Three, two, one

It's been a rough couple of weeks.

I was able to push out a short firing--four-shelf stack instead of six--in a little over a week and a half. Was also able to refire some of the unsuccessful pots in my electric kiln and get them to smooth out and be saleable, primarily the ones that were a blend of the old good glaze and the new bad batch. My current theory is that I missed part of the nepheline syenite when I mixed the glazes--there's too much to weigh in one go, and I make a two-bucket batch, so I think I weighed out three of the four pans full.

The new work, and the washed-and-reglazed work came out fine, so I have enough pots to get me through the end of Holiday Market, and have some things to send as Christmas presents--currently thinking mugs and cocoa mix.

All of the special orders are packed and shipped, the last going out yesterday. Last-minute gallery order shipped up to Olympia. And eight boxes have gone back to Wisconsin to Viterbo University for Denise's and my gallery show next year.

I even managed to finish and mail our Christmas letter.

So I'm almost ready for Christmas. Just three more days of Holiday Market...

A day of rest

After all that's gone on, it was weirdly relaxing to just be doing house chores yesterday and today. Laundry. Holiday baking. I even happened upon a tree lot behind Backyard Farmer that still had tabletop Noble/Grand firs on Monday. We have too much clutter for a regular-sized tree, and need the stiffer branches to support handmade ceramic ornaments; Douglas fir just doesn't cut it.


So tonight we decorated the tree!