Chicago!

Coffee this morning was, appropriately, in the Chicago skyline mug. We arrived safely in Chicago Friday at 1:00pm. It took 48 hours to get here with one thing and another. But here we got, I did The Prairie Arts Festival Saturday and Sunday and did quite well even though it was in the 90's both days and patrons were sparse. I even picked up a new gift store locally to carry my work.

I love doing this show. It is in a beautiful park and the pond in the park is right in front of my booth. I get to watch the swans and their cygnets all day (thanks to my friend and booth neighbor Sandy Mannix for the great swan photos--I forgot my camera both days). This year I even got the added treat of a great blue heron fishing out in the middle of the pond by the swans' nest. I had the same neighbors on each side as last year--it is just a thoroughly wonderful experience.

It took a long time to pack and load last night. My booth was as far from parking as you could get at this show, and it was almost 10:00 pm when I got home. I took it easy today--I haven't even called in my credit card sales yet--and just lounged and read. Jessie spent the weekend with Gramma, Grampa and Aunt Jan perfecting her bike riding skills and showing off her new bike helmet. She even got to ride on the tram with Gramma in the Memorial Day Parade today.

Tomorrow I need to get the last part of my project outline off to the Editor, do all the paperwork and record-keeping for the show, and catch up on my email. I am woefully behind on answering both personal and professional mail. I will also send out the first request for submission forms to the artists whose work I would like in the book. I have only spoken to three of the thirty I need. I might need to make some phone calls too... or that could just wait till next week when I am back home. There is much to be said for a little rest, relaxation and vacation!

The Road to Chicago: Day 2

Don't spoil the surprise. Our saga begins here on the Road to Chicago Day 1.

Slept fitfully dreaming of Legionnaire’s disease to the badly tuned hum of the wall air conditioning unit and woke with a stuffed nose to the sound of phlegmy coughing from the J. Woke at 6:12 am with a panic attack sure that I had left half my poles for my display tent in Atlanta. Called Dave and caught him with running bathwater and a mouthful of toothpaste. When he called back, he confirmed that I had, indeed, forgotten all the upper and lower supports for the tent. I cannot use the tent without those poles, and I cannot do the show without a tent. IF Heather can find me a Grand Caravan it will cost me $385 base AND I will have to return to Atlanta for my poles (500 miles roundtrip) which gives me 1000 miles left to Chicago.

So I sit at 7:00 am reviewing my options. Option A: Stay in Nashville till the transmission is done Friday afternoon and head back home, metaphorical tail between legs obeying the obvious will of the gods. Option 2: Refuse to bow to a conspiracy of unfortunate circumstance and do whatever it takes to forge on.

On the one hand, if I go on, I get a mini-vacation with the family and J gets to spend a couple of weeks with Gramma and Grampa. I get to see the Broadway play “Wicked” (my birthday gift from my in-laws was a ticket for Tuesday 5/30 at the Fox Theater in Aurora). I follow through on my show commitment and maybe get a big commission or two. Dave gets to use his plane ticket and we get a tiny vacation this year (between his schedule at CNN and the book this is the only time we have before November 6). I get to buy more hostas at the grower in Princeton, IL. My batteries fully charge for the work ahead—the book projects are fully percolated and ready to be started on my return. Finally I get to stop by the Art Institute to make sure I have the right color blend for the 75 platters I have to do for them by the end of July.

On the other hand, the Prairie Arts Festival is a nice little show that I would not do if I did not bring J and stay with Dave’s parents so that J could have Gramma and Grampa time and vice-versa. There is no way that I can expect it to cover the mounting costs of this expedition. Gas alone right now is making the trip almost cost-prohibitive, and add the cost of the rental car… Then there are the issues of time and energy. Driving back to Atlanta for the poles and then back to Nashville (just because it is on the way) and on to Chicago again is a huge time and energy sink. I could just cut my losses and rechannel that time and energy into meeting my book and production deadlines. Not going to Chicago would put me physically way ahead of the game. I could just mail the platter to the Art Institute to verify the match and skip vacation altogether this year. Of course I might not get into the Prairie Arts Festival again, my ticket to “Wicked” is lost and Dave’s plane ticket has to be repurposed.

It’s a lot to think about and really hinges on being able to get a vehicle. Time to gird the loins both figuratively and literally, fuel the belly and the soul, and head across the street to Honda/Enterprise. Oh yes, I also forgot my wireless adapter for the laptop so I cannot even get this up to Glass Incarnate. But if I go back to Atlanta today I’ll be able to get it too!

The Road to Chicago: Day 1

First big news: The trip has been extended again. Dave is going to fly up next Wednesday so we can all have a mini family vacation and he and I are going to spend a day and night downtown celebrating my birthday (a week early). Then he will drive back with us on Sunday, June 3.

Now the actual nitty gritty of the journey. Tuesday morning the plan was to get on the road by 6:00 am Wednesday. By 5:15 when I hadn’t even started loading the car, the plan changed to leave by 10:00 am Wednesday after getting up at 5:00 and loading the car. I actually got up at 7:30 and had the car loaded by 1:00 pm so we left then. At the north end of the city I realized I had forgotten to pack all the hanging display stands for the plates and I had to go back. By the time I arrived back home I had also thought of two more things I had forgotten: my tool box with all the tools and cable ties, and the top to my little sales cabinet. Both would have been minor disasters in their own right. Picked up everything and was back on the road by 2:00 pm with a scheduled arrival in Chicago (per the GPS) of 12:32 am. I think it was a bit optimistic.

It is now 7:30 pm Wednesday and J and I are in Nashville at the Marriott across the street from the Crest Honda dealership downtown. One might wonder what we are doing in Nashville, stopped for the night not even halfway to Chicago. Well, we are here because just before 5:00 as I was stopping and going in rush hour traffic on I-24 the transmission started going out on the Honda. I didn’t even know where we were when it happened. I was lost in an audiobook on the iPod and cruising to the GPS. There is nothing scarier when you are driving (barring a real accident) than being in evening rush hour on a freeway in a strange town and having your car start jerking and shuddering—especially when you do not even know which strange town it is. I knew I was in Tennessee and I knew I was already past Chattanooga, but then I was drawing a blank.

I took the first off ramp into a clearly central downtown area and saw a sign on a building that said “Nashville”. One mystery solved. I had my cell phone so I pulled over to the curb and called directory assistance to see if they could get me to a Honda dealership. Clearly I had my technologies confused as the operators were unable to do more than recite a list of dealerships to me interspersed with apologies and excuses. While they were fumbling and listing, I glanced up at the GPS and on a whim, typed in “Honda”. In seconds I had the name, address, phone number and directions to a dealership two miles away. By then it was 5:00 and I figured their service department would probably be closed, but I hoped someone might be there late and could do a quick diagnostic and get me set up for service tomorrow. I lucked out, they had someone who would wait for me. I pulled cautiously away from the curb and headed for them.

When I got there they told me the diagnostic would be $95. It wasn’t like I had a choice. They hooked up their computer and sure enough, my car gave it transmission codes. I told them I had had transmission problems a month and a half ago and had had the solenoid replaced (it was about $700), and they said it shouldn’t have been done: Honda’s service guidelines say to never (their formatting, I saw it on the screen) replace the solenoid if the car has more then 20,000 miles. I have over 80,000. Grrrrr. They said I would probably need a new transmission. Then they looked up my Vin number in their computer and said something which turned my day around—Honda had a problem with the transmissions in some minivans the same year as ours so they extended the warranty to 7 years or 100,000 miles. I get the diagnostics and the new transmission for free!

The bad news is that they can’t get the transmission in and do the work till Friday—too late for me to get to Chicago to do my show this weekend. But Honda service did not end there. Josselyn asked if I wanted to rent a car—there is an Enterprise rent-a-car attached to the dealership. And she called over to see what they had. Moving right along on the good news/bad news continuum, there were no cars there or at other Enterprise that would work for me.

Josselyn also gave me the names and phone numbers of the two closest hotels—the woman at the dealership who might have been able to get me a special rate was already gone for the day so I didn’t luck out there—so I got a hotel room at the Marriott across the street and tomorrow morning Heather is going to try again to find me a car. Barring that I will probably rent a small U-Haul truck and get to Chicago that way. More tomorrow….

Crack that Whip! Tote that Barge!

Coffee in the Chicago Skyline mug, "Take it Off" by the Donnas on iTunes. Yep, the Mac is back and the song choice is not random. I wanted music today that was really fast and that I would not be ashamed of. And Guitar Hero rules our lives right now. I had a 333 note streak the other night... and what does any of this have to do with glass? It's all over the place--and THAT has a lot to do with glass. Glass is all over the place right now too. Here are the highlights:

Tomorrow J and I leave for Chicago. I am doing the Prairie Arts Festival up there over Memorial Day weekend. As soon as I finish this I will put the last firepolish load in Big Bertha and get packing. I don't want to have to move the contractors too much and they are squatting with their stuff in the middle of the driveway... that didn't come out quite right. I need to get my van by them and down to the garage so I can load it.

Then I need to finish updating my mailing list and print out labels from it to take to Becky (the owner of Creative Spirit Gallery). She is sending out postcards for a solo trunk show I am doing there on June 15. This afternoon I will fuse a plate commission I got yesterday, and pack another commission I finished yesterday for shipping. And finally at 3:00, I have a phone conference to go over the I-hope-final website design I commissioned on March 20. Little things, these are just little things.

And there are big things. I finally had a phone meeting with the senior editor at the publisher. She gave me a deadline and it is a doozy. The book has grown. It is now slated for 144 pages and 20 projects. By the end of the day today I am to have a complete list of the proposed projects in detail, in color and preferably with photos so they can review them for scale, interest and visual appeal. The projects need to be completed and ready to photograph by August 1. Besides photographing the finished project, the photographer will also need to do the interim stage photos for the instructions... So I need to have multiples of each project completed to different stages. Twenty of them. By August 1. I am in Chicago for one week of that time and Philadelphia for another. Do the math. I had planned on a week per project. Instead...

But I have not given up. I have not yet been able to make a schedule where I can see pulling it off, but I still have hope. Of course my extra week in Chicago with the family and the summer vacation in Montana have been cancelled. I do have the big order to get out for the Art Institute and the penultimate and antipenultimate gallery orders from the February show also due in July. Good thing I have three kilns.

So what am I doing on the computer? I need to get working! Next post, Live from Chicago!

To Print or Not to Print, Whether Tis Nobler (and Cheaper)...

Coffee in the Austin Skyline mug, but it is Jupiter coffee with an extra shot of espresso. Too lazy to brew this week. Still no music (I want my Mac back!).

I have a laser printer. I bought it last year so I could print out the designs to photoprocess onto sandblast resist so I could etch my own designs easily and quickly. This was when I thought I would be making slumped wine bottle cheese plates. This was before I discovered that doing this kind of crafty little thing for money would suck my soul right out through my ears. But I still have the laser printer. And my printer (an actual guy--the one who did my postcards) uses a laser printer to print the back of my postcards for each show I do and he charges me $.15 each for the privilege. So I thought I could save a little (saving is good) and print them myself for the Prairie Arts Festival. I could also get them done without ever having to leave the house or talk to anyone and I am just enough of a hermit for that scenario to appeal.

But I am becoming very frustrated and having little luck printing the postcards on my laser printer: it has a roller so instead of just passing straight through, the paper curves around the roller (under intense heat) which cause the postcards to curve after printing. I also have to send them through the manual feed one at a time and sometimes they go through fine and sometimes they don't. Futzing around with it is taking a lot of time. It might be worth it to go to the printers and pay $15 to have these done. What am I thinking? Of course it is worth it! So that is my afternoon.

My morning will be filled with cutting all the blanks for the firings I have to do in the next three days and getting the first two of those loads in. I broke my dry spell yesterday and fused two full loads. It is good to be back in the saddle again.

Not a Popularity Contest

I was going to try posting after getting a kiln load in under the hypothesis that maybe that way I would actually *fire today*. But I have a brand spanking new coffee mug that I had to break in this morning and I wanted to share the news. So, coffee in the Washington DC Skyline mug--thank you very much Barbara for the wonderful gift!!!!! iTunes is dark.

Thus far this morning I have already dealt with a credit agency (for the 8th time) looking for Brenda J Griffin, filed a complaint with the FTC about said agency and called Bellsouth to see if there is anything further I can do to stop them from calling me. Alas, there is not. Do the people who work for these agencies not attend school? My last name ends in "th", not in "n". My daughter can spell better than they can and she is only 4 and 1/2.

We also freed all the butterflies. There is one chrysallis left un-hatched, and I hope the butterfly breaks free today as I am not into the "heir and a spare" philosohy of raising young.

Today I really *must* fuse a load for Chicago. Yesterday I did landscaping and landscaping communication all afternoon and got absolutely nothing done in the studio except another shelving unit built. I am not yet panicking about my inventory for the show, but I am really close. No more interruptions!!! And I will also get the postcards ordered as they must hit the mail no later than Monday.

On the book front, yesterday I heard from the assistant to my editor and she asked how I want to handle the other artist photo gallery. My choices were they send out a call for submissions or I pick the people whose work I want in the book. That was an easy one. I am a control freak. They want 30 artsists and three photos each. It sounds like a lot, but I have already made a preliminary list of 29, and I know there are people I am forgetting whose work I would like to include. And I already know there are people who are going to be very offended that I don't ask them and there will be all kinds of fall-out from that. But this is not a popularity contest. I am picking people because they produce diverse, unique kiln-formed work. Not because they are the latest Hot Things or because they are (possibly soon to be "were") my friends. In case there is a thought I exaggerate, I must remind that one of the reasons artists do what they do is because many of them don't work and play well with others and are better suited to their own solitary, idiosyncratic lives. You should read some of the stuff that flies on the warmglass.com bulletin board. Snits galore. Ok, to fuse! To fuse!

Mosaic in the Garden

Coffee in the Jupiter Coffee go cup--ex lg house blend with an extra shot of espresso. No music because the iMac is dead and iTunes on the laptop can't find all the music files. *sigh* Yep the Mac is really dead. It thinks it doesn't have a hard drive. I hope the Mac Tech support people at the Apple Store can convince it otherwise or at least get all my data back. In the meantime I am back on the pc laptop--and have lost my firing schedule for this, the week before I go to Chicago.

On other fronts, yesterday was Mother's Day and I was feted to the max. I received wonderful presents--Jessie made me a photo-cup at school and (through Dave) got me an orchid and a book on mosaic projects for the garden--and they made me a French toast, bacon and fresh fruit breakfast. After breakfast we dropped the Mac off at the Apple Store and headed out to the Botanical Gardens. At the Botanical Garden we saw all the incredible mostly mosaic sculpture of Niki de St. Phalle. This is a perfectly timed exhibition for me as I have been planning to do a freeform concrete mosaic wall-bench around half the pond. Dave, knowing this, enabled me with the gift of the book. Now he has neither excuse nor recourse. Construction is imminent.

I have long been fascinated with large-scale mosaic. My favorite building anywhere is the Casa Batllo in Barcelona created by Antonio Gaudi. Sadly I took all my pictures of it before I had a digital camera and have not scanned them yet so I will have to fall back on someone else's photo of it and the colors just do not come through. Both it and the benches in Parc Guell (also Gaudi, also Barcelona) have the undulating curves and abstract colors which are driving my design of the pond. And the materials I plan to use? All the old stained glass I been collecting for over 20 years, all the blobs and jewels, shells and agates. We will finally have a piece of my work in our house/garden and it is going to be massive.

And it is going to be done at the same time as I am writing the book, doing another Buyer's Market of American Craft Show in Philadelphia (July), and getting out 75 pieces for the Art Institute of Chicago. The cool thing about mosaic is that there is no rush. The big part will be getting the concrete part poured, but then adding the mosaic to it can be done in stages. I am doing a model in clay to start, then the big technical piece I need to master is the steel-reinforced concrete form. But that's ok, if the how-to isn't in the book Dave gave me, it will be in another one!

I love Mondays. I feel like I can do anything on Monday. There is no project to big, no commitment too scary, no deadline too close. Too bad it won't last. Now off to Ikebana. It is my last day in the advanced class and I have to do a symmetrical form. I hate symmetrical.

And what about fused glass? This afternoon a full fuse load for the Prairie Arts Festival in Chicago (and I have to get the postcards ordered!).

The Space Wars

Coffee in the Austin skyline mug, "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz on iTunes. The check from Canada has cleared and the order ships today. Just in time, the shipping area is set-up! 15 cu ft of styrofoam peanuts hang from my garage ceiling.

The majority of the scrap glass has also been sorted into bins so I can see the top of my work table again--just in time to cut all the blanks for the pieces I need for the Prairie Arts Festival in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend. I am two days behind the firing schedule I planned out for that work, but there were a couple of days unscheduled so it will all work out.

I also heard from the Publisher yesterday. They, and so by extension we, have another problem with the contract: they used my social security number with the contract and I used my employer identification number with the W-9. More forms to fill out and snail mail in and more delay. Tick, tick, tick. I asked about getting an editor and GETTING STARTED.

Maybe they think I am already writing? If it were fiction, I could be. But I am not going to risk heading off in a direction they do not want and writing up a a bunch of stuff I can't use. Of course if I get the content done, the format might not matter and I might be delaying for nothing. Maybe I'll start writing this weekend after all.

It doesn't help that what I really want to write about right now is the business of being a professional artist/artisan--storage, shipping, consignment, wholesale, marketing and advertising, capital...

Hey I know, maybe I'll work on two books this summer! Nothing like planning ahead. Now off to school with the J.

Wet Sand Anyone?

Coffee was an extra large Ethiopian with an extra shot of espresso from Jupiter (go cup, of course). "Love to Love You" by Donna Summer is on iTunes. Today is another day running through wet sand. It is already 11:00 and I have not yet begun in the studio. I have taken care of email and reconciling an invoice, blech. Glass artisan appears to be morphing into office manager. Need to stop that trend. And since I am back on a full regular firing schedule from today till I leave for Chicago on the 22nd, that ought to be as easily done as said.

One last note on the activities of the morning: Best Buy should open before 10:00 am, and Guitar Hero is THE optimal birthday gift for a white male in his forties. Now down to the bowels of the studio.

Topsy Turvy

It's one of those mornings: no coffee, no music and no more morning. Where did it go? My child chose to sleep in until 10:00 today, then I had a conference call with my web designer from 10:00-11:15. Then there was another phone call, lunch and arranging a play date for J at 3:00 as it is too late for her to go to school today (lunch at 12:00 then nap from 1:00-3:00... I don't think so). Now it's 12:35 and I am finally getting into the studio.

All of the glass got moved yesterday and two of the new shelves were assembled and installed. Today is for scrap glass storage, and signing/packing of the order for Canada. That one is dragging out a lot. I am reluctant to ship without the check clearing, but really, what are the odds that it is not good now? They know I was going to wait to deposit it so they wouldn't send a bad one. I overnighted it to my bank and I think I will just go ahead and ship their order tomorrow.

Last on the list for today is a full Morceaux de Verre fuse load and design of the back of the postcards for the Prairie Arts Festival in Chicago at the end of the month. We'll see how far I get in this time-warped day.

Back to Fusing... Really Soon

Coffee was a large French roast in a Jupiter Coffee go cup with an extra shot of espresso. The song on iTunes is "I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters. So appropriate. JustTrash.com is going to improve my life immeasureably today. They are going to haul away the old kiln lid, wooden pallets, unuseable old glass crates and other assorted stuff that is providing a home for snakes, rodents and big bugs on the driveway in front of the garage.

The Deathwatch widget on the iPod added 11 days to my life today. I wonder what that's all about. Now it says (based on my birthday, gender and personality--I'm an optimist) that I will die on Halloween in 2052, a comfortably far-off date and further evidence that I am celebrating my half-life birthday next month. I have asserted for the past few months that this is my biggest birthday (forget the silly decade b-days--there are lots of them) and the iMac widget supports my contension. And lest an uncharitable soul muse aloud what any of this has to do with GLASS, I respond that puttering for a little bit on the iMac every morning and learning a new bit of functionality (today's lesson: screen shots and partial shots) is a requirement to mastering this new tool.

But more about glass. I moved 1500 lbs Bullseye glass in sheets on Saturday. Today I need to move about the same amount in architectural clears. It is a good thing my biorthythm widget indicates I am at a physical peak right now. Then I'll assemble and deploy the six new shelving units and put all the extant scrap glass in the new plastic bins I bought at Target last week and move it all to shleves. When all this organinzing and storing is done I may finally be down to reclaimed work surfaces... and dust. Dust is another topic for another day. My biorythms indicate a low interest in dealing with dust this year.

Finally I sign and pack 68 pieces for shipment to Canada. I have my fingers crossed that the check for them will arrive today.

It's All About Where to Put Things

Coffee in the Jupiter go-cup: an ex lg house blend with an extra shot of espresso. Yep, back in my groove. "Standing in the Shadows of Love" by the Four Tops on iTunes. I have not yet received a check for the gallery order shipping to Canada so it will not be going out today. That gives me one more day of putzing and organizing in the studio before serious production begins again next week.

Yesterday I shopped. I went to Target, the Container Store and Sam's Club. I bought 15 qt plastic boxes from Target (24 of them) to store scrap glass. Then I went to the Container Store and bought an InterMetro four-shelf rack on sale for $99. Then on a whim I stopped by Sam's Club on the way home.

Shopping at Sam's Club is always hit and miss for me. If I go there looking for something, they will not have it or the price will only be okay. However if I go there with an open mind and wallet I can find extraordinary deals. Yesterday by some weird alignment of the stars I found both what I was looking for AND an incredible deal. For those of you familiar with it, the kind of shelving I bought at TCS comes in two grades: Home and Commercial. TCS carries both. The shelving I bought for $99 was home grade--less weight pre shelf and for the unit as a whole. At Sam's Club I found the chrome (more expensive than the black or white) commercial grade *6* shelf unit (as opposed to the 4 from TCS) for $79 (same height and width). It also comes with heavy-duty casters, adjustable leg posts, polypro shelf liners and all the hardware necessary to make 2 3-shelf units instead of 1 6-shelf one.

I bought two and I am going to go back today and get another two. These puppies are so heavy I cannot lift them by myself so I had to rip open the boxes in the car when I got home and build them in the drive. But boy oh boy are they beautiful! 600 lbs per shelf, 3600 lbs for the entire unit. I may Craig's list a bunch of old Home Depot shelving and replace it with this stuff: More in less space and prettier! What else could one want? Needless to say I will be going back to TCS to return the other shelf unit. It never even made it out of the car.

Sick Day

No coffee--DayQuil, "Marry Me" by The Drive By Truckers on iTunes. J has been dressed, fed and dropped at school and I have a piece slumping in the middle kiln. Now I post and then I go back to bed. Yep, yesterday's piddly little sniffle has turned into a full-blown viral cold. Everything aches, I didn't sleep well and I am the mother of all crabby. Thank everything that my schedule will permit a day of sleeping and loafing. Yesterday I did fix the colors on my blog so it looks better on the Mac. It is bluer on windows, but is not the god-awful funky mauve it was on the Mac before.

Off to bed. Back tomorrow.

So This is What Real Life Feels Like...

Coffee in the Los Angeles skyline mug, "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" by ABBA on iTunes. Those two seem very appropriate with all the immigration furor of the past few days (now it's "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" by the Temptations... my iTunes clearly has a sense of irony). It's beautiful day outside. Days like this are why people live in south.

Today in the glass studio: Unpack the packing supplies from the minivan so I can get the carseat back in and the Sprout off to school. Not an issue yet as she is still sleeping. Dave brought home a miserable little cold from CNN and now J and I are beginning to succumb. Snot, blech. I discovered at the end of the day yesterday that I made the wrong color plate for my shipment to Canada and that changed my firing schedule completely. Before I was just behind, now... On the plus side they want to pre-pay with a check so I have a few days till it gets here and clears before I can be expected to ship. So now I am almost ahead!

Today I also contact the Publisher and say "Okay, what's going on, and where is my editor so I can get started?!?" That's right, I still have not even re-read the outline of the book I wrote in January much less started writing it. And wasn't this blog started as a way of chronicling the writing process? Final copy is still due 10/1, 152 days from now (I have a countdown clock widget set for it on the dashboard of Glacier--the iMac). My computers are always named after places in Montana, though I have finally had to realize that moving back to Montana is not going to make me Happy. A note on the iMac: I saw this blog for the first time last week on the iMac and boy is it UGLY! The colors are just not the same as they are on windows. Going to ahve to do something about that soon.

Maybe I can also actually finish the garage to studio transformation today. That would be sweet. Okay, enough talking/writing about it. Time to do it.

NAFTA, Oy

Today I begin the process of figuring out the paperwork necessary to ship my first international gallery order. While it sounds exotic it only going to Canada. In fact the gallery is closer to where I started my studio in Missoula, Montana than I am right now (it's in Banff, Alberta). Nonetheless, it might as well be Mars. Even doing the forms online with UPS holding my hand and telling me what forms and what info, I have to know VAT and Tax numbers, tariff codes unit something or rathers. My brain is full. When I finish this post, I am going down into the studio to make some glass.

Oh, and before I get too far, there is no coffee as it is after lunch for me and I am a morning-only coffee drinker. There is music on the Pod--"Lose Yourself" by Eminem from 8 Mile. Yeah, my no-longer-secret shame.

As it is Monday the day started with Ikebana and moved on to a packing material pick-up from ULine. Those supplies came just in time as I have a 16X24 hanging panel to pack and drop-ship for a gallery in Iowa this afternoon. On the dream-realization front I bought the styrofoam peanut dispenser (whoo hoo!). When I get ready to ship this monster order to Canada I will have the tools to make it fly. And of course all my peanuts are recycled or re-used. I like that the new recycled ones are literally GREEN. Now I just have to figure out how to mount it to the garage ceiling...

The rest of the day (what little there is left of it) will be filled with a slump load, a fuse load in the medium kiln, and more garage/studio set-up (shippers R us). Oh yes, and today's tarot card is the Heirophant. I always felt this card was a bit stuffy and pedantic, but maybe that's what Mondays are all about.