Thanksgiving is over, there's snow on the ground and it was 5 degrees again this morning, so it seems appropriate to put a photo of our Christmas tree up today. Jim finished the village scene under the tree last night and I put the swag up on the fireplace after breakfast.

Putting the second heater in the garage/studio did the trick and I got a little bit of time in there yesterday once I pulled myself away from computer and other chores.

The problems I had with my ipod not sending emails after the latest upgrade suddenly vanished when I re-synched the unit. Thought this was a good bit of information to share since I know a lot of people have had this and other problems with the latest Apple software upgrade.

I spent time yesterday looking at slip trailing videos on tube, trying to get some clue as to the subtleties of the process. Sad to say, it didn't help too much. I did manage to throw a large bat of test tiles which I'll slip today. My effort with slip trailing was pretty dismal. This time I put my band wheel on my wheel head, thinking that position might work better. It didn't. :-(

 I did manage to get one little cup OK, just doing one little slip trail design and some sgraffito; but the first effort was a mess of gargantuan proportions and I spent a long time trying to clean it up with a metal rib. GRRR!  I'm doing great slip trailing on a bat, so I guess one might think I'm not far away from even some minor wins on pots that entail more than my success with slip dots!

Another thing I found was that I will have to do slip trailing on a pretty wet pot. Even though the pots were leather hard, albeit pretty hard, leather hard, the slip cracked when it dried. I sprayed the pot in and out and it helped a bit but that is not the way to go. So, I will be throwing more practice cups tonight or tomorrow and trying the slip trailing on a pretty wet pot which is what I've seen Hanna McAndrew and Dough Fitch doing.

Our son and his friend Jimmy stopped by for a visit this morning so I'm running behind. Evidently winter coho salmon are now running which made for a successful morning of fishing. Sean's friend caught a ten pounder. It was a native so it had to be put back. I'm just glad they survived two days one the river in a metal boat, in this freezing weather. Sean brought us a quiche so that will take care of dinner so I can stay a bit later in the studio.I have a fistful of glaze recipes  I created yesterday and am hoping to get at least one sample batch weighed out today.done today; but that may not happen since there still lunch to make.

After lunch I need to make pizza dough and pizza sauce for tomorrow night. I used the on line pizza calculator in my never ending effort for a good New York style pizza clone. All this slip and cooking  research keeps me out of the stores this time of year and that's a good thing on many levels.