Monday, Monday

Coffee in the Austin skyline mug, "Don't Cross the River" by America on iTunes. The morning started with a steaming mug of coffee delivered to the side of the bed by elves (well, by Dave anyway). I awoke to the gentle tickle of roasted beans wafting seductively into my nostrils. I managed to drag myself into a semi-sitting position--just enough so that gravity would work its magic on the coffee in my mouth and direct it to the next step on its journey--and consumed half of the elixir over the course of several minutes before opening my eyes. The first thing said eyes blearily focused on was the inscription on the inside of the Austin mug, and Starbuck's made a mistake: They put "The Capitol of the Lone Star State", but what it should read is "Live Music Capitol of the World". Now that we have that straight...

It's Monday, gentle folk. The final countdown to Vegas has begun and I become aware of the enormity of the undertaking I face. What was I thinking? 1972 miles. 1972 miles. Someone must have put something in my kool-aid for me to contemplate driving, and I'm beginning to think they also spiked my coffee when I decided to do this show at all. Oy. I am still futzing around trying to figure out what to take (I reworked two older Morceaux de Verre series on Saturday and am thinking of making more of both of them to have a pedestal each). Why can't I just do glass chocolates? Oh what freedom there must be in only needing one piece--as opposed to four--and being able to quick photograph it and slap it up.

Photography. Another hot topic. There are now SEVERAL galleries waiting for my mythical catalog. It was easier to write a book than it has been to put together a catalog. At least I have the seamless white background to take pictures on now. And the halogen lamps Dave found for me are assembled. Now to black out the back room window, figure out how to do the white balance on the camera (there is a great article in the April Crafts Report on how to take digital photos of your work), and get photoing.

(time passes...)

So I spent the last hour re-reading my camera manual and re-doing my price list. Again. My glass costs went up 5% this year and shipping went up too so I finally settled on upping everything 7%. Oy! It's hard enough figuring out how to price your work the first time around. The constant tweaking and updating to stay current with the market AND on top of escalating costs is both time-consuming and annoying.

Fortunately I also spent a bit of time this morning grumbling to Bill Elliott of Elliott Metal Works about the necessity of producing a catalog and he offered up that they do theirs on a cd... What a brilliant idea! No trees will be killed to make the gi-normous catalog of all my current work and updating it will be a snap! He even told me the name of the software package he uses to put it together (Vallen Jpegger). I looked for a Mac catalog building application and didn't find one, but I also stumbled upon Vevo! Catalog Builder and am giving it a spin right now.

Well, I was giving it a spin but I just looked at the clock and it is almost 1:45 pm! The day is flying and I have to take all my panels in to get them drilled so I will have them back by Friday. Ta ta!