My right hand is a mess

I thought this was a pretty pic of marbles…they aren’t mine, tho…

Joe has been doing what kitties do and taking bits of me with him…i woke up with my new scratches hurting, even tho I’ve washed them…and he took a nice chunk out of the heel of my right hand, which lays against the keyboard when I type, so its painful, blah blah…cats…

I made a few marbles yesterday, just to keep in practice so I don’t lose what I learned in class…I’m one of those ‘note takers’ who writes it all down, but then needs to actually DO the project or I’ll forget what my notes are telling me…I also bought some of the small bits to make some marble holders in order to transport the marble from my torch to the kiln…I had been using the marble mold, but if the marble sits in it too long, it’ll explode. the new tweezer like tools work great, except when the marble I make is too small and rolls thru the tweezer hole…hilarity ensues…

Colors, colors

I’ve been playing around with the various backgrounds in WordPress, and i like this deep blue one…there’s also one with the most wonderful deep olive green/chartreuse kinda green that I love…but I’m gonna take it easy on you for now and keep the deep blue…i like it just as much..plus the big ball w/ the holes in it is kinda graphically groovy…

Brian is working hard on the whole backend of the blog, its still moving along…

I was at the studio till after 1:00am last night…makes for a fun night, but not so much a fun morning…still, I was awake at 8:30 when the power went out at the house, and didn’t come back on till 9:00am…I was able to get my shower and dry my hair, and reset the oven and microwave clocks, and I hope whatever the city is doing, they figure it out and don’t cut the power again today…my freezer would appreciate it too…

Shoeless Joe (we just call him “joe”) has been exploring more the studio, which means he’s been all over my work station, which makes me crazy…he’s already upended my dipped mandrels…twice…I’ve yelled at him, but he doesn’t really care…he just looks at me like I’m stupid…he was on the top of the shelves where I store my glass sniffing the top of the lamp, like he might need to launch from it…had to stop that…now that he’s bored on the ground, he’s finding high places to go…his food was tossed all over when I got here, like he had flipped the bowl and used the nuggets as hockey pucks…at least he hasn’t missed the litter box…my right hand is completely stripped of skin, its a scratching post attached to my arm…he’s full grown, but still quite the playful kitty who likes to grab and bite…what have I done…I like my docile kitties at the house…he will calm down, right…?

I do love the rain

its been raining the past two days…deep, hard rain with lots of thunderboomers and lightening…no damage, no hail, no bad things, just lotsa water for the trees and birds…its been a good coupla days for the garden…yum…

i see there are comments to my posts – but I don’t know how to publish them yet…still learning…thanks for bearing with me…Brian mentioned something about working on the blog code today, i think its a good day to do it, don’t you? (and thanks for the comments, I’m gonna see how to publish them right now)…

We’re heading into Austin a little later to pick up yesterday’s marbles…I bought a 6-1 marble mold and a ‘grab-it’ tool in case the marble gets loose on the table (I dropped one on the carpet yesterday and it burnt up a nice portion of the floor mat…Lydia said it smelled like BBQ – that’s some interesting BBQ!)…I am REALLY excited about the whole marble thing, tho..Its much easier to make them than I realized…granted, I’m not getting perfect swirls, so I’m making bad ones right now…its harder to make ‘nice’ ones, but that’s true of anything…I look at my old beads and just cringe at the thought of having strung and worn them at one time…sheesh…uuuuugly!  anyway, I bought tools to make more, and hope to practice them after making my beads for the day…(my quota)…today is a good day to make beads, with all the rain and thunder going outside while i’m snuggled dry inside the studio…Pics to come, I swear (I think we made 4 marbles in total, but learned LOTs and i took notes on it all)…

Heather Trimlett is a really groovy teacher and person…i had always seen her work at B&B and knew her name, but had never met her, so I was happy to have an opportunity to learn from her…she’s great! and she brought some of her beads/marbles with her, which was a treat…I was tickled to get to see her make her trademark twisty and apply it to a hollow bead and make tiny dots with a regular sized rod instead of a stringer…she’s very precise and a neat lampworker – something i can appreciate cause I like neatness in my work and work space as well…today she’s teaching buttons, but I didn’t sign up for that class, I kinda taught myself buttons a while back and the class was already full, so I let it be…i can try buttons another day…

There is a new addition to the studio as of yesterday…the stray I’ve been feeding, and we named “Shoeless Joe” has come into the studio and now doesn’t want to leave…He has been coming into the studio to eat, but then leaving after he was finished…then little by little he’d stay for an hour, then two hours, then longer…but he always wanted to leave…which was fine, it was normally quiet and dark out so he wasn’t in danger of being hit by a car…Yesterday i found him in the rain, drinking out of the gutter (literally), so I drew him into the studio for some food, and left him in there while I went to class…Brian brought home a new litter box and visited him afterwork – thinking he’d want to race out the door…nope…he was stretching and lazily relaxing in the studio…Last night we visited him again, and left the door open so he could leave if he wanted…he walked to the door, looked around, then came inside…and then proceeded to do lots of twists and turns on the floor to let us know he was quiet happy….he’s still not happy with anyone petting him, but that’ll change, I’m sure…anyone want a soft cream colored orange kitty who’s not very old?  We have a litter box and toys you can take with him…heh…