I’m happy to report that this school year is better than last, thank goodness! This school year hasn’t been completely without angst, but it is more manageable and easier than last-tis the nature of the beast, each year is different. As things move along, and the staff settles in, it will be easier to navigate and let things roll. There was a conversation of me only having 3,560 more days before I retire, but that might be setting my sites a bit too lofty! I’m guessing there are several more past that, but we will see what’s happening.

Well, it’s been several hot minutes since I last posted. I hope you had a restful holiday season and are having a great start to the new year! For those of you who follow us, we are alive and well, just super busy! Working full time, Lefsa day, Thanksgiving dinners, one last holiday market, Christmas celebrations and of course clay! It’s been a good kind of busy for sure!

We do have plans for a Spring Market. I will be starting seeds at the end of February and plugging in the heat mats in the green house. Certainly there will be sweet peas on Dad’s birthday, February 22nd. And of course a seedling order from Jolly Farmer arriving in March, and then Cosmos, Zinnias, and a few others started in the green house. I suspect the Spring Market will be the end of April, beginning of May perhaps, but we shall see!

I still need to grab my seed catalogs and place my order before it’s too late!

The clay has been a good distraction from the angst at work, but also a bad distraction for when I’m a work – so many ideas to try out and so many fun things to do! I do need to get a bit better at focusing on just a few things, I’m all over the board in color, size and shape! But I’m still exploring, it’s supposed to be fun – I’m not a production potter by any means, just a lady who happened to reignite her love for clay after 35 years or so of it being lit!

The grands were here today, usually we like to go outside and play, but it rained the entire time they were here (which didn’t stop us last weekend) but we decided to stay in and play with clay. They both had such a good time, designing their own plates, picking out there underglaze transfers and cutting out their plates. It was so much fun to watch them create and do their own special projects not only for themselves but for their parents too!

I’m hosting a clay day here on the 16th, it’s going to be a busy house that day. I hope I am ready for everyone, and everyone has a good time. I need to shop for a few more things and then should be set to go. It takes a bit of energy & timing to pull those things together, it’s been a long while since our last one, but I thought it would be fun to teach a little gnome making class with family and friends. Perhaps as time marches by I will host those sorts of things in the milk house when it gets remodeled – not at the kitchen table!! We will see where our life takes us on this grand adventure!

I have finally found a place to post my inventory. I’ve had a bear of a time with Facebook in general, and Etsy takes 14% and a lot of time, so I thought I would give a new platform a try. It was either this, or put my items in a store in Blaine and pay 100$ a month for them to have my pottery in their store that may or may not get foot traffic. They didn’t charge commission, but I’m not entirely sure it would have been a great fit. This on-line format allows me time to do it from home, not running all the way to Blaine to check on inventory or put my booth together. It’s not like I have a ton to sell, at 100$ a month I would need more inventory to make it worth it – and I don’t have time for that sort of thing, so this new selling platform makes it work for me. If you happen to give it a browse, please feel free to leave me a comment about your experience and any suggestions! It’s a new platform, I’m currently using a Beta format, and have been in contact with the developer, so any feed back would be awesome – good or bad! I think I left enough links in this paragraph for it – but just in case you missed it – here’s the link for the new shop!

Until next time my friends – take good care – hugs to you!