Pre-orders!

Coffee in the Austin skyline mug, "Happiness" by Alison Krauss on iTunes. Back in the saddle again (again). We changed things up here a bit this week and I am doing all the Sprout to-school-and-back wrangling for awhile. And Dave is back to making coffee. Sometimes I just need a little shake-up to get moving again. I have been stalled in the studio for the past couple of weeks. Some of it has been recovering from writing the book--and what a long process that is turning out to be!--and some of it is probably seasonal.

And speaking of the book... It is available for pre-order on AMAZON! From my conversation with the publisher a couple of weeks ago it is my understanding that the photo used for the cover is just the catalog cover and not the actual cover of the book. I hope that's the case as the current cover has a shot of the birdbath on it and the yellow in it doesn't show up at all against the yellow/tan background... I am going to keep my fingers crossed that this is something that gets updated when the final cover is done. I am also in the process of setting up the Amazon.com author's page (wow, who would have thought?) where I will do the official marketing blog. Good thing I like to blog. And it's nice to have a designated "happy place".

Now back out of the clouds and in to the studio. I still haven't finished unpacking the Bullseye order I got in December and I think I am going to use it up before I ever get it put away. I did my firing schedule for my three upcoming gallery orders and ACRE yesterday and it looks like I have enough glass to do everything with not much left over.

One last note. I am on hold with UPS... again... about the panel they damaged enroute to Chicago. They pierced the box containing three 32 X 16 inch panels with something sharp and it chipped a 1" X 3" piece off the back of one of the panels. I put in a claim for replacement of the panel and asked that the piece be examined on-site--the customer needed the packing for the two intact panels to get them home (he had the entire shipment sent to his business). UPS messed up and had the package picked up. It wasn't packed for carrying because it wasn't supposed to be carried and they broke the damaged panel in half. Okay. I got over that. But then they denied the claim! Without ever calling me to ask how I had originally packed it, they looked at the box, the remaining packaging, the one panel and said "Nope." They completely ignored the hole in the box where they pierced it. The hole that just happened to line up exactly with the chip in the back of the panel. This had better end well...