Raku tile:  Wish, hand made, oriingal, small wall sculpture by Tammy Vitale, $25

I slew the slug yesterday (for those of you who read this regularly) (the slug being me) by doing yard work; "plorking" as Husband and I say when we have work to do, do it together, and enjoy each other and the joint accomplishment enough that it feels more like play.  We did a lot of final clean-ups of yard detritus around the cottage.  Amazing how much of that stuff 1/2 acre can generate….but, then, we have a lot of trees. 

We cleaned out under a big old holly where we have just been using its canopy for a screen, but it has grown and raised up its limbs and left all of that in view.  No more.  All gone.  And bull brier and wild rose and wild clematis came down (bless thick leather working gloves) and it all got shredded and put back into place.  Nothing wasted.  Good feeling.  Sluggishness banished.  Sometimes I need to get out and do something physical instead of thinking so much.  My head makes me tired.

We have pretty much finished with the cottage except for getting some flagstones down there to perk up the entryway stones and so now I can start thinking about my home yard, which I’ve already been thinking about but decided to put on hold until we finished at the cottage.  One at a time is not my strong suit, but in almost 60 years I’ve finally learned to temper myself, identify my weaknesses and tackle things realistically.  Makes my Aries nature impatient, but it sure gets things finished (I’m a great starter.  Finishing?  leave the details for someone else, thank you).

Husband also helped me put together the studio lamps for my photo set up, but I still haven’t found my card table so I guess I’m going to have to improvise.  We didn’t open the cube because we were on the dining room floor putting things together and husband pointed out that opening it there would just attract all the dog hair – of which we have more than enough having two pugs, one being a soft fawn that shed more than any long haired big dog I’ve ever been around.  Nature of the beast – wafts of hair balls down the hall daily.  Anyways, I didn’t open the cube and won’t until I find something to sit it on, but I’m halfway there.  Am glad Husband deals with tripods and boom arms and light and stuff on a regular basis.  I’m not at all sure I could have gotten it together in the same amount of time – no pictures or descriptions (ok, maybe it wasn’t that hard, but it sure felt that way).

All clay is now dry enough to glaze and fire, but today is part-time job day so it will have to wait until this evening.  Have to go learn how to administer an EPA grant (watch the video, read the instructions, read 40CFR whatever, which I’ve already read and it scares me!).  I’ve always stuck with private foundations, who are much easier to work with and administer.  This will be a challenge and an adventure and I can always chalk it up to another egg in my basket of things I can do.  Once I do it.

thought for the day:  It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who we are.  We face surprises.  And disappointments.  The crucial fact is that we are different from anybody we know or admire.  This is hard to accept in a standardized society like ours, …It takes all one’s courage to be the person one is, fulfilling one’s odd and unique possibilities.  Though the urge toward conformity may reflect a deeper urge toward union, still local customs do tend to make us dress alike, talk alike, think alike.  And indeed we are all members of the same species and there are bound to be basic similarities.  Yet in the middle of life we find that we are more than this life has ever taught us.  M.C. Richards, Centering:  In Pottery, Poetry and the Person