Forget Weekends for the Duration

No coffee, no music, no final word count--it's just after 4 am and I still have hopes of getting back to sleep. Yesterday afternoon was exciting in so many ways. I was instant messanging with a friend about the catalog work I am doing this winter (Art Institute and Uncommon Goods out of NYC) and I had a brain fart: what if UG is planning to use a picture of the last PopArt Paisley set I sent them for the catalog?

I have always done these pieces one-of-a-kind and it's never been a problem. In point of fact, most galleries prefer it (my first order for UG was made up of unmatched sets and they were sold on-line from one photo). But now they are going to be in a catalog so I thought I would make it easy on everyone and do all of them the same--not every pieces the same, but every red piece the same as every red piece, every yellow piece the same as every yellow piece, etc. The pictures from yesterday show the first load done this way. That's all fine and dandy, but the last set UG got from me does *not* match all the new sets.

So I called them to find out if the mismatch is a problem for them, and, oh boy yes it is! I need to overnight them a complete set today for arrival Monday so they can reshoot the photo. Of course at 4:30 yesterday afternoon when I found out the previous bit of info I only had three of the five colors of plates and the platter fused, and nothing slumped. I am up now because I quickly fused prototypes of the two remaining colors yesterday at 4:30 and just got up now to slump them so I can get them out later today. I also did a full slump load of the pieces which came out yesterday so that I have a platter and the three other plates ready to ship.

At the tail end of all that excitement, the Art Institute faxed me a PO for another 50 pieces (this is on top of two more samples that they requested yesterday to evaluate for the spring catalog). I still owe them 20 from the last order. On the plus side, my order from Bullseye came at 5:15 so I have the glass to get going on those 20 (and the next 50!).

Finally, just to really get my Saturday morning hopping, when I got up to slump the PopArt pieces I saw an order had come in last night via fax: The gallery I am in at Disneyworld loves the pieces they got last month and has apparently sold most of them as they re-ordered all the big ones for delivery asap! So now before I go back to bed to try to get some more sleep I need to work up an official firing schedule for all the above orders AND the four orders I already have from the July BMAC scheduled to go out between now and November 1. November 1... why does that date sound familiar? Oh yeah I HAVE A BOOK MANUSCRIPT DUE THAT DAY!

Coffee? We don't need no stinkin' coffee!