How Many Balls Can I Keep In the Air?

Mayan Cocoa Spice Tea in the Chicago mug, "True Companion" by Marc Cohn on iTunes. It's Friday. The spouse comes home on Friday. Bliss and joy. Yesterday and the day before were both munched days. I ran like a hamster in a wheel all day and finally got the kiln load in at 9:30 last night for the second day in a row. Poor Jessie. Her bedtime is 8:30 and I'm dragging her over to the studio right about then every night for another hour of work.

Next week I am off to New Mexico to pick up a glass furnace, a glass crusher, a wetbelt sander, a major burner, and various punties, rods and other hot-working tools. I got a great cheap airline ticket, but renting the UHaul there to drive everything home was going to cost almost $1,000. Whoa. When I mentioned the cost to Bill the other day he said why not rent a truck from Penske instead. That's who he rented from to drive our last big load up to the Rosen show and he said the trucks are new, very comfortable, and much cheaper. Sure enough, I got a Penske business rental on a 12' truck for right at $400 for unlimited mileage and a week's rental. That helps.

The plan for the hotshop is at the drafter's being drawn up so I can get the building permit. I would like to take it in to get it permitted on Monday before I leave for NM, but I'm not sure it'll be ready by then. Also not sure when Dan, Lee and the rest of the crew can work on it. The good news is that with a complete plan I don't need to be there during the building.

Today I have several pieces to drop off at the Oakhurst Community gardens for their Martinis in the Garden and Auction event tomorrow night. We're not only donating, we're also attending, yum! I hope to be offering several classes through the gardens next year in my studio--birdbaths, windchimes, and garden stakes, just to name a few--so this will be a good networking social event.

ACRE is in two weeks and I have to get my exposition services ordered today (it's just electric so it will be easy) and I also have to make my piece list and firing schedule based on the booth layout we did in Greenville earlier this week. It's going to be tight to get everything done with the trip to New Mexico taking up three days as it all has to be shipped out to Vegas which also takes time.

Today I do the big Cloudstone load (which obviously did not go in yesterday) for functional pieces for ACRE, glass and metal pieces for ACRE and for roll-up pieces for this Sunday. Today is also a ship day for four orders. And speaking of orders, the three 24" X 30" panels need to have their hardware mounted and ship out today too. Good grief, could I have any more going on at once? Good thing I'm detoxed and stress-free!

Juggle, juggle, juggle, hustle, hustle, hustle. Better get to it!