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!