Holy smokes…..I was just double checking my blog – where in the world have I been and what have I been up to for goodness sakes? My last post was in April?!!!! How did this happen?

A few updates that I will lay out clearly – so you can skim to the one that interest you the most!

First and foremost – since it is time sensitive! My On-Line shop is open for a week starting Monday morning at 8 a.m. Pacific time. I’m certainly by no means heading into this shop opener with any delusion, but it would be nice to make a few sales for the holidays. I’ve been having relatively mild success with the pottery sales, enough to keep me interested and engaged!

Rainy and windy Garden Club Sale:

It was pretty darn amazing! I was impressed by the die hard fans of the sale that came out in the pouring down rain – I’ve never in my life – and honestly hope to never again in my life – be part of a show where it rained so hard that it was pouring off our tents. We went the night before to set up our tents, but chose not to set anything up because there was a chance it was going to be “windy”. My lanta, it was windy the night before – unfortunately my neighbors tent blew over, it was hundreds of feet away from the location she put it in the night before. I called my husband and asked him to bring our extra down, and I tried to help her pick up her seedlings and other plant material, she was pretty shaken up with a broken tent and the idea that nobody had helped her, she felt slighted by all the other vendors. There was no consoling her, in the long run, she had great sales and didn’t have much to take home, however, she left still complaining about how things went. Our sales were great, both with pottery and seedlings, it is a definite do again!

Lovely Spring Market:

Interestingly enough, the Spring Market this year, was indeed moved forward a week, just because the turn out the year prior wasn’t super great, because everyone had gone to the Garden Club sale, so we decided to move ours, so we could do theirs….. Turns out that it was a great idea, considering it poured down rain the week ours was supposed to be. It was still a bit cloudy, but certainly, not horrible. It was a successful year for us, as well as several other vendors. We are looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Slip Casting:

What a messy new adventure! The slip that I tried first, was lovely to work with, but unfortunately, it made my glaze craze….which I found out later by other potters that it’s certainly an issue. Why did they sell it to me if it’s a known issue? There are so many variables when it comes to pottery….maybe they thought I was using low fire glaze…who knows?! The second slip I tried has turned out to be a bit more finicky to work with, but it doesn’t craze. I haven’t been able to make it back to slip casting since June/July, and the season is changing here, so I will not be able to revisit it again until April/March. There are certainly subtle things that I need to learn, it’s going to be a fun adventure to try more of when things warm up a bit.

Mom:

She’s still at the facility that we placed her at in January, we are working on getting her moved closer to us, as she is not getting the care she deserves at the place she is at currently. The doctors finally, may have found, the cause of all of her UTi’s. She has several kidney stones, and a mass in her bladder that they will remove soon and do biopsies on to see if it’s cancer, then go from there.

My health:

Since I’ve been so open about mom’s health, here’s a little update on mine. I am mostly just fine, I have a titch of a high reading on my kidney function, but apparently within the range of not needing a specialist yet…. for now I cut back on salt, skip refined foods, and stop taking anything with naproxen in it. They discovered a tear in my c4-c5 disc, most likely caused from an accident I had back in the 90’s – which apparently cannot be fixed, something about acid leaking and not being able to ever be repaired? I am currently doing PT, and will continue with my exercises and mobility movements until the day I am no longer able to – to address Thoracic outlet syndrome. I also have to go see a surgeon about my moderate carpel tunnel syndrome….. always fun stuff getting old! I say this….and it occurs to me that I know a lot of older people, and they do not have these things wrong with them….maybe I should be more concerned than I am about them, but part of me just thinks, it’s really not that bad, it could be worse, and let’s do something about what is happening and now worry about the getting worse part….?!

Our travels this summer:

We took the usual trip to Winthrop for a few days with the kids, and then took the usual trip to Lake Bonaparte. Winthrop did not disappoint this year, beautiful time with family, relaxing and exploring as usual.

We did things a bit different with Lake Bonaparte this year, we stayed for 10 days in the national forest, and also hosted 15 people. It was quite the undertaking, lots of food, lots of great laughs, and a bit of drama. We will see what it looks like for next year.

We missed trips out to the lake, and using the trailer in August, because we took a trip of a lifetime to Norway….no regrets here.

Norway….where do I even being with that topic? 3 weeks…..an RV for 10 days, a rental car for 10 days, exploring North west and back then South west and back, it was jam packed full of adventure, rain, meeting new people, finding my roots on my dad’s side, and learning so much about a small country half way around the world! I am working on updating our travel page which is currently filled with our trip from Italy, ((which was five years ago). I’ve begun mapping out where we visited, and putting information over there, I will do more with it soon. I would say the only thing I missed, was swimming….it was rainy and chilly in Norway, even in August, it wasn’t very warm, especially on the west side of the country – the east side (where Oslo is) was actually decent, I did get to wear shorts one day, and a dress once, but other than that, my summer wardrobe could have stayed at home!

Our Garden:

Since we were so busy with travel we opted not to put too much into the garden. My brother and sister-in-law were instrumental in my garden being anything this year, in addition to our patio planters and new plantings in the beds. I had the usual suspects – Zinnias, Giant Marigolds, Cosmos, Snap Dragons, Lisianthus, Bells of Ireland, Pride of Gibraltar, Feverfew, and Dahlias. It sounds like a lot, but it really wasn’t, it was only a 15 x 4 foot patch. Everything did really well. Strangely, I ended up with no pinks in my lot of flowers this year, other than the Dahlia bulbs that I managed to get for free from a very kind soul from the PTA staff appreciation week!

We also added a few new things to the gardens/yard this year. My son surprised Joe with a very large chain tree that we planted in the main yard to enjoy for years to come. Thankfully the in-laws were kind enough to water that also, as we left at the hottest part of the year! We also added a lime light hydrangea tree, a Salvia, hollyhocks, more lavender and a worm wood bush to the space off the kitchen. It’s coming together nicely, I’m looking forward to seeing it completed next season.

I’m planning on removing three of the four raised beds next year, they are just too difficult to maintain. I’ve discovered unless you put down plastic and new dirt every year, or till, it’s just like trying to garden in the yard, and since we won’t be using plastic or putting in new dirt, or tilling the space there’s no reason for me to attempt to garden in just the yard. I will do my best with the fourth bed, as that’s the bed for the sweet peas. Speaking of sweet peas….ugg, don’t even get me started….next year is a new year, and it won’t be as busy as this year (right?). We shall see how it goes.

Pottery:

In July, I started to think about what craft fairs I would try, while making a list I received a text from a local potter that was inquiring about weather or not I would be interested in having my pottery in his store front. He invited three other potters, and changed the name of his store from Uncle Jesse’s Pottery to Valley View Pottery Gallery. It was a bit of a process, waiting and being patient is not one of my strengths, but I managed to wait until October first to make the big announcement. I found out that October is the slowest month in the shop, but did manage to sell 5 items, so I was excited about that. November will get busy, and of course December – so I began to set out to make as much as possible, so that I could front load the gallery, as well as the two Spring shows. It was a large undertaking, 405 pieces, all hand made, cleaned, bisque fired, cleaned again, glazed, cleaned then glaze fired, and some of it even going through another firing as I added luster to some things. All of this Between September 16th to current day! It been eye opening to say the least. Not entirely sure I will do it again, but I like to see things through, it was one final push before the weather got too bad to be out in the barn to create.

It’s been a great process for me to take a moment to focus more on my “style” of my little dishes, and try things that I’ve been wanting to do. It’s been tricky focusing more on those sorts of things, when I’m really missing the wheel, but contrary to what I actually feel like, I am not super woman, and I do have a full time job! As the years slip by, it occurs to me that indeed I most likely have more time, it’s likely that it is not necessary to try to cram every single little bit of everything into a summer.

Milk House Studio:

On June 23rd, the concrete patio and east wall was taken out, in addition to a partial piece of the floor. It’s been a long process of figuring out what piece of equipment will do the best job, which tools to use, and how to best go about it. We left July 9th for our first trip, came back for two weeks, then left again for Norway, came home and we both went back to work right away….so….no progress on the milk house studio yet…..we will see what happens this fall, winter & spring. I’d like to say that I’m not giving up hope, but we are very busy people, still trying to make a living at real jobs…..and life is busy, and we get tired. There will be more time (I hope)….

I think that there’s certainly enough information in the update to keep your head spinning, or bore you to tears?! Thank you so much for stopping in. Until next time my friends, hugs to you.