Sunday, First Class Day!

Early on Sunday morning (8:30 counts as early on Sunday), huddled in my big sweater on the couch with Ernie wishing I'd put on my fuzzy slippers this morning. We haven't turned on the heat yet and I'd be surprised if it's even 60 degrees in here (yep, it's only 57). Can't wait to get to the studio where it will be even colder as it is much more poorly insulated. At least the sky is blue and the sun is beginning to peek out for a change--it was rainy, soggy, and muddy all week during our move of STUFF from studio to shed in anticipation of the great glass migration of 2009.

Today I teach a class at Oakhurst Community Gardens on making fall window panels. We'll paint leaves with glass powders and fuse them between two layers of clear glass. I think I'll also take some frit for additional color if anyone wants more pop. I was inspired for this project by the leaves, crayon shavings and wax paper window projects my Mom and I did with Jessie last year (the year before?) and that I also did as a kid. You know, you arrange leaves on a sheet of wax paper, grate crayon shavings of different colors over them, place another piece of wax paper on top and iron it all flat (putting a towel between the iron and the wax paper, of course). Then you put them on your windows for temporary little fall stained glass windows with leaves. If the weather stays nice and it warms up, it'll be a fantastic class.

Yesterday Dave-as-Igor accompanied me to Target, Sam's Club and IKEA and I got shelving, lighting, chairs, under desk storage, and a host of other almost-last-minute items for the studio cum resource center. Becky gave up her Saturday afternoon to help me assemble the shelving and move more things from studio to shed and vice versa in the cold, damp drizzle. I hope she enjoys a warm and sunny day off today, she deserves it!

This morning I finally make my countdown lists of everything that remains to be done in each area of the studio to get ready for Friday. Tasks are diverse and include things like shoveling 3-4" of silt sludge into 10-gallon buckets and carrying it out of the crawl space/basement before digging out the sump pump well and filling the whole basement up with 14 tons of gravel. Once that's all done, Ray the HVAC guy can get in an pull the old furnace and replace it--in case it's cold and rainy next weekend I need to make sure we'll have heat from a source other than the kilns. Moving indoors, there's finishing (i.e., putting more coats of finish on) the glass storage furniture and my desk/countertop, and arranging all the scrap glass and tools on the new worktable shelving in the workroom. I won't even try to list everything here (that's what the list is for, after all) because it would take far too many lines and I'd just have to do it over again in Excel.

Oh yes, I am using Excel for the list because a single column list won't work--I need a column for each area with tasks under it and writing it this way I *might* be able to get it all on, oh, 3-4 pages.

Done posting, off to list!