Tra La La La La

Coffee in the Montreal skyline mug, "Wassail Song" performed by Philip Aaberg on iTunes. Panic attacks over, mysteries solved, projects nearing completion, open studio over, fusing tests done, presents to wrap and send with Jan back to the rest of the family in Illinois. God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.

It's a clear sign of over extension that I shot up in bed with a shriek at one minute to 3:00 am on Saturday morning--waking myself and Dave in the process--with the realization that I hadn't faxed my exhibitor services forms in yet for the Dallas FINDS show and they were due by midnight Pacific time. I threw on a nightgown and groggily hurried to the studio (Baxter didn't even wake enough to come with me). When I got there I found the forms and the send confirmations for them nestling comfortably in the fax machine... then I remembered that I had faxed them at 9:00 pm the previous night before watching (sleeping through, really) "The Ref". I hadn't even woken enough to question my panic, I just acted on it in the desperate hope that if I were only three minutes or so late they would give me credit for getting my forms in on time (midnight Pacific time being the same as 3:00 am Eastern time). I trudged back home to bed and apologized profusely to my long-suffering spouse.

I think I briefly mentioned that the hard drive on the house iMac died last month. I was sanguine about it as I was absolutely, positively certain that I had a back-up of all the photos for the past seven years, the complete iTunes library of all our cd's (laboriously ripped to the hard drive and then stored in a closet), and every other important document and file we had ever stored on a hard drive. I was wrong. When I finally went to restore the data to the new drive in the iMac, I found nothing but an empty external drive where all the back-up data should have been. It's been a couple of rough days, but I think I have solved the mystery of where it went and the data *may* still be recoverable from the alleged back-up drive. I am going to wait till after Christmas to work on it more--no reason to add more stress to life right now..

The weekend saw the completion of a few more Christmas presents--though I can't talk much about them as the recipients read this blog. This afternoon I make the last of the gifts that will be done before Christmas (everything going to France is going to be late this year--as usual) and begin the great wrap-a-thon.

The final open studio was on Friday and most of the pieces were picked up yesterday. I have a couple of orders left to get out this week, and a present still to do, but glass is done for the moment. Of course I haven't even started firing the pieces for the Atlanta and Dallas shows that begin on January 6... but that panic is being safely compartmentalized until *after* Christmas. I also fired my last reaction test with Bullseye glass and was saddened to find that the translucent white 0243 does not react with French vanilla. So far the only whie glass that has the cool reaction with French vanilla I want is the now discontinued dense white 0313.

Now off for my one and only trip to a retail establishment during this Christmas season for a last-minute spousal gift. Love and joy come to you, and to you your wassail too, and God bless you and send you a Happy New Year.