. However, I’m going to call it quits for the day and catch up on the laundry and a little house work this week. I’ll probably have time to finish them tomorrow.

I finished assembling my pots this morning but as you can tell the one pot shrunk a good 6”. Yepper, I got too impatient and tried to assemble it yesterday afternoon and the bottom of one of the sides slumped and cracked. Oh well, I made some good lemonade out of it this morning and didn’t have to throw the slabs completely away. There’s still quite a bit more work left on these little rascals as they need handles and a side strip which I’ll show later. For now, I’m getting ready to leave for my afternoon class. The clay is waiting on me so I must pack up with at least 25 pounds of clay, my good studio stool, and all my tools for my afternoon class.

I spent a good portion of the day drawing patterns and working on slab designs. The slabs didn’t dry out enough for me to assemble the pieces so my patience has to kick in and wait. Sometimes I don’t wait long enough on the clay and disaster strikes. I’ll cover these slabs a little later with some plastic so they don’t dry out too much over night and then hopefully they will be ready to assemble in the morning before my class.

We had a very enjoyable weekend taking in all the R & R we could possibly handle. Bobby took me to Wal-Mart and bought a new vacuum as mine gave up the ghost Friday. I picked out the bagless kind so that’s what we got, hope I like it.

While watching football with Bobby Sunday afternoon, I was also reading and checking out several of my pottery books (more like 5 books) are still on coffee table. Now that I’m all caught up on the house, the laundry and all the ironing, my closets, the pantry and fridge are cleaned too, I’m all ready to get back into my studio today. I can hardly wait to see what that clay feels like again. I’ve signed up for a new class out at the pottery studio on Tuesday afternoons and looking so forward to my class tomorrow. This will be the first day class they have offered out there and I for one am thrilled about it. There are several of my friends signed up for that class and I know it’s going to be a great time.

Now that I have the basics, I refuse to take anymore night classes as that defeats the whole purpose of why I started pottery to begin with. I started pottery to give me something to do while Bobby was working, not while I could be spending time with him. I normally close my home studio door around 4:00 to give me time to clean up and get dinner started. I’m looking forward to this new year and as Bobby said yesterday, “This is going to be a great year” and indeed it is.

Today I was actually up a little before Bobby as I had an appointment this morning. Normally I stay right there in bed untill he gets up. I left the house shortly after Bobby to my appointment followed by a few errands and then back home. By the time I got home, it seemed I was slowing down a notch or so. Don’t know if it was all those late nights (between 1 & 3 AM over the holidays) catching up with me or if it was this cold rainy day. In general I’m not one to go back to sleep, once I’m up and at em with Bobby in the morning I’m good to go. However, the sleepies overcame me and I gave in for a nice little nap this afternoon. I woke feeling so much better and now that my battery is recharged, we’re ready to go again. I’m going to hit the ironing in a bit and then give the upstairs a dusting and a vacuum. Dinner will be in the works after that and I look forward to a nice enjoyable evening here at home with my dearest.

I spent a good portion of my time yesterday focusing on the 75% off sales and am sorry to report I could not put my fingers on an 8 & ½’ or 9’ Christmas tree. There were plenty of the 6’ – 7’ trees but the larger ones were all gone. Guess I’ll have to fudge a little and wait till next year and try to get one 50% off right after Christmas.

Bobby and I have been looking forward to this 3 day work week as this was Bobby’s Friday off, or so we thought. Bobby was telling me that he had an important meeting scheduled Friday and that he would have to work. With that, I found his new work calendar where we could verify that this was his Friday off. Sure enough I had his Fridays all jumbled up and this turns out not to be his Friday off after all. My mistake, so I’m looking forward to this weekend and then his Friday off next week.

We had a great time welcoming the New Year! We entered this year with lots and lots of things done around the house. I’m feeling so rejuvenated today and pretty sure it has to do with everything we were able to accomplish over our Christmas break together. We spent a good portion of New Years day working in our office together. We went through all the files and were able to get ALL caught up on our filing system. The shredder worked over time and our stack of papers to be filed were put into their homes. I’m the kind who likes the folder tabs to be typed out nice and neat with all the tabs flowing just so such that we can put our fingers on the exact folder we need without any trouble. All of the old files from our bills folder went to the bottom filing cabinet drawer and I made up all new folders for 2007. I’m so stoked this 2^nd day of January and ready to enter 2007 rarin and ready to go.

I’ve also spent a great deal of time thinking about my goals for this year. A goal is not something I just write down on a piece of paper and “hope” it will happen. My goals are thought out and broken down into tiny little segments broken down into pieces of where I want to be 1 month from now and what do I need to do today to reach my 1 month goal. It’s all about today and what I do that will ensure my goals are reached through the course of the year. Bobby and I have had a lot of time to discuss what we want to achieve this year. I have many things on my list that I plan to see through and look forward with great anticipation to see where these new goals will lead me and us. Here’s to an exciting New Year!

It’s been so nice having Bobby off all week. Now I have to get used to the fact that he goes back to work Tuesday. We’ve been busy beavers around the house getting back to clean up and organization. I finished getting the Christmas decorations boxed on Thursday and we got all those boxes back to the attic yesterday. Bobby’s quest was to work in his garage as he’s wanted a nice clean garage for quite some time now. So this week he rented a storage unit to store some of the items we are no longer using like two lawn mowers, two wheal barrel type pieces, two blowers, the weed eater, an edger, a treadmill an office chair and a few other small items. It’s amazing how much room he has with all those items out of his hair. He still has some of his mother’s boxes to go through and sort out. I’m one who can just get rid of things without giving much thought but he’s a little more sentimental so I give him all the time he needs to sort through his things. After the first of the year, we’re going to make another run to Good Will to unload more stuff. And hopefully Bobby will have his nice clean garage very soon.

We’ve not only been working but we have also had our fair share of playing this week. We’ve gone out to dinner almost every night. Had breakfast at a wonderful French restaurant. Bobby took me to the mall the other day where we just strolled both floors at a snails pace. He enjoys letting me shop and he loves just hanging out with me while I look in all my favorite places. I love to hang out with him while he shops for tools or whatever manly thing he’s interested in. And we’ve played games, one of our favorite things to do almost every night. We’ve also enjoyed baking together; oh the calories are KILLING me! But I’ve got that base covered on my New Year resolutions list. Our time together means the world to me whether we are working or playing together, it’s been such a perfect week.

The outside lights are all taken down and I should have the rest of the decorations inside put away no later than tomorrow. I have a head start on the inside already and I may get a lot more done yet tonight. It’s amazing what a mess I can make during this process. It’s a job and one I like to get done as soon as Christmas is over.