Happy New Year

Our company has arrived and settled in and they're all taking naps; and since dinner is made (did the gumbo yesterday and started the cornbread for dinner and tomorrows breakfast bread before dawn today), I actually have a few minutes to relax.

We had a great 5 course dinner at the Knife and Fork last night. And Jim's opening another bottle of wine when we got home made for a very, "making merry" New Years eve. Tomorrow I go on a liver cleanse to undo all this holiday eating and drinking!

I'm eager to get back to the studio. The weather isn't going to be good enough to re-fire some of those cone 6 soda tests outdoors, in my little gas test kiln till this coming Friday; and I'm not sure I'll even want to do it then if it's too cold. More cone 6 test tiles need to be thrown and the studio needs some tidying before I get on with batching some liner glazes for these cone 10 soda pots.

Last night's pizza

Last night was pizza and margaritas. I'm starting to get the shape better. I think this was one of the closest to round yet.

Yesterday was another day to not follow my initial plan - at least for the morning. After breakfast I decided to put off planting the bamboo. My upper back was way too sore from digging all those potatoes the other day, so I got a bunch of hand weeding done instead and then headed for the studio where I continued putting things away. I got the seconds off the ware cart and into boxes, sorted through a lot of other small items, did a few other chores, then came in and made some marinated eggplant crostinis for our lunch.

After lunch I got started on my pizza dough, got the toppings all prepped then back outside to pull more weeds. After dinner we watched the Brit coms (our Saturday night ritual), while I went through some of my pot sketches.

This morning I spent a lot of time printing out a bunch of recipes from Top Chef, Master Chef show, and others. Now it's time to get Bonnie kitty and head for the studio. This mornings job is to move those bottles of oxide washes and slips, which I didn't have time for yesterday. After lunch I think I'll just relax, read the Sunday papers and watch the tennis while I do more paper work.

Dinner is gumbo that I had in the freezer, so I'll just make some cornbread to go with it.