I’ve managed to do some clay in the last week or so. It’s been almost a year since I’ve done any and boy! not doing it for a while isn’t good.
Here’s a few of my recent creations. They still need to be sanded and buffed before they’re ready for the shop.
or at least definitely on its way. Woke up to the some of the white stuff this morning, about an inch give or take. It’s been snowing on and off all day….one minute sun, the next clouds with flakes of white coming down.
The first website that I found when I first started working with clay was Des’s. I was enthralled by her art and then I found her tutorials! She makes the tutes so easy to understand and always includes the best pictures to go with each step.
I would love to show a picture here of her work, but I can’t find her addy to get her permission. However, if you want to see some awesome clay art, just go to her website.
http://www.desiredcreations.com/index.html
Yesterday at lunch time, I invited a couple of friends over for dinner tonight. I had it all planned out in my mind……baked ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce from real cranberries, homegrown green beans and some kind of dessert. My friend offered to bring the dessert so that was one thing off my mind.
So last night, I cleaned off the dining table and put a new cloth on. My dh was upset because I had dumped all his crud that he had laying on the table into his recliner. I wasn’t in the mood for discussion and told him it needed to be put away in a proper place, not the dining table. This morning, when I started to clean, he moved the stuff to the top of the stereo. I gave him ‘the look’. He went out muttering to himself.
As I had to go downstairs to get the beans and cranberries, I decided enough is enough and took his pile of junk and dumped it into the middle of his desk. When he came back after noon, the conversation ran in monosyllables. Tough! I refuse to live in clutter.
Later as I went to put another piece of wood in the stove, I accidentally touched the door with my arm. Ow!!!!! If you’ve ever burned yourself on an oven, you’ll know what I mean. So that didn’t make things any better. As I was cleaning, I realized that I needed to get my rolls made. I’m just starting the dough in my KitchenAid when it starts making a weird noise. Nooooooooo…..not something wrong with my new mixer. I switched from the mixing to the dough hook thinking maybe it was too thick already. A few seconds of mixing and weird thunks again. It was at that point that I noticed the cover for accessory hole was missing. Could it have dropped into the dough? Nothing else to do but dive in and see. Feeling around with my fingers with dough almost to my wrist, I suddenly touched something that moved. I pulled it out, let the dough drip off as best as possible and there it was. Gads what a mess.
So once I got the dough cleaned off the cover and my hands, I went back to mixing the dough. It’s now sitting rising (I hope). Now I just need to finish cleaning the house while watching the clock to make sure I get the rolls in on time. I need the oven for the ham by 3……ack!
I’ve put some new pics on the site…..check out the wildlife and scenery. Woke up to a cold morning, only 46 degrees. The sun is out and not a cloud in the sky. Yesterday we were at 72 which is waaaaaaay above normal for this time of year.
Each morning when I get up, I expect to see the white stuff. Mother Nature has a way of surprising a person with what she will do for the day. A couple of years ago, we were wondering if we were going to have snow for Christmas. This is what it looked like on the 22nd of December 2006.
Later in the day, it started to snow. The blue hue is due to lack of light and the streaks you see is the snow falling at a rapid rate. 
After the snow storm ended, this is what it looked like. We did have a white Christmas. Oh, the storm caused a loss of power and I was hosting our family Christmas dinner. I thought I was going to have to cook the ham in the fireplace but luckily, the power came back on in time for the dinner. 
After 2 days of digging in the dirt, I finally have the produce from my garden. It wasn’t a good year, but every little bit helps. I had planted about 2 lbs of onion sets, both red and white, and 2 rows of carrots. Here’s what I got from that. 
Not alot of onions and carrots, but will still help with the grocery bill. I had to let them all dry off as the ground was rather damp. Here you can see the goodies spread out on the grass to dry. I had to go out and turn the potatoes twice before I could get them put in the boxes. 
So now the taters, carrots and onions are residing in cardboard boxes in the crawl space for the winter. Hopefully they will keep until needed.
I walked out to my garden this morning to see just what the coons had done to my corn. It was raining yesterday so I couldn’t look. Well, not only did the durned things eat the corn, they destroyed the patch.
They ripped off the cobs, bent over the stalks and even carried husks out into the lawn. Durned critters!
So then I went to check my tomatoes which hubby had covered while I was gone because the weather was supposed to get down to freezing. My plants are all shriveled up! They didn’t look like they had been covered at all! When I asked hubby, he said he did cover them 3 nights in a row. Either he didn’t get them covered totally or the 24 degrees was just too much for the blankets. So now I have what few tomatoes were on the plants, sitting on the picnic table hoping they will ripen.
Besides the tomatoes, the potatoes are froze too. As soon as the ground dries up a little, I will have to get out there and dig them up. Hopefully, that will be done by Thursday as we’re expecting more rain. I sure hope that I get a good crop of potatoes. I’m tired of paying $5 for 5#, especially when we grow potatoes here in the state.
The bean patch is wiped out too from the freeze. There were still beans in the one row, but guess they will now go back as compost for the garden. After canning 28 qts of beans, I’m about canned out. So now I need to put my canner away too.
The carrots are the only thing left in the garden that are still green. Thank goodness they didn’t freeze yet. It will give me time to dig the potatoes and onions.
I sure hope the sun comes out so it can dry stuff off. I don’t like digging in mud.
What a week……hours and hours spent at the Mormon library. At the beginning of last week, we didn’t have any new cases so we could work on our own family history. I spent hours looking at microfilm, copying documents and just generally immersing myself into history.
We finally received our new cases at Friday noon……then the scramble began as we only had Friday afternoon and Saturday left to be able to use the library.
I luckily was able to find some obituaries for my Wisconsin guy which I will follow up as soon as my brain gets rested. My Kentucky case was starting to look like another case from the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that things started to pop. I had looked at all kinds of stuff at the library wasn’t finding anything! I decided I would take some time off and go back to the hotel and get my suitcase packed for Sunday. When I finished, I booted up my laptop and decided to try again on the Kentucky guy. Lo and behold, I got a hit! What really gripes me is when I use a site and get no hits, go back the next day to the same site and bam! Something will pop, I tell ya, it will drive you nuts.
Anyway, I got home last night around 11:30…….a long 12 hours of waiting in airports, sitting on planes and more waiting in airports. I’m so glad to be home and in my own bed.
When the brain is rested, I’ll post more.
And I was such a dummy, I left home w/o my password for here. So after 2 nights of frustration, I finally got a new one temporarily. I will have to talk to my webmaster when I get back about changing it.
Anyway, its been a couple of days of some serious research. I finally finished a case, but not to my satisfaction. However, due to people using cellphones as their main phone, I had no choice but to turn it back in with what information I had gathered.
Since yesterday I have been researching my family line of the Logan’s. Much frustration there too except that I did get to copy some old wills……make that alot of wills, inventories and appraisals.
Tomorrow if the new cases haven’t come in, I either will work on the Logans again or I just may do the Yocum family. Probably should work on that one as it is my maiden name……hee.
It has been great seeing most of my old co-workers. I was greatly surprised Monday noon when I walked into the library and the first person I saw was Starr. This is her last year working for us as she has decided to spend more time with her family and church. I will miss her so much. She’s such a joy to be around.
It’s been fun meeting some new co-workers, Debbie, who’s an absolute riot, and Cindy and Michael. I haven’t been able to spend alot of time with them as we’re all going 10 directions at once.
So as per usual, the annual Salt Lake trip is busy, busy, busy. I can’t wait to get home and have some plain, wholesome food. Eating out all the time is not only expensive, but gets tiresome real quick.
Till the next time….adios.