Where to Begin?

Where to begin? With new work, I suppose. Here are new banks, out of the kiln just this evening.

(Sorry about the small pics. I took them in a dark studio with my cell phone and they are a bit blurry. You can click on them to see larger versions.)

I'm messing with the glazes a little bit here, and with some mendhi designs that my hands go to when they don't know what else to do with a squeeze bottle filled with glaze.

And look:



Dave made a colander to replace the one that was destroyed during the Great Meltdown of 2010. It's hard to judge the size of it from that pictures, so I took this picture, too.



Cute, no? (Note to Dave: That's the pic you should have sent to Jay!)

And here's a photo that Dave took as we were loading a kiln on Sunday. If you look closely, you can see some of my new little banks nestled among someone else's mugs.



And dinner



Dave took that photo of our dinner night before last. We had vegetarian sausages, rolls, and a salad made with goat cheese, asparagus, strawberries, and pears, with balsamic and olive oil dressing.

One of the best things about that photo is that every one of the dishes on that table was made by us!

Last night's dinner (take-out fried chicken) was not nearly so photogenic.

Tortured by Pollen

I've been spending a lot of time indoors recently because seasonal allergies are kicking my butt. Even doped up on benadryl, I'm still a stuffed up, snotty mess. (I'm taking benadryl because all the other antihistamines I've tried have either worked not at all or have messed me up pretty royally.) I've also been desperate enough to start rinsing out my nose with saline, something I swore I'd never do because it's so disgusting. It helps for about twenty minutes after anyway. And tonight I was in bad enough shape that I went and bought a box of surgical masks. They do help a little by maintaining a little localized humidity (the benadryl dries out everything in as uncomfortable way as possible).

The wind has been insane, which is how you know it's springtime in New Mexico. The manic wind coupled with the highest pollen counts in ten years has made it a miserable season sinus-wise for yours truly.