Few of the latest test pots

Turned the little test kiln on early yesterday morning and emptied it this morning - one of the lovely things about low firing in an electric kiln. That tiny kiln can only hold these 3 little test pots.  These are the front and back views. These little tests are showing me a lot - not just the colors of the under glazes but what I can get away with, with the slip application, etc.  I didn't glaze or apply terra sig on the bottom of the mug, so I'm now testing it for leakage. My clear glaze look good and tight, so I'm hoping it will be OK.

We had a great time with our North Carolina friends who are now headed to Napa for more good wine and food, and it's time for me to think about what I can do in the studio other than more organizing. Our son and daughter-in-law have re-decorated their living room and  gave me a beautifully made, sturdy coffee table. I put it under the slab roller and moved a bunch of things around for a tiny bit more added storage. I moved a lot more things around yesterday, but there's still more refining to do to make this smaller studio space work efficiently.

I had the upper G.I. test last week and got a call from the surgeon later and the news wasn't the best, but not unexpected. The hernia is a paraesophageal hiatal hernia which is going to require the more complex surgical procedure. He leaves for vacation tomorrow and won't be back till July 8th; and I need to figure out when I should schedule surgery. Mercury is retrograde till the 26th of July, and I hate to think of having surgery with that happening. And at the same time, I don't think I want to be his first surgery after he gets back from vacation; but my symptoms have gotten more acute since the test which seemed to really aggravate everything and this type of hernia can cause the stomach to collapse and emergency surgery in that instance only has something like a 50% survival rate - not good odds.

So I'm being super careful about how much and what I'm eating, avoiding heavy lifting and doing a lot of Reiki on myself while I bide my time.

Post surgery will entail 3-4 days in the hospital and a month of being very tired during recuperation (according to the surgeon).  With this hernia in such a critical state, I'm obviously not going to be  centering any clay, or at least nothing more than a pound, if even that. I have a bunch of bisqued and ready to bisque pots to decorate, glaze and fire, so I may just continue these mini firings in the tiny kiln, since I'm still waiting for someone to come and repair my big kiln.

Time to head to the studio now, and glaze a couple more pots and batch some slips, and as always lately, organize a few things.