Caught Sleeping

Iced mocha in the Dancing Goats looks-like-plastic-but-made-from-corn cup, and it wasn't enough to keep me awake. Embarrassingly, the barista (is it a baristo when it's a guy?), just came over and shook me awake as I had dozed off on the comfy couch and "people were worried I wasn't ok". Dave was sitting right across from me and he assured me I wasn't snoring. I've been up since 6:00, mostly awake since 4:30 having anxiety attacks. First anxiety attacks in a long time, but completely normal as this morning Dave and I took my mother and J to the airport so they could leave on a jet plane to Montana. It's the first time J has spread her wings and traveled somewhere without me, and I turned out to be less ready for it than I thought I was. I'll be joining them in a week and a half, but...

Now that I am awake, I need to work on the Date Night slide shows and cd's and the script and form for Judy to use to book them while I am gone. This past weekend we participated in the East Lake Farmer's Market and had six date nights/mornings in three days. We have seven Date Nights scheduled this weekend (beginning on Thursday). Whew. Good thing I don't have summer camp this week--I'd be broken!

The Universe... Listens!

In a weird turn of events, I find myself this morning with no children for summer camp next week, and hence no summer camp. Maybe I talked to the Universe just enough after all. I have been given the gift of TIME, and I promise not to squander it! My heart swells, my head fills with the possibilities of website improvements, date night forms, class planning, newsletter writing... joy, joy, joy.

This morning I have already walked 4.7 miles and am on my second non-fat iced mocha with one shot of chocolate syrup. Ummm breakfast of (jittery) champions. J is off to cooking camp at Becky's, the cleaning elves are at the house, Dave and I have fled to Chocolate to work, and now it's time to get (finally!) completely caught up on the Date Night cd's. Whee!

A last note: Ernie is too old to rename--even though the new name would be PERFECT for him, and I am not likely to get another cat so I am going to have to write a novel (or maybe a children's book) and have the protagonist either be or be companioned by a cat named (are you ready for it?) Gateau. Is that a perfect multi-lingual punny cat name or what? Well it's funny when presented aurally... orally? oh to heck with it==when you say it out loud. Now to work.

Abraham-Hicks Might Be Onto Something

Lovely, lovely Redband Coffee Co "Fulton Porter" coffee--roasted on July 1, 2010--(a gift from my sister-in-law for my birthday) with just a hint of the last of the Batdorf Bronson "Organic Nicaragua Isabella" (left by Colin and Chris before they moved to Bangkok) with fat-free half and half and Sweet Italian Cream Coffee Mate in the Montreal skyline mug, "Border Reiver" by Mark Knopfler on iTunes. My coffee is as complicated as my life is this morning, but both are greatly improved by the addition of Sara's Facebook post of a quote from Abraham-Hicks:

"Overwhelment is about you not being up to speed with what you told the Universe that you want. The Universe ...is yielding to you. You're just not ready to receive it right now."

Clearly I need to STOP TALKING TO THE UNIVERSE.

So as I am a bit overwhelmed today/this week/this month/this summer, I'll pop up a quick post, and scamper off to fill kilns. (Whose great idea was it to add 1-2 hours of exercise and attention to the body everyday to a schedule that is already full? Oh yeah... mine.)

We did not get the 800-piece commission for the Chinese New Year gala gift. Sadness and relief swirl and mingle in my heart. This week is all about production--I do have two major award commissions to get out before the end of the month with a spate of orders from and since Vegas. My Mom goes home to Montana Monday and takes the J with her for a week and a half. Then I go out for another two weeks and J and I both come home--her to start school and me to head to Baltimore for the Summer Buyer's Market show. Whee. Next week is the last week of summer camp in the studio and Todd and I are thrilled. It's also the week I need to slump all the wine bottles for Todd's niece's wedding.... Hmm, my firing schedule looks to be as complicated as my coffee!

One last procedure/thing/process I need to ponder is my unadvertised Date Night addition of loaning participants a camera, having them take lots of pictures of each other blowing glass, taking the pictures and making a slideshow put to music with them, and burning both the slideshow and all the hi-res photos to cd for them. I have 11 Date Night sets of photos queued up right now from which to create slideshows and burn cds, and no matter how many nights after leaving the studio I devote to them I don't seem to be getting caught up...

Live From Oswego! (Not Anymore I'm Not)

I started this post last week while we were visiting family outside of Chicago. Never got it published so today I throw it up and move on. One more session 0f Glass Craft Summer Camp to go next week. The last week in June we had both glass craft and glass blowing camp going simultaneously and the studio was a hopping place.

Though we have more sessions scheduled for glass blowing (and kilnforming, and casting, and jewelry making, and bead making), we don't have takers for them. It was a bad year to start a summer camp program. but we are neither dismayed nor daunted. In retrospect, had all the camps filled (or even half of them) we would be dead by now (and we might have taken a lot of other people with us). So we'll call the light summer camp schedule a blessing in disguise. We had just enough sessions to keep things hopping, and, well, can't discount the benefit of everyone (including the campers) still being alive.

As you can tell from the adjacent pictures, it did get a little wild at the end. On Friday I had to leave Todd completely in charge for an hour, and I told him to "use his best judgment" when deciding what to do with the campers. Maybe that was not such a good idea (he found the stretch film dispenser)...

The rest of the original post is below. I need to get back to work. (Really.)

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Mocha in a Panera go cup, some desultory piano cd playing quietly in the background. We are ostensibly on vacation in Illinois visiting family for the 4th of July celebration, but in reality Dave and I are both WORKING and leaving our child with the grandparents and Aunt Jan. Heh. It's a good deal. My Mom house and pet-sits for us, and Judy runs the studio so all bases are covered.

I am exhausted this morning as yesterday's "vacation" consisted of a 3.5 mile walk with Dave at 6;30 am and then an intermediate pilates class with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at 10:00. I had never even done beginner pilates before so I am beat up today. Nonetheless D and I started the day with another 3+ mile walk this morning. Now to work.

Last week was another exciting summer camp session and we had both the 7-9 year-old Glass Craft campers all day and two older glass-blowing campers in the mornings. We did a completely different set of projects in Glass Craft as two of the campers were repeats from the previous session. We also changed up the outdoor activities a bit by adding water projectile devices, bubbles, and croquet.

Ah well, no harm no foul. The glass-blowing camp was a much more serious affair--I saw neither bubble wands nor stretch film in evidence during their sessions. However, with Lee as a teacher, I am sure they didn't need them. That man could make tying your shoelaces fun and interesting and, give him something as exciting as glassblowing to teach... Well, we can safely say no one is *ever* bored.