Things that consume my life....

Naturally this blog has not been consuming my life, in fact, these days as I'm sure you all have noticed, its been sort of an after thought!
Yesterday I took a bunch of photo's and my goal today was to post them here on the blog. I'm actually sort of enjoying taking images these days. Its sort of challenge and I'm ready for a bigger and more complicated camera with more bells and whistles so I can really get this photo thing down to a science! ( Of course all with a manual.....)

My pug mill is in a million pieces this evening. The ball barrings needed replacing and if you've ever done that before..well, you know you have to take the entire thing apart. Little did Joey and I know that after about 2 hours of taking off bolts, getting clay out of it and trying to pry it loose that we still could not figure out what was holding it together. Once again...I think I may have to beg my Fix-it man in Shelby to help me out. ( I'm in the process of sweet talking him with some dinner via Facebook!) I guess until I can get my pug-mill back up and working, I'll have buy a few boxes of clay because I have lots to make for the month of July. The pots in these latest photo's where from pots I held back from my last kiln before the Larkspur show. Most of these images are being entered in various shows. There are other images that I'm saving for my etsy page. Yes, yes....its coming. Between my Tech man working more than 60 hours a week and myself consumed in mother hood and my children's education, the new website has taken a back set to even the blog these days. I do enjoy Facebook I have to admit and I keep up with my fan page. Some days that is all I can manage!I'm finding myself slowly falling into that pottery category of women who make pots but don't get as overly excited about new trends and famous potters anymore. I remember these same sort of "Part-time-Mother-Potters" that I use to meet at workshops when I was in grad school. You'd mention some great up and coming potter and they would just say "oh, yeah", like it was no big deal. In my mind I'd think "how could they be so calm about such awesome work". I know now that they where most likely thinking about how they were going to pay for dance lessons for their daughter or maybe the fact they couldn't apply for two shows in one month because they just wouldn't be able to find that amount of time to make enough pots for two shows. Yes, these are the things that now consume my life. Dance lessons, play dates, manners and school.

Joey and I skimped and saved to send our three to a wonderful private school for four years. It was great! Our only worry was the money aspect of it. Every year we'd wonder how we could keep it up. This year we got an opportunity, as I've said before, to send out kids to a new charter school in our area. They all three got picked in the lottery back in February. We weathered the storm of telling them they would change schools which caused lots of drama that was consuming for a few weeks. This weekend we learned that the charter school we were all set to send the kids too had to cut back from 1200 students to 600. Quaid made the cut but our twins are waited listed again......

Once again, my mind is consumed with what to do now that is best for our kids. Hard to think about pots in times like this. When your a female, I think you want to talk and gather as much information as you can on any tuff situation....I've been on the phone, checking website, emailing and just being a general stress ball about the whole thing. Night and day its all I think about.This saga will continue and in the mean time I need to tell myself that I have obligations to shows and folks waiting for work so I have to get back to work.

Maybe picking up some clay and turning on the tunes in my studio is just what this Pottery Mom needs!