Guess what!!!

I am writing this post from my new puter...now I just gotta stop with all the PC habits. I think I am going to need a right click mouse though.d

Christmas crunch and other stuff

I had something really super intelligent to say today. At least that is what I thought when I went to sleep last night. However, it appears to have leaked out of my brain while I was sleeping. I’m still using the sleep tracker app on my iphone in an attempt to record my dreams. Apparently we won 831 to 2. I’m not sure what we were playing, but man did we cream the other guys.

I will be loading a bisque tomorrow evening, as I need to get some orders finished before Christmas and this will be my last opportunity to get everything done in time.  I will be dog/house sitting for my parents while they go off to the Centre of the Universe (Toronto) next week, and I am foreseeing that I will not be able to get much studio time in there. Ginger is a 14 yr old German shepherd cross (what she was crossed with, we are not sure, perhaps a pig). She came from ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation), and so her pedigree is a bit uncertain. Anyway, as you can imagine, she is old, somewhat blind, mostly deaf, and very arthritic. She does still think she is a puppy though. She has Cushings disease and is prone to incontinence. Oh yeah, she is on heart medication for this disease that is a diuretic. I am imagining a lot of carpet cleaning in my future, especially because I work days and will have to pee her early in the morning when I wake up, then again before I leave, and then I will have to rush home to pee her at lunch, and then again when I get home, and then again after dinner and then again before bed, and then again just before bed, and I am sure again in the middle of the night. But I love her, and what can you do?

And look what just came!!!

random blather

I’m must be gettin old. I missed 5 weeks of my exercise class that I go to on Monday nights. I was teaching at the studio for several weeks, then it was my Dad’s 67^th birthday, and I couldn’t miss that. Then, it got so bleeding cold here, the last thing I wanted to do was slip and slide my way to class to get all sweaty and then go back into the cold and have my sweaty hair freeze. Anyway, I went to class last night and then went to bed early (is 8 hours and 53 minutes of sleep too long?). Today, my back is killing me, my left ankle and foot hurt and I have to go teach a pottery class tonight. Wow, I sound crabby, I’m not, I’m just sayin, getting old sucks! I’m not even that old, but I sure feel every one of my 39.5 years today.

There is a pretty strong Chinook arch today, so the weather should be mild (0 Celsius?)...much better than the -29 Celsius last week (It makes you feel like wearing shorts when the temp rises 30 degrees over night) but the Chinook related headaches are a pain. I never used to get them, but I started getting them last year and now I know what everyone else complains about.

The mountains are very clear today, they are right there, in your face and bright and toothy.

Not sure what I am going to demo tonight. Lately I have been making a mess of my demos instead of inspiring creativity. My bowls have flopped, my facets have ripped open, the elongated platters rip in half as I am “dramatically” stretching them out on the canvas table, and my slip trailer develops a case of gas and barfs slip all over the freshly decorated plate (at the very end of course so that I have to try and scrape it all off or just try to blend the burp into the overall pattern). Maybe I will stick with what I do best (bowls), how boring....I need to replenish my stock of everything, so perhaps it will be casseroles tonight, or pitchers with fancy rims....who knows, I will find out when I get there. I need to buy some clay too, so first thing after work I will be off to CC and pick a box or 2 up.

On a non clay note, my computer should be here in 3 days (Yippee!!!). Can’t wait!!!

I have been reading a few discussions in the blogosphere regarding the pro’s/con’s of selling via Etsy. I posted a while back that I was thinking of starting up an Etsy account, but the master procrastinator that I am, I never got around to it. Now that I will have some enhanced technology, and if I can get around to setting up a mini photography studio in my condo, I might give it a try. I will take all the sage advice that is being offered on this topic and hopefully put it to good use when I get my shop up an runnin. I really need to get some proper shelving in my “store room” at home. Right now it is a disaster zone with pots all over the floor amidst wrapping paper, painting supplies, an easel with an UGLY painting on it, and other sundry crap.

Enough rambling and babbling,

TTFN (What?, Did I just say that?)

Maybe I should say something like:

Make pots purposefully and make purposeful pots.

Nah, how about:

Go get dirty...

Christmas is coming early!

I bought it this morning! I should have it in my hot little hands sometime between Nov 30 and Dec 6.

What did I buy you ask? I bought a MacBook Pro!

I am very excited!! Can you tell?

So close I can taste it....

Tomorrow is the big day. I am going to buy my computer. I actually don’t know how much it is going to cost right now. I knew, but now I don’t. Apple only has one sale a year, and that is the day after the American Thanks Giving holiday (aka black Friday). I am not expecting anything crazy like half off, but a couple hundred off would be nice. Then...I wait. I’m waiting now, but it’s gonna get worse once the deed is done and I have to wait for the UPS guy to show up next week (?). I am having it delivered to my workplace and then I’m gonna have to wait again to get it home to open it up and start playing with it. It’s gonna be better than christmas and all my birthdays rolled up into one.

This is what I’m proposin to get, they all look the same though, but this one is the 13” macbook pro

To Mac or not to Mac, that is the question...

Since I did so well at the Christmas sale this year, I have decided to bite the bullet and get a new computer. I have been using my current laptop as a paperweight for the past 6 months and only using it when absolutely necessary. I have been conducting all my work via my iphone (email, blogging, surfing, etc). The sale on Saturday will give me just enough money to buy a new computer without having to use a credit card. I have decided that the way I want to go is to get a Mac Book Pro. The only thing I have not decided on is what size. They have a 13” model now, but I am waffling and might decide to go for the 15”. I am just not sure if I would actually notice the difference. I am by no means a techie, and there are a few system differences that I just don’t know if I would even notice if I had them or not.

This is the list of Why I want a Mac:

-fantastic battery life (13” has a 10 hour battery life per charge, and the 15” will last 8-9 hours). My computer is currently only running on battery power....pain in the u know what, and it only lasts 1.5 hours per charge.

-backlit keyboard – I love the fact that I do not have to turn a light on to work on the computer.

-excellent screen resolution

-magnetic power cord connection – The reason my current Lappy is not working as it should is the fact that the power cord connection is broken. I have to use my parent’s old one to charge a spare battery while I work. You might ask why I don’t just use their computer....The screen is broken (has a big blue stripe running through it) – both of these issues are not worth the repair costs to fix. The magnetic connection is in itself genius – no more tripping over the cord and potentially damaging the laptop.

-No virus issues

-I can run pc stuff on the mac

-the software included with the computer is actually useful and works.

-Lifespan – Everyone I know that has a Mac has had theirs for way longer than the PC users I know. Therefore the cost over time is actually less for a Mac.

-My opinion, and it is just my opinion, but from what I can tell, you can do way more creative stuff on a Mac. I need to be able to create promotional material (cards, invites, posters) and it just seems that it will be easier and BETTER on the Mac.

 

If you are reading this and are currently using a Mac, please feel free to comment on this. Let me know if you have any suggestions on hardware/software, or if you think that I might not actually need a Mac, that would be appreciated as well.
I have 2 weeks to mull this over. I should have all my sale proceeds by then and I will be off to the Mac store to test drive them, pepper the blue shirted smurfs there with questions and hopefully make a decision and hand over my hard earned cash.

New Shapes

I was at the studio on Sunday, and was working with a new (to me) porcelain. I am not a fan of it yet, and in response to it's lack of workability, I decided to make some bowls that take this lack of workability into account. The walls are straight, with a slight inward angle, and the rim is thin and wavy, which will hopefully look nice when glazed in a clear glaze. These bowls acutally have a nice, clean look to them, and have a mountainous feel. Maybe working with this cranky body will have a nice side effect...a new shape that is fun to make, and not the same old, same old.
Again, pics will follow. I will see if I can get them trimmed up tomorrow, and then take some shots of them "in progress".
My laptop's power port is not working right now, and so I have been using the battery from the laptop my parents loaned me to power my laptop while their laptop is charching my battery and vice versa. I guess the next step is to find a cheap monitor so that I can use the PC tower they gave me, and use that instead of my laptop. I checked out getting it repaired, and it will take 2-3 weeks as it would need to be sent away. I don't have that much patience, or time to be away from the computer, so I will tough it out, and wait to get a new computer after I find a new job...